Breaching the Wall

Han Qingyu's combat style had always favored bold, sweeping moves in both attack and defense—and in the absolute truest sense of the phrase: capable of sweeping across an entire battlefield alone, capable of sweeping aside everything by himself. As Shao Xuan, the former captain of Golden Eraser and a Huaxia super combat power, had once remarked offhandedly at Corps Headquarters: [Sometimes when I think about it, that kid is just built for the battlefield. Everything about him feels like it was born for that unimaginably vast battlefield of some day in the future.] Yet here and now, standing opposite him, the Azure first-generation Starlight handled minute technical details and pacing within this cramped space to near perfection. This deliberately chosen battleground favored Alphonse to the absolute utmost, and his raw strength held the upper hand as well. Control of the situation had rested firmly in his grasp all along; it was just that Alphonse had never found the right opening to completely finish off the man across from him and end this fight. The battle raged on. Han Qingyu had not given up, though he could no longer afford to frequently distract himself with tugging at the small column sword. Both of them had expended enormous amounts of energy in this fight, and his mind was gradually growing muddled. In that haze, he hadn't realized that he had actually twitched the small column sword just moments ago, assuming it was the one beside him instead. Yet it was only a slight confusion; he still hadn't lost his grit or his objective. Han Qingyu maintained his offensive and kept fighting tooth and nail so Alphonse wouldn't have room to regroup, all while striving to conserve some energy so that by the time Wu Xu and the others arrived, he wouldn't be unable to hold the front line. On top of that, Han Qingyu was actually withholding a trump card he hadn't used yet... His own trump cards had long been exhausted. This final trump card had been given to him by Alphonse. From the very beginning of the fight, Han Qingyu had been sensing and accumulating the energy of that devouring specialty. *** "Madman! A young lunatic produced by that old Huaxia maniac!" Alphonse cursed repeatedly in his heart. Two more wounds now marked his body. Naturally, his opponent was far worse off. In the clashes that followed, Alphonse had had roughly three chances to attempt killing Han Qingyu outright, but none had been guaranteed opportunities. Striking to kill would likely have gotten himself dragged down into death alongside him, so he had let them go. Right then, Once again, Han Qingyu's right-hand sword slashed horizontally while his torso wrenched violently, his left-hand sword stabbing straight at Alphonse's face. He held nothing back for defense. Meanwhile, the blue starlight column sword lay in the corner where it had crashed, unmoving for quite some time now. "An opening!" Yet another chance presented itself. Alphonse's silhouette shifted, surging forward past Han Qingyu's right-hand blade. Holding his short sword up in his left hand to guard, his right-hand sword swept inward from the side. With this strike, if Alphonse steeled his resolve, he could sever Han Qingyu's left arm—but the consequence was that his own chest would very likely take a blade at the same time. To strike, or not to strike? The decision of that split second had nothing to do with conscious thought; it was dictated purely by instinct. Alphonse chose to retreat. Even as he backed away, he dipped his chin and drew his chest inward, yet his sword arm extended forward as far as possible... snapping his wrist. *Smack!* The flat of the long sword swung in and slammed heavily against Han Qingyu's left arm, spanning from just above the elbow joint down to the forearm, before instantly bouncing off and pulling back. *Crack-crack-crack-crack-crack...* The last remnants of dead iron armor clinging to Han Qingyu's left arm shattered all at once, shooting outward in fragments. At the same time, fractures crept inch by inch along his bones. The dead iron straight sword slipped from his left hand. In truth, after fusing with the bone source, Han Qingyu's bones were extraordinarily hard, virtually impossible to sever or shatter through blunt force. But this blow of Alphonse's had been wrapped in the first beyond-limit eruption of his devouring specialty so far. Because of that burst, blood leaked from Alphonse's mouth, eyes, nose, and ears. This time, mixed into the red of his blood was a blowfly-blue hue akin to that of a Great Spike. Han Qingyu saw it with absolute clarity, because he was now right in front of him. A moment ago, the instant his left arm was struck, he had still been plunging forward with his head down. Now, he snapped his head up. "You're finished!" In the brief weakness following that beyond-limit eruption of his specialty, Alphonse finally let out a breath. He knew Han Qingyu still had a right arm and another sword—he had his eyes fixed on it. *Slash!