It was Shu You.
Before the figure even came into sight, Wu Xu could tell roughly from the intensity and rhythm of the source energy surges.
In that instant, the nimble, fighting figure of the Cat Girl flashed across his mind once more. Unconsciously, Wu Xu murmured in a low voice, "Sorry."
*Sorry, it's not you I found.*
Facing a red-shoulder, Nguyen Thi Minh Nguyet was probably among the weakest of the super combat powers—or at least posed very little threat to a red-shoulder. That was determined by her trait and fighting style, a judgment Wu Xu had reached long ago.
*She might already be dead...*
In truth, everyone in Stream Vanguard eventually learned about that little episode from Wu Xu's final days in the City of Sin—they knew that Nguyen Thi Minh Nguyet, the Enchanting Cat Girl, had finally fallen for a man. Pity that the man happened to be Wu Xu.
They had even known all along that after their departure, Nguyen Thi Minh Nguyet's faction was the one that cared the most about Stream Vanguard—even more than that bunch of roughnecks in the Azure Dragon Gang.
Over the past period of time, news that Stream Vanguard was in peril had spread roughly twice. And far away in the City of Sin, the forces under Nguyen Thi Minh Nguyet had assembled twice in response.
"On what grounds?!"
"Yeah! This is just too stupid. She's Boss Minh Nguyet! Rumor had it she hated men..."
"Sigh, these things truly defy all reason."
The rascals down below always said such things.
Whenever Rusty Sister overheard them, she would pop up and protest indignantly, "What's that supposed to mean? Our Xu-er is obviously very charming, okay?"
"No matter how charming he is, he's still a block of wood!" The scoundrels were unfazed and retorted, "Oh right, you probably wouldn't notice. After all, you've got a block of iron right next to you—dead iron, no less."
After hearing these things so many times, someone would inevitably tease Wu Xu with them—people like Wen Jifei, He Tangtang, the Little Prince, and even Rusty Sister.
So Wu Xu was naturally aware of it.
He just never reacted.
*Boom!*
Traveling with a maximum burst of speed, Wu Xu tossed the Little Prince aside and charged toward the battlefield alone.
When he arrived, only Shu You and an Azure super remained on the scene, the two of them taking on two red-shoulders at once.
The other wounded fighter had likely pulled out of the battle because he simply couldn't hold on any longer, or... Wu Xu didn't let his thoughts wander further.
On the battlefield, hearing the roar of a source energy apparatus bursting to life, Shu You used the recoil of an exchange to swing away. He quickly glanced back, white hair dripping with blood.
The fight was harder than expected. Almost from start to finish, Shu You had been forced to attend to both red-shoulders at once, and his stagnation trait wasn't particularly effective against red-shoulders.
It wasn't a bad trait; rather, its intensity was still insufficient.
Over the past years, Shu You had been stuck at a combat bottleneck. He had painstakingly gathered a few Bones of Eternal Life, which offered a slight boost, only to be swindled out of them.
In any case, it was fortunate that Shu You's combat power was inherently formidable; otherwise, they would never have lasted this long.
Shu You naturally recognized Wu Xu.
"The one on your left," he called out the instant he saw him.
Because the one on the left had already been injured by him.
"Mm," Wu Xu responded without hesitation, a majestic surge of source energy detonating instantly.
*Whoosh!*
The 2.4-meter black Binggu Spear vibrated as it drove straight toward the center of one red-shoulder's back.
"..." Shu You stared blankly at him mid-dash.
At a moment when he shouldn't be feeling exasperation, he couldn't help a flash of annoyance. *Didn't I tell you the one on your left?!*
"He doesn't know his left from his right," the Little Prince finally arrived, explaining as he kicked his burst up another notch and plunged into the fray.
"Oh." Switching targets again would waste time, so Shu You had no choice but to turn and engage the wounded red-shoulder.
The Little Prince charged up.
"Go over there and help them," Shu You said.
Wu Xu's source energy surges seemed somewhat unstable; he might be injured. Having sparred with him privately several times in the past, Shu You had sensed it from that spear strike just now. But with no time to ask—and no point in asking—he kept quiet.
