Tactics Azure Never Learned

Perhaps because she had endured so many years of loneliness inside the suit of iron armor, the later Shen Yixiu often unconsciously laid bare whatever emotions or curiosity she felt whenever she was with Qingzi, Plague Chicken, Tangtang, or Wu Xu. It showed she wasn't turning things over with hidden motives. If there was nothing extra brewing in her head, a question was just a question, and naturally she felt neither awkward nor strange asking it. When she truly was brooding, her mind ran through a great deal and she became very guarded, never speaking directly. For instance, the last time, when she had subtly probed about Yaoyao-huanghuang. Inside the car, both Wen Jifei and Yang Qingbai burst out laughing. Even Zhe Qiuhong, in the midst of her own conflicted feelings, looked out the window with the corners of her mouth curving slightly. “Stop laughing. How can you laugh, Qingbai? You're not on the list either! Aren't you curious?” Rusty Sister rallied an ally on the spot. “Uh, good point. Now that you mention it, I actually am a bit curious.” Yang Qingbai was driving, but eager to stir up more trouble, he joined in the teasing. “Go on, spill it, Comrade Han Qingyu.” “……” Han Qingyu cast a pleading look toward Wen Jifei. But Wen Jifei either couldn't see his expression or understood perfectly well and pretended not to. “Come on, keep giving examples! Who is the third person you thought to put on the airship?! Five, four, three…” Rusty Sister urged, counting down. The "third"—if he handled this poorly, it might fracture team unity. Han Qingyu racked his brains. “Three… Three… Third Grand-uncle.” The moment he blurted it out, he let out a huge sigh of relief from the bottom of his heart, and his train of thought became crystal clear. Rusty Sister froze. “Who?” “Third Grand-uncle. The one I clearly mentioned earlier who's boarding the Fireseed airship—the ninety-two-year-old in our village who herds cattle,” Han Qingyu said calmly. “……” *Wait, his logic is completely airtight.* Dazed for a second, Rusty Sister felt both exasperated and amused. “Then the fourth!” “Fourth Grand-uncle.” “……” Rusty Sister opened her mouth, putting her guard up. “You're not allowed to say Fifth Grand-uncle! Number five!” “Bumang.” “Huh? Xu'er's dog?” “Yeah.” “What about Mangmang Mangmang?” “Perfect. Number six.” “They both rank ahead of me?!” “Yeah.” Everyone in the car, including Rusty Sister, erupted in laughter. Of course, Rusty Sister was laughing and fuming at the same time… Han Qingyu seized the chance to change the subject: “I wonder how things are over there, and whether they've almost arrived.” ………… The sky was bathed in fiery red clouds. In South America, clusters of blades peeked out from beneath the defensive fortifications. Waiting. Waiting. *Whoosh!* As Shu You's figure was the first to burst forward, cleaving into the battlefield like lightning, the head of a blue-sheened Great Spike hit the ground. A sacrifice to the war banner. The battle was joined. “Kill! Boss Dao has manifested!” Regardless of which faction they hailed from, or whether they belonged to no faction at all, the first wave of thirty thousand "old hands" from the City of Iniquity roared the same slogan in unison and threw themselves into the battlefield from every direction. At this moment, the Great Spikes had not yet massed into formation. Many had just completed ejection, many were in the middle of ejecting, and some airships had only just hit the ground. The blades of the City of Iniquity were already hacking down upon them. This was the pre-planned tactic. While the average individual combat prowess of the City of Iniquity's fighters might far exceed that of the Azure garrison in the rear, they could not fight a coordinated battle on such a scale. Even if the Azure officers wanted to offer guidance, these fighters could never carry out battlefield formations or military maneuvers. Most of them were undisciplined and unorganized, slovenly and haphazard—it was second nature to them. Therefore, after deliberation, the only viable method was this: drag the Great Spikes into the rhythm they were familiar with… giving full play to their rich experience in chaotic brawls. “Boss Dao has manifested!” “…manifested!” “…manifested!” The echoes drifted across the entire battlefield. Advancing in a disorganized charge based on familiarity, squads quickly peeled off one by one in the midst of the slaughter. A fierce squad, completely disregarding threats from behind or their flanks, charged straight ahead to surround two Great Spikes… hacking them to death, striking over and over without pause. Another Great Spike charged in from the flank. Another squad of scoundrels threw themselves forward, cutting it off, encircling it, hacking away… To the Azure officers, this style of fighting was unimaginably reckless. There was no flank protection, no prearranged coordination… “What on earth is this? Are they relying on luck? This is far too dangerous!” Such fighting was indeed precarious, ill-suited for conventional warfare. That was why Shu You had specifically arranged beforehand for all the top-tier and sub-top-tier combatants to crisscross the battlefield alone or in pairs and trios, doing their best to plug gaps and peel away untended Great Spikes. The melee grew increasingly chaotic. The savage combatants from the City of Iniquity held a temporary upper hand across isolated perimeter zones. And so, they strove to turn as much of the ground as possible into separate, isolated pockets. Beneath a mound of earth, two Great Spikes had just ejected when they spotted a squad unlike the ones they had seen in Antarctica, charging toward them while brandishing an assortment of weapons. The Great Spikes raised their swords, preparing to meet the charge. Yet, *whoosh!