And So, the Brutality Began

"Ignorant." Daie tilted its head back, watching Pegmont, who still refused to retreat in midair. Looking at him as though gazing upon an insect it could crush with a wave of its hand, it slowly uttered the word. By and large, it was a characterization accurate right down to the marrow. At least in this moment, Christine and Bochen, lunging to strike from either flank, silently agreed with all their hearts. "Ignorant? Fuck your mom!" Insulted, Pegmont flared with fury, snapping back with the single most accurately mastered phrase in his Huaxia vocabulary. Because the Great Spike's very first spoken phrase had been in the Huaxia language, Pegmont cursed at it in Huaxia as well. In truth, Pegmont had no idea why the Great Spike would be more accustomed to speaking Huaxia. Perhaps because among the dead Azure soldiers below were brothers from the Huaxia Front; or perhaps because throughout the history of the source energy world, those who had slain the most Red Shoulders were Huaxia people. In fact, during the initial phase after landing and lying in wait, while trying to understand this pale blue planet, this Daie had even abducted a penguin and attempted to converse with it, followed later by a polar bear and a fish. *Whoosh!* Blue light flashed. With its following reaction, Daie proved that it understood this insult, was enraged, and very likely did have a mother. With a swing of its arm, the massive blue light column sword left its grip and shot forth, churning through the air like wind and thunder straight toward Pegmont. "Fuck, Han—that bastard?!" Legend had it that Han Qingyu wielded column swords by sending them flying back and forth just like this. Even as Pegmont cried out in shock, he hastily drew back his blade to block horizontally. Yet this parry was by no means a dead stop. He twisted his body as he blocked, thereby shedding most of the concussive force. *Pfft!* A mouthful of blood sprayed into the air. Spinning around, Pegmont still did not retreat. Then: "My turn!" Gritting his teeth, he roared and raised his blade once more. "Get lost!" *...Bang!* Christine arrived, first kicking Pegmont laterally out of the way before swiftly crossing her twin blades before her. *Boom!* The ricocheting column sword slammed heavily into the exact intersection of her crossed blades. Christine plummeted backward, her body following the column sword through the source energy barrier. Transforming like a drifting feather, she shot swiftly toward Daie... and at the very moment she closed in, she dropped heavily downward, thereby evading the sweeping strike Daie unleashed as it caught its sword. "Huh?" Daie grunted in bewilderment and looked down. It clearly did not know enough about the high-end martial power of this world, and thus could not immediately adapt to the massive disparity in combat prowess between Christine and Pegmont. At that exact instant, Christine, whose body was nearly brushing the ground, suddenly rose like a feather caught in a gust. Twisting upward, her paired blades parallel, she swept upward starting right between Daie's legs. Daie raised its knee to ram her, but she drifted like a feather, effortlessly slipping past the strike. *Clang-clang-clang...* Her twin blades struck true. These were the first and second blows humanity landed on Daie's body—struck right between its legs. "Nice job, Aunt Christine!" an excited voice rang out from above. Pegmont had charged back into the fray. This time, however, Daie ignored him entirely. Roaring, its gaze remained locked downward onto Christine. Stepping back, it raised the sword with both hands and chopped downward. *Clang!* The downward-cleaving column sword had barely begun its descent when it struck a blade at its apex. An instant later, Pegmont went flying. His entire body smashed heavily into the glacial wall along the side. Slightly delayed, Daie's column sword continued its downward chop regardless. The gravity field—the gravity field generated by the downward chop of the column sword condensed solid as iron. Realizing she could not dodge away in time, Christine gritted her teeth and erupted with a boom, driving her twin blades upward to meet it. Just as the direct clash was about to occur— *Clang!