Believing in the Future

At this moment, the summit of Xilang Peak was like a stadium of ten thousand blazing with dazzling lights, while below the mountain, veiled in boundless night, the moonlight was faint and the wind and snow bit chill and grim. More than thirty thousand Azure soldiers who had just lived through a bloody battle were waiting at the mountain's foot, provided their bodies could still bear it. In circumstances like these, finding a spot with a good view was far from easy. Squad 1777 had found a spot near the command post to wait. Some of their people were still up there; gripped with worry, they wanted to be among the first to hear any news that broke. In truth, however, the command post was also entirely in the dark. With so many gathered, the ice and snow on the ground were being thawed by the press of body heat. Unable to sit, the squad members squatted, either craning their necks toward the summit or smoking cigarettes and talking among themselves. At a certain moment, the voices around them suddenly grew clamorous... "Look, what's happening?!" He Tangtang flung away his cigarette and leaped up from the ground, pointing toward the peak with a startled shout. The others looked up at the summit, slowly rising to their feet as well. In their sight at this moment, the beam of light soaring into the heavens from Xilang Peak was trembling—suddenly, violently shaking without any warning... No one knew what that meant. Was it good, or bad? But everyone grew tense in spite of themselves. If the Great Spike army arrived in the end after all, then the bloody battle just now, all those sacrifices... would probably become pale and meaningless, wouldn't they? Higher up, near the circular defensive position: led by five supers, the Azure elites who had been forced out of the mothership earliest had finally carved out a sliver of breathing room in their fight against the Red Shoulder and three hundred blue-sheened Great Spikes. A thousand meters away, the trembling beam of light met their eyes as well. "What should we do?" "I think they need a super over there." "Lieutenant General Lü, your speed is the fastest among us. We'll leave it to you." "I'll help cut a path for you." "Me too." A conversation between supers—those speaking were prepared to die. All of this occurred at the very instant the final inch of the blade's tip pulled free of the dead iron deck in the traction field. With a sharp "screeech... clink," Han Qingyu struggled to wrench the blue-light column sword out. At that exact moment, the blazing arcs of lightning in the traction field flared even brighter, growing chaotic. At that exact moment, on the far end unguarded by Azure soldiers, several passages abruptly opened along the sloped ceiling. Six blue-sheened Great Spikes that had somehow broken away from the battle above plummeted down, pouncing toward the traction field. Cries of alarm rang out... Only to be drowned out. Whoosh. Han Qingyu swung the sword. He had pulled the blade up from behind his side with his right hand. The moment it finally left the ground, it carried momentum—because the energy shackling the traction field was itself immense, the recoil of breaking free gave it considerable momentum. Harnessing that sliver of momentum, Han Qingyu forced his previously paralyzed body to twist, bringing his left hand over to grip the hilt with both hands. Then, with both arms united, he swung the blue-light column sword out. Like a small child pulling up a greatsword and swinging it with the weapon's own momentum. "Ahhh!" With brutal, unthinking exertion free of stray thoughts, he swept the sword outward... Held in Han Qingyu's grip, the blue-light column sword slashed toward the metal pillars, slashed toward the source energy field, slashed toward everything before him. No one knew how much strength and willpower were required to execute this single strike. All that appeared before their eyes was that lone figure in the field: they could clearly see his hair whipping about, blood spraying from his body, hanging in the air with slow, distinct trajectories... In the next breath, the sound of the column sword slashing horizontally shifted abruptly—whoosh!