Breaking the Waves

The flares from the abandoned lighthouses, extinguished and then rekindled, made the black suit rising and unfurling in midair surprisingly clear. After all, it was soft and possessed surface area, incapable of conducting source energy and naturally no weapon; Han Qingyu hadn't put much force into it either. It was as though he had merely tossed the very thing he had just demanded compensation for right into his opponent's face. Crumpled into a ball, the black suit climbed diagonally. At roughly the midpoint between the two combatants, its momentum spent, it froze for an instant before billowing open in midair with a whoosh. In that instant, everyone across the field threw their heads back, their gazes drawn toward that frozen point. Many among the onlookers were still only just coming to grips with the fact that Major The Qing truly possessed super combat power. As they looked up, some were still murmuring in low voices, translating for those beside them, discussing what he had just said. Others, however, were already unconsciously holding their breath. Just as that fellow himself had mentioned, his path through the top tier had been invincible and utterly magnificent. So now that he had stepped into the super stage tonight... Wen Jifei sat on the sand with his back against his precious ammo crate, cradling the Elegy of the Square upright against his chest. With a cigarette clamped between his teeth, he calmly tilted his head up to watch. After Rusty Sister and the Little Prince brought Wu Xu back behind the sand crater, they sat down to watch as well. They understood Han Qingqing's terror all too well, which made them far more at ease than anyone else. On the other side, Boss Dao and the top combatants of the Azure Dragon Gang, coated in sand, stood the closest, still craning their necks in a daze: He's a super? He's a super! We have a super! But could this... really work? Around the perimeter, three thousand men held their blades, choking back the cheers that had nearly erupted from their throats, tensely waiting for a favorable outcome so they could shout together: We have The King! We have a super—the super Major The Qing! "Major The Qing, once standing above the top tier, left behind all his glory and illustrious military achievements in Azure, forced to fake his death and flee into exile. "He came here, became our brother... and transformed into a super. "Maybe we're weaker, and none of us are good people, but at least we haven't let him down like that again..." The battle of supers had begun, and three thousand men simultaneously tightened their grips on their blades. Meanwhile, Slog sheathed his blade and silently clenched his fist. This time, he had bet right. At the same time, farther from the battlefield and closer to the beach—less than two hundred meters from the sea—behind a boulder washed by waves year after year, a blue-eyed man finally couldn't resist glancing back. Shu You sensed that behind him, the source energy bursts of super combat power had gone from one to two. Damn it, that kid is a super now... Will Alphonse rush down to kill him? Or will he just give up entirely?! Shu You thought, growing somewhat anxious. Compared to his usual self, anxiety and impatience were emotions Shu You rarely felt. Forcing himself to calm down, he began to realize Alphonse might have already detected his presence. In that case, hope would be very slim. In the more than ten years since standing at the pinnacle of the City of Iniquity, Shu You had secretly slipped out of the city more than once to attempt an assassination. But that old dog Alphonse's caution and shamelessness had left him with no opportunity whatsoever. No one knew Shu You's age. Deducing from the timeline, he had to be at least forty-five, yet he still bore the face of a twenty-seven- or twenty-eight-year-old. This was naturally not by the same logic as Alphonse draining others' life source energy. Years ago, in the fleet bound for Antarctica, Shu You had survived and obtained something—something he only discovered later. A mane of pure, untainted white hair fell past his shoulders, tied off loosely at the end. This was a man whose looks were so handsome and temperament so ethereal that the people of Huaxia had forcibly translated his name from "Solyon" into "Shu You." "Find a way to get me a plank of wood," he said in a low voice. Behind him, a subordinate acknowledged and departed. At the same time—whoosh! In the eyes of the crowd, the battlefield unfolded: Theodore, clad in khaki combat fatigues, slashed down from above. In a leaping descent, he gripped his black blade with both hands and chopped down with all his might, his body taut like a drawn bow. Below, Major The Qing surged upward, making the entire ground tremble. Likewise using a two-handed grip, he dragged the large blue starlight column sword along his left side... As he charged upward, the column sword swung in a great arc and swept out. The night and the firelight threw his scar-free face and bloodstained white shirt into stark relief in midair. At this moment, the breathing across the venue suddenly grew much heavier. If this were decided by a vote, Theodore would definitely be dead as dead can be, the men thought. In this clash of supers, the collision point seemed poised to fall right where the black suit had unfurled and hung suspended. No gunshot rang out. A portion of the spectators had actually thought Second Lieutenant Wen would fire to assist once the suit opened and the battle erupted; even Theodore had harbored such wariness and vigilance. Yet there was none. Wen Jifei watched comfortably. Even the obstruction of vision caused by the suit in midair was completely fair to both sides. Boom! The black blade cut straight through the black suit. The column sword shattered the black suit to pieces. The midair collision erupted—direct, straightforward, and stripped of all trickery—letting loose a colossal, muffled boom. Blade and column sword locked in a brief contest of strength, then blasted apart. "Flung away." Theodore's body flew backward, but with virtually no gap in time—crack!