* Abruptly, a vibrating, deafening crash rang out. In Bochen's hands was a broad, heavy blade shaped like a hammer. Gripping it with both hands, he slashed horizontally across the column sword, arresting its momentum dead in its tracks. The sound of the collision rippled outward like a shockwave carrying tremendous energy. Glaciers surrounding the valley cracked and collapsed continuously, burying Pegmont deep within the rubble. "Get back!" With a loud roar, Bochen reached out, grabbed the collar of Christine's clothes in midair, and hurled her backward with tremendous force. Christine skimmed back along the ground. "See? I told you Uncle Bochen likes you! It's just that during those rare times you met, he wasted all his time talking nonsense!" Pegmont scrambled out of the ice, poking his head out and shouting. Christine rolled her eyes at him, then turned back toward General Bochen, who had landed after the clash and now stood directly opposite Daie. *This guy really is on the short side!* Especially now as he stood before Daie... the contrast felt almost like a five- or six-year-old child facing off against a center on a basketball court. *Whoosh!* Christine stamped against the ground, shattering the ice underfoot. The explosive sound of her preparing to charge back into battle had just resounded when— "Stay back for now! Wait for an opening!" General Bochen—a man who had always been timid or exceptionally easygoing—suddenly roared. Perhaps because she was used to acting haughty around him, Christine flared up on the spot. "Why should I?" Her meaning was clear: between third and fourth on the Dome Leaderboard, there was only a single rank of difference. Why act as though he alone could manage it, while stepping in would mean her death? "The chasm between you and me is just like the chasm between me and those two ahead of me. Even if I explained it to you right now, you wouldn't understand." As Bochen's words fell, he traded another blow with Daie. He did not retreat, but blood surged from his arms, soaking his sleeves through. The America War God's specialty was simple: pure physical strength. Rumor had it that he was the single most powerful being in the world when it came to brute force. Yet after two consecutive direct clashes, he was at a disadvantage. *Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh...* At that moment, nearly a hundred of General Bochen's personal guards rushed over the snow slope. A hundred thick, long dead iron javelins pierced the air, whistling toward Daie. *Hum.* Once more, Daie raised a hand, and a barrier condensed in thin air. An instant later, the relentless clatter of javelins detonating against the barrier began to ring out. Meanwhile, *whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh...* In the sky above, two Needlefish and three Swordfish—a total of five source energy aircraft—appeared over the ice valley, weaving back and forth. From all around the valley came the thunderous footfalls of a mass of soldiers charging forward in unison. "What's going on? Even aircraft are here?" Up on the snowy ridge, Makarov, who had yet to fire a single shot, raised his head, turning to look around in a daze. The battlefield had become so crowded in the blink of an eye that both he and Pegmont were completely bewildered. They had no idea just how much preparation and deployment Azure had arranged specifically for this strange craft and this peculiar Great Spike. "Is the target confirmed?" came the inquiry from the Antarctic battlefield command over the pilot's comms. "Affirmative. Named Daie, equipped with a column sword," the pilot answered. "Then eliminate it. At all costs, coordinate with General Bochen and Miss Christine to destroy it." Humanity still did not understand Daie, and much remained uncertain. But reasoning from the information currently available, this Daie and this strange vessel were very likely the forward command center for the Great Spikes' massive offensive. "Understood! For all that breathes..." the pilot acknowledged. Gripping the flight stick with both hands, he leaned back into his seat. The Swordfish-class craft beneath him abruptly climbed thousands of meters, then lifted its tail, pitching its nose downward... *Boom!* Accelerating to its absolute limit, the craft plunged resolutely toward the ground. *Crack!* Gaining momentum over thousands of meters of acceleration, the source energy barrier in the air shattered under the craft's forward spear. The Swordfish swept directly overhead past where Bochen stood, hurtling straight into Daie. On the ground, the burly Great Spike did not budge an inch, raising its column sword. "Greetings, General." That was the short-range comms transmission at that split second; the pilot gave a smiling salute. Before the words could fade, *BOOM!* And just like that, amidst an ordinary and warm greeting, the cruelest chapter in humanity's century-long history of resisting the Great Spike invasion began.