—turning into a sound like rushing water. The energy in the traction field was as dense as a sea. It was the sound of a blade cleaving a rushing torrent, severing waves and bisecting a great river. In the scene that followed: With a deafening crash, the metal pillar at the very center of the traction field was struck dead-on... and cleaved in two. Then, bang, bang, bang, bang... along the path of the sweeping column sword, an entire row of metal pillars was shattered, their severed segments tumbling through the air. "He... some of them he didn't even hit," Cao Min said numbly. Some of the severed pillars had never touched the column sword at all; they had merely lain along the trajectory of its horizontal sweep. Yet they broke. Long Blade captain Lu Chengzhong nodded. "Yeah. That isn't his own power. That power is too..." Lu Chengzhong didn't know how to put it into words. Just what kind of power was that? The column sword's destructive rampage continued... Buzz! A short distance away, the source energy field that had condensed like a protective barrier around the perimeter of the traction field was shattered through the air. With a drone, it ceased functioning. And then, boom, boom, boom, boom... Further out, the six blue-sheened Great Spikes plunging through the air were caught mid-flight by the slash. The instant they were struck, they detonated. Finally, with a sharp screeching slash: At the farthest limit of their vision, the iron bulkhead of the mothership was sliced open as effortlessly as paper. A diagonal fissure split open above, letting light out and light in... They could see the night sky outside now. The night sky... darkened at this very moment, the stars high above sharp and clear. ………… This slash was not Han Qingyu's own power, but could it have struck a Red Shoulder dead on the spot?! Though had it been a Red Shoulder, he might never have had the chance to unleash it. ………… "Damn it... did we knock it out? Is it dead?" For once, Wen Jifei stammered. In his sight, the colossal beam of light at the summit had just flickered twice, like an electrical short... and then, the lights went completely out. No one answered him. In this moment, the entirety of Xilang Peak went dim. Then—"Roar!" "Whoa!" Celebratory roars erupted behind Wen Jifei. The thundering shouts of more than thirty thousand people echoed across the snowy peak, resounding through the entire mountain. Strangers hugged one another. Yet their mouths were filled almost entirely with profanities—"Fuck..." "Shit..." Curses in every language mingled together as they vented the emotions built up after prolonged suppression. "It's finally done," Lao Jian laughed joyfully, his body swaying slightly. Still looking up with concern, he murmured, "I wonder how those three are doing... especially that bastard. I just hope he behaved himself and didn't pull any reckless stunts this time..." "Quick, report to Coalition Headquarters and every national front in the rear... On the front lines, the traction field has been destroyed!" On the high platform outside the command post, Nitesh high-fived Jackson, then high-fived everyone around him. The communications officer sprinted back into the command post. On the circular position, God Lü reached out and caught the two super combat powers who had been prepared to sacrifice their lives. For the first time that night, a smile appeared on his face. Pointing up at the tranquil night sky, he shook his head at them, then pointed forward at the swarm of Great Spikes. "Kill!" "Kill!" It was over; now all that remained was waiting for Qingzi and the others to return. Letting out a breath of relief, Wen Jifei was just reaching down for a cigarette when Liu Shiheng tugged at the back of his clothes. He heard Liu Shiheng say, "What's that?" Wen Jifei hastily tilted his head up and looked through his binoculars. In his field of vision, against the dimmed sky high above, an object suddenly appeared... It seemed to have risen from the mountain peak. A shuttle craft. A shuttle craft shimmering with blue light. Not descending, but ascending. "What's going on?! Great Spikes can run away?!" A clamor of confusion broke out down the mountain. In fact, those below saw the blue-light craft rise earlier than anyone inside the mothership's traction field did. Inside the traction field, Han Qingyu remained standing, leaning on the column sword for support. The electric sparks on the ruined pillars around him still flickered. "He..." "Quick, go check on him." Liu Yiwu gave the order, and several soldiers rushed forward. But Rusty Sister stepped in front of them, blocking their path. "Don't, don't touch him. No one can touch him right now." Han Qingyu couldn't speak. A vast power that did not belong to him was still rampaging through his body. Motherfucker... he hadn't managed to slash it all out... Fortunately, Rusty Sister and Wu Xu understood his meaning just by looking into his eyes. He could not be touched right