—he spat blood and materialized right behind Han Qingyu. After that first clash, he had immediately staked his life on his lethal arts, having realized that Han Qingyu's words were very likely true: "Otherwise, how could he have just advanced to super and already possess a depth of life source energy not a whit weaker than mine?!" And Theodore's dossier had warned: Caution—this person is always stronger than you perceive or think, and he often grows stronger the longer he fights. "Major Qing flew..." Han Qingyu had released the sword, letting the column sword fly from his grip. By doing so, he took far less of the impact. Halting in midair, his right hand drew the blade from behind his shoulder in the blink of an eye as he spun around, bringing his combat blade crashing down. Theodore's near-teleportation shift placed him right beneath the falling blade! Clang! Buzz... Before the black blade could thrust forward, it was forced into a desperate horizontal parry. Theodore plummeted. His feet slammed heavily into the ground, making the earth shudder... In the crowd's momentary panic, Theodore had already streaked dozens of meters in a straight line, pivoting into a lightning-fast reverse slash. He slashed toward Han Qingyu, who was landing a beat behind him. Where his blade passed, sand and soil kicked up a rolling dust storm that surged forward. Boom! Across from him, the grounded Han Qingyu drew his blade and replicated that earlier earthen wall. The earthen wall surged, drove forward, and vaulted overhead... The spinning blade had already plunged into the dust. At the super stage, the Rusty Sister Dimple Slash was so fast that when it made no sound, it was practically invisible as well. Clang! Only when a sharp ring echoed from the dust did the onlookers realize Theodore had just made a harrowing block. "Yet Major Qing is still outside the dust!" "So he has the upper hand?!" The people wondered. "Theodore's death-defying burst seems to impair his vision... So what will the cost of my life source energy death-defying burst be?" Han Qingyu mused. He had not even used his death-defying burst yet. The dust gradually settled. Still shaken with lingering fear, Theodore looked up. What caught his eye first was not a person. Chak! Only now did that blue light column sword hit the ground. It stood lodged in the dirt. Roughly midway between them. Yet the charging blur across from him had already burst into motion. Sweeping past that exact spot, he drew the sword with a backhand grip without breaking stride, cutting a streamlined arc through the air. Twisting his torso, he brought the heavy sword crashing straight down on Theodore's head! Boom! In terror, Theodore raised his blade to block again, his legs driven almost entirely into the ground. Stripped of his advantage in life source energy, he finally realized what that dossier had meant: in an equal-tier state, this man was a super combat machine. As the ground exploded, Theodore broke free and sprang backward, skimming the air above the dirt, hunched over like a shrimp. Finding his footing and looking up, his gaze was filled with horror. Because just now, the life source energy shockwave bursting from his opponent had risen. His intensity could still increase?! Leaving him no time to think, The King cleaved forward once more in a head-on assault. Han Qingyu had entered his death-defying burst. What Theodore faced now was a double dose of fury: one born of his own deeds, and another—far heavier—directed at that figure on the ships out at sea. "Theodore doesn't seem to be a match for him." "Yeah." "Hey, the ships over there are moving! Look!" someone in a corner suddenly noticed and shouted. Only a small fraction of the people around him could bear to turn their eyes away. They saw the distant fleet moving—not drawing closer, but preparing to depart. The large vessel backed away, gradually slipping behind the small and medium-sized craft flanking it... Suddenly—whoosh! A sudden booming explosion echoed across the beach as a door-sized wooden plank was flung out toward the sea. Then, a figure burst forth in a surge of source energy, vaulting off a reef rock to glide a hundred meters over the water, landing squarely on the flying plank. "White hair!" "Silver blade!" "Shu You?!" "He..." "It's Alphonse! On that ship!" They finally understood. Yet the cries of astonishment from this small fraction of onlookers were completely drowned out by the roar of the overwhelming majority watching the main front. On the main battlefield of supers, Major The Qing's chasing strike... never actually came down. Crack!—or so it seemed to sound. At the very instant the strike fell short, Major Qing vanished before Theodore's eyes in near-instantaneous teleportation. Isn't that... my specialty trait?! Theodore thought. He had time for only that single thought, with no room to think further or react. For right where Han Qingyu had vanished, at point-blank range, a dead iron straight sword was already thrusting toward his chest like lightning. Isn't his relative movement tied to controlling the column sword? How can his sword follow him like this too?! Within range of his bone source, the sword would follow. And a trait acquired from someone else would linger for a short time. Neither of these were things Han Qingyu would or could explain to Theodore. Pfft! Theodore had been gathering his power to meet the strike, but the instant it hit empty air, his life source energy surge ebbed... The dead iron straight sword pierced cleanly through his chest. He stood there, looking down in blank disbelief. Han Qingyu was already behind him. Landing, he reached out and caught the combat blade that had punched all the way through Theodore... "He won?!" "He won!" The crowd erupted... Yet the cheers and gasps were cut short the moment they began. The girls' hot tears had not even had time to well up... Because Major The Qing didn't pause for a fraction of a second. He was sprinting, hurling the blue starlight column sword in his hand toward the beach. The sword reached the beach. The man materialized on the beach. Then, with an explosive surge, he hurled the column sword again—this time toward the sea. And then his body flashed toward the sea. "Lend me a step." Lending a step was not spoken, but a literal foothold. "Take it," Shu You said. Catching the column sword, Han Qingyu dropped down, his step onto the wooden plank landing heavily. Using that momentum, Shu You sprang into the air, raising his blade with both hands to slash toward the fleet. Almost simultaneously, Han Qingyu planted his foot firmly and vaulted upward without missing a beat, gripping the column sword in both hands to slash toward the fleet.