"Crunch, crunch." Rustling sounds drifted from a dark corner.
A group of roughly a dozen youths, ranging from fifteen or sixteen to around twenty years old, held knives and iron bars in their hands. Trembling all over, they were struggling to pry open the corpse of a Great Spike.
The head of this Great Spike corpse had already been crushed to nothing by Han Qingyu earlier, so they were digging inward from the neck, revolting blood pooling across the ground beneath their feet.
Noticing them and finding it amusing, Han Qingyu couldn't resist shifting his body to get a clearer look. *Snap.* A dry branch snapped beneath him.
The youths in the corner instantly froze, turning their heads in terror to look at him.
Now that he had been spotted, Han Qingyu simply sat up slowly from amidst the littered Great Spike corpses, asking with a mild smile, "What are you doing?"
"Y-You! Aren't you dead?" one youth blurted out.
"No, I was just sleeping for a bit," Han Qingyu said with a smile.
"...W-We heard there's a treasure in these monsters' hearts," the youngest-looking boy explained in a fluster. "That if you eat it, you can become like you people—really strong, able to chop up monsters."
"Oh? Who told you that? There's nothing like that, actually. There is treasure, but it's not in the monster's heart—and I've already collected it all."
As Han Qingyu spoke, he stood up, carrying the blue-light column sword.
*Clatter!* The youths retreated in unison against the wall, staring at him in panic.
"H-Hey, d-don't come any closer! Or else we'll..." The youth in the lead raised the blade in his hand. It was rusty, and it had bent while digging into the Great Spike just now.
A slash from that might give someone tetanus.
Han Qingyu stopped.
"Ahem, we thought you were dead, so we only came over to scavenge," the youth opposite tried to defuse the tension while struggling to bend the blade straight again.
*Crr... crack!* The blade snapped.
Holding the broken half of the blade, the youth still stood at the very front of the pack, gazing at Han Qingyu in awkward fluster.
*But I'm one of the good guys!* Han Qingyu muttered internally, unaware of just how terrifying he looked drenched head to toe in blood. He said, "So none of you watched that movie from before?"
The youths shook their heads blankly.
"Didn't the TV or radio say anything?"
The youths shook their heads again. It was impossible to tell whether they meant they hadn't watched or listened, or whether the broadcasts hadn't mentioned anything.
Well, communications were indeed not developed enough. Han Qingyu gave a wry smile and said, "Actually, I'm a good guy."
"Th-Then don't come over here."
"Alright." Han Qingyu took several steps back, then turned his head to glance at several black specks high up in the moonlight. "Uh-oh, the monsters are coming again. You guys should get out of here quickly."
Following his gaze, the youths looked up at the sky, then back at Han Qingyu, and then at the Great Spike's corpse on the ground. Frightened as they were, they still seemed somewhat reluctant to leave empty-handed.
"There really isn't anything useful inside it. I'm not lying to you." Han Qingyu considered it for a moment, then added, "Tell you what. If you truly have the guts and want to kill monsters, go home first and find a TV or radio to watch and listen. Once you've made up your minds, go find Azure. It shouldn't be hard to find them now..."
"What is Azure?"
"It's... the place that taught me how to chop up monsters." Han Qingyu waved his hand. "Go on, hurry."
The youths finally obeyed and left.
In reality, however, they hadn't gone far. Taking a small detour, they crouched behind a second-floor window of an old warehouse nearby and continued watching the street.
The black specks in the sky gradually grew larger.
Han Qingyu replaced a rack of source energy blocks and walked back to the center of the street.
In the night wind, the distant screech of heavy truck tires grinding against asphalt echoed over, rapidly drawing closer.
Fleeing citizens in a panic?
Han Qingyu frowned. He knew that if this truck kept driving out, the people inside would certainly die, because at this moment, the Great Spike craft high in the sky would definitely divert at least one to pursue and crash down upon it.
Even Han Qingyu wouldn't be able to stop that in time.
"Stop! Pull over!" Han Qingyu spotted the truck.
