A Dying Wish and an Offering

Bang! The wound, finally impossible to suppress any longer, burst with a spray of bloody mist, gushing out like a fine, dense rain. Sean was not dead yet. Kneeling on one knee, he tried to sort through what had just occurred. After all, it was that single exchange that had decided life, death, victory, and defeat. Just moments ago, the dead iron shield formation had exploded outward, sending scorching-red fragments of molten iron flying across the air. Amidst the chaos, two rapid gunshots rang out, and a length of curtain cloth came flying over, unfurling... Looking back now: in fact, at that very same moment, that "Dice" named Wen Jifei had also moved. He had discarded his gun. Thus, after Sean cleaved through the large chunk of molten iron before him and looked up, the figure lunging with a blade behind the curtain was actually Wen Jifei. Taking Han Qingyu's customized, edgeless dead iron straight sword, he had feigned an ambush strike. In that split second, devoid of any doubt, Sean's mind had naturally taken him for Han Qingyu. He lunged forward and slashed his final strike right through the cloth. Everything was decided in that single instant. The curtain split in two... Sean's momentum was fully spent. His source energy surge hit rock bottom. Wen Jifei was blown back through the air, but he had already bought an opening... Lurking nearby, Han Qingyu drove forward from the ground with his blue starlight column sword in a spinning thrust. An all-out blow, it left Sean no chance to adjust or evade. After a whole night of fierce combat, this was how it ended. The moment he understood everything, Sean felt a wave of bitterness. He thought: back then, those subordinates lying on the ground, severely wounded but still breathing—did they have a chance to throw their lives away to block for me? Perhaps not; perhaps so. Even if they had, it would have required pure, instinctive reflex to make it in time... In any case, it had not happened. On the field, the intense heat radiating from the dead iron fragments continued to scorch the grass and the stream, producing sizzling and popping sounds. The humans were silent. Until—"Holy... fuck! Pfft!" From the grass in the distance came the sounds of someone struggling. Earth and stones crunched as boots kicked against them, and a figure rose unsteadily from the ground. "Holy shit, he's terrifyingly fierce. Good thing I tossed the sword away at the last second." His chest drenched in blood, Wen Jifei stood there swaying. "Qingzi, you held him off for so long... *cough, cough*, you still hanging in there? Pfft!" Han Qingyu's tightly strung nerves finally relaxed at that moment. He turned around with difficulty, smiled, and said, "I'm fine. Pfft!" He then slowly produced a blue crystal block, gripping it tightly in his palm. Sean did not understand a single word of this exchange; the Huaxian language was far too intricate. Looking up, he saw Wen Jifei staggering toward them. Fragmented memories flashed in his mind: Han Qingyu telling Wen Jifei to leave at the start, Wen Jifei firing from the brush, Han Qingyu near death and forbidding him from coming over, and finally that decisive scene—the unspoken trust and unbelievable tacit understanding between the two. *Azure, comrades, brothers... so this is what it means.* Sean suddenly realized. Not far off, Wen Jifei halted after taking several steps. He looked left and right, then raised an arm. "We killed him! Hahaha... Alright, I officially declare that from this day forward, whoever the two of us brothers want dead... so long as our luck isn't completely terrible... will definitely end up dead!" This sentence was in proper Chinese. Watching and listening, Sean suddenly recalled an expression: intoxicated by success. Or perhaps: not knowing the immensity of heaven and earth? That was the phrase, was it not? Yes, exactly. What did he mean, "whoever the two of us want dead will definitely end up dead"? What about supers?! What about Alphonse?! What about the highest peaks among the supers?! It was truly hard to imagine that this was the very person who had just set the trap that doomed him. Sean's bitterness grew a little deeper. Behind him, Han Qingyu twisted his body around to watch Wen Jifei deliver his declaration... and when he finished listening, he abruptly burst into loud laughter. He laughed like a honking goose. "..." Sean genuinely could not fathom what he found so funny. From his observations, this young man was supposed to be rather calm, even aloof. Even when the battle had been decided just moments ago, he had not shown much excitement or joy. *It's rare for Comrade Plague-Chicken Fei to show such modesty and caution,* Han Qingyu thought. *Even when putting on airs and swelling with pride, he still remembered to pull back a bit, realistically adding 'so long as our luck isn't completely terrible'... Such an occasion is rare indeed.