Great Spikes were humanoid creatures, ninety-nine percent of them. This judgment had been one of the casual ramblings thrown out in class by that guy who taught Violating Physics.
Yet because of the Great Spikes' persistent self-destruct protocol upon defeat, there was actually no way to verify it.
Han Qingyu still remembered a student asking the instructor for his reasoning back then.
Having no reasoning to offer, he had turned to disparaging certain Hollywood films about alien civilizations, ranting that having an octopus or giant insect crawl out of a humanoid mechanical exoskeleton defied all logic—the screenwriters' brains had practically been eaten by dogs, not even understanding that matter determines consciousness.
A student replied, what if humanoid creatures actually existed on their planet too, except there, they were the equivalent of dogs?
To which he retorted: Would you be so utterly bored out of your mind that you'd cross the vast universe just to invade your dog?
In short, his way of speaking was obnoxious, his logic forced and devoid of practical backing, riddled with holes.
Yet intuitively, Han Qingyu chose to believe it—or perhaps deep down, most people thought the same. And so, without looking back, he plunged his twin blades beneath the black faceplate, right toward where the Great Spike's eyes would be...
A single slash from a human could not kill a Great Spike. Unless one possessed top-tier combat power, even ten or twenty strikes would hardly suffice to slay a thing clad entirely in dead iron exoskeleton armor.
This was also basic common sense taught in Azure classrooms.
Therefore... Han Qingyu stabbed for the eyes. Both of them.
The torrent of fire from the Milla 11 momentarily ceased.
Covered in dust, her blonde hair in disarray, Milla stood holding her weapon and looking up, staring blankly as the boy floating in mid-air tilted horizontally and drifted diagonally... while bracing his body and throwing his arms forward, savagely ramming the twin blades into the Great Spike's eyes.
"I told you not to leap, you fool... You shouldn't have come back."
Earlier, the moment she waved them away, her heart had been full. Only after seeing the kids clamber up the dirt bluff did Milla think of death. For a fleeting instant, she had even thought that if possible, it would be best not to die in front of him... in front of them.
Because Captain Milla was supposed to be not just beautiful, but also formidable.
Then came that sudden cry echoing through the valley: "Milla!"
And then that figure, apparatus engaged, leaping out from the high dirt bluff like the fastest arrow in the world... As he flew through the air, the blue light of the war box on his back trailed afterimages beneath the autumn night's moon.
What a foolish decision. At that moment, Milla's blue-gray eyes had been drained of all life, even the moonlight swallowed whole; she had already envisioned him being skewered by the column sword.
Until he shouted from mid-air: "Shoot!"
Yes, shoot. As the only person in the Ninth Army permitted and approved to own and use a custom firearm on the sighting frontline, Milla had once propelled a tin can thousands of meters through the air right in front of Dormitory 11. Back then, Han Qingyu had discussed such a possibility with her.
And so, in that split second, she fired without the slightest hesitation.
Then, light began to rekindle in her upturned eyes. Up there, the moon hung high, a boy soared in the sky, blades in hand...
Hope reflected in Milla's eyes.
"Boom." The gasps of nearly a hundred people on the dirt bluff lagged in unison by a fraction of a second, followed by: "Qingzi... kill! Roar!"
Drowned beneath the roar of voices was the sound of piercing.
*Thwack, thwack!*
The sound of blades piercing dead iron armor—heard from so close, so this was what it sounded like. So ordinary, yet... so damn beautiful.
Han Qingyu thought to himself. In this moment, the force surging and erupting through his body was not merely the surge of the source energy three-dimensional apparatus; he had also poured every drop of liquid source energy within him straight into his arms.
Pierced through, the tips of both blades sank deep.
"Awooogh!"
The Great Spike wailed, throwing its head back in a roar. It sounded like a beast... but at the same time, it sounded like... a human mimicking the howl of a beast.
Then, nauseating blood, red laced with a blowfly blue, gushed from the two punctured holes in its face.
"Qingzi! Ha!" Without even pausing to wipe his tears, Liu Shiheng shouted.
"Roar!"
"Roar!"
