Daie's Response

Pegmont had two reasons for shouting "Stand aside!" First, if they didn't, the top super combatants would likely die. Intercepting Daie from below put them at an absolute disadvantage, and simply put, they were not strong enough. Second, because he was swelling with ego. As someone inherently prone to getting a swelled head, Pegmont's inflation rate in this moment outstripped even the speed of his charge and blade. The super combatants hit the brakes, their silhouettes descending in midair. If they continued to interfere, they would be caught directly between the frontal clash of Daie and Pegmont, which would clearly work against Pegmont. At the same time, they could already sense a tidal wave of source energy roaring from Pegmont's direction—surging, turbulent, and nearly overwhelming. Mixed within that colossal wave was an aura of indestructible, enduring nature, like a green sprout born from the ashes of history, growing frantically larger by the second. "So strong!" "Yeah." Even as the seniors rejoiced, a touch of bewilderment and sorrow inevitably crept into their hearts. This current generation—the super combatants who had emerged over the past three years or so, officially stepping onto the stage of history with the Zenith War as their demarcation line, symbolized by figures like Han Qingyu—shone as brilliantly as a cluster of stars. The world looked upon them in admiration, calling them "the strongest generation in history" and the "Destiny Generation." Now, it seemed truly so. Barring any unforeseen disasters, they would be the core backbone humanity could rely upon most in its continuing resistance. *Ch-room!* Though the super canyon was immense and open, the head-on collision forced out a howling roar like a high-speed train tearing through a tunnel. The howl was brief. In midair, a massive black phantom and a comparatively small blur of deep blue laced with pink pierced through the sonic boom, closing in instantly and crashing together with a thunderous boom. In battle, what style best showcased a warrior's sheer presence? The answer was, without doubt, brute force. No flashy tricks, just a frontal blast of power against power. And that was precisely what Pegmont did. This was already the second slash. As the blast waves rolled outward from the midair clash, Daie's figure became visible. It had not retreated—aside from the natural separation caused by the impact, it had not yielded an inch. Tensely, everyone cast their gaze toward the other side. *Whoosh!* A brief clamor instantly died into utter silence. Pegmont had not retreated either. Holding his blade with one hand, he stood suspended in midair, chin tilted slightly upward in a stubborn and arrogant posture, his pink hair whipping fiercely against the wind. People remembered that this posture—standing unsupported in empty air