A Group of People

All told, Han Qingyu had already taken down two top combatants tonight, both practically instakills. This was not a true reflection of his combat strength; he was not that strong yet. So this also served as proof of what a colossal counterexample Captain Lao's lifelong obsession with meeting things head-on really was. In truth, when you were weaker than your opponent, you should try to ambush them. When you were stronger than your opponent, you should ambush them all the more. Either way, ambushing was the right move. Skinny Monkey slowly collapsed before Han Qingyu. In passing, Han Qingyu also cut down all the fighters nearby. Meanwhile, under the deep night behind him, Wu Xu's vision blurred and his consciousness grew muddled, yet he was still putting his life on the line to guard the space behind him—space that was, in fact, already empty. Wu Xu could not die. Wen Jifei had aimed his sniper rifle and then lowered it, choosing not to fire to relieve the pressure on Wu Xu; Han Qingyu, after slightly recovering, had chosen to ambush the enemy's top combatant first. If Wu Xu died tonight, an untieable knot would form across the rest of both their lives. On a battlefield of life and death, the best soldiers were often calm, and they were also cruel. That included cruelty toward themselves, and cruelty toward their own people. Of course, wrapped inside such cruelty was also the mutual trust between a group of people. Take this moment, for instance: Han Qingyu had not won his clash. He should have been dead. But the rest of them had kept him from dying, so now he had a chance to strike once more—even if he probably still could not win. Han Qingyu knew he could not win. No miracle had occurred; he had only recovered a little, and standing before Qu Zongyan, he remained fragile. So, he was here to clear a path for Rusty Sister, Plague Chicken, and He Tangtang. One last hand. Push in all the chips—all in. In the deep darkness, their eyes briefly met. Han Qingyu made a hand sign, giving no explanation of what to do, conveying only what he himself could manage. He left the rest of the coordination to Wen Jifei to think through and arrange. Then he turned and crouched low, his footing still somewhat unsteady as he vanished swiftly behind the enemy ranks. Wen Jifei shifted his gaze back while silently swapping his weapon, switching from Elegy of the Square to Iris and back again. Fortunately, he was fast enough. The iron armor backed out of the enemy throng and bumped against his gun barrel with a dull thud. Or perhaps Wen Jifei had tapped Rusty Sister on the head with the sniper rifle. "Hey, are you actually pretty or what, Rusty Sister?" Wen Jifei asked suddenly. Rusty Sister swung her sword forward while turning her head blankly. "Huh?!" "Look at you, you're practically a tank. It's really hard to imagine you looking pretty." Wen Jifei chuckled. Tonight's bitter struggle—or rather, this entire journey from the Qu clan's village all the way to this spot—might soon reach a life-and-death conclusion. And in truth, this was probably the very first time their group had fought together as a collective in the truest sense. In the past, though they spoke of standing shoulder to shoulder, Qingzi's shoulder had always been ahead, always bearing the brunt of everything. This time, he had not shattered everything like before; on two or three occasions, he had been brought to the brink of death. "We're going to kill the super combatant. Together," Wen Jifei added before Rusty Sister could blow up. Go kill him, together. If they could not, they would probably die here together. Wen Jifei briefly gave a few instructions, poked forward with the barrel of his gun, and said casually, "Come on, punch us through." With a click, the iron armor gave a nod, neither light nor heavy. Then, *boom!