Threat

Thousands of vessels carrying residents of Oceania lay anchored on the waters not far offshore. Suspended high behind them hovered thousands of pitch-black Great Spike craft. Considering that a batch had already been wiped out on the battlefield and another follow-up force from Antarctica had headed to South America, these Great Spike craft most likely came from the twenty-seven cities blanketed across the globe. As for how they had arrived, no one knew for the time being. By now, the civilians aboard the ships had ceased their wailing and cries for help. Under an atmosphere of despair, dread, and eerie tension, a deathly silence fell over them. At the same time, over two hundred thousand Azure soldiers drew their blades and stood in formation along the coastline, prepared to fight to the death... yet powerless to do anything. More reinforcements were rushing forward with everything they had, but even when they arrived, it seemed they would be unable to resolve the crisis before their eyes. Unless every single resident leapt into the sea at the exact same instant, and hundreds of thousands of Azure troops plunged into the water alongside them to pull people out. Yet the risk of doing so was catastrophic. The Great Spike craft were positioned far too close. They were fast enough to ram, detonate, and obliterate the ships within one to two seconds, then eject their pilots to engage in battle. A half? A third? No one knew how many people would survive if they attempted it, or how many Azure warriors would perish in the sea. Suffocating, crushing oppression—an oppression that surpassed even terror and rage—spread between the ocean and the shore, pushing countless minds toward collapse. High in the air, the voice had finally faded. The massive, specialized craft remained hovering, churning the surrounding air continuously through source energy vibrations. This allowed the Daie to stand steady in midair, looking down upon all. This Daie was undeniably the same one that had previously appeared over more than a dozen cities worldwide. It was just that Azure still could not determine what had happened to the one whose arm had been severed by General Ivan at Xiongzhanli—had it regenerated, or were there actually two Daies? If there really were two... "Damn it all, it'd be better if they all just charged at us together so we could hack it out! If we die, we die!" Zhao Erzhu suddenly muttered behind Lao Jian amidst the coastline's dead silence. "Who says it wouldn't?" Hu Biaomao exhaled heavily, his jaw clenched so hard his teeth ground together audibly. Neither wanted to look up at the Daie, yet they could not help tilting their heads back to glare at it. Han Qingyu did not mind looking up. His gaze stayed fixed on the Daie in the sky, though he remained silent. Wen Jifei glanced at him twice, hesitating until the third time before finally whispering in their hometown dialect, "Don't be reckless. Let's see how things develop first. Let's see if Azure has a countermeasure." "I know. I can't reach it up there right now anyway," Han Qingyu replied quietly, also in dialect, while suppressing his body's energy fluctuations until they were virtually undetectable. The brief exchange ended there. At the same time, another person not far away finally pulled his gaze back from Han Qingyu. *Looks like he really is crippled,* Pegmont thought. *He just said he was counting on me. Yeah, he did. If I do nothing, wouldn't that look bad? It'd be like I'm scared of this Daie...* *Whoosh!* A sudden surge of source energy erupted, and Pegmont looked up toward the sky. "Fuck! You think this is funny?! I'll fucking—" After a torrent of profanity, perhaps realizing that swearing alone did not showcase his caliber, Pegmont switched his angle: "Who says no one can leave? Haven't we already evacuated millions? You piece of shit! If I want to leave right now, why don't you grow a pair and come down here to cut me down?!" "..." His source energy carried the shout far into the distance, met only by the coastline's silence. In the sky, the Daie finally turned its head slowly and looked at him. And it simply kept watching him. "Come on! Get down here!" Pegmont gripped his blade with his right hand and waved his left beckoningly in the air. "Is that guy suicidal? Or is he deliberately stirring up trouble? What a menace!" "...An opportunity!" At the same moment, two entirely different thoughts arose. *If the Daie really gets provoked and comes down to kill Pegmont...