For at that moment, up in the sky, a Qing Spear-class hundred-man craft suddenly appeared in view, hurtling to intercept the airspace above Daie.
No one knew where it had launched from, nor what path it had taken.
Daie seemed to have only just sensed it as well. Its immediate reaction was to blast backward, opening up distance.
Within the next second:
Daie's aerial craft streaked like lightning, slamming toward the Qing Spear-class craft.
The Qing Spear tilted on its side as its emergency ejection triggered, and two human figures leaped into the air.
Appearing even earlier than their silhouettes—or rather, drawing all eyes first—was an enormous piece of dead iron shaped like a maul, trailing a thick, long iron chain behind it.
Only one person could wield the Skybreaker Hammer: General Bochen, who had not yet recovered from his grave injuries.
And the pilot of the craft turned out to be Christine.
Ranked third and fourth on the Dome Leaderboard. Setting aside the rumored, severely wounded Legion Commander of Huaxia, Azure had deployed the strongest combat power at its disposal for an all-out gamble.
Both unleashed death-defying bursts simultaneously, executing an interception across the empty sky.
Yet because Daie had chosen to evade, and because its craft had intervened, the distance between the two sides was not actually close enough...
In the next second:
The Qing Spear-class human source energy craft took a direct hit mid-fuselage. The rear half shattered instantly, while the front half wobbled and struggled onward, propelled by pure momentum.
Clang-clang-clang! The dead iron chain snapped taut in the sky.
Whoosh! The sky-breaking maul howled as it crashed toward Daie's chest.
This was an impact far more ferocious than when General Bochen had battered craft on the Hughenden battlefield—a desperate, all-or-nothing burn of his limits.
Clang!
The sound was like a ten-thousand-jin bell struck by iron.
The sound wave rippled outward in a visible distortion.
Crack-crack-crack-crack! Amid the splintering noise, dense fissures spread across the iron armor on Daie's chest.
Reddish-blue blood seeped out through the cracks.
Cheers were just about to erupt...
Yet at the same instant—slash!
The dead iron chain connected to the giant maul was severed. The high-grade dead iron chain had been sliced apart by a blue radiant column sword. This was certainly not merely a difference in material, but evidence that Daie, too, was fighting for its life.
The severed chain whipped back and ripped free of Bochen's grip. Already an arrow at the end of its flight, General Bochen coughed up a mouthful of blood.
The giant hammer tumbled toward the sea.
"Awooogh!" Daie had already learned human speech, yet this roar sounded purely bestial.
Then it erupted midair once more. Boom! A continuous string of sonic booms detonated, and the air burst in solid clouds along a straight line.
It charged forward, bent on killing Bochen.
Whoosh! Christine kicked off Bochen's body midair, driving him downward toward the sea while sending herself rising and spinning, bracing to meet the attack.
It looked like she would die. At this altitude, a human had nowhere to stand and no surface to borrow leverage from.
Come on, Christine thought in anticipation.
This spot had been chosen deliberately. She had to hold Daie here for one to one and a half seconds... even if doing so meant her death.
That was also why she had kicked Bochen away.
However—whoosh! Daie abruptly broke off the attack and soared straight upward instead.
It pulled away to a towering height before coming to a halt outside another craft arriving from a different direction.
Christine began to fall.
Yet Daie did not look at her, nor did it pursue.
High above, it tilted its head and silently, warily studied the half-wrecked human craft tumbling toward the sea. It seemed to hesitate, but ultimately abandoned the thought.
***
"Sigh, can this thing still fly... How do you even fly it?"
Inside the mangled cabin of the craft, Chen Buer let out a helpless sigh.
If Daie had pressed forward just now, it would have died.
Had Chen Buer struck to kill it the moment it was gravely injured by Bochen, he would have had to pay a steep price, but the extent of self-inflicted damage toward his future would not have been nearly as severe as drawing his blade in a direct clash.
No one understood such subtle distinctions and control better than Chen Buer himself. He was currently in a weakened cycle; his physical state was roughly akin to a tiny flame struggling to burn damp firewood.
Under such conditions, the price of slaying Daie broke down into distinct outcomes:
Best-case scenario: a tiny spark would remain;
Second-best scenario: glowing red embers would linger;
Worst-case scenario: extinguished into dead ash.
Yet Daie had ultimately not come.
"Did it somehow sense my presence?"
Pondering this, Chen Buer let the craft wobble in free fall as he suddenly murmured to himself:
"Tell me, should I stop assuming the world's future will always need me? Without me, maybe new people will step up to carry it. Don't you think so, Comrade Xu Xiaohong?"
Comrade Xu Xiaohong was not present.
***
Splash! General Bochen's limp body plunged into the sea.
Moments later, Christine dropped into the water as well, but quickly resurfaced, holding General Bochen in her arms.
"Don't die!" Seawater streamed down Christine's face as she spoke with bloodshot eyes.
This was both her worry for Bochen and the manifestation of her own psychological state hovering on the brink of collapse.
Bochen could fight no longer.
"Alright," Bochen managed a faint tug at the corner of his mouth, speaking with immense difficulty.
At the same time, boom! That remaining half of the Qing Spear-class craft finally crashed thunderously into the sea.
Enormous waves surged toward the sky.
They crashed toward the coastline.
Worry, disappointment... despair... Along the entire coast, hope was extinguished like a fire drenched in water.
"There won't be another chance," some on shore suddenly realized.
"Even if there were, Azure can't put together a lineup capable of slaying Daie anymore."
Supers were dead and wounded, General Bochen's life hung in the balance, and Christine was not on the same tier as Bochen. Furthermore, her combat style was clearly unsuited for this sort of direct, head-on clash...
Unless the Legion Commander of Huaxia took the field. Yet everyone outside said he was near the end of his rope. Whether his intervention could even kill Daie remained uncertain, but he himself would surely die.
If that happened, even if Daie were killed today, would humanity have any future left?
Their thoughts came to an abrupt halt.
For along with the half-wrecked Qing Spear-class craft plunging into the sea and the towering waves surging upward... the Great Spikes appeared ready to retaliate. Roughly a quarter of the Great Spike craft hovering in the air gathered momentum and dove directly toward the ground, targeting the ships.
Only a quarter. In truth, this showed that Daie was still unwilling to commit to a decisive battle.
Yet a quarter was already terrifying enough when Azure still had so many civilians to protect.
"Jump!"
Below, across nearly every stretch of sea, Azure's scattered supers leaped into the air, slashing desperately to deflect the diving craft and shouting through vibrations of source energy.
The civilians of Oceania aboard the ships began jumping into the sea.
Those who froze or were too frightened to jump were pushed along by the Azure warriors on board, leaping together.
Whoosh-whoosh-whoosh-whoosh! Led by top-tier and sub-top-tier combatants alongside ordinary soldiers, over eight hundred massive javelins surged into the sea, their tips aimed skyward as they charged straight toward the diving Great Spike craft.
At the same time, more than two hundred massive javelins launched in the opposite direction, hurtling toward the Great Spike craft descending from over the land.
On the ground, hundreds of thousands of Azure officers and soldiers drew their blades, either guarding the dense crowds of civilians or actively seeking out grounded craft, pouncing forward the instant one appeared.
Chapter 692