Flames

Palace Square lay strewn with the wreckage and carnage of battle. More than twenty thousand Azure warriors and wounded fled in all directions. In the center of the square, an overturned jeep tumbled through the air. Above the jeep, all four active super combat powers of Xiongzhanli had leapt into the air together to strike down Daie. A mass of molten lava and flame swept over their heads... soaring toward the higher reaches, toward that terrifying Great Spike descending through midair and the giant column sword tearing shrilly through the wind. In truth, facing this apocalyptic war, the courage and fortitude humanity required were far greater than anyone imagined. For mankind knew one thing: behind the formidable, unstoppable enemies before their eyes stood beings even mightier. At the same time, mankind did not know another thing: where did that end lie, and just how powerful was it? Thus, should one's will and conviction waver in the slightest, everything would collapse. Take just now: the Xiongzhanli Front had fought an extraordinarily heroic, tragic battle and won a great victory... They had successfully slain two red-shoulders, along with a horde of black armors and blue-sheened Great Spikes. Yet the peace and joy following victory lasted only a few brief minutes before an even stronger, invincible foe suddenly arrived... The death-defying warriors of Xiongzhanli were forced to flee on orders. Meanwhile, the supers chose to take to the air, making a desperate stand to hold it back. It was a feeling of helplessness and despair... until that man streaked across the sky over Palace Square like a ball of flame, like a river of molten lava. Everyone here knew him, even if some had never laid eyes on him before. His name was Ivan—a typical, ordinary, common Xiongzhanli name, sharing the namesake of a certain Tsar in history. For the past thirty-plus years, this world had called him Butcher Ivan. Yet that was only because of his frenzied fighting style, and perhaps the shadow of that Tsar, Ivan the Terrible. According to veterans of that era: "Ivan? Why, he's a rare honest fellow." Powerful, burly, and fierce-looking, Butcher Ivan was actually a generous, genial commander. During the twenty-odd years he held up and led the Xiongzhanli combat legions, that impression had been etched deep into people's hearts. Beyond that, in the tales told of him, though General Ivan possessed a frightening degree of source energy fusion, he had not burst onto the scene with dazzling brilliance at the start... He had gone through an awkward, clumsy youth, leaving behind plenty of embarrassing stories. His subsequent progress in combat power had come step by step, growing steadily without people clearly noticing. Until one day, the Xiongzhanli First Research Institute came under attack... and out of nowhere, in a direct one-on-one clash, he slew the ninth rank on the Dome Leaderboard at the time—the foremost powerhouse of Pure Purgatory. Then, all by himself, he pursued Pure Purgatory's entire raiding force all the way to the Arctic Circle until they leapt into the sea. In the history of the source energy world, that battle was called the "Roar of the Northern White Bear." It was that very battle that hammered Pure Purgatory from a monstrous python of an enemy into a harmless grass snake. That battle inaugurated the glory of the formidable Xiongzhanli. And it was that battle that introduced the entire source energy world to the man who would reign as king over the Xiongzhanli Front for the next twenty years: the Butcher, General Ivan. Among all the assessments of General Ivan in that generation, people universally agreed that the most terrifying thing about Butcher Ivan was that he was always improving. This progress was steady and unending; unlike other masters of his era, he seemed to have no bottleneck. This led people at the time to hold immense expectations for Ivan, even believing that one day, he might stand alongside Huaxia's Legatus... Yet later, the old-timers from those days would always sigh that it would have been better if the Legatus had just stopped back then. On an ordinary day over ten years ago, the Legatus of Azure Xiongzhanli, General Ivan—at the very zenith of his life—suddenly vanished. To this day, people still did not know the exact details. They only heard by chance that he was not dead, but had gone mad; the aftereffects of his trait had flared up, turning him exceedingly dangerous and terrifying. Yet no matter what the world said, the people of Xiongzhanli continued to miss their Legatus, yearning for that blazing river of red lava. When they saw him again more than ten years later, General Ivan truly had gone mad. He had admitted it himself, and in that battle, he had stood on the side of the Splinter Faction. That civil strife dealt a heavy blow to Xiongzhanli. After the rebellion ended, many who participated were resented and blamed; even General Gennady and Lieutenant General Stepan, super combat powers though they were, were cast into prison for life... Yet not a single Xiongzhanli soul ever resented or blamed General Ivan. He had vanished once again. With immense worry and aching hearts, they longed for him once more. ... On September 13, 1994, amidst the helplessness and terror of the twenty thousand Azure warriors nearby and tens of thousands more in the distance, that river of red molten lava streaked across the sky of Xiongzhanli once more. "You should leave as well." The words were calm, bringing an inexplicable sense of reassurance, just like years ago. Ivan's leaping silhouette burned in the air. As his body rapidly surged past Anton, Mikhail, Stepan, and Gennady, a stifling pressure expanded through the atmosphere. The four were forced to halt and look up. For this battle, the gap between them was simply too vast. In the sky, Daie's giant column sword tore through the air, cleaving downward... General Ivan's molten flame spread all the way to his battle blade. The massive blade turned fiery red as he swung it up in a counterstrike... Boom! Red light and blue light formed two visible, colossal semicircles in the sky, colliding, pressing violently against each other, and finally shattering into pieces... The entire heavens were washed in their radiance. Then—thud! General Ivan crashed down, landing on his feet, leaving a massive depression beneath them. Because his entire body was like molten lava, no one could tell if he was wounded or what condition he was in. All that could be heard were the vehicles on both sides of the street behind him—the cars abandoned three months ago that had never been driven away, and the trucks that had just brought the soldiers here—creaking and sizzling under intense heat... Nor did Daie continue swooping down. In midair, it too had been knocked back by the collision, retreating to its original position beside the hovering craft. The blue column sword in its grip was permeated with crimson. Red molten lava flowed along its hands, spreading up its arms... nearly reaching its shoulders. "Urrgh!" With a roar, two rows of blue light behind Daie's waist surged wildly, finally suppressing the lava. Then, it lowered its head, studying Ivan standing upon the ground with grave intent. "Another... strong human?" It spoke, its deep voice resounding across the entirety of Palace Square and rolling into the distance. On the ground, Ivan gave no answer. "Go... I leave the future to you." The molten lava held no tone or emotion as he spoke to Anton, Mikhail, Stepan, and Gennady. The four fell silent for a brief moment, then resolutely snapped their arms up in a salute: "Yes, Legatus." Then, bursting with source energy, the four departed the center of the square. "No, die here together. After all, there are two Yanxiu here, aren't there? Especially you—you astonish me. What a pity..." Daie did not finish its sentence. Whoosh! Brandishing its column sword, its massive frame dove downward once more, even more ferociously than before. At the same time—bang, bang, bang, bang, bang... boom! On the ground around where Ivan stood, every vehicle lining the entire street abruptly exploded and burst into flames. Towering flames engulfed his entire body, swallowing him from sight. Then, the fire churned and surged... Whoosh! Burning fiercely, Ivan charged out of the inferno. No—the colossal blaze from the entire street, like a raging river, surged violently into the sky! A river of molten lava swallowed Daie whole. "Do not look back, my warriors, but never fear, my Xiongzhanli!" General Ivan's voice echoed out from the sky full of fire.