Once launched, the Rusty Sister Dimple Slash never returned, especially after the blade had met resistance when striking an object. On the scene, the edgeless dead iron straight sword plunged from the sky, tumbling straight beneath the cliff on the airfield's outer perimeter.
Han Qingyu remained standing there, held at bay behind the wall of enemies.
"Look, I told you long ago that he'd look handsome when he smiles." Stefania caught Han Qingyu's profile from an angle to his rear, so she couldn't see the expression in his eyes right now.
In truth, Han Qingyu rarely smiled during ordinary day-to-day encounters in Azure, especially around female comrades-in-arms, where he tended to be rather stiff—or even numb.
Yet he was naturally handsome, and his smile was radiant. Stefania thought to herself that he must be happy now, though it was a pity that the warblade hadn't brought the helicopter crashing out of the sky.
At that moment, the helicopter in the sky continued to climb.
Inside the cabin, Charles and Eric held down the thrashing Denis, pinning him from both sides. One tended to pain relief and bandaged the severed arm, while the other kept urging the pilot, "Fast! Climb! Hurry, get us out of here!"
The helicopter climbed higher—three hundred meters, four hundred meters...
Eric finally breathed a sigh of relief. He turned back to look at his maimed father. "Whatever happened... we survived."
The Alphonse family had left behind an arm. The grassroots commanders didn't even know whether they ought to feel relieved or despondent.
*What a pity,* others thought.
"What a pity!" Cao Min glanced at Wen Jifei. Wen Jifei gave him a smile without speaking... Sensing it was likely a bitter smile, Cao Min added despondently, "Well, at least he took a limb."
With that, he patted Wen Jifei's shoulder in consolation, then turned his gaze back to the sky in regret.
The helicopter had climbed too high, and Han Qingyu was still held back. He was out of time.
Everyone felt he was too late.
*Song!* A sudden burst of source energy erupted. In the melee that had never paused, the black spear in Wu Xu's hands thrust forward, parting the crowd, before sweeping right with a whistling sweep.
*Clang, clang, clang, clang...* The enemies on the right formed a line, thrusting forward more than a dozen blades simultaneously to block the Binggu Spear.
In that instant of deadlock—
*Boom!* Centered on the fray, the surrounding ground trembled.
Everyone on the scene instantly pulled their gaze back and looked toward the clash.
There, a stream of brilliant light shone.
The blue starlight column sword on Han Qingyu's back—which people had almost forgotten just moments ago—finally made its move.
In their sight,
trailing an afterimage of blue, the straight-flying column sword surged as fast as lightning. In a single line, it sheared through every arm that was pinning the spear and continued rocketing forward.
Amid shrill screams, the dead iron straight swords in their hands all dropped.
Han Qingyu's figure, blurred with blinding speed, flashed along that straight line.
By the time people could see clearly,
he was already clutching blades in his arms—more than a dozen of them.
He didn't stop. Making micro-step adjustments in a full sprint—one step, then half a step—source energy roared once more in an explosive blast. At the same time, Han Qingyu twisted his torso, channeled power from his entire body, and whipped his arms forward!
*Song!* *Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh-whoosh-whoosh...*
Right then, more than a dozen dead iron straight swords unleashed a succession of powerful whistling blasts, shooting straight toward the helicopter high in the sky like a volley from heavy siege crossbows.
To the naked eye... it was within reach!
"He's *that* strong?!" Cao Min cried out at the top of his lungs, whipping his head around to stare at Wen Jifei in stunned disbelief.
Wen Jifei nodded to him with an earnest expression. After his fight with Sean last night, Qingzi had returned to sleep and shed his skin, advancing yet again.
Back on the ground, Han Qingyu didn't stall after unleashing this strike. He continued charging forward, reaching out to grasp his blue starlight column sword ahead. Meanwhile, Wu Xu and Rusty Sister charged ahead and turned around, one barring with the spear and the other drawing her blue column sword, holding off all those pursuing from behind.
Hardly anyone noticed those subsequent moves. The eyes of everyone present had already turned toward the sky.
There, the most extravagant display to date of Major The Qing's signature Rusty Sister Dimple Slash was unfolding. More than a dozen dead iron straight swords hissed through the air, hurtling toward the airborne helicopter.
The helicopter could not evade in time.
For the first time, the Alphonse family mounted a direct response.
"Do or die!"
Eric and Charles, tethered by ropes, leaped from the cabin door together. Source energy erupted from them midair as they swung their blades with all their might to parry and slash!
*Clang-clang-clang-clang-clang...*
Dead iron straight swords plummeted one after another.
All of the dozen-plus blades dropped.
"Sigh!" groans rose.
"Whoa!" gasps cried out.
On the ground, the two reactions followed each other almost seamlessly.
At the same time, Eric and Charles, suspended in midair, jerked their heads up together.
A streak of blue light had just flashed past their eyes...
The next instant—*Clang-crack!*
A sharp sound rang out from above the helicopter.