* The strongest super combat powers among Azure along the shore began shifting stealthily, attempting to close into striking distance. Han Qingyu stood calmly. He glanced first at the high-grade combat blade slung behind Yang Qingbai's back, then felt for the blade behind his own, as well as the column sword hidden in the vehicle. "If it really comes down, remember: run! Call out for everyone to scatter in every direction immediately, as fast as they can," Han Qingyu murmured to Wen Jifei in dialect. This instruction was not merely due to the threat of the Daie; it was also because of Han Qingyu's own eruption. If he unleashed a death-defying burst right now, what magnitude would it reach? To be frank, Han Qingyu himself was not entirely sure. He had already been immensely powerful, constantly improving over the years; not long ago, he had absorbed half of a skeleton, which included two horn bones. Over the past month or so, enduring agonizing torment, he had used peak bone source to firmly lock General Ivan's life-burning attribute energy within his own body. And with that energy burning, General Ivan had severed a Daie's arm with his bare hands. While General Ivan's combat power from erupting life source energy might not have ranked in humanity's top five later on, his desperate attribute combustion was arguably among humanity's absolute strongest. Therefore, there was at least one thing Han Qingyu could be certain of: if those around him did not get clear of his eruption in time, the ordinary fighters in his immediate vicinity—including Wen Jifei, Captain Lao, and Zhe Qiuhong—would be reduced to ashes in an instant. Aside from supers, perhaps only Rusty Sister could barely survive. In the sky, the Daie continued watching Pegmont. Pegmont continued looking up, hurling taunts. He seemed to relish the role, growing increasingly worked up. Aside from him, the entire field was dead silent. The tension was wound taut as a bowstring, poised on a knife-edge... Everyone waited for the Daie to descend and strike him down. ... Yet they had all forgotten one thing: the Great Spike race seemed impervious to provocation. This Daie in particular had consistently shown zero reaction to such antics. Slowly, the Daie turned its head away. No matter how Pegmont taunted, it did not look at him again. Instead, it cast its gaze into the distance. "Halt. Stop where you are, and come back. Return beneath my feet." That nauseating voice echoed once more, this time addressed to the Oceanian civilians fleeing toward the interior. "If you do not wish to die this very moment..." it continued. On the ground, the masses fleeing inland gradually slowed to a stop. Up in the sky, the remnants of the Oceanian Great Spike swarm, which had previously pulled up into defensive positions, mobilized once more. Spreading out as they descended, they bore down upon the people. In a situation like this, Azure could not prevent so many from being slaughtered. The residents of Oceania had come to understand this days ago. Azure understood it even better. "..." At this moment, hundreds of thousands of Azure troops, including the command headquarters and the Rejectors, were coughing blood internally from frustration, but they were utterly powerless. Ultimately, driven by the pressure of the Great Spike craft, the six million Oceanian civilians on land all returned to the coastline. With that, including the Azure forces, approximately ten million people were concentrated near the northeastern coast of Oceania. Cries and wails made the place seem all the more "quiet." "What do you want?! Why don't you just fight us?!" Finally, from a corner of the Europa Coalition ranks, Christine stepped out, looking up and shouting at the top of her lungs. She had already crossed paths with this Daie several times. The Daie glanced at her without speaking, then turned its gaze to sweep across the coastline. It looked only at the civilians, ignoring the soldiers. "Now, kill the person beside you." "Kill him, and you shall live. You will be permitted to call me God." The demonic voice reverberated. Its previous stance had been an unwavering declaration to exterminate all humanity, yet now it had changed its tune! Deception, intimidation, exploiting human weakness? No one knew where it had learned such things. Perhaps it had watched human television dramas, or read trashy pulp fiction. In reality, from the Daie's perspective, it knew full well that if it used its own subordinates to carry out this slaughter, they would die in droves. And slaughtering civilians was not its true objective anyway. What it truly sought to destroy was the will and faith of this entire world—especially the convictions held by those human source energy warriors. *Descend into darkness and despair, humans.* It had indeed learned much. It waited in anticipation, thinking to itself. Silence. Heavy, suffocating silence... Within the densely packed crowd along the shore, someone finally began to waver, stirring with intent. Under the increasingly feral gazes of those around them, some shrank back in terror, pleading incessantly. "No!" Christine's source energy flared as she roared with grief and fury. "Whoever dares do that, Azure will judge them with our blades!" she yelled. "Keep your eyes on them! Whoever moves, kill them..." she commanded. At once, half of the Azure warriors turned around. *Clatter...* Blades were gripped in hand. The unrest was finally suppressed for the time being. "...It seems you lack courage. Very well. I am willing to grant you time to prepare and carry out this mission... When tomorrow's sun rises, I shall return to begin the slaughter." The Daie did not seem in any hurry. Having spoken, it swept its gaze over them once more, took a single step into the craft, and vanished into the sky. Yet that special craft remained hovering high above. The coastline fell into dead silence.