To keep from terrifying them, he took the initiative to set down his column sword and twin blades. Walking forward, he stood at the very front of the street where there were no Great Spike corpses or craft wreckage, waving both arms vigorously.
Headlights beamed over; the truck was speeding.
The truck naturally saw him too.
The sharp horn blared twice.
"Stop!" Realizing they had seen him, Han Qingyu breathed a sigh of relief and continued waving his arms, shouting at the top of his lungs.
"Ram him," a voice inside the truck said.
"Run the bastard down!"
The headlights engulfed Han Qingyu's figure, washing over him.
The youths in the old warehouse bolted upright... The vehicle wasn't slowing down, and it looked as though he had no time to escape.
*Boom!* The crash rang out.
The beam of the headlights went dark.
Moonlight fell across the asphalt once more. Han Qingyu stood right where he was. Turning his head slightly, he cast a blank look behind him.
In that split second just now, it wasn't that he couldn't dodge—he had simply been stunned for a moment.
Through the whole encounter, the other party hadn't shown the slightest intention of braking or swerving. And he, knowing little about driving, had actually been thinking moments earlier that if the truck slammed the brakes, steered sharply, and rolled over, he would need to rush over to support it.
Meanwhile, in the old warehouse, the youths stood slack-jawed, staring dumbly down at the street.
Because that man was still standing there, planted firmly on the asphalt where the truck had plowed into him.
As for the heavy truck, from front bumper to tailgate, it had split clean in half...
Then, *BOOM!* The truck abruptly exploded, blowing apart into fragments.
Shattered doors, glass, and metal shards rained through the air.
Falling along with them were heaps of jewelry, banknotes, several bloodstained knives, and the four freshly dead corpses.
Han Qingyu understood what these people had done when the end of the world arrived.
This was the first time he had killed ordinary humans, even if it had been entirely passive.
"H-Hey, are you alright?"
From afar, the youths stood at the window, calling out tentatively.
"...I'm fine." Han Qingyu turned his head and gave a warm smile. "Get moving, you little rascals. You aren't safe there either."
In this world, humanity was finally beginning to divide after all.
***
*Hiss, buzz...* In Linzhou, at Yuejiang University, after much tinkering by the soldiers, the television mounted high up in the dining hall was finally turned on.
The picture quality was rather poor; there was video, but it was unstable, static flickering across it from time to time.
"No station logo. The signal was probably set up by the Rejecters," a soldier said. "Looks like it's broadcasting on a twenty-four-hour loop."
Just then, Alliance Council Chairman Kemore appeared on the screen.
He began to speak.
Due to the unstable feed, the simultaneous interpretation was somewhat hard to hear. Wen Jifei simply had someone mute the television and tune in the clearer audio from the radio instead.
"...First, who we are.
"Our name is the same as the name of this planet: Azure. Azure exists in the form of an alliance, maintaining a total of 197 front armies and combat corps across the vast majority of the world's nations.
"We are the human source energy armed forces you saw in the film *No Retreat*.
"Yes, we truly exist, fighting the Great Spikes by seizing their resources.
"Second, our history.
"Since the turn of this century, we have in fact existed for nearly a century behind the scenes, unseen by most of you.
"In this nearly hundred-year history, across every stretch of land on this vast planet, we have never once given up defending and resisting.
"Over the past century, through countless battles large and small, countless soldiers lived silent lives and fell in places you could never see. Their names were never heard."
As Kemore reached this point, the television footage began to cut to different scenes.
The charge of ten thousand drawing blades on Xilang Peak; the bloody struggle of an ordinary squad; the repeated clashes across the glaciers of Antarctica; that person's sky-piercing sword strike; iron armor; long spears... Scene after scene played out continuously before the eyes of the populace.
The dining hall fell dead silent.
Some of them had seen that movie; others had not.
Yao Yue had not. She turned her head in silence, looking at Wen Jifei.
All the students in the dining hall turned their heads toward the soldiers who had just endured a night of bitter battle, looking toward Wu Xu and Rusty Sister.
Chapter 612