There,
one of the helicopter's four rotor blades snapped off, spinning through empty air...
"...So he *could* make it in time!"
"Yeah. The three from the Alphonse family aren't getting away today."
The scene delivered such a profound shock that even the murmurs from the ground sounded numb and hollow.
In midair, the expressions and spirits of both Eric and Charles sank completely into shadow. *It's over.*
At the same time, sheer terror gripped them—afraid that something else would suddenly come hurtling their way.
Father and son scrambled back into the cabin.
The helicopter began to lose control. Its nose tilted downward as it lurched in a struggling spiral, descending gradually at a speed that wasn't excessively fast.
Not fast, but falling nonetheless.
Han Qingyu had already come to a halt, standing facing the direction of the cliff. Raising his hand with unhurried composure, he drew his own dead iron straight sword—the last one he had just retrieved onto his back—and gripped it in his right hand.
His arm hung down, the blade pointing at the earth.
Then, in everyone's ears—*Whoosh!*
A powerful rush of wind resonated from up high.
With that sound, the blue starlight column sword plunged back down from high in the sky and lodged itself into the ground, tilted slightly, just to the right of Han Qingyu.
"It flew back down with incredible force. That sword... did you see that? It didn't just fall naturally."
"Then why didn't he take advantage of the column sword's ability to turn around and blast the helicopter from above? He could have smashed it straight down."
"Come to think of it, I just realized: back when he severed that arm, he could have aimed for the engine... or if he'd tilted it just a little more, he could have killed Denis outright."
The crowd whispered in hushed exchanges. Only now did they finally realize that something felt off.
"So he did it on purpose, didn't he?!"
Behind them, Cao Min voiced the doubt lingering in everyone's mind, asking Wen Jifei, "He deliberately let the helicopter take off, and deliberately let it climb..."
"Why would he do that?!" "Is it to make the three from the Alphonse family plunge into despair again and again, to make them suffer through it a little longer?!"
Cao Min muttered his guesses, then paused as he turned his head. He suddenly felt that the scene over there looked like a memorial rite.
Wen Jifei shifted his gaze, drew a blade, and hurled it toward the distance with a fluid motion.
Han Qingyu heard the sound, raised his left hand, and caught the blade. With a sword in each hand, he stood ready.
"That's right. Earlier, those teammates of ours fought to the death and fled in despair for an entire night!"
Only then did Wen Jifei answer Cao Min's question:
"Besides, Tangtang and Young Master Shiheng always wanted to learn the Rusty Sister Dimple Slash. They said it was stylish and safe. They were always begging Qingzi to demonstrate it for them. Sometimes, after teaching them for a while, Qingzi would get tired of the hassle... Maybe right now, he wants to demonstrate it a few more times for them."
Having spoken, Wen Jifei looked up toward the sky and smiled faintly.
In the sky, the helicopter was still struggling, slowly descending amid groaning creaks.
Inside the cabin, the three generations of the Alphonse family no longer pressured the helpless pilot. Despairing and powerless, they looked at one another.
In truth, they could choose to jump before the helicopter spun completely out of control, crashed, and exploded. Supported by source energy and their own personal strength, falling from this height would at most injure them—it wouldn't kill them.
They could even jump toward the cliff; they were wearing parachutes.
Yet they didn't dare!
Because each of them knew with terrifying clarity that the moment they leaped out and exposed themselves in the air... they would be sliced apart midair again and again by swirling warblades.
The very first sentence on the title page of the Azure Source Energy Apparatus Combat Field Manual read: *Do not leap. Do not leap. Do not leap.*
This principle seemed like something that could be broken by sheer strength once one reached a certain level, but in truth, it remained an immutable truth: when your opponent is stronger than you, never leap into the air.
Yet if they didn't jump? Once the helicopter lost control entirely, slammed into the ground, and exploded, leaving them injured, they still wouldn't have a prayer—perhaps not even the chance to get back on their feet.
Despair spread through the cabin.
Involuntarily, the three of them turned their heads to look downward, gazing at that figure standing on the ground below.
Blades in both hands, Han Qingyu looked up at them as well.
Then, the corners of his mouth curved upward, slowly blooming into a smile.
"See? You said you missed it before, look now." Stefania tugged her close friend's arm once more, pointing. "Look at him. Doesn't his smile look radiant?!"
The handsome Han Qingyu was indeed radiant when he smiled. And as fate would have it, the glow of the morning dawn on the horizon was equally radiant, casting beams of light across his face and body.
The dual blades in his hands mirrored the rosy morning glow.
Faint starlight seemed to flicker across the column sword from time to time.
Such an uncanny yet beautiful scene had abruptly appeared upon this field of slaughter. For a moment, the people on the ground were left in a daze, struck speechless.
Only the Alphonse family suspended in the sky knew the bloody, cruel torment bearing down on them. Only they knew that the man standing below was a demon exacting his revenge.
Chapter 352