Azure Huaxia Front, Sole Witness Legion Headquarters, living base.
Chen Buer's residence was an old farmhouse-style courtyard. The house was not big, but the yard was substantial, planted with fruit trees and a vegetable patch, along with several sheep and a hutch of rabbits.
Today, the guest in this house was Shao Xuan.
Captain Shao had come hurrying over out of worry.
Three years ago, not long after Shao Xuan had advanced to super combat power, he had journeyed to the Third Fixed Exploration Site to gather evidence regarding the Xilang Peak Incident.
It was on that very trip that he had faced Alphonse in person, nearly losing an arm for good—an injury that had only healed completely not long ago...
"Alphonse's specialty is truly terrifying," Shao Xuan said for the second time.
At this moment, this Huaxia super combat power was sitting on a small wooden stool, sorting through a basket of freshly harvested, mud-caked peanuts.
"Relax. With ten thousand men, they could bury that bastard in bodies alone."
Chen Buer, dressed in drab, dusty clothes with mud clinging to his shoes, walked over and set down another basket of freshly dug peanuts.
After dumping the peanuts, the old man straightened up, a sudden flicker of hesitation crossing his face.
"That's true enough, but that kid isn't the sort to throw his subordinates' lives away just to pile up bodies," the old chief of staff murmured, his eyes on the book in his hands. "He's just like you in that regard."
"I know." Chen Buer nodded. That was precisely the reason for his hesitation upon standing.
Years ago, when a Red Shoulder was still an opponent that humans couldn't conceive of defeating, the Coalition had no choice but to throw lives at it. Chen Buer had refused, taking a death squad of barely a dozen men to cut it down.
"It doesn't matter. Even without throwing lives away, that little squad of theirs is plenty," the Corps Commander said, striving to sound calm.
"True enough," the old chief of staff smiled.
"Still, Qingzi and the others have laid their tactics and combat methods far too bare," Shao Xuan said, still worried as he chewed on a fresh raw peanut.
"So what? I lay mine bare too!" Chen Buer grumbled plaintively.
And it was the truth. Over the past twenty-plus years, the battles fought by this invincible Huaxia Corps Commander had involved next to no tactics or technique to speak of. He simply swung his blade forward and cleaved the opponent in two.
Sometimes Chen Buer felt depressed just thinking about it, feeling like an unsophisticated, crude brute who only knew how to use brute force.
Yet in those twenty-odd years, not a single opponent he faced had ever managed to withstand his blade, let alone force out any fancy maneuvers.
This era had always lain beneath his feet. He had stood upon the heights all along, watching and looking after this world, which occasionally made him feel somewhat sorrowful.
"Anyway, it's fine as long as they can chop him dead. Besides, that kid is far craftier than me. He's never been an honest boy... downright wicked, that one."
Talking trash behind someone's back felt rather satisfying. The Corps Commander grinned slyly as he patted the mud from the basket, then turned around.
The words sounded light, yet faintly lacked conviction.
Shao Xuan noticed it, looking up at the old man's back, and pressed on, "But a man like Alphonse will prepare everything just to survive. He's capable of anything."
Ahead, Chen Buer stopped in his tracks without turning... After about two seconds of silence, he spoke in a low rumble:
"If anything happens to them, I will go chop Alphonse to pieces."
With that, the old man picked up the faded, yellowing bamboo basket and headed toward the vegetable patch.
Only after he had walked far off and begun digging up peanuts did Shao Xuan turn his gaze to the old chief of staff.
"To tell the truth, that's exactly why I'm so anxious and upset... Why must he wait until something goes wrong? The Corps Commander should at least go take a look, if only to keep the situation under control."
"Because..." The old chief of staff turned to look at him, paused, and smiled. "Perhaps because he's getting old."
Shao Xuan was momentarily struck speechless. The deeper implication of those words was that the Corps Commander was having Han Qingyu face all the perils of this battle alone to groom a successor.
Then the old man himself...
"Don't worry, he won't die. What I mean is, Captain Shao, you probably don't know just how highly Old Chen thinks of that kid. They will win."
Having said that, the old chief of staff turned back to his book.
As for just how highly Chen Buer regarded Han Qingyu, Comrade Xu Xiaohong offered no further explanation.