* The entire enemy squad slammed the brakes, turned on their heels, and fled. The two Great Spikes stared blankly for an instant before dashing forward in hot pursuit. “They're done for!” an Azure officer lamented upon seeing this. Anyone in Azure knew what happened when a soldier turned their back on a Great Spike and fled across an open field. An ordinary human warrior could never outrun a Great Spike. Yet… “Wait, what's going on?” In the scene before the officer's eyes, the squad from the City of Iniquity indeed could not outrun the Great Spikes, but miraculously, they hadn't suffered a single casualty yet. Even the few who were wounded had only taken hits in places that didn't hamper their ability to run. They seemed instinctively capable of finding the optimal route to escape death… Even if it meant braving minor injuries. Or, in an incomprehensible way—whether by design or pure coincidence—they would suddenly dump the Great Spikes' aggression onto someone else. And then the one who took the aggro would "coincidentally" pass it along to the next person. “What the hell is this?” “Isn't that just throwing their comrades under the bus?” “Could this be some retreat coordination they deliberately trained for?” “This… this is incredible.” The Azure officers tried to imagine drilling for this, but felt it was impossible to teach. Unless honed through live combat right on the razor's edge of life and death, no simulation could ever produce such instincts. Moreover, unless one genuinely intended to throw their comrades under the bus, those handoffs could never be executed so smoothly and naturally. In maneuvers like these, the slightest hesitation meant instant death. Of course, this wasn't deliberate team coordination. It truly was dumping aggro onto their teammates. It was just that when nearly every single fighter knew how to do it—to the point where it became pure instinct—it inexplicably transformed into a retreat tactic of alternating distraction (or perhaps more accurately here, an enemy-luring tactic). What was more, so long as they didn't run into a blue-sheened Great Spike, the success rate of this tactic was generally quite high. This was a maneuver only the City of Iniquity could pull off. In this world, there was nowhere more devoid of rules and discipline, nowhere dirtier, than the City of Iniquity. In particular, for the independent gangs there before Shu You established the system of spectator point tallying, it was everyday fare to scatter for their lives when outmatched, operating on the principle of *better a teammate dies than me*. Thus, all of this had been learned and ingrained naturally throughout their past survival, growth, and combat experience. In that brutal, bloody city, anyone who couldn't pull this off was either overwhelmingly powerful, lucky and hardworking enough to grow strong gradually, or long dead. Just like that, under the bewildered gazes of the Azure officers, the squad vanished behind a ridge, leading the two Great Spikes away. They paid no more heed to the broader battlefield. And the people on the battlefield paid no heed to them either. What followed was simple: live or die by your own luck; run however you please. This was the City of Iniquity. The two distinct combat styles of the City of Iniquity were put into practice across the battlefield by countless scattered squads. Slaying, dying, fleeing, failure or success… Using their own methods, the fighters of the City of Iniquity tore the entire battlefield into a chaotic mess, while continually widening its scope. Only then did the other twenty thousand relatively young fighters from the City of Iniquity charge into the fray. Because the first wave had already swept through, the battlefield and enemies they faced were relatively manageable. Their tricks and schemes, however, fell far short of what the old hands could do. ………… In Oceania, on a large reef near the coast, the newly arrived Aleksey stood in the darkness beside his mentor, Gennady, silently watching the column of civilians marching past, wave after wave. The seawater lapped against the reef beneath their feet with gentle splashes. “Teacher.” Seeming to grow a bit bored, Aleksey spoke up in a low voice. “Hmm?” Thinking he was feeling troubled again, Gennady replied in a gentle tone. “Teacher, back on the battlefield, did you see that female officer shooting from a distance? Out of the two snipers who assisted General Bochen, the woman was Miss Milla… She's the girl I fell in love with at first sight, the one I wrote to you about before.” As Aleksey spoke, he offered an unprompted, self-satisfied grin. *He actually has the mind to chat about this right now?!* Gennady felt exasperated. “Oh. And does she…” “She doesn't like me.” “No, that she doesn't like you is a given. I was going to ask how she ended up in Stream Vanguard,” Gennady said with a sharp, smiling jab. “Looks like you really don't know, Teacher. Oh right, you were injured then and weren't there. Back when your faction staged the rebellion, the person Major Qing brought over ten thousand men to rescue was Miss Milla.” “……” “If not for that, maybe you rebels could have held out a bit longer. Am I right, Teacher?” Aleksey jabbed back. “Yes,” Gennady admitted candidly with a smile. “Which goes to show, beautiful women are always the most dangerous.” *Bang!* A perilous gunshot echoed across the sea from South America. The hundred-person Qing Spear-class airship hovered on the perimeter of the battlefield, while the ten-person Swordfish took the risk of streaking directly across the combat zone. At the instant of its lateral pass, the nine occupants aside from Milla—including Wu Xu and Theodore—all ejected and plunged toward the battlefield, while Milla fired her rifle. They had reached the front lines. What they did not yet realize was that this battlefield was vast—immensely vast.