* Perhaps it was because this battle had simply been too brutal. "What are you laughing at?" Wen Jifei shot an anxious glance at Sean, then looked at Han Qingyu. "This bastard isn't even dead yet." With that, Wen Jifei decisively retreated a fair distance and sat down far away. Dragging his column sword, Han Qingyu walked over, keeping his source energy locked onto Sean to prevent any unexpected movement. Speaking in his local dialect, he said, "Yeah. He's using his life source energy to preserve his last trace of vitality." "Finish him off?" "Wait." Han Qingyu stopped beside Sean and asked, "Can you tell me where He Tangtang is... the one who blocked you in the canyon that night, my teammate?" Sean looked up at Han Qingyu. After thinking it over carefully, he said, "He is dead." Those two words caused the expressions of both young men to freeze. Their eyes reddened immediately, fierce emotions surging within their gazes. "I did not take part in that fight. I only led my men past the top of the canyon at the very end," Sean said, recalling the scene. "By then, that man had already staked his life to severely wound the top combat power leading my vanguard, collapsing in a pool of his own blood... The Great Spikes went into a frenzy, so we withdrew quickly... Even if he still had a breath left in him, he could never have escaped the horde of Great Spikes that followed..." So that man was their brother as well. Perhaps that was what an Azure soldier was truly meant to be. Wen Jifei looked up, cutting him off. "So all you saw was Tangtang falling down! You only took a single damn glance, so what the hell do you know?! Spouting bullshit out of your ass and claiming he's dead!" Sean could not entirely follow this tirade. Silence fell... Han Qingyu straightened up and said, "I know you can still hold on. I will take you back. Testify against the Alphonse family for me, and I will find a way to save your life." The Alphonse family was behind this battle; neither side present had any reason to conceal that fact. However, outsiders did not know. Sean's gaze rested on Han Qingyu's face. He hesitated for a moment... then shook his head. "As of tonight, I owe the Duke nothing more. Yet I will never testify against him." Sean glanced at Han Qingyu. "I doubt I could survive the journey back anyway. Do not try to preserve my life. Although I no longer have the strength to fight you one last time, dying is still very easy for me." "..." Han Qingyu and Wen Jifei exchanged a glance, their eyes filled with disappointment and helplessness. It was precisely because Sean had hesitated and weighed his thoughts before shaking his head that they knew he truly would not help them testify against the Alphonse family. No matter what, he was an expert who stood merely a hair's breadth from super combat power; without tremendous willpower and repeated resolve, he would never have made it this far. "Doesn't matter. A corpse works too," Wen Jifei said nonchalantly, pushing against the ground as he swayed to his feet. "It is useless," Sean shook his head. "In truth, even living evidence would be useless, let alone a corpse." Wen Jifei turned to him. "Hm?" "I am a non-existent person. Everyone who took part in this operation is non-existent. The Alphonse family never had us." Sean paused, then turned to Han Qingyu. "Apart from the two of you, no one in this world will ever know there was once a man named Sean Elliott, who fell just short of stepping into the realm of supers. "Perhaps what they remember in the future will be a member of the Snow Lotus or some other Cleansing Faction organization, someone with a unique dead iron lava life source energy property who nearly caused a great catastrophe." What Sean meant was that their involvement would simply be pinned on the Cleansing Faction. Having made arrangements on the front lines for three generations, the Alphonse family had already absolved themselves of any connection. At this moment, Han Qingyu felt an overwhelming sense of grievance, oppression, and even sorrowful fury. The blue starlight column sword in his hand suddenly flickered with a stream of scorching-red light. Sean looked at him in astonishment. "You learned it?!" During the previous devouring process, he had indeed grasped a sliver of the technique... Han Qingyu said nothing, because it did not matter now. "Forget it, it does not matter anymore," Sean muttered to himself... After several seconds, he looked up and asked, "May I make one final request? Though I have no standing to ask." ... Further into the grassland, at least two hundred Great Spikes were congregating in a nearby valley. Earlier, after Han Qingyu and the others had escaped a certain distance beyond