* Blood suddenly erupted in a spray. Excruciating pain flared as Alphonse shot backward, then looked down in dazed disbelief. Across his chest, slanted upward, ran a fresh slash. A mere half-inch higher, and it would have slit his throat... and even that half-inch had been spared only because his instinctual leap backward had saved him. "You..." Panic, fury, and bewilderment swirled through Alphonse's eyes. Hand clutching the fresh wound, he raised his gaze. Han Qingyu's heels had only just touched the ground, arresting his momentum as he swung his face back from the right... Clamped between his teeth was a sword. So that was how the strike had slashed up. And that sword was the very left-hand blade he had dropped a heartbeat earlier. *No wonder he kept charging forward back then...* Alphonse couldn't help reconstructing the sequence in his mind. "What... what is this?!" The rage and alarm in his chest left Alphonse momentarily speechless. Han Qingyu was staring at him as well. Looking at him, his mouth warped into an unsightly grin. "Ha, ha-ha-ha-ha-ha... cough, cough." He laughed triumphantly, as though he had struck a massive bargain, laughing like an absolute madman. *Madman!* Alphonse lost count of how many times that word had crossed his mind, but beyond question, his conviction this time was far deeper and more profound than before. On the other side, between that smug laughter and the sudden fit of coughing, the straight sword slipped from Han Qingyu's mouth, accompanied by a thick mouthful of blood. *Boom!* The falling straight sword was barely twenty centimeters from hitting the floor... when Han Qingyu suddenly erupted with life source energy once more, snapping a kick upward to launch the blade straight at Alphonse's face. The blood coating the blade blossomed into a crimson flower in midair as he lunged forward, right-hand sword in grip. ...He was actually still pressing the attack! *His left arm is clearly being devoured right now!* *Is he out of his fucking mind?!* This time, Alphonse didn't even attempt to parry the blade. He kicked off the wall, dodging three times in rapid succession to pull back into some open space toward the outside. *** "Hah!" "Hah!" Within the cramped battlefield, both men panted with labored, agonizing breaths... Alphonse dug out another handful of medicinal powder and smeared it over the wound on his chest. Blood washed the powder right off. Panic began to creep into him. *I wonder how many times a first-generation Starlight has been severely wounded across nearly a century in the Azure?* *All told, I've probably had more than you in just these few short years.* Those were two remarks Han Qingyu had made earlier. He hadn't quite grasped them at the time, but now they suddenly resurfaced in Alphonse's mind... *So, unlike me, this lunatic across from me has fought like this, in this very state, many times before.* At the thought, Alphonse didn't seize the moment to strike; instead, he backed away another two paces. This time, Han Qingyu didn't rush him either. Leaning against the wall at his end, he planted his sword into the ground, then with some difficulty fished a packet of specially made emergency bandages from the small of his back. Over the entire course of this battle, this was the first time he had tended to his wounds. Clamping one end of the bandage in his teeth, Han Qingyu used his right hand to wind it methodically, binding his ruined left arm tightly against his torso. "A useless arm thrashes around in a fight. It hurts like hell, doesn't help with balance, and you have to worry about someone hacking it off... so it's better to just tie it down. "Care to guess if I've got experience fighting one-handed like this?" Without looking at Alphonse, Han Qingyu asked as he wrapped the bandages. Alphonse naturally gave no reply. "I do. Really," Han Qingyu said earnestly once the bandages were secured and tied off in a dead knot, bending down to pick up a combat sword before straightening and looking up. "..." Alphonse couldn't comprehend what there was to explain or brag about in that. Truly, a madman! Alphonse decided to steer clear of such madness for now, holding his ground at the entrance of the chamber to wait until Han Qingyu could no longer hold out on his own. And so, on this battlefield, one stood deep inside leaning against the wall with blade in hand, while the other remained outside maintaining his vigilance... For the first time, the battle came to a temporary standstill. This standoff lasted for perhaps more than two minutes. *Thud!* *Thud!* Suddenly, faint sounds of impact reached both of their ears simultaneously. Out on the small clearing, dirt along one wall began to loosen. It trickled down bit by bit, fell in handfuls, dropped in clumps, then sloughed off in massive chunks to crash against the ground.