* Amid the roar of bursting source energy, the vibrating hum of metal quivered, and the iron armor plowed into the enemy ranks like a speeding tank. Advancing alongside her, Wen Jifei turned his head slightly and called, "Tangtang?" Moving back to back, He Tangtang replied without looking around, "Yeah?" "Do you have a girl you like?" "No." "...Cool! What about guys?" "Fuck off!" After cursing, He Tangtang grinned. "Don't worry, even if I don't like guys, I won't let anyone lay a blade on you. Just focus on shooting." "Hahaha! Alright, let's go." Sniper rifle magazines swapped back and forth, *clack-clack*. The rain had started falling again. Exactly when it began was unclear, but suddenly it was pouring hard. The blood, grass leaves, and grime on the iron armor's surface were washed clean. The knight broadsword slashed in a horizontal arc, sweeping aside rain like a silver scimitar. *** "Qingzi?" Not daring to turn around for fear of giving Qu Zongyan an opening, Wu Xu tilted his head and called out... No answer. Standing with his spear in one hand, panting, the blood welling from his lips ran down mixed with rainwater. He pressed his lips together and swallowed it down. Under the veil of the torrential downpour, his already blurred consciousness began to feel engulfed by some massive curtain. Wu Xu was gradually losing his sight and hearing, which made the way he stood in the rain, straining to listen behind him, appear somewhat clumsy. "Qingzi?" Two hundred meters in front of him. Drenched by the heavy rain, Qu Zongyan's long, madman-like white hair made him look thoroughly bizarre and disheveled. For someone whose status as a super combatant should have allowed him to easily dominate the entire field, he truly looked far too battered right now. His left arm bore a wound left by Han Qingyu's column sword, his chest had been slashed open by Wu Xu, and his thigh had taken a spear thrust... *Why isn't he dead yet?!* Qu Zongyan had already given up pondering this question, because once, when he imagined taking the wounds Wu Xu had endured upon himself, he had begun to suspect that Wu Xu was a super combatant too. *I can't drag this out any longer, and I certainly can't let them live.* If he allowed these few people to walk away alive tonight, Qu Zongyan thought, he probably would not sleep peacefully ever again. *Perhaps I fought too cautiously.* Finally understanding that his status as a super combatant did not guarantee total dominance and that he could no longer fight conservatively, Qu Zongyan decided to place himself on equal footing and go all out to end this battle as swiftly as possible. The only super combatant present was preparing for a life-or-death brawl. Curling the five fingers of his right hand into claws, he pressed them against his left shoulder, and then, forcefully and slowly, raked open the flesh from end to end along the long gash carved out earlier by the column sword. Agony. Blood gushed out... Qu Zongyan threw his head back and let out a roar: "Ahhh!" *Bang!* The rainwater blasted outward around his body. The colossal explosion of source energy shattered the scattering raindrops into a ring of white specks. *Bang!* Almost by reflex, Wu Xu gave his response. The strongest eruption of Near-Death Surge thundered. The standing water beneath his feet splashed outward and upward, and the raindrops around his body pulverized to powder just the same. Qingzi still had not answered him... but there was no time left. Wu Xu charged out, the curtain of rain parting along his path. Even if what lay behind him was Qingzi's corpse, he would guard it all the same. His name was Wu Xu. He used to be a war slave, ever since childhood. In his own words, a clan slave was like a dog, born in a cage, barely scraping by without keeping count of the passing years. He had once been used to it. Then one day, someone inexplicably snatched his Binggu Spear away. He had been terribly vexed, yet had almost laughed. Later still, that person said to him: *Come with me. From now on, we're brothers.* *Whoosh!* The heavy sword was hurled with everything he had. The spinning blade tore through a hundred meters of night rain, drifting like a crescent of silver moon. Wu Xu did not know Rusty Sister's Dimple Slash; he could not learn it. A person who could not even tell left from right could never learn how to make source energy surge left and right or control its flight path. He just threw it. Sword went, man followed. Leaping mid-sprint, Wu Xu gripped the spear with both hands and thrust downward from above, expending the last of his strength to strike at Qu Zongyan. Qu Zongyan shifted aside to let the heavy sword pass. This time, his feet did not hesitate in the slightest as he charged head-on to meet Wu Xu's spear. With his left hand, still throbbing with fresh pain, he swung the chain. The iron seal whistled through the air, hurtling toward Wu Xu from the flank. Neither dodged. It came down to who was faster.