At this moment, the shouts from the dirt bluff were not a chaotic celebration of joy, but an unexpected, thunderous war cry—one they had practiced a few times on the training grounds, yet had always felt too self-conscious to utter, lacking the true feeling behind it.
In this moment.
Now they understood. Even Azure's awkward-sounding motto—"For all that breathes, we fight without retreat, our bodies barring the vast sky"—suddenly became vivid and tangible in their hearts.
Before this, there had been a saying among the recruits at the Ninth Army Combat Training Base: with his Grade A degree of fusion and the Silver Azure Medal earned during his recruit period, Han Qingyu was the Eraser Ninth Army's strongest recruit in ten years!
Many people had scoffed behind his back or in private, because they all knew that throughout history, Grade A washouts and top-tier Grade Bs were hardly rare... Even their instructors had often used that to spur them on and encourage them.
Yet at this moment... merely the strongest in ten years?! they wanted to ask.
In this moment, there was no jealousy. On a battlefield poised on the brink of life and death, no one harbored envy toward a heroic comrade in the same trench.
"Still, if all hundred-plus of us on this bluff were airborne right now, sweeping together toward that black-armored monster... wouldn't that be even better?"
Someone said.
Someone listened.
Someone pondered.
Having pondered it, they etched it into their hearts.
...
Xin Yaoqiao saw the battlefield... and heard it. Frankly, had the commotion here not been so enormous, she would have already lost her way across mountain after mountain of dense forest.
"Time to slash Great Spikes... together with Number 10." Han Qingyu's designation in the Sub-Sequence was currently the last: 10.
Bursting with excitement, the young girl immediately activated her apparatus, gliding through the mountain woods and racing toward the center of the noise.
*Oh dear, he wouldn't still be super weak right now, would he?*
At that thought, Xin Yaoqiao simply shifted into a combat sprint to accelerate.
She drew closer.
Recruits with their three-dimensional apparatuses engaged dashed past her. Seeing her, they initially assumed she was reinforcements, only to realize there was just one person... and apparently only a young girl at that.
"Why are you running toward it?!" someone shouted at her.
"To slash a Great Spike." Xin Yaoqiao halted, looking blankly at the recruits passing by, and asked in confusion, "Why are you all..."
"The instructor told us to run!" a recruit obeying orders explained. "We can't beat it, and an instructor died too... We've lost so many people..."
Xin Yaoqiao froze completely.
"Turn back," the recruit urged her.
"Then... are you few the only ones who made it out?" she asked.
Only then did the recruit remember to look back... whereupon he went blank. He thought to himself: *There were definitely more people than this. Where are the rest?*
Fortunately, another recruit passing nearby chimed in:
"Han Qingyu flew in to slash the Great Spike. Everyone was stunned—they're just standing there watching."
Xin Yaoqiao: "Who?!"
"Han Qingyu! That Grade A from your Regiment 425," the recruit said, mistaking Xin Yaoqiao for another recruit. "He flew off the dirt bluff to slash the Great Spike... No idea how he's doing now."
Xin Yaoqiao whipped around and, with a whoosh, sprinted madly toward the scene.
*He wouldn't just die like this, would he?* she thought.
*How is she so fast?!* the two recruits behind her thought.
...
Naturally, Han Qingyu had no idea about any of this happening at roughly the same time.
He was still drifting through the air. The momentum of his forward rush carried him on, combined with the deflecting force delivered by the Milla 11 heavy autocannon, sending him flying diagonally toward the front-right.
"Die!"
Gripping the hilts tightly with both hands, Han Qingyu wanted to slice right through the Great Spike's face.
Yet... he had nothing to push off from.
And... the surge of source energy began to recede.
The Great Spike violently whipped its head, flinging his entire body from right to left, up into the air.
Taking advantage of the momentum, Han Qingyu tore both blades free.
"Awooogh!" Another bloodcurdling wail erupted.
The Great Spike, seemingly blinded, went mad. Gripping with both hands, it swung the massive black column sword in a sweeping arc... pouring everything it had into this single strike.
The black column sword swept through the air... Bang, bang, bang... The air boomed and shuddered, as though detonating.
Chapter 60