Take Me Somewhere

Aleksei and the soldiers from Secret Prison No. 1 had only just arrived on the scene. Throughout the drive over, sitting in the car, he had thought carefully about how to explain this to his superiors. And if his explanation failed, how he might slip away and head to the Third Fixed Exploration Site to find Miss Milla... As a young and exceptionally promising officer, Aleksei had never lacked the nerve to make monumental, dangerous decisions like the one he had just made. That, however, did not mean he was an upright man eager to honestly shoulder the consequences and responsibilities of his actions. Much like in his romantic life, all his years of proclaimed devotion and deep affection for Miss Milla had never stopped him from dallying with other women. Yet before Aleksei could settle on a plan, the vehicle was halted by soldiers fleeing in the opposite direction. "Did they kill the red-shoulders? Both of them!" "And then a Daie came!" "And then General Ivan returned?!" Grabbing a soldier for a brief questioning, Aleksei hauled himself through the car window and vaulted onto the roof to peer into the distance. As far as the eye could see, beneath the battlefield, the entire Winter Palace was burning fiercely. High above the square, General Ivan’s signature eruption of molten lava—the fiery red glow—had turned into a brilliant yellowish-white. Was yellowish-white an even more extreme level of combustion? If everyone in Xiongzhanli knew that the crimson lava state represented the ultimate eruption of General Ivan’s characteristic, Aleksei had no idea what he was witnessing now. *Boom!* Far in the sky, another direct clash erupted midair. Ivan’s two-handed slash slammed into Daie’s horizontally raised column sword, but this time, neither side was repelled. Surging with source energy, Daie stepped half a step back into the empty air, then stood motionless. General Ivan, as seen through Aleksei's eyes, appeared as though someone had taken a massive fan to a roaring blaze. With a rush of air, the flames compressed for a fraction of a second, then immediately flared up with a thunderous burst, burning larger and fiercer than before. In that split second when the light dimmed, his silhouette showed briefly. A Tenth-Generation apparatus... That might explain why he had arrived today. Ever since the War of Fission, former trusted subordinates within the corps had likely kept in secret contact with him. Then—*bang!* The moment their blades locked, General Ivan did not halt his offensive. Instead, he drove forward, twisting sideways and tucking his elbow to throw his entire body into Daie’s chest. Given the stark difference in their builds, the sight resembled a frail youth throwing himself at a monstrous dragon. The point of Ivan’s bent elbow slammed into the armor plating over Daie’s chest. *Crack, crack, crack...* Brilliant yellow lava seeped through, accompanied by the gradual splintering of iron plating. It was his elbow! The armor had shattered! "*Awoooo-ah!*" Daie hunched, kicking back with its legs to evade from the chest down, yet its upper torso did not yield. Its body held almost horizontally in midair, Daie bent its elbow as well and smashed it downward. *Bang!* A massive, pillar-like iron arm crashed heavily against Ivan’s left shoulder. The two figures, one large and one small, trailed fire as they plummeted like lightning, slamming together into the pavement of the square. *Boom!* The surrounding inferno swallowed both forms whole... In silence, Aleksei stood atop the car roof and raised his hand in a salute. For the first time in his life, he had witnessed someone in a source energy battle rely on their physical flesh rather than a dead iron weapon to deliver such a savage, devastating blow. If Daie could conduct energy because of its dead iron armor, then... what about General Ivan? Or had he, in this state of complete combustion, become a living humanoid weapon?! "..." Aleksei decided not to run. Regardless of whether he would be investigated after today, whether he would be wronged, or even whether he would be thrown into prison... he chose to stay in Xiongzhanli. He would remain on the soil General Ivan had spent his life guarding and illuminating. With Aleksei’s current strength at the peak of the top tier, he had no way of participating in a fight like this. Yet he could at least understand one thing: In truth, the disparity between General Ivan and Daie remained immense. This fleeting illusion of balance existed only because... Ivan was prepared to die, while Daie was not. *Screeech—pop, pop, pop.* The communicator crackled with static. "Europa! General Christine is here to reinforce us! Europa, General Christine is here..." The Rejecters' comms operator shouted excitedly, repeating the words over and over. Then: "We're going back," Anton and Stepan said with one voice, resolute. The whistling roar of surging source energy echoed through the comms channel. "That's right, come back! Everyone come! Don't worry, with Uncle Ivan and Aunt Christine here, we can do this. Let's take down this bastard together, and then we'll be way more famous than that Major Qing!" To the soldiers of Xiongzhanli, it was an unfamiliar voice. His name was Pegmont. "Oh, by the way, I'm super strong too. My name is—" he droned on irritatingly. Until the commanding voice of a mature woman cut in: "Shut up, you bastard!" Then came the dull thud of a fist slamming into a forehead. At that moment, All four super combat powers of the Xiongzhanli Front turned on their heels, sprinting back toward Palace Square—the very place they had just been ordered to leave. Meanwhile, skimming low over the outskirts of Saint Petersburg, an Azure Swordfish-class source energy aircraft braved immense peril, tearing forward at full speed. Inside the cabin sat Christine, Pegmont, and three other formidable European super combat powers. "Hey, tell me, Aunt Christine, why are your eyes looking all red?" Pegmont tilted his head, puzzled for two seconds, before looking as if a light bulb had suddenly gone off. He said, "Oh, I get it! No wonder you never accepted Uncle Bochen. The one you actually like is General Ivan..." "Come to think of it, General Ivan must be ten or twenty years older than you, right? Maybe twenty? So it's a story about a rookie girl crushing on a hero uncle? Then why did—" *Bang!