It was likely the most cultured half-sentence that country bumpkin Old Chen had ever uttered. He had said: "I don't actually want this era to bear the name Chen Buer. I'd like to wait and see..."
The first time he had spoken that half-sentence was more than a decade ago. That day, he had "died."
The second time it was brought up had been deliberately forgotten.
And the third time it was mentioned was a little over two years ago.
............
Within the cramped battleground, unsettled dust still hung thick in the air amid a chaotic tangle of sounds.
Devices erupted, life source energy flared, dead iron clashed... gunshots rang out.
The entire ground and walls trembled violently as if in an earthquake.
Wen Jifei was firing; Wu Xu's Binggu Spear thrust forward relentlessly... They were charging toward the defensive line established by Alphonse's subordinates.
And on the other side of that line, Alphonse launched into the air.
*Boom!*
A peak eruption of life source energy exploded like a compressed super-blast, blowing away all the soil that formed the chamber's interior, exposing the thick dead-iron layer lining the walls, ceiling, and even beneath their feet.
Beads of blood tinged with blowfly blue seeped spontaneously from Alphonse's skin.
This was likely the first time in this battle that Alphonse had lunged with reckless, all-out lethal force.
This was his killing blow.
The sword arrived.
Inescapable.
"Aoogh!"
Beside the wall, Han Qingyu—who had seemed utterly weakened—suddenly erupted with bone source at its peak. A phantom image materialized, lunging forward.
The short sword in his left shoulder socket launched out of its own accord as he charged ahead.
*Boom!*
The right-hand blade clashed against the longsword.
Han Qingyu was at a disadvantage, the creaking sound of bones being crushed grinding out from his body.
Seizing the opening, Alphonse's other hand whipped a short sword outward, thrusting directly at his throat.
Han Qingyu's body snapped backward and upward violently... like an ordinary man struck by an uppercut, tumbling rearward.
The short sword tore open his chest and drove straight toward his face, leaving no apparent way to evade.
"Qingzi!"
Across the defensive line, and across Alphonse, Wen Jifei suddenly bellowed.
He saw it.
He had originally been firing from the rear of the formation, but the instant that cry left his throat, he surged forward with massive strides.
"Out of my way!" Wen Jifei's eyes turned feral.
Switching Elegy of the Square to full-auto mode at the cost of accuracy, Wen Jifei dropped his left hand, shoved the gun forward with his right hand alone, and fired—*bang, bang, bang!*
At a lethal distance of under ten meters, virtually right in the face of the enemy super, he fired three consecutive rounds.
Emptying the magazine, the clip fell away.
His left hand rose.
*Clack!* The reload was completed in an instant.
*Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang...*
The torrent of bullets flew past the super who was finally forced to dodge, all of them tearing toward the back of Alphonse's head.
Alphonse sensed it, but did not turn. Channeling a fraction of source energy to protect his rear, his entire torso and right arm continued stretching through the air, driving the blade toward Han Qingyu's throat.
He was faster than Han Qingyu.
Thus, this was a certain kill...
*Rrrrrippp.*
In that split second, something happened that no one saw clearly:
First, the layers of bandages wrapping Han Qingyu's left arm and torso abruptly ruptured and drifted away in tatters.
Then his left hand clenched, drawing a combat blade shooting from the ground into his grip.
*Chua!*
The blade swept upward in a slash from bottom left to top right.
"...You think you can cut through me like this?" Hearing it and seeing it, Alphonse felt a surge of vicious resolve through his shock and consternation.
Since there was no time to dodge anyway, he forcibly surged life source energy into his defense, driving the short sword in his hand onward toward Han Qingyu's throat.
At this stage, he didn't care if he had to sacrifice a severely maimed arm to claim Han Qingyu's life.
Yet—*shhhk!*
When the straight blade cut across, striking Alphonse's outstretched right arm,
a sound like red-hot iron slicing through lard hissed through the air...
Alphonse looked down, his eyes vacant... For he had just felt a specialty energy that was unimaginably familiar—an energy that swiftly devoured the life source energy in his right arm.
Then, the arm severed.
It fell to the floor, withered like dried grass.
"Aah, aaagh!"
Tasting this agony himself perhaps for the very first time, amidst a chorus of agonized, terrified shrieks, Alphonse clutched his shoulder and crashed heavily to the ground.
Chapter 579