Looming in the aftermath of nearly losing their companions, a lingering dread gripped everyone in the small squad. Yet aside from Wen Jifei and Han Qingyu, no one spoke of it aloud.
At the same time, every one of them felt a burning urge to do something—to do more. He Tangtang was no exception.
Yet he was simply too weak.
In the past, he could at least guard Wen Jifei. Now, the enemies they faced routinely included Red Shoulders and even Daie. More often than not, whenever he stepped onto the battlefield, he was reduced to someone who needed protecting.
For a Yanxiu—and a legendary kidney-striker at that—this feeling was utterly suffocating and humiliating.
Trapped at the sub-top-tier level for more than three years without budging an inch, He Tangtang's only hope now lay in the Yanxiu inherited from Alphonse.
In truth, ever since he had acquired that Yanxiu, anxiety had not been the only thing on his mind. He Tangtang had harbored an uncontrollable urge to eat something.
His envisioned menu had spanned from Han Qingyu, Ye Jian, and Wu Xu to the Little Prince and Plague Chicken... all the way to dinosaur skeletons in a museum, elephants, tigers, cats, dogs, snakes, and rats.
In the end, his sights settled on the Great Spikes.
"There shouldn't be any harm, right? It's like eating locusts during a plague in the old days," He Tangtang said, smacking his lips. He had eaten locusts before, not to mention scorpions and pine caterpillars.
"Yeah," Wen Jifei nodded, then asked in return, "The problem is, how do you plan to eat them? Would doing it Alphonse's way actually work?"
Deep underground at the Third Fixed Exploration Site, the life source energy extraction apparatus Alphonse had previously used was still sitting there.
After all, a tool forged for evil didn't necessarily have to be used only for evil.
Besides, Great Spikes no longer self-destructed.
What Wen Jifei meant was: why not fix the machine up, throw a few hundred Great Spikes inside, and let them soak for a test run?
"What about eating them directly? I was thinking, like, in the middle of a battlefield, right in front of tens of thousands of Great Spikes, I could just grab one and crunch it down whole—scare the living hell out of them..."
He Tangtang laughed smugly at the thought.
He was probably just joking about literal "eating," but Han Qingyu took him seriously. Looking at him, Han Qingyu said earnestly, "Actually, Alphonse really could devour directly. Remember how he lunged at his son at the very end? In that moment, he forgot he had already lost his characteristic and tried to devour Gilles to replenish his life source energy.
"My point is, the characteristic of that Yanxiu itself is devouring. If you're willing to pay the price in energy, eating them directly might actually work."
He Tangtang froze.
A vivid picture instantly sprang to mind: he stood on a vast battlefield without drawing a blade, merely dragging a Great Spike by the throat with one hand as he strode toward the enemy horde...
The Great Spike was slowly swallowed away, thrashing in his grip until, with a soft *poof*, it crumbled to ash in his hand.
*Heh-heh-heh.* That was how he ought to laugh, wasn't it? Chin tucked slightly, looking up at them with a demonic, menacing smirk.
A legend of a man-eater—no, a Spike-Devouring Demon! Wouldn't that terrify them too?
On the way back, thinking he would give it a shot later, He Tangtang fantasized the whole way, unconsciously acting it out.
"What are you doing?"
"Have you lost your mind?! You just scared the daylights out of the doctor and the nurse who walked past, do you know that?!"
Han Qingyu and Wen Jifei each scolded him.
They had no respect for the Spike-Devouring Demon whatsoever.
While bickering, the three slipped through a back door into a large second-floor conference room equipped with a television.
The room was already crowded. When the occupants looked over and saw them, they stood up one after another, greeting them with warm smiles.
Whether wounded soldiers, doctors, or nurses, everyone here knew who had recently been admitted to the hospital—and who the Legion Commander and Chief of General Staff had come to visit.
The three quickly bowed in return.
Then they took seats in the back row.
"Take good care of yourself, Major Qing," someone called out.
"I will. Thank you."
"As long as the green hills remain, there's no rush..." another added.
Han Qingyu paused. From the sound of it, had Zhe Qiuhong's diagnosis of his condition already leaked? That shouldn't be, he thought.
Yet that was precisely the case. Zhe Qiuhong had just used the pretext of consulting with the hospital doctors to discuss treatment options to spread "this information" far and wide.
"Right, I'm in no rush," Han Qingyu could only reply for now.
Meanwhile, the television screen continued to loop the earlier compilation of footage.
Speaker Kemore's address, scenes of combat, speeches by world leaders...
However, a great deal of new footage had been added—such as the scene of the Legion Commander standing atop a skyscraper, cleaving a train in two.
The moment that scene played, nearly everyone in the conference room grew agitated, trembling with emotion, even though some had already watched it many times.
This was the first time Han Qingyu, Wen Jifei, and He Tangtang had seen it.
"Holy shit!"
"Terrifying."
"Yeah."
Han Qingyu found himself increasingly unable to fathom the old man's realm and depth of combat power.
At that moment, the broadcast cut to a new scene.
The battered city of Shenghai. The streets were coated in gray dust, the ground littered with shattered bricks, masonry, and scattered household debris, while the sky was smothered by a colossal shadow.
