The battle had already lasted over thirty minutes. In that time, Han Qingyu and his companions had struck a total of eleven times, mostly to save people.
Aside from that, they spent the vast majority of their time simply running between light and darkness.
Boss Dao had repeatedly stressed one rule when leading his band: a person could only strike at a Great Spike while in the light; in the dark, no matter how good the opening, they could only run.
Because Han Qingyu had to pace himself to run slower, he had plenty of time to observe, and he had pretty much figured it out.
Reexamining this freelance band's tactics under the premise of their severe lack of combat power, it wasn't actually as idiotic as they had first thought.
Great Spikes didn't just stay in the light; their perception in the dark was still very sharp—that was common knowledge taught in Azure classrooms.
However, this tactic unconsciously conditioned the enemy, planting a preliminary subconscious impression in the minds of the dim-witted black-armored Great Spikes newly arrived on this planet:
*Attacks and threats here only come from the light.*
As a result, their attention was temporarily limited, to a certain degree, to the illuminated zone cast by the twenty-odd flashlights on the field.
This allowed a disadvantaged band to sustain the fight and kept many people alive.
Han Qingyu didn't know whether Boss Dao and his men truly understood the tactical principles behind this or if it was merely simple experience bought with lives, but for now, it did have value.
It was just that such value was still very limited. It might reduce the casualty rate from high to medium, but it simultaneously crippled coordinated squad combat power.
Azure might well know of such tactics, but they would never adopt them. Their own combat prowess meant they possessed far more efficient tactical systems and strategies.
Furthermore, this conditioned mindset in the Great Spikes could be shattered at any moment. Once broken, what followed would likely be a one-sided slaughter.
*Besides, if this drags on, what happens when the flashlights run out of batteries?* Han Qingyu pondered as he jogged along, monitoring the situation on the field.
Every so often in the dark of night, a row of white teeth drifted past him.
"Qingzi," Wu Xu's voice came from behind. Under this light-and-dark guerrilla strategy, afraid of getting lost, he had stuck close to Qingzi almost the entire night.
"Yeah?" Han Qingyu responded.
"This is hard," Wu Xu said.
Wu Xu was always this concise. Fortunately, after spending so much time together, Han Qingyu understood him. He meant that putting on such a staged fight was hard for him; acting was hard—far harder than a real battle.
"Yeah. Go find a spot to stand and watch," Han Qingyu said. "Keep an eye on Plague Chicken while you're at it."
"Okay."
Wu Xu's footsteps quickly faded behind him. After a moment's thought, Han Qingyu simply stopped as well, leaving only Zhu Jiaming, He Tangtang, and Wen Jifei to keep participating in the rest of the fight.
Of the two Great Spikes on the scene, the one whose rear he had caved in had suffered frequent attacks due to its sluggish movement and was now virtually stripped of combat effectiveness. The situation had improved drastically, so they hardly needed to control the field anymore.
Han Qingyu decided to go take a look at the craft...
Five seconds later, the shuttle craft, Zhu Jiaming, and Han Qingyu lined up in a straight row.
"Little Prince, what are you trying to do?" Han Qingyu asked from behind.
"Heh, heh, heh!" Zhu Jiaming turned his head slowly, looking at him. "Where's Plague Chicken?! Where did Plague Chicken go? Little Chicken, don't run off! I've been looking all over for you!"
Spinning around, his combat blade flashed, and with a *whoosh*, the Little Prince vanished from before Han Qingyu.
A faint gouge had been carved into the hull of the craft.
Zhu Jiaming's blade couldn't cut through the vessel.
On the entire field, only three blades could directly cut through the craft. The one in Han Qingyu's hand suddenly seemed to develop a mind of its own the moment it saw the vessel.
It wanted to hack into the craft, and Han Qingyu had to try very hard to restrain it.
A monumental battle between morality and desire raged at this moment.
Thus, Wen Jifei and He Tangtang were probably the only ones who truly and seamlessly blended into the fight by the end. Though they still had to exercise restraint, they fought with great exhilaration.
"Boss Dao is pretty strong!"
Once again ducking into the darkness to catch his breath and watching Boss Dao charge in from behind to slash at a Great Spike, Wen Jifei gasped out an admiring compliment.
Back when he had watched a few days of television broadcasts and then challenged Han Qingyu to a game of Go, he had said something similar. That day, Han Qingyu had just grasped the rules of Go.
"Yeah, his actual combat strength is probably higher than Captain Lao's. A pity he lacks coordination; his performance is held back."
Viewing the scene with a downward gaze of appraisal, He Tangtang earnestly validated his assessment. Unlike Wen Jifei, he was relishing the amusement of a professional first-dan Go player watching amateurs play on the street corner.
Regarding Boss Dao, aside from the pleasant surprise in combat ability, there was another point truly worthy of respect and admiration.
Contrary to all speculation about how he had always managed to survive, Boss Dao never shirked or hid from battle—not in the slightest.
As the leader, he charged at the vanguard almost from start to finish. Even when injured, he kept striking, repeatedly bailing out teammates caught in danger.
A man like this, with such combat strength, ought by rights to die easily; in fact, he should have died long ago. Yet he was still alive. Apart from absurd, heaven-defying luck, there was hardly any other explanation.
One could only watch the sole remaining ring of long hair around his bald crown flutter in the wind again and again, marveling time after time: *Well, damn, he didn't die again!*
Fifteen minutes later, the battle finally came to an end.
Nothing unexpected occurred, nor did Han Qingyu and his friends need to step forward and turn the tide. Everyone gathered the spoils and set off on the return journey. Most of them were in tattered rags by now, but smiles lit up their faces as they chatted and joked in low voices along the way.
Han Qingyu and his companions couldn't understand much of the foreign languages and had no desire to force themselves into the conversation, so they silently trailed at the back of the group.
"Look at Boss Dao," He Tangtang suddenly remarked.
The others looked over. At the very front of the column, Boss Dao walked with his head down, completely silent. Come to think of it, he hadn't made a sound since the moment the battle ended.
Intuitively, this didn't seem like his style; or rather, as the leader of a freelance band, he ought to have had something to say.
"Could he have noticed something?" Zhu Jiaming asked quietly.
"Maybe. Hard to say. But even if he thinks we're a bit strong, it doesn't matter," Han Qingyu replied. After his observations tonight, his current thought was that as long as they didn't fully expose their power—such as suddenly being recognized as top combat power—everything else remained manageable.
There were only so many top-tier figures in the City of Iniquity. Once new ones emerged, it would inevitably draw the undivided attention of every major faction.
They returned to the courtyard of Boss Dao's house in silence.
Tallying the battle results, dividing the spoils, agreeing on a time for the victory feast...
Han Qingyu and his four companions took their total of four source energy blocks and fifty kilograms of dead iron and prepared to leave. They hadn't swung their blades many times tonight, and the strike recorders couldn't decipher the logic or impact of their strikes anyway, so their recorded performance was roughly average.
"Should we go say goodbye to Boss Dao?"
"Probably no need, right?"
Just as they were speaking, the five of them walked past the door to Boss Dao's room. A series of low, muffled sobs from a man drifted out.
Boss Dao was crying, sitting alone at the table, wiping away tears.
"Eleven years! Eleven years, and for the first time, not a single person died! Sob, sob, sob! A band led by yours truly didn't lose anyone this time! Waaah..."
Today was the first time in Boss Dao's eleven years of leading a freelance band that nobody had died in battle.
Including himself, only eleven people had been injured, and none seriously.
Chapter 438