Dead iron clattered against bluestones as corpses strewn along the street were yanked upward, only to drop back down with dull thuds.
A war blade shot up from ground level in a rising arc, pointing straight ahead.
Because they were dragged in an instant by the dead iron straight swords in their hands, over a dozen of Alphonse's men tumbled from rooftops and balconies, accompanied by cascading roof tiles and shattered flowerpots.
War blades crashing through walls tore opening after opening. Masonry along both sides of the street fractured continuously, sending stone fragments flying and dust bursting into the air.
Morning light, churning dust, a brisk morning breeze, the long street turned battlefield, and a howling swarm of blades...
At this moment, the blades shooting through the air unleashed a tempest of surging astral winds. Even to the people outside the city, the roar sounded as if a squadron of supersonic fighter jets had just screamed past their ears.
This was the pounce and kill of Major The Qing.
It was the effect of his full-power burst, of bone source pulling dead iron.
Not long ago, he had unleashed a similar burst between the two armies on the battlefield of Xiongzhanli, borrowing three hundred blades to pin Butcher Ivan—who shared fifth place on the Dome Leaderboard with Alphonse—helplessly to the ground, ultimately leaving him severely wounded and forced to retreat.
And after that battle, he had grown even stronger.
"Don't go! Tangtang!" Wen Jifei shouted sharply from behind. When Han Qingyu was not in the formation, he was the backbone of the group.
At that moment, both Wu Xu and Rusty Sister had their hands pressed firmly over the Elegy of the Square.
Otherwise, it would have flown away.
As for the blade strapped to Wen Jifei's back, it had already flown off long ago.
"Screw your ancestors, that's my fucking blade!" He Tangtang's arms and body were being hauled forward, dragging him within an inch of being ripped out of the formation.
Left with no choice, he detonated his device, planted one foot forward with all his might, twisted his ankle quickly, and clamped down with his left hand as well. Dropping into a tug-of-war stance, he barely managed to haul his war blade back.
"Fuck your ancestors, Han Green Snake." That was embarrassing—humiliating, even. Once He Tangtang regained his footing, he cursed inwardly first, then looked up... "Holy shit!"
"People keep crying about how Azure doesn't have source energy machine guns, artillery batteries, or missiles. What the fuck is this, then?! From now on, please say... requesting artillery saturation."
Before their eyes, the swarm of blades and the lone figure sketched a breathtaking scene.
*Crack!* The large blue light column sword led the charge, piercing through the wall as effortlessly as tearing through a sheet of paper.
*Boom!* It drove heavily into the floor inside the building.
Immediately following it came another deafening crash. Gripping his blade in both hands, Han Qingyu cleaved downward from above, obliterating the entire outer wall.
The next instant, as if coordinates had been etched into the earth, the column sword demarcated the strike zone, and a sky full of dead iron straight swords bombarded the target...
*Creak, crack, crunch...* Bearing the crushing weight, the structure warped and buckled at terrifying speed.
In the end, it failed to hold for even two seconds. *Boom!*
Before the swarm of blades even truly descended, the two-story building collapsed thunderously before Han Qingyu. A colossal plume of dust billowed into the sky, clearly visible even to those standing far beyond the city walls.
Amidst the storm of dust, the blades arrived...
*Thud, thud, thud, thud... Boom, boom, boom, boom!*
When the bombardment finally ceased, the entire building lay flattened across the earth. Across the entire site, not a single remnant larger than a square meter remained intact; everything had been pulverized.
Over a hundred straight swords stood planted motionlessly, jutting out at odd angles from the debris.
***
"How is it?" Wen Jifei called out from a distance.
They were still some distance away, but through the settling dust, they could already make out bodies. Inside the flattened structure lay at least twenty to thirty masked corpses clad in black, scattered haphazardly across the ruins.
In one spot, at least ten corpses were stacked on top of one another.
This confirmed that the small building had indeed been a staging area for their ambush. When the storm of blades descended, they had attempted to mount layer upon layer of defense, but in the end, it had come to nothing.
