Early morning, an autumn night, wind through mountain woods, a bright moon shining on the road.
Between the undulating black mountain peaks, the pale road wound forward. The towering wheels of over a dozen military trucks spun forward in rows, the roar of their engines scattering birds and beasts.
Aboard the trucks, about six hundred recruits who had worn their armor for less than twenty days, along with twenty drill instructors, sat in dead silence. In this moment, some felt fear, some excitement; some trembled, while others faced a choice.
"Regiment 425 and Regiment 491 Recruit Camps, currently..." an instructor on an unknown truck attempted to respond.
"Recruits? Don't come... Go!" The other side interrupted in desperation, roaring loudly, "Turn around! Fast, get them out of here!"
With just that sentence, the conversation ended. Everything inside the trucks fell back into dead silence. Only the sounds of battle continued over the vehicle communicator...
Impacts,
Screams,
And the bloodshed and cruelty unseen from here.
The Great Spikes were wreaking havoc; comrades were dying. The towering wheels kept rolling forward. If nothing changed, they were drawing ever closer to the battlefield...
*Beep—*
Someone switched on the recruit camps' internal frequency, and a voice came through: "Looking at the situation, they'll have a hard time holding out until the surrounding regional squads arrive."
Just that one sentence—a simple statement without any attached opinion or suggestion.
No one answered him either.
A mountain bend appeared not far ahead.
"All vehicles," on the lead truck, Zhang Dao'an picked up the communicator for the first time. Head lowered, he spoke in a cold, detached voice, "Reduce speed. At the mountain bend ahead... turn around."
The order transmission ended.
The soldier driving turned his head to glance at Zhang Dao'an. Zhang Dao'an stood up, walked over, and stood beside him, directing the vehicle as it completed a U-turn at the mountain bend.
Afterward, all the vehicles completed their turns one after another.
"Accelerate." Without offering any explanation or justification, Zhang Dao'an issued his second command, then cut off the recruit camps' internal transmission.
Accelerating from slow to fast, the dozen-odd large trucks began speeding back the way they had come.
Inside the swaying cabin, over the vehicle communicator, the wide-area frequency resumed... The chaotic slaughter and desperate roars of life-and-death combat continued.
After a moment, a human voice cut in.
"1123, still fighting..."
Yet that was the final sentence. The call for reinforcements ended there; perhaps the soldier handling communications had tossed aside the communicator, turning to draw his blade and throw himself into battle.
Two minutes. Four minutes.
Amid the violent tension and outward silence, the wheels carried the six hundred recruits onward, leaving the combat zone of 1123 behind.
*Crack.* The sound of a communicator shattering suddenly came through.
The sounds of slaughter and clashes across the line... ceased abruptly.
1123... must feel very lonely right now.
Two minutes passed.
"1123... they should still be fighting," someone judged over the internal frequency based on the battle noises.
"Report! Instructor Zhang Zhao of the Regiment 491 Recruit Camp requests permission to deploy as an independent reinforcement. Requesting the chief drill instructor's approval... In 1123 is a comrade from my recruit dorm. Just now, I think I heard his voice." A sob was held back. "The recruits can continue forward; they should be safe by now..."
At these words, a brief stir rippled through the communicators across all vehicles.
One minute passed.
"Open channel..." Zhang Dao'an spoke once more. "Old Cao?"
The Old Cao he addressed was the chief drill instructor of the Regiment 491 Recruit Camp.
"Yeah, they should be just about safe," the reply came. "Let's go... help hold the line."
"Alright."
The call ended. Zhang Dao'an rose and patted the driver's shoulder. "In a moment, just keep driving. Remember... keep driving, don't stop."
With that, he stood by the front door, turned to look at the recruits on the truck, saw Han Qingyu, locked eyes with him, then He Tangtang... and Liu Shiheng.
"Lend me a sword," he suddenly leaned down and said to Liu Shiheng, who sat in the front row.
Liu Shiheng froze for a second, then unfastened his blade and handed it over.