* Christine swung around and planted another heavy fist into Pegmont's forehead, knocking him senseless. Were it not for the dire circumstances, she might well have drawn her blade to cut him down, or hurled him straight out of the aircraft... In any case, due to some bizarre and unknown characteristic, that bastard seemed utterly unkillable. As long as he had a single breath left, he would court death with his blathering; and as long as he could still open his mouth to run it, he would never die, clawing his way back from even the most fatal wounds. "We're almost there. In twenty seconds, bank away horizontally and just eject us," Christine instructed the pilot, her gaze fixed on the observation scope. Ahead, the battlefield where their Xiongzhanli allies had fought so desperately came into view. His eyes filled with shock and grief, the pilot hesitated. "Actually, I could just—" "No, don't. It wouldn't do any good anyway," Christine cut him off coldly without looking up. "...Understood," the pilot replied quietly. With Great Spike craft blanketing the sky, there was little chance he and his vessel would make it back today. To have piloted the craft successfully this far under such conditions was already a stroke of immense luck; he had simply wanted to finish things with a final ramming strike. At that same moment, in Aleksei's sight, General Ivan and Daie reappeared in midair. *Clang!* After an untold number of collisions, General Ivan's saber finally slipped from his grasp and went spinning away into the distance. Daie swept its column sword down to its left flank, flipped sideways, and thrust its left arm forward at maximum reach, stabbing directly toward Ivan’s chest. There was nowhere to dodge. *Whoosh!* Molten flames surged, and General Ivan chose to charge straight ahead. At the same time, he swung his arm, slashing with his bare limb toward the arm holding the sword... This sight did not fall only upon Aleksei's eyes. It fell upon the eyes of Anton and his three companions as they sprinted back. It fell upon the eyes of more than twenty thousand Xiongzhanli warriors who had halted and turned to look. It fell upon the eyes of Christine, the pilot, and the others aboard the banking Swordfish. *Boom!* A tremendous explosion of energy and fire detonated across the sky, blotting out everything in an instant. Then, after perhaps three seconds, *Thud!* A massive iron arm, still clutching the colossal blue column sword, plummeted from the sky and slammed heavily into the square pavement. Daie’s arm. That was Daie’s arm! General Ivan had severed it with his bare hands. From within the inferno came a long, agonizing wail. At the fifth second, Daie broke out of the flames, battered and bloodied, reappearing high above near its craft. It hovered in the air... missing an arm and its column sword. At the sixth second, The flames at the heart of the battlefield gathered inward, revealing General Ivan’s form. He descended, touched down on the earth, and stood firm. Across his fiery crimson, fully liquefied magma body, right between his chest and abdomen, was a gaping hole pierced through by the column sword. There was no blood. It looked merely as though someone had punched an opening through a wall of fire, the surrounding magma churning just as before. A sudden hush fell across the battlefield. Daie looked down at Ivan for a long moment, then shifted its gaze to Christine, Pegmont, and the others charging toward the square after ejecting from their craft. It seemed to recognize Christine and Pegmont. "A pity. Still, I finally understand." Seeming not to care overmuch about its severe wound, Daie finished speaking, turned, and retreated straight back into its craft. The alien craft fired its engines, streaking straight into the distance, and soon vanished beyond the horizon. Just as Azure had feared when discussing the assassination plan: between Daie's cunning nature, its personal strength, and the vast gap between craft, even if humanity's peak combat powers grievously wounded it at great cost, pinning it down for a kill remained nearly impossible. Daie was gone. At the same time, the swarm of Great Spike craft that had been poised to strike in the sky settled into utter silence. In that moment, no one knew whether this counted as a victory. Nor did anyone know what state General Ivan was in. He remained standing there, still resembling pure fire and molten rock. Near and far, tens of thousands of people watched him in silence, staring at the hole through his body. In his molten state, General Ivan appeared surprisingly calm, remarkably peaceful. A few began taking cautious steps toward him, including Christine. *Hiss.* With a soft sound underfoot, General Ivan turned around. He looked intently at Christine, seeming to search his memory, before speaking: "You are... that little girl from the Mediterranean..." "...Yes." The moment Christine nodded, tears spilled down her cheeks. Many, many years ago, a gifted young girl from the Mediterranean had traveled alone to Xiongzhanli, asking for guidance from the Legatus. And none of the rumored stories had ever happened. "Could you... take me somewhere?" General Ivan asked quietly.