"Qingzi!" Wen Jifei came running down the hillside.
According to what they knew from past experience, Han Qingyu's method of taking in another person's specialty was to voluntarily endure the specialty energy invading his body, then absorb and convert it.
This process was always accompanied by immense agony, and when the opponent's level was high enough, matters became truly perilous.
Right now, Qingzi's condition looked terrible. He hadn't vomited blood, but it was far worse than vomiting blood—he likely couldn't even vomit blood if he tried.
Hearing the shout, Han Qingyu quickly turned and waved him away, struggling to speak. "Don't come over... You'll get charred."
As he spoke, most of his body had already entered a state of molten lava. Uneven, red, and bright-yellow fiery light surged, seeping out from all over his body.
All around him lay scorched earth.
This was General Ivan's ultimate specialty eruption, not something a person with Wen Jifei's constitution could approach. Never mind him; even He Tangtang, a sub-top-tier combatant, would be severely wounded if he drew near.
This specialty energy was simply too vast and majestic. Han Qingyu found it exceedingly difficult to endure and control, especially since he had just consumed a tremendous amount of life source energy.
"...Maybe you should give up," Zhe Qiuhong said suddenly. Once everyone's eyes turned toward her, she continued, "You should still be able to expel it. Expel it. If you keep holding on, I'm afraid you'll be in danger."
Han Qingyu turned his head to look at her, a hint of hesitation appearing on his sluggish face.
"Yeah, it's not like you can keep it in the end anyway, right?" He Tangtang chimed in from the side.
Based on past experience, when Han Qingyu "borrowed" a specialty from someone else, it lasted three to five days at most in his body. Once that time was up, he would have to borrow again if he needed to fight.
The two of them were right.
General Ivan's choice had actually been born of a misunderstanding. To accomplish this, he hadn't hesitated to hold on while dying, trekking tens of thousands of li... Under those circumstances, Han Qingyu hadn't had the heart to tell him the truth.
And now, General Ivan had already dispersed into the wind.
Han Qingyu slowly raised his head, gazing once more into that night sky that had already emptied beneath the moonlight... Turning back, he said, "I want to try a bit longer."
He refused to expel this specialty energy. At least now, here, he could not do so, even if he didn't know how long he could hold out or how much he could convert.
"Don't worry, I won't let anything happen to me," he added.
With that, Han Qingyu turned, stepped across the river, and walked toward the mountain on the opposite side.
A massive cloud of steam billowed up, obscuring their view.
"Qingzi, where are you going?"
"What are you doing?"
Worried shouts came from behind him.
"Finding a place to stay! What else—am I supposed to go back and burn down the hospital?" Han Qingyu muttered glumly. "There's a cave on that mountain over there. I'll go stay there... Oh, right, just to be safe, get some dead iron and set up a fence for me."
***
Three days later.
The river had long since returned to normal, flowing quietly onward. The right bank, covered in scorched earth, was lined with wild mountain flowers.
The left bank, however, had temporarily become a forbidden zone.
There, a trail of scorched earth stretched continuously upward, eventually disappearing behind the mountain.
On the back side of the mountain, about halfway up, was a cave even larger than expected, its rocky surfaces melted and resolidified into vast, glassy patches.
Han Qingyu was still burning, though his condition had stabilized slightly.
Sitting motionless on the ground, his body was enclosed by a ring of dead iron plates. Each plate stood more than three meters away from him, making the entire setup look rather like a pen.
"How is it? Still no good?" He Tangtang sat at the cave mouth, asking casually toward the interior.
As he spoke, he looked down, speared a fish freshly caught from the river onto his combat blade, sprinkled salt over it, and reached it into the cave, carefully minding the distance.
"Yeah," Han Qingyu grunted.
Two days had passed, and he was still unable to convert General Ivan's specialty energy to any greater degree, yet he still hadn't given up.
*Sizzle, pop, pop, pop, pop...* The fish roasted in no time, giving off a savory aroma.
He Tangtang quickly pulled the blade back.
Not bad, not charred. He lifted it and sniffed.
"Smells good, doesn't it?" Yang Qingbai sprinkled a bit more cumin onto a roasted lamb chop he had taken two bites from, reached it inside, quickly drew it back, and took another bite. "This is authentic volcanic-stone grilling."