Zhang Dao'an took it. Since he already had a sword on his back, he held this one in a reverse grip in his right hand.
Milla stood up from the back row.
"You stay, Lieutenant Milla... just in case," Zhang Dao'an said. "If something truly unexpected happens, you possess the strongest individual stalling capability against a Great Spike... You'll need to lure it away."
Milla: "...Yes."
Then Zhang Dao'an looked back. "Stop the truck."
The driver braked, and the front door opened.
"...The kids are in your hands."
After saying this, Zhang Dao'an stepped out through the front door.
Regiments 425 and 491 each left behind one instructor; all the rest disembarked. Soon, the eighteen men boarded one vacated truck, turned around, and sped away at a near-frenzied speed.
"Convoy, continue forward," Milla said into the communicator.
Wheels turned as the six hundred recruits continued straining to pull away from Area 1123.
...
"Check source energy consumption... everyone." In the truck, Zhang Dao'an drew his sword, holding a dead iron straight sword in each hand as he rose.
A response came from inside the vehicle: "Check complete."
"Good... disembark."
The vehicle screeched to a halt. Eighteen drill instructors leapt down, immediately activating their apparatuses. Swords in hand, they swept through shrubs, weeds, and jagged rocks, sprinting madly into the valley.
Broken trees.
Blood.
Corpses.
The clang and crash of impacts.
"Formations?" Old Cao from 491 asked on the run, sizing up the terrain ahead.
"Primary assault," Zhang Dao'an said.
"Flank assault."
"Left wing."
"..."
Formations tailored to the terrain took shape within moments. In the woods not far ahead, a Great Spike covered in wounds was surrounded by seven or eight injured Squad 1123 members engaged in a final, desperate struggle.
"Regiment 425."
"Regiment 491."
"Recruit camp drill instructors, reinforcing!"
*Boom!*
Without any time for further exchange, Zhang Dao'an and the others lunged forward the instant they arrived.
With dual blades, Zhang Dao'an braced hard against the Great Spike's sweeping side-slash.
The remaining seventeen swords slashed toward its joints from every angle.
...
*Crack, crack, crack...*
Amid the familiar, teeth-grating crunching sounds known so well to the soldiers, the Great Spike collapsed. At the cost of two instructors' lives, the drill instructor corps helped Squad 1123 bring this battle to a close as swiftly as possible.
"Your captain..." Zhang Dao'an, his chest soaked in blood, paused. "Where are the other two Great Spikes?"
"Why did you come?!"
"We..."
"Over there! Over there! They broke out all of a sudden! We chased them... but couldn't pin them down!" the heavily wounded Squad 1123 soldier roared in agony, then limply raised a finger to point in a direction.
The instructor corps was instantly plunged into collective panic and dead silence.
For the direction the soldier pointed in was precisely where the six hundred recruits of the two regiments were heading.
The trucks traveled along winding mountain roads.
Whereas the Great Spikes cut straight through the mountain woods...
"The last one to emerge is very strong," another Squad 1123 soldier said, eyes bloodshot and filled with terror. "The captain was trying to hold it back..."
"Red Shoulder?" Old Cao from 491 asked tensely.
"No, but stronger than an ordinary Great Spike. It might be like the kind Red Eraser encountered when they came to back us up before..."
In that instant, Zhang Dao'an shuddered. He should have experienced a deluge of emotions, but on this field, there was no time for any of it.
"Comms, comms! Requesting comms... Lieutenant Milla!"
Switching on the internal frequency, Zhang Dao'an gripped the communicator and called out relentlessly.
Behind him, the fifteen surviving drill instructors looked at him in silence.
*Boom!*
There was no response, only a sudden, massive crash blasting from the communicator.
It was the sound of a vehicle taking a colossal impact from the side.
Followed by a *thud*.
The sound of a vehicle overturning.
Zhang Dao'an heard the children crying out in shock.
*Skkrrreech...*
That was the screech of a column sword tearing through sheet metal.
"The kids... are under attack."
He turned his head and spoke woodenly.
Chapter 58