now. Having stopped the soldiers, Rusty Sister and Wu Xu turned back. Wu Xu asked uneasily, "Qingzi?" For some reason, Han Qingyu gave him a slight, almost imperceptible nod. He was bidding Wu Xu to enter the traction field. By this time, the energy of the field itself was no longer so violent. And the reason he chose Wu Xu—wanting him to get a feel for it and see if he could gain anything—was simple: When it came to physical endurance, recovery, and pain tolerance, Wu Xu was probably in a league of his own—perhaps even god-tier, stronger than Han Qingyu himself. This wasn't merely a matter of willpower, but also factors inherent to his body that defied explanation for now. Wu Xu possessed a body that had been relentlessly tortured by agony for over a decade, hovering on the brink of death and recovering time and time again. As Xin Yaoqiao's great-aunt had put it: that third-generation internal apparatus originally fitted in him had been implanted incorrectly. Anesthetics had no effect on him. Nodding, Wu Xu took a step into the traction field. His brow furrowed slightly, and he stood firmly in place. Just as Liu Yiwu grew curious about this, hurried, heavy footsteps echoed behind him. It was a group of Azure elites who had just been holding off the small Red Shoulder on the upper level. "What happened?" Only then did Liu Yiwu remember there was still a heavily wounded Red Shoulder they hadn't finished off. He turned, asking tensely. "The light went out, and the Red Shoulder fled back inside, shut the doors..." a soldier from the Huaxia Front explained. He couldn't articulate it clearly, leaving Liu Yiwu momentarily puzzled. Looking anxious, the soldier took several steps forward, pointed up at the night sky, and said, "Look up, see for yourselves." The mothership's ceiling had already been open. In this instant, nearly everyone tilted their heads up, and saw the blue-light craft ascending into the night sky. The shuttle craft could actually fly back?! The small Red Shoulder had actually fled?! This was a situation no one in Azure had ever witnessed or anticipated. "..." Silence fell over the scene. People felt strange inside. Did we win? The traction field had been destroyed, and the Red Shoulder had fled in disgrace, but... they didn't know whether they should celebrate the victory or feel uneasy about the Red Shoulder's escape. Amid the silence, as the shuttle craft rose higher and higher, all the Great Spikes still fighting across the battlefield suddenly began a collective self-destruction. Even the Red Shoulder near the circular position self-destructed in the same way. What a ruthless battlefield command! So the small Red Shoulder had escaped on its own, and as it fled, true to form, it hadn't forgotten to trigger the destruction of everything left behind?! What a bastard! "Wait, haven't you guys noticed?" As an honest, quiet country kid, Yan Fuwen wasn't used to speaking in front of so many people, especially with so many commanders present. Tense yet earnest, he spoke up: "Haven't you noticed... this thing didn't self-destruct." In an instant, everyone turned to look at him. Then their eyes swept around, taking in the Great Spike mothership. The traction field was gone, the Red Shoulder had fled, everything else was destroyed... But this colossal craft—one that, by human standards, was at least the size of a battleship—had not self-destructed. Had its self-destruct mechanism been inadvertently damaged?! Who cared! What they truly needed to think about now was what this might mean! Liu Yiwu began to ponder, and his mind suddenly buzzed—a shudder of intense excitement running through his entire body. How vast was the disparity between humanity and the Great Spikes? When they first encountered them, it had been a chasm between heaven and earth, a gulf in strength so staggering it offered not a single ray of hope. Yet those first members of Azure had chosen to persevere—to persevere in the face of despair, to fight on for a victory they very well might never live to see. The reason to persevere was only one, and the objective was only one... time. From that day on, humanity chose to believe in the future. And then, Azure developed first-generation source energy apparatuses, second-generation ones... produced the Rejecters, established the Moon Jamming Station... refined their source energy extraction processes, improved their dead iron casting techniques... produced Chen Buer, who could slay Red Shoulders, and nurtured even more super forces... And now, humanity might just obtain source energy spacecraft technology.