A squad of wounded, bloodstained Azure soldiers sat on the curb against a wall after a battle, keeping their tactical blades close at hand as they chewed on bread and drank water.
"As you can see, the citizens of Shenghai have essentially all evacuated. Only Azure soldiers remain here fighting. The swarm of Great Spikes hangs right overhead, but our soldiers have neither retreated nor flinched in fear..."
Speaking into her microphone, the reporter walked forward and crouched beside a soldier who appeared to be in his late twenties.
"Hello, I'm He Cong, a reporter who recently joined Azure. Here are my credentials. May I ask you a few questions, Sergeant?"
"Hm?" The soldier's jaw was covered in sparse stubble. He glanced at the reporter, her microphone, and then the camera. Swallowing his bread with a gulp of water, he turned toward her. "Sure, go ahead and ask."
"Could you tell us your unit designation? And what..." The reporter did her best to keep the tone conversational.
"Oh. Azure Huaxia Front, Sole Witness Legion, Fourth Army, 552/496 Combined Squad. My name is Fu Dahai."
"I see. How long have you been with Azure, Sergeant Fu?"
"Six years, I guess... going on seven."
"Then you're already a veteran, Sergeant Fu." The reporter glanced at the camera and gestured for the sergeant to look into the lens as well. "Could you tell us what it feels like to fight the Great Spikes?"
"What it feels like? To fight Great Spikes?"
Sergeant Fu Dahai muttered, his expression slightly blank. *I'm an uneducated grunt,* he thought. *How am I supposed to talk about feelings?*
"Yes." The reporter looked at him expectantly.
Sergeant Fu slowly shifted his gaze to the camera. In that moment, his simple, honest face—smeared with dirt and crusted with scabs—appeared clearly in the frame. His eyes met the lens with plain ordinariness. Slowly opening his mouth, he said, "Fear. It feels like fear."
The conference room abruptly fell silent.
Including Han Qingyu and his friends. Han Qingyu suspected that everywhere else in the world, every person sitting before a television screen was just as stunned.
"F-fear?" the reporter asked blankly.
"Of course... damn right I'm scared. Who wouldn't be scared seeing those monsters for the first time?! And we still have to charge in and hack at them. Even now, when I'm considered a veteran, with a whole nest of them hanging right over our heads, I'm just as scared."
Fu Dahai felt he might have said the wrong thing. In an interview, he supposed he should have sounded more heroic... but he knew he was telling the truth. In his fluster, he grew slightly frustrated and annoyed.
"So... even while being afraid, you still step forward to fight, right?" The reporter tried to lend weight and thought to her tone as she continued.
"Yeah, it's pretty much like that for everyone." His tone was plain. Sensing he was stumbling over his words, Fu Dahai paused, pointed at himself, and asked, "Can I put it in crude terms?"
"Go ahead," the reporter said.
"I used to be a farmer... So the feeling, roughly speaking, is like working in the field when a huge tiger suddenly walks out of the woods. It stands there, looking up, staring right at you without leaving. You get me?"
"Yes." The young reporter suddenly found the rhythm of the conversation, certain that anyone watching the interview would feel the same raw authenticity.
"You're terrified. You're cowardly. Inside, you're about ready to cry. You want to hide, you want to run, but you know that the moment you turn around, it'll pounce and tear you apart, and you can't outrun it anyway... In the end, when there's no way out, you just have to stake it all, raise your hoe, and swing it at the beast."
"Yes." The reporter nodded vigorously, refraining from interrupting.
"Once you swing, you don't have time to be scared anymore—not until one of you ends up dead," Fu Dahai said.
"Yes." The reporter continued looking at him expectantly.
Fu Dahai looked back at her, thinking, *What kind of reporter is this? Just saying 'yes' over and over? Does she mean I'm supposed to keep going? I'm already done talking...*
Yet the young reporter's bright, intent gaze remained locked onto him, filled with earnest expectation.
Left with no choice, Fu Dahai racked his brain and said, "How about I give you another analogy?"
The reporter nodded hard. "Please."
"Behind my home village, by the roadside, there's an old graveyard. Years ago, there was a local scoundrel who loved hiding in those graves at night, playing the ghost to scare women and girls for fun... When they ran away crying, he'd chuckle and chase after them, grabbing at them. Back then, the village didn't know it was him in disguise. Everyone was scared half to death hearing about it. Guess what happened later?"
Caught off guard by the question, the female reporter flustered slightly. "What?"
"Later, a newly married bride who stayed out late visiting her maternal home ran into him... She cried and ran, tumbling all over the road. When she finally couldn't run another step... she turned around and caved his head in with a brick."
Fu Dahai finished his story.
Subdued chuckles broke out across the conference room.
The reporter seemed bewildered, rendered speechless.
"It's a true story, not something I made up," Fu Dahai insisted earnestly. Then, looking somewhat anxious, he glanced at the camera. "Dad, Mom, that really happened back home, didn't it? Everyone in the village knows about it. Dad, Mom, you..."
Down his dirty, dust-caked face, two streams of tears suddenly spilled over.
Chapter 633