"Will Qingzi really be all right like this?" Rusty Sister turned around, looking worriedly at Wen Jifei's back.
"He'll be fine." Wen Jifei didn't pause, waving a hand as he walked down the mountain. "We just need to keep a close eye on the surroundings and make sure no one slips inside. On the surface, this place looks like it's all Azure personnel apart from us, but in truth, people from all sorts of organizations could be here."
There were other factions in Antarctica.
Those people might be lurking in some corner of the icefield, or they might be blended right into Azure's coalition of 1.8 million troops.
It couldn't be helped; the scale of the Azure Coalition was simply too massive and its composition far too mixed. The earlier mass conscription had inevitably opened the doors to infiltration.
"Oh," Rusty Sister replied hesitantly, shifting her gaze slightly. She wasn't surprised that Wen Jifei was leaving—after all, Plague Chicken still had to organize and inspect the perimeter defenses outside.
But why had Xu'er also left so without worry?
One had to know that ever since the assassination incident in the Maple Leaf Country, Xu'er's care, attention, and protection toward Qingzi had been tighter than a hen guarding her chicks.
"Actually, he could have jumped up," Wu Xu spoke up, a rare occurrence.
Rusty Sister didn't catch it at first and asked, "What?"
"Jumped up." Wu Xu reminded Rusty Sister of a very simple fact, continuing, "He saw me jump, but he didn't. Because deep down, he still leans toward fighting."
"..." Rusty Sister understood immediately. Even as Qingzi was terrified, cursing up a storm and running for his life, he actually still wanted to test himself.
That was why he merely ran—evading the terror of facing death head-on while avoiding a direct clash with the swarm of Great Spikes, seeking a safer opportunity to strike, rather than scaling the cliff face like Wu Xu had.
"Don't worry. Don't forget that during those two-plus months at the base, he dodged who knows how many of Plague Chicken's and Captain Milla's bullets, and got chased and slashed at by Weize for so far it could probably circle the globe several times..."
Yang Qingbai's banter came to an abrupt halt before he could finish. He stood on tiptoe to peer into the distance. "Huh? Seems like there's some commotion outside. What's going on?!"
***
He Tangtang didn't give chase.
Little Prince dashed around in a wide loop across the icefield before realizing He Tangtang hadn't pursued him at all, which finally made him genuinely uneasy.
Picking up girls was something that had only just begun. If Tangtang had simply chased him down in a fit of shame and fury to vent his frustration, there wouldn't have been any lingering issues afterward.
*Given his temper, though, he didn't move at all, let alone chase after me... Is he really that tormented and miserable over this?*
When Little Prince returned to that original ice crag, He Tangtang was still squatting on it.
Because the crag was over ten meters high and quite broad, squatting right in the middle meant people below in all four directions couldn't see him at all.
And so he sat there alone with his head down, moping as he weakly jabbed an extinguished cigarette butt against the surface of the ice.
"What, really not going to hack at me?" Little Prince asked tentatively as he approached, his tone somewhat timid.
He Tangtang slowly raised his head, glanced at him, and said, "I'm waiting until you get hurt, then I'll eat you whole."
Harsh words, but uttered just as weakly.
"No way, really?" Little Prince squatted down and offered another cigarette. "Did you fall for her that fast?"
He Tangtang knocked the cigarette away. Without denying it, he paused and said, "I'm damn near going bald, and this was the very first time I met such a pretty gi... who looked at me with stars filling both of her eyes."
"Blatant admiration and affection, right?" Little Prince looked into He Tangtang's eyes. "In truth, though, you just lust after her body..."
"Fuck off!" *Lust after your uncle! Was it just lust? If it was just lust, could I, He Tangtang of the renowned Stream Vanguard, have stayed starved all this time in this world?*
He kept the thought to himself, too tired to argue with Little Prince.
"Hehe, actually, lusting isn't a problem either." Little Prince chuckled lewdly, wearing a grin just like when he used to sit by the roadside in the City of Sin gazing at brothel entrances—perhaps even sleazier. "I just asked around for you. She's completely transitioned, completely... You get what I mean? Besides, Nisha has lived as a woman ever since she was little."
He Tangtang gave him a cold stare.
"Let me put it this way: next time, look closely—she barely even has an Adam's apple," Little Prince continued. "In short, other than being unable to have kids, Nisha is fundamentally a woman. And a super pretty, super feminine woman at that... On top of that, she's very likely to become a super combat power."