Over there, it was three against one.
Here, the originally envisioned one-on-one duel finally materialized.
Having held out alone until now, Shu You was in terrible shape. But the red-shoulder before him was also injured—cut by his blade.
Shu You knew the situation just as well as the Little Prince: they had to end this fight as quickly as possible. Only then would the two with Nguyen Thi Minh Nguyet have a slim hope of survival.
Thus, this fight carried the lives of comrades, the nearly forfeited dignity of the Dome Leaderboard's seventh rank, and all the pent-up frustration accumulated throughout the battle.
*Chzz-crackle-crackle...* Like the sound of a snowline instantly freezing over and spreading.
*Boom!* Shu You ignited his life source energy.
The once-graceful King of the City of Sin still held his silver longsword, but like a madman, he lunged at the red-shoulder...
"Even if my trait is useless, I'll still slaughter you!"
Source energy surged, metal clashed against iron, and Shu You kicked the tempo of the entire battlefield up to another level.
At such close range, under such an assault, the sheer noise, source energy fluctuations, and rhythm were enough to leave the Azure super and the Little Prince on the other side struggling to keep pace.
Yet Wu Xu kept up.
*His source energy has clearly been fluctuating violently the whole time...*
Not daring to let his focus waver, Shu You stopped thinking and pushed his movements even further. In that one-on-one arena, his silhouette remained an afterimage almost the entire time...
Three minutes.
Five minutes.
Under the tempestuous onslaught, the heavily wounded red-shoulder gradually grew unable to hold its ground. A kill was only a matter of time.
"...Chak!" a sudden sound rang out.
Startled, Shu You turned his head to see that Wu Xu had closed in at some point and drawn the blue light column sword from behind his back.
And now, that massive column sword was withdrawing from the left side of the red-shoulder's neck...
It was the red-shoulder on his side!
A flanking sneak attack from behind, delivering the killing blow.
Meanwhile, on the other side, Wu Xu held their own target at bay with his spear. Because his attention and power had been divided, the butt of his spear had dug deep into his shoulder socket.
"You..."
"Had a burst of strength just now. Perfect opening," Wu Xu turned and said. "Kill it, hurry."
…………
"Holy shit! Holy shit!"
On the original main battlefield, it had been a long time since more than three shuttle crafts appeared in the sky simultaneously. This seemed to confirm Zhu Jiaming's earlier deduction: the forces arriving from Antarctica had almost finished dropping.
Yet now, after such a long interval, a swarm of over a hundred shuttle crafts suddenly appeared all at once, scattering as they plummeted toward the ground.
There were still over a thousand wounded in the fortifications. Boss Dao grew tense.
"It's fine. We have enough people," Lao Xiu smiled, grabbing Boss Dao to keep him back. "As long as we don't let them mass together, we'll be fine."
With that, Lao Xiu led his fighters into the fray.
Then Black Tooth led his people into the fray.
Although the five strongest were gone, and most of Stream Vanguard's remaining personnel had fanned out to reinforce various battlefields, there were still enough people. Aside from the forces from the City of Sin who had stayed behind, they now had two additional top-tiers, plus Miss Captain and her rifle.
*Bang, bang, bang...*
The gunshots were steady, but the tempo spiked dramatically.
Milla was beginning to harvest the battlefield.
At the same time, the moment the Great Spikes ejected from their craft, Lao Xiu, Black Tooth, and the Sin City fighters launched into action to carve up and disrupt the enemy.
As the melee erupted, He Tangtang found that he seemed to have been overlooked. Nobody called him, and he wasn't assigned to protect Captain Milla either—two other people had been specially assigned to guard her on the field.
"Sigh, the great Kidney Striker!"
"A future super Yanxiu..."
He Tangtang sighed dejectedly, turned, and looked up.
In the sky, a lone alien craft swooping in an arc entered his field of vision, descending toward the rear of the battlefield.
"Boss Dao! Boss Dao... Dao Dali!"
"What is it?" Boss Dao asked, bewildered.
"...A red-shoulder," He Tangtang said numbly.
Chapter 688