the search perimeter, the Great Spikes had stopped pursuing them. It turned out they had returned here. At the bottom of the valley, the exterior of the shuttle craft had unfolded like a satellite dish, revealing the pyramid-like structure inside. They were setting up a traction array. Sean struggled to his feet and said, "I am going." This was his final request. He explained that as a youth, he had been chosen to join the heroic Alphonse family. He, too, had once dreamed passionately of becoming an Azure hero. Later... along the path of darkness, cruelty, immortality, and power, he had gradually forgotten. "Wait a moment," Wen Jifei spoke from behind. Sean turned around blankly. After looking for a moment, he noticed Wen Jifei's eyes resting on his knight broadsword. "I have always used this sword, and it was modified long ago. Bringing it back will prove nothing either," Sean explained. "I just think it looks pretty good, and I was worried I wouldn't be able to recover it later." Wen Jifei smiled as he dropped a pile of dead iron straight swords he had gathered from the battlefield onto the ground with a loud clatter. "If you're just chopping black armor, there shouldn't be much difference, right?" "..." Sean nodded and smiled faintly. "No difference at all. More is better." He drove the classically styled medieval knight broadsword into the ground. "This sword was named after the blade it was modeled upon: Durandal. Of course, you may rename it when you take it back. I suppose it has become soiled, having been stained with the blood of Azure soldiers... but the sword itself is innocent. In the future, please help cleanse it with the blood of Great Spikes." With that, he bade them farewell with his eyes. Sean bent down and picked up a dead iron straight sword, sheathing it on his back. He slipped another into his waist, then a third... until finally, he held one in each hand. "Thank you for granting my wish!" "The youth Sean" offered a radiant smile and strode down into the valley. The moment the horde of Great Spikes detected him, His remaining life source energy erupted completely as he charged headlong into the fray, lunging straight for the traction device. Han Qingyu and Wen Jifei stood where they were, watching his figure rise and fall in the distance. Over a dozen scorching-red dead iron straight swords simultaneously pierced into the swarm of Great Spikes in a single instant... Cleaving open a path. Boom! The traction device was destroyed in a deafening blast. Sean's figure fell and was submerged beneath the horde. Having lost the object they were guarding, the Great Spikes in the valley flew into a violent frenzy. ... Han Qingyu and Wen Jifei returned to their original spot with the broadsword and roughly bandaged their wounds. Using his right hand, the only one he could still move, Han Qingyu fished his customized dead iron straight sword from the stream and sheathed it on his back. He retrieved the other edgeless blade from the ground and sheathed it as well. Walking forward, Han Qingyu picked up his autumn jacket from the dirt, put it on, and gathered the tattered curtain cloth that had been cleaved into two pieces. With some difficulty, he wrapped it back around the blue starlight column sword, placed it into the black wooden case, and slung it across his back. Wen Jifei also retrieved his Milla 9 sniper rifle from the grass and slung it over his shoulder. Han Qingyu glanced at him and asked somewhat awkwardly, "Holding up alright? Want me to support you?" Wen Jifei looked him up and down, then laughed. "How about I support you instead? Look at yourself—I'm in way better shape than you!" So neither supported the other. Both were injured, drenched in blood from head to toe. One carried a black wooden case on his back, the other an imposing metal rifle, and together they began walking outward. At this moment, behind them... The battlefield was a scene of utter devastation. The night wind blew softly, gently swaying the blades of grass on the ground. Droplets of blood dripped from the leaves. Further away, the rioting swarm of Great Spikes surged wildly over the mountain ridge. They walked on in silence. The moonlight still washed over the prairie, stretching their shadows long across the earth. "Where are we heading now?" Wen Jifei asked, looking out over the vast, open expanse. "To find Tangtang, of course." Han Qingyu did not turn his head, though he paused briefly after speaking. "The Great Spikes are in disarray. Let's first check where Shiheng and the others have retreated to. After that, we'll go look for Tangtang." "Yeah." In truth, all that remained was an unresolved obsession... Wen Jifei hesitated before saying, "And if we can't find him..." Han Qingyu replied, "Then we go back, take that 'thing', and make an offering to him."