He Tangtang blinked. "Why are you telling me all this? Don't tell me you're..."
"What I mean is, why don't we roll with it and go for it anyway?" As Little Prince spoke, his eyes lit up with excitement as he looked at He Tangtang.
"Go for your uncle!" He Tangtang averted his eyes, turning his head and muttering, "Fuck, you've got my head completely messed up now."
"It's your first time, after all," Little Prince said earnestly. "Everyone's first romance is fairly messy."
"No one's is ever this fucking messy!" He Tangtang felt an aggrieved surge of indignant grief.
"Uh, yeah, yours really is a bit exceptionally messy. But no matter what, it's still your first time!" Little Prince stoked his emotions, taking an abrupt leap in logic as he continued: "Or think about it like this: the world is ending anyway, and there's no way we can beat Puta'er and Miwang..."
"What? What do you mean?" Two seconds later, it dawned on He Tangtang. "Holy shit! Don't tell me you're fucking encouraging me?!"
"Yeah, so what? What the hell are you afraid of?" Little Prince said with brazen nonchalance. "Don't forget, you're He Tangtang! You even dared to eat Great Spikes! You've eaten humans!"
"What I fucking ate was a Yanxiu, okay?!"
"Right! You dared to eat even a Yanxiu! You aren't even human anymore, so what the fuck are you afraid of?!" Little Prince's emotions were so worked up, it sounded like an impassioned address before the entire army.
"Wait, it's my business, what are you getting so hyped up about?" He Tangtang was thoroughly baffled and depressed.
"Just... don't you think it's really thrilling?" Having said that, Little Prince couldn't hold back his laughter.
"Fuck off!"
This time, He Tangtang finally drew his blade. Little Prince took off like a shot. One chasing the other, *swoosh, swoosh*, they whipped past the edge of the Thai Front's formation.
***
"Holy crap, Pink Hair," Yang Qingbai said helplessly.
"Yeah, should've known. Who else has a brain damaged enough to pick fights and challenge their own allies right in front of the battle line?" Wen Jifei was even more exasperated.
Because Qingzi needed to get his battle feel back, Stream Vanguard had staked out an area of their own, setting up a perimeter defense around the outside.
Now, it wasn't that the group of them had reached the perimeter position; rather, the troops maintaining the perimeter had collectively shifted toward the canyon.
Figures crowded across the snow. On one side stood the two thousand members of Stream Vanguard, while on the other was Pegmont leading a handful of people, along with a crowd of spectating bigwigs.
"Theodore's fighting someone! Though neither is going for the kill!" Rusty Sister observed.
A huge circle had cleared in the center of the crowd, where two men were locked in combat. One was Theodore, a super combat power of Stream Vanguard, and the other was an unfamiliar young face wearing the uniform of the Mitli Front.
*Whoosh! Whoosh!*
Ice and snow churned like towering waves as the two duelists charged headlong at each other. Yet in the instant before colliding, both sheathed their weapons simultaneously—one driving a knee upward, the other raising an elbow.
*Boom!*
Two bodies with super combat power crashed thunderously against each other.
Landing, each staggered back seven or eight steps.
The outcome was clear: neither had won, neither had lost.
Yet with a result like this, Theodore's expression showed his embarrassment first. No matter how one looked at it, he was an established, long-famous super combat power who had been one of Stream Vanguard's pillars for years, whereas his opponent was a newcomer fresh on the scene.
"Oh, looks like you're not cutting it," pink hair fluttering, Pegmont's irritating voice squawked noisily. "Your Stream Vanguard can't even handle Aksasa now. What're you going to do? Who's going to handle me?"
Pegmont had come specifically to pick a fight with Stream Vanguard.
Over the past six months and more, he had made immense progress. He clearly hadn't been through any major battles or trained exceptionally hard, yet inexplicably, his growth had been enormous.
So much so that a few days before deploying, he had fought Amugulang from the Dome Leaderboard one-on-one and chased him off.
The reasons and exact logic behind Pegmont's progress were known to only a few people in the world. Originally, those few hadn't included Pegmont himself, but recently, even Pegmont had begun to sense something.
His sudden, massive leap forward during this period seemed connected to hearing that Han Qingyu had become crippled.
Because Han Qingyu was the sole psychological obstacle haunting Pegmont's braindead conceit.
Chapter 776