"Let me taste... Uh, it really does seem better than regular charcoal grilling." He Tangtang broke off a piece of the fish and chewed. Extending the blade with the fish, he said, "Xu'er, want to try?"
"..." Wu Xu drew his gaze back from the cave, hesitated a moment, broke off a piece, and put it into his mouth... then broke off another piece.
Then Wen Jifei broke off a piece as well.
Zhe Qiuhong broke off a piece too.
The fish and lamb were quickly devoured, and He Tangtang got up to head back toward the river.
"Qingzi, are you really all right?" Outside the cave, Rusty Sister carefully folded her instantly dried red cloak and called out from a distance.
"Yeah," Han Qingyu grunted.
"Then when can you come out?"
"...I don't know," Han Qingyu said.
"Oh. Well, you can't just keep going on like this forever, can you?" Rusty Sister said gloomily. "Back at the base, Captain Milla's arm has healed too. She contacted us this morning saying she wanted to come over, probably anxious to have you help her solidify Captain Lady... You told us not to mention your current condition to outsiders, so I had to tell her you have a fever."
At the mouth of the cave, Wen Jifei and the others all laughed.
Inside the cave, silence reigned for a few seconds before Han Qingyu's voice sounded again. "Why don't you ask around for me?"
"Ask about what?"
"Ask if that damn blacksmith has time to forge me a suit of high-grade dead iron full plate armor," Han Qingyu said. "We'll supply the dead iron ourselves—just use what we stripped off that Red Shoulder."
***
Over the days that followed, Han Qingyu's secluded life continued. The calendar turned to September 30th.
At the Azure Alliance Headquarters Council, the very first public press conference was underway. The hall was packed with nearly five hundred journalists strictly selected from nations around the world.
Questions regarding history and the truth had mostly been exhausted when another reporter raised his hand.
"Please," the moderator signaled with an outstretched hand.
The reporter stood up, pausing briefly. "May I ask, just how large is the gap? What I mean is, we want to know the true situation: just how large is the gap between humanity and the Great Spikes?"
As he asked, his gaze was unwavering, his tone laced with heavy pressure.
"A similar question was already answered just a moment ago," a councilman on stage said, taking the microphone. "Because our understanding of the Great Spikes is still not deep enough and many unknowns remain, we cannot provide an accurate answer to this for now. However, one point is certain: we have been making continuous progress..."
"Then what about Daie? That Great Spike that has frequently appeared in the skies above more than ten cities across the globe is called Daie, isn't it?" the reporter pressed.
"...Yes," the councilman answered.
"I presume it does not belong to the part that is still unknown," the reporter said.
In an instant, an uproar rippled through the entire hall. Scores of reporters raised their hands, firing off questions without permission, their voices competing in the ensuing clamor.
"Can we kill it?"
"Do we possess super combatants who are equally powerful, or even stronger than it?"
"How many do we have?"
"..."
Amid the pandemonium, the councilmen, military generals, research division representatives, and press department staff on stage exchanged glances... Mayne reached out, took the microphone, leaned forward, and said firmly, "We do."
"Such as the corps commander from Huaxia?"
"Without a doubt."
"Then why hasn't he taken action?"
"No comment."
"Very well. Aside from him, are there others? How many?"
"Classified."
"So you mean there are others?! Then why hasn't anyone killed it? Since humanity possesses the power to kill it, why do we stand by and watch it appear in place after place, throwing the entire world into panic, without taking any action whatsoever?"
"...Classified."
"Is it because as long as it's in the sky, we have no means to touch it? The gap between our source energy craft and theirs is immense, isn't it? So in truth, we have no confidence in killing it at all, do we?!"
The reporter's cadence rose and fell sharply with indignation, his voice booming across the hall.
He had struck right at the heart of the matter. As long as Daie did not come down, as long as it remained beside its craft, Azure's current plans simply could not be executed.
Silence fell over the stage.
*What a mess. If we'd known, we never should have agreed to this press conference.* *It would have been better to leave them guessing,* they thought to themselves.
Suddenly, a voice answered, "That's right."
The room went blank for a split second... and then fell into absolute silence.
Because that voice had come from outside the hall.
From high above.
As the chaotic, surging roar of source energy echoed from outside, vast numbers of combat personnel finished assembling.
The crowd cautiously stepped out of the hall and looked up.
In the sky above the Azure Alliance Headquarters, a Daie stood there, looking down on everything.
Chapter 655