Where's the Other One?

An air blast?! A sonic boom?! Amid the gasps of shock, Han Qingyu used the momentum of being flung to adjust his angle and height, avoiding a direct blow from the sweeping column sword. Yet the force surging through the air displaced by the Great Spike's swing remained tangible as solid steel, hammering violently against his chest. And the surge of source energy within his body was still in its ebb following the crashing wave... unable to rise again in time. Just as Qi Shantong had said: controlling the surges of source energy—their cadence and timing—was controlling life and death on the battlefield. On this front, having worn armor for less than twenty days, Han Qingyu was still green. "Pfft." Taking the blow in midair, Han Qingyu spat a mouthful of blood and plummeted backward, crashing toward the earth the next second like a kite with a severed string... Bang! He slammed heavily onto the ground. "Qingzi?!" Panic seized Milla. She sprinted to widen her firing angle while firing wildly, hoping to lure the blinded, frenzied Great Spike in her direction. Yet it was useless! Having lost its sight, the Great Spike abandoned all movement. It stood rooted in place, wheezing heavily a few times... then abruptly gripped its heavy sword in an inverted double-handed hold, raised it high, and poised to plunge it downward into the ground. This was an area attack typical of Great Spikes. Most often, they used it right after ejecting from their craft to meet combatants, intended to blunt the opening charge and shatter a squad's formation. Soldiers who had been to the sighting frontline all knew this, and squad combat doctrine included dedicated drills and countermeasures for it. Yet today, it had held this move back until now... and this would likely be this Great Spike's final blow. "Sizzle... crack, crack, crack!" The arms beneath the black armor swelled. The sound of impending fracture set one's teeth on edge as the columnar heavy sword plummeted straight down toward the earth... At that very moment, Han Qingyu had only just propped himself up from the ground with his twin swords, lifting his head... and beginning to move. Boom! The next instant, the column sword drove into the earth. With that thunderous crash, Milla, standing relatively close, distinctly felt the ground tremble beneath her feet. Immediately, a thick fog of dust erupted in a circle around the Great Spike and its column sword... hurling dirt and rock everywhere. The billows of dense dust engulfed the entire clearing, already dim beneath the moonlight, swallowing the Great Spike—and Han Qingyu along with it... All that remained visible in the valley were the corpses of the fallen recruits from moments earlier, and Milla, frozen in shock. "Qingzi?!" Liu Shiheng and He Tangtang screamed in unison. "Han Qingyu? Did he..." Among the gasps and muted cries atop the dirt bluff were grief, dismay, and bitter unwillingness... The guy who had just given them confidence and brought about a miracle was, after all, only a recruit. At that moment, the youthful figure trailing blue light arrived just in time to take in the terrain and the people. "Is that... Number 10?" "Did he just leap from up here and slash down at the Great Spike?" Pictures formed in her mind, but in reality, Xin Yaoqiao had only caught a distant glimpse—the lone figure of Number 10 scrambling up from the ground, lifting his head... And in the next breath, the column sword had struck the ground, churning up a tempest of dirt. The figure was swallowed by the dust. "Don't leap! Don't try to be brave, Number 10, recruit... Even Teacher Lyu warned me more times than I can count: unless you reach top-tier combat power, never, ever leap in front of a Great Spike." Xin Yaoqiao stood frozen. She couldn't say she was deeply sorrowful—after all, they had never actually met face-to-face... It was merely a peculiar emotion. Much like what her aunt had once told her about falling in love with Huo Qubing while reading history in her youth. Two mountains, a valley, a crowd, corpses... and that ring of dust in the valley. The silent scene stretched for nearly ten seconds, broken only by the patter of falling dirt and gravel as they lost their momentum and hit the ground. Finally, the thick haze hugging the ground began to disperse. Revealing the Great Spike's imposing silhouette... It truly had been its final strike. Though the Great Spike standing before their eyes was still upright, it was, in truth, slowly shattering. Vapor rose from within the black armor. Perhaps because it had expended all its energy, the process was somewhat slow. Then, suddenly— "Ah—!" A few people pointed and began to shout, but the cries caught in their throats halfway out. And stopped completely. Because as the dust cleared, another, much smaller figure was standing... right beside the Great Spike. And embedded conspicuously in the Great Spike's heart and lower back... was a dead iron straight sword each. "So just now... instead of retreating, he lunged forward?!" That was what everyone guessed. "But closing in the instant before a Great Spike's dust blast... isn't that a tactic taught only after one enters the top ranks?" Xin Yaoqiao's bewilderment differed from the others because she knew far more. Han Qingyu had hardships known only to himself... It wasn't a matter of whether he was spitting blood; he wasn't afraid of spitting blood—Lao Jian had set that example for him. The problem was that his entire internal organs throbbed with agony, and his whole back hurt fiercely too... as though sliced by a dense barrage of tiny razor blades. In that split second, right before the Great Spike's column sword slammed down, almost by pure instinct, he had chosen to move forward rather than fall back... Part of it was that his surging source energy had just begun to recover. On the other hand, there really hadn't been enough time to retreat. Perhaps at the same time, his subconscious had guessed that right next to the monster was actually the safest spot. To be safe, he had even used the last ounce of his strength to plunge two blades into the blinded Great Spike while it was completely focused on executing its final strike. Those two stabs had gone in with unexpected ease... whether because the Great Spike had funneled all its remaining source energy into the attack, or because its armor was already in the process of fracturing. ... "Qingzi?!" Liu Shiheng called out, his voice filled with hope and inquiry. He Tangtang simply leaped down from the dirt bluff. In the next second, Han Qingyu swayed and collapsed limply to the ground. Milla rushed over, reaching out a hand... yet hesitating to touch him. "Qingzi... Han Qingyu?" "Alive... Hurts," Han Qingyu said, turning his head. Cheers were just about to erupt. At that very moment, a vehicle burst out from the winding mountain road on the other side of the valley. While the vehicle was still airborne, figures leaped down from the roof, sprang through the shattered windshield, and vaulted through the open doors... Due to the downward thrust of their kicks as they pushed off, the car lost its forward momentum in midair... and slammed violently onto the ground. Zhang Dao'an and the fifteen other instructors, along with the six surviving members of Squad 1123, landed with swords in hand. "This one?" "Cut down by Qingzi." "..." After a brief moment of daze, confusion, and astonishment, there was no time to ask for details. "Where's the other one? Did it not come here?" Lao Cao of Regiment 491 asked anxiously. With that, the recruits finally remembered—right, what about the other Great Spike? There had clearly been two Great Spikes attacking the convoy at the start, so why had there suddenly been only one? Where had it gone? What was it doing?