That Lonely Train in the Sky (Part 1)

The high-rises lining both sides of the street made what was normally a broad central avenue appear somewhat narrow and long from high above. By now, the western half of the street had emptied out, while the eastern stretch facing the morning sun was still packed with a moving throng of people, dense and crowded. That train in the sky flew over once more, sweeping overhead from east to west. The evacuating citizens heard and saw it, still anxious and awestruck, yet they could not afford to stop. They could only keep moving forward, constantly turning their heads to look back. "As I'm sure everyone has seen through the live broadcast, the citizens of Linzhou are evacuating in an orderly manner. Troops redeployed from the Shenghai battlefield by the Azure Huaxia Front are holding every intersection, protecting us..." The reporter stood beside the moving column, microphone in hand, speaking excitedly into the camera. From an optimistic perspective: when an apocalyptic invasion arrived and people began to despair, discovering that humanity actually possessed a secret military force capable of fighting back was truly heartening—a beacon of hope amidst despair. "At the same time, everyone may have caught those few seconds of aerial footage just now. Because the battle on the Shenghai front is extremely difficult, very few forces could be spared. In the sky, a pilot of one of our human source energy craft is risking his life to hold off more than twenty Great Spike craft that should have descended upon the people of Linzhou..." "Hold on." The cameraman suddenly raised a hand, interrupting the reporter. "The battery's about to die," he apologized. "Let me swap it out." Click! Moving quickly, he popped open the battery cover and pulled a spare battery from his backpack. At that exact instant—whoosh! All along the street, the crowd suddenly looked up and cried out in unison. The cameraman and reporter hurried to look up as well... When they saw it, their eyes went blank, quickly replaced by chagrin and anguish. In the few short seconds it took to swap batteries, they had missed the most shocking spectacle they would ever witness in person in their lives. They should have caught this on camera... In the sky, the human craft had suddenly flown in a straight line for perhaps two seconds. Because of the gap in absolute speed, the Needlefish-class craft piloted by Yang Qingbai hardly dared fly straight. In those brief two seconds, the Great Spike swarm behind had closed to an extremely hazardous distance, on the verge of collision at any moment. Without daring to hesitate for an instant, the Needlefish banked hard to the right, carving an arcing wake through the air. The slipstream formed an almost complete semicircle. Above the center of that semicircle... there was a person. A figure, seemingly ejected from the craft, abruptly appeared in midair. And in that very instant, the Great Spike swarm pursuing from behind surged toward his position like a raging wave. The two fastest among them were practically on the verge of slamming into him. This was the sight that had made the entire street cry out in horror. Then, everyone froze in place... Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom! A barrage of explosive roars erupted across the sky, making it impossible to tell which was the burst of the apparatus, which was the sudden acceleration from his turn, and which was the thunderous boom of the blue column sword being hurled... All people could see was that, centered on that figure, the otherwise invisible air high above violently detonated like a solid mass of gray clouds. The instant he ejected from the cockpit and rose into the air, the metal block dissolved to its absolute limit, apparatus source energy detonated, liquid source energy surged, and bone source erupted at its peak—Han Qingyu struck with everything he had. Having clashed head-on against a Great Spike craft in Wucheng, he knew his current condition. If he took consecutive hits from so many craft, the consequences would be catastrophic. He could not fly either... yet here he was, suspended in midair. Thus, everything hung on this single instant: Spinning around, the blue-light column sword shot out from his hand. Han Qingyu drew both blades with both hands, using self-traction to surge forward in pursuit. Skrrrch... The column sword did not smash head-on into the foremost craft—the blue-sheened Great Spike craft Yang Qingbai had mentioned. Instead, like a bolt of lightning, it grazed right along the craft's underside. A sizable breach was ripped open in the bottom of the Great Spike craft... Han Qingyu arrived. Tucking his torso and snapping forward, he raised his twin blades high and slashed into the Great Spike craft through the breach. Skrrrch... screech... splatter! Blade grated against iron, the Great Spike howled, and against the red morning sky, nauseating fly-blue blood showered down like rain. In the next instant: Having fulfilled its mission and lost most of its kinetic energy, the blue-light column sword slowed in midair and shot toward the roof of the tallest building to the side. Meanwhile, at the heart of the aerial battlefield: Thrum! With another burst of source energy, Han Qingyu's twin blades cleaved to the rear of the breach. Harnessing the final bit of friction between dead iron and dead iron, he hurled his entire body upward, flipping over. He hung suspended in midair for half a second. Half a second later—thrum! Holding the twin blades in a reverse grip, Han Qingyu leaped downward in a motion resembling a long jump, hurtling toward the second blue-sheened Great Spike craft. Bang! Chua! He landed atop the craft. Under the oncoming momentum, he held his footing for perhaps only a tenth of a second. In that tenth of a second, his reverse-gripped twin blades punched through the armor and plunged together into the shuttle craft. By this point, the citizens and the reporter had completely lost the ability to think. At the same time, they began to believe that humanity's super combat power had indeed reached a level beyond ordinary comprehension, just like in the movies—a level capable of intercepting threats across the open sky. Humanity, it seemed, truly had the power to fight. "His weapon, he... he feels so much like the figure in the movie!" In that instant, the thought crossed many minds, but no one had time to voice it. In the sky, "Arooo..." Amid the howls of the impaled Great Spike and the violent shuddering of the second craft, Han Qingyu was flung backward through the air. After six consecutive limit-pushing bursts and two head-on collisions against Great Spike craft, Han Qingyu's strength was temporarily spent. His body was hurled diagonally, hanging horizontal in midair, and began to plummet. "Ah!" The citizens on the street screamed. For at that moment, about five or six craft from the trailing Great Spike swarm had peeled off and were charging straight at him. He... Whoosh! It was actually a silent scene, yet the sheer speed gave the illusion of sound. In the eyes of the crowd on the ground, the figure in the sky suddenly blurred into an afterimage and vanished. When people caught sight of him again, he was already nearing the roof of the tallest building to the side, the twin blades already sheathed behind his back. At the edge of that rooftop stood a massive blue starlight column sword embedded in the concrete. The morning sun bathed the sword, its blade gleaming dazzlingly. Han Qingyu caught the hilt, his body swinging slightly... He drew the blade, landed on the rooftop, and stood facing away. Then—boom! Boom! Two successive thunderous roars echoed through the air. The two Great Spike craft that had just been attacked lost control one after the other, crashing onto the deserted street behind. Enormous clouds of dust billowed upward. The rain of blood continued to drift down from the sky. The long avenue fell dead silent.