"Don't come over yet." Han Qingyu reached a hand behind him, halting their advance.
Han Qingyu was not naive enough to believe a surprise bombardment like this could kill Alphonse outright. But if someone claimed Alphonse could effortlessly slip away while locked under that blade formation, he found that hard to believe as well.
Even if Alphonse was stronger than Ivan, the gap could not possibly be that outrageous.
*Click!* Standing outside the ruins, he swiftly swapped in a fresh rack of concentrated source energy blocks made specifically for supers, replenishing his liquid source energy. Tightening his grip on his blade with his right hand, Han Qingyu took a wary step into the scene.
***
"Is Alphonse dead?" Having finally gathered her wits, Yin Caixin craned her neck in the distance, peering forward and asking.
Compared to the others present, today was her very first time witnessing Han Qingyu go all out in the super era, unleashing such an extravagant spectacle and ferocious bombardment.
To Caixin's eyes, no one in this world ought to be able to survive an assault like that.
"No."
Han Qingyu did not look back. Answering as he took another step forward, he wrenched the blue light column sword from the ground with his left hand, pointed toward the row of stacked corpses ahead, and continued, "He must have been behind this group at the time. There are footprints here veering outward, and some strands of hair."
Evidently, the blade formation had grazed Alphonse's hair.
"Then his haircut must look hideous right now." With the situation largely confirmed, the squad began closing in. Rusty Sister spoke with a light chuckle as she walked over.
"Yeah," Han Qingyu answered with a wry smile, a hint of disappointment in his voice.
Yet the moment the words left his mouth, he executed three reactions in immediate succession.
First, he raised his blade to face outward, preparing to pounce toward another building deeper inside, because right around that corner, a surge of source energy indicating an imminent burst from a super combat power had flared up.
Then, he whipped around, raising the column sword horizontally across his chest with his left hand to block!
*Clang!* In that split second, a blade slashing in from the flank struck dead against the column sword.
Vast, boundless life source energy crashed forward like a tidal wave.
Alphonse!
From pure physical sensation, power of this caliber belonged unmistakably to Alphonse.
He had suddenly erupted from beneath the ground beside him to strike—which made no logical sense, because that very patch of ground had just been subjected to the blade bombardment as well.
With no time to think, Han Qingyu staggered back two paces under the crushing blow, blood seeping from the corner of his mouth as he prepared to counterattack.
Yet, *Boom!*
With virtually no seam between attacks, another blade cleaved down from above, slamming heavily onto the war blade in Han Qingyu's right hand. The strike smothered the source energy surge he had just raised, driving him violently toward the earth.
This blow came from the super combat power Han Qingyu had detected a moment before.
So the fluctuation outside had not been a feint; Alphonse truly had a super combat power under his command. This was an unforeseen variable that contradicted every scrap of intelligence they had gathered. This super combat power had taken no part in the earlier ambushes, remaining hidden until this very moment.
Of course, placed among supers, this person was merely ordinary.
He had no business leaping in to slash Han Qingyu—unless he had a death wish.
Yet right now, because Han Qingyu had just absorbed Alphonse's full-power strike and endured the dual impact of source energy and special trait, this follow-up blow proved devastatingly effective.
*A trap.* Here, this small building, was a trap baited with human lives.
The instant the word crossed his mind, the ground beneath Han Qingyu's feet abruptly gave way.
The tremendous impact of super combat powers unleashing their full might could certainly cause localized ground collapses; that was normal. But at this moment, the extent of the collapse beneath Han Qingyu's feet was entirely abnormal. Beneath him seemed to yawn a freshly opened chasm, completely devoid of support.
There were controlled access tunnels connecting to the underground city here, and more than one. That was how Alphonse had been able to erupt from beneath the very ground pulverized by the blade formation.
As he plummeted, Han Qingyu caught sight of thick layers of dead iron embedded within the strata of earth.
"Die! Say farewell to your teammates; you can reunite in hell."
Alphonse dropped down right after him, his sword cleaving downward to deny Han Qingyu any chance of leaping back up.
Chapter 573