Wen Jifei, who had always been decisive when retreating on the battlefield, knew full well that things were bad and that he had to leave, yet he had not left. This was the first time.
Not even Han Qingyu knew that he had stayed behind in secret earlier. The horse had ridden away, but the man had remained in the distant grass.
There was naturally no need to say how perilous this battle would be for Qingzi. Since it was a group fight, Wen Jifei figured that his support for Qingzi was actually quite significant right now. At the same time, he thought that once in a while, he could still manage to slash out a Grade A strike.
"What if I actually pull it off? I'll gamble my life to borrow some luck—Grade A with every slash..." "Fuck you and your Dice!"
He had been waiting for the starlight column sword to be deployed... Wen Jifei had held back for a long time, watching the battle unfold. That agony of having no opening and being utterly unable to help made his knuckles whiten against the trigger, turning his eyes bloodshot.
He had never seen Qingzi hacked up like this before.
After the sound of the rifle bolt echoed,
Sean fell silent for several seconds before looking up and speaking again:
"Fine marksmanship. A pity this is not your era."
That was a Dice; it was in the files. *A Dice capable of stepping onto the battlefield just thwarted my lethal strike,* Sean thought, shaking his head unconsciously. *These Huaxia people... Fortunately, the other two aren't here.*
Han Qingyu also looked back, feeling somewhat helpless. That bastard had secretly stayed behind after all. Someone like Plague Chicken would run on his own without anyone telling him if he thought he should flee; but if he felt he ought to stay, no amount of prior instructions from Han Qingyu would do any good.
"Now, to stop certain people from breathing the same air as us, there's no retreat in battle, and we must bar the wilderness with our bodies!" As if fearing a lecture, Wen Jifei shouted with a laugh before Han Qingyu could speak.
That was how it had always been when they fought back in school. After every brawl, Han Qingyu would start nagging.
Han Qingyu savored the words for a moment. "Not a bad adaptation. But if Captain Lao were here, he'd say you're butchering the slogan and disrespecting Azure."
Then he smiled as well.
On the other side, Sean turned his head to glance at the remaining ten men beside him.
He pointed into the distance. "Go kill him."
The enemy formation surged forward.
*Bang!* A bullet slammed into the ground, sending dirt flying. Wen Jifei shouted, "Come on then! Qingzi, ignore me, you know how well I run... Take this chance to hack that dumbass to death!"
His intent was to lure those men away for Han Qingyu, creating a chance for Han Qingyu to fight Sean one-on-one. That was the only thing he could do right now. He would run as long as he could, and if there really was no way out, he would do his utmost to slash out a few more times.
Han Qingyu staggered to his feet.
"No need to run. It's too late to run anyway."
"As for minding your business, I still will."
Those two lines were much like what he had said in the past when Plague Chicken got into trouble and Han Qingyu rushed over to join the brawl.
Neither line was loud. In Han Qingyu's current physical state, even speaking was tinged with exhaustion.
Yet the enemy formation charging toward the space behind him halted right in its tracks.
They had already witnessed how terrifying and tenacious the man before them was. So even though he looked barely able to stand... as long as he remained standing, they could not help but feel fear and hesitation.
*Whoosh!* In a baffling turn of events, Han Qingyu gripped his combat blade in his right hand while tossing out the blue starlight column sword with his left—a weapon that should have been immensely important to him.
The column sword fell freely through the air.
The crowd scattered to the sides.
*Thud!* The column sword plunged downward into the ground, sticking right in the middle of the ten-man formation.
No one touched the sword.
They looked toward Han Qingyu.
"I'll show you what a true three-dimensional maneuver is!" Han Qingyu spoke.
Then—*whoosh!*
He vanished from where he stood.
And reappeared beside the column sword.
This was no sprint, for a sprint could not possibly be so fast!
It was as if he had been sucked directly toward the column sword.
It all happened too fast. Before anyone could react, the sweeping blade slashed across two throats in an instant.
Han Qingyu's figure swept past the column sword without drawing it, darting instead toward the side.
At least four men swung their blades and lunged at him on the spot.
"Watch out!" Sean warned.
Yet it was already too late.
From behind, the starlight column sword on the ground shot toward Han Qingyu, skewering one man along the way.
Yet Han Qingyu still did not grip the sword. As the column sword reached him, he flung it up into the air with a backhanded flick... At the same time, he dragged his blade forward in a slash, swooping into the enemy ranks once more.
*Clang!*
Sean moved to block the slash. He could no longer stand by. The moment he parried the blade, he twisted his waist to the side and cleaved back in a fluid strike, forcing Han Qingyu into the center of the encirclement.
"Kill him!"
At the same time, eight weapons slashed at Han Qingyu from all directions, including Sean's full-force blow.
There was no room to evade.
Leaping into the air meant certain death!
*Whoosh!* Han Qingyu soared into the air.
With no jump and no preparatory movement—just as if he had been abruptly sucked away—Han Qingyu's figure appeared in midair.
Because the blue starlight column sword was up there.
At this moment, everyone present finally understood why he called it a true three-dimensional maneuver.
Guided by his bone source and running it at its peak, Han Qingyu moved toward the sword and the sword toward him in erratic, ceaseless shifts of position, cutting across the entire battlefield from impossible angles and at an unbelievable speed.
Streaks of light twisted and crisscrossed across the battlefield.
If those trails of light were preserved, they would look like a geometry problem—a complex diagram of intersecting lines.
*Boom!* A majestic burst of source energy erupted in midair.
Han Qingyu gripped the hilt of the column sword with his left hand, spun rapidly in the air, and with a *whoosh*, hurled the column sword straight at one of the men on the ground.
At the same time, he landed at an acute angle off to the side, swaying as he caught his balance. Fighting like this took a tremendous toll on him.
*Clang!* Sean slashed again, striking the column sword.
Knocked flying through the air with a *whoosh*, the column sword grazed another man's arm before returning to Han Qingyu's hand.
When the battle finally paused for a beat, some of the men began to tremble. They were fearless in the face of death, yet helplessness gnawed away at them. This style of combat had completely exceeded the scope of their understanding. The connection between the man and the column sword made Han Qingyu's fighting style utterly unpredictable.
"Defensive posture! Wait for an opening!"
Sean's expression was grave.
The remaining seven men were all skilled fighters. They rapidly pulled together back-to-back, raising their blades and focusing their minds to guard against attacks from any direction.
"A disarmed column sword poses no threat to me... I will go kill him. Get ready and await my command." After giving orders in French, Sean stepped forward, stood firm, and looked at Han Qingyu. "It seems I truly have no choice but to pay a heavy price."
The moment his voice fell, a red glow began to spread along the knight broadsword held level in his right hand, extending gradually from the hilt all the way to the tip.
A red as blazing hot as volcanic lava.
This was an outpouring of life source energy.
Every super had their own path. This was Sean's path to becoming a super, and now, he was putting his life on the line.
Chapter 333