If the Legion Commander wanted to do it, he could certainly do it; no one doubted that. But given his current condition, if he took action to do this, the cost would likely be immense.
This was not merely a personal cost to him, but a cost to all of humanity.
The situation was roughly like playing cards: the opponent held a hand full of high cards and had played only an ace, yet our side would already be forced to throw our only joker onto the table—and we had no bomb combinations left.
Han Qingyu and the others had already realized this last time. If it could truly be killed, that Daie would never have escaped during their previous encounter.
Right then, everyone fell silent, pondering how this knot could be unraveled... yet the answer seemed to be that there was no solution.
Because of the continuous rain, Rusty Sister had brought over all the hospital patient gowns that had just been washed today. Lost in thought, she dried them one by one at high speed, folded them neatly, and put them away.
He Tangtang crouched on the ground, intently threading meat skewers. The cafeteria planned to offer an extra meal tonight, treating the entire hospital to a barbecue.
He had still been going on missions lately, but he had stopped trying to eat Spikes. According to Zhe Qiuhong's analysis, until he broke through to the top tier at least, he had no way of utilizing that Yanxiu's devour specialty. That meant right now he couldn't "eat" anything at all—except regular meals and meat skewers.
"The old man himself and the Chief of Staff are probably facing a dilemma right now too. All the pressure is on him," Wen Jifei muttered, turning his head toward the inside of the cave.
Under the current situation, the whole world was probably asking the same two questions: Why hasn't Huaxia's Legion Commander intervened yet? Is he unable to beat it too?
Yet the reason Old Man Chen could not take action was something that could never be disclosed to the public.
Wen Jifei finished speaking. Before Han Qingyu inside the cave could answer, Zhe Qiuhong stood up outside and shook her arms somewhat deliberately, saying, "All right, let's not make Qingzi talk any more. He's actually not feeling very well right now."
More than ten days had passed since General Ivan departed.
Over these ten-plus days, even though Han Qingyu knew he couldn't retain it, he still hadn't given up. When conversion didn't go smoothly, he used his bone source to seal the specialty energy inside his body.
This meant that during these days, he had been enduring General Ivan's specialty attack almost every minute and every second...
God only knew what kind of iron he had been forged into over the years to possess such resilience.
"Speaking of which, the source energy blocks I backflowed seem to be able to save people, right?" Han Qingyu picked up the conversation Zhe Qiuhong had deliberately cut off.
"...Yes, because they carry life source energy." Zhe Qiuhong paused, then continued, "But don't blow it out of proportion. What you can help right now is only at ordinary tiers, when people are teetering between life and death... You can't help truly fatal wounds, nor can you save super combat powers, let alone..."
Who was being left unmentioned was something everyone here understood.
"Oh." Although he had already anticipated from General Ivan's case that the answer would likely be this, Han Qingyu still felt a twinge of regret.
Then he thought about it: since that was the case, before he departed, he could still leave some backflowed source energy blocks for the Huaxia Front's medical system.
"By the way, how is my full armor coming along?" he suddenly asked, switching the topic.
"Hmm?" Rusty Sister looked up and said, "It should be ready soon. The materials were sent over long ago. Jiang Chou said he'd find time to forge it for you, and even promised to make it look handsome. Though it probably won't look as nice as mine. Heehee."
...
"Uncle Ne, you should be able to kill it too, right? In one strike?" In the small blue-glass chapel, Young Master Shiheng tilted his head and asked, looking at the trash can by his feet.
This was one of the methods he had recently invented to needle Ne; after all, Ne refused to show himself.
"Of course." Ne didn't get angry, smiling as if it were no trouble at all.
"Then..."
"Don't even think about it."
Ne understood Liu Shiheng's intentions and preemptively rejected the idea. According to the development of events he anticipated, the all-out descent of the Great Spikes was an inevitable step that had to happen, so he would definitely not stop that Daie now.
He hoped Chen Buer wouldn't do such a foolish thing either.
"Fine. Then what about Uncle Ye? Where is he now?" Liu Shiheng hadn't seen Ye Jian for a long time.
"Him? I have no idea." Over the years, Ne's management of Snow Lotus had basically been nonexistent. The subordinate branches operated independently; unless large-scale internecine fighting broke out, he would never intervene.
Following that, "Speaking of which, it really is time to summon them all back," Ne suddenly muttered to himself, seemingly intending to rally Snow Lotus's forces.
"Why? What are you going to do?!"
Young Master Shiheng suddenly grew anxious. Given the current situation, if Ne was merely standing by as a bystander, he was used to it and could still accept it. But if Ne planned to stab people in the back, Liu Shiheng truly wouldn't be able to carry on chatting with him so calmly in the future.
"Nothing much, just bolstering defenses." As Ne spoke, the trash can beside Liu Shiheng's feet floated up on its own, rising continuously until it passed above his head.
Guiding Liu Shiheng's gaze upward, Ne then said, "I have some bad news for you."
"What?"
"Azure is withdrawing its troops from Antarctica. From now on, we'll practically be left alone in the enemy's nest. Who knows, if we're discovered one day, we might have to face a siege by tens of thousands of Great Spikes..."
"Holy shit!" Liu Shiheng jumped up. "Then won't we die?"
"Perhaps," Ne said with a smile.
"Holy shit!" Agitated, Liu Shiheng trotted forward two steps and grabbed the female secretary by the wrist at the door, saying, "Then why aren't you hurrying up to let Alice and me tie the knot?!"
Liu Shiheng spoke the phrase "tie the knot" in the Huaxia language. Since this wasn't the first time he had brought it up, Ne and Alice both understood what he meant.
Turns out, when a man is facing death, this is what he might think of. Ne: "..."
Alice lowered her head and laughed, giggling without saying a word.
"You're a fucking genius," Ne said in very standard Huaxia language.
Three days later.
Antarctica.
A massive fleet of the most advanced naval vessels and submarines, mobilized with the full effort of governments around the world, suddenly appeared on the seas near the Antarctic continent.
The date: October 10, 1994. Azure finally executed a full troop withdrawal, bidding farewell to the glacial battlefield where they had fought for three years, and formally declaring the abandonment of Antarctica.
To this, the Great Spikes seemed not to have reacted in time, or perhaps they knew yet chose not to intervene.
The departing vessels dispersed across the sea as much as possible, advancing at high speed...
The number of Azure warriors aboard each ship was relatively small.
On one hand, this was to prevent pursuit by Great Spikes directly attacking the ships. On the other hand, the more important reason was that next, they had to pass by Oceania.
An even larger fleet was dispersed and concealed across the sea, waiting.
Aboard the ships were one hundred thousand iron-blooded warriors of Azure from nations across the world.
When the residents boarded the ships,
they would disembark.
Following the abandonment of Antarctica, Azure's next step would be to abandon Oceania, turning it into the decisive battlefield.
An unprecedented great migration of humanity involving over twenty million people was about to begin.
A decisive battle that could no longer be avoided was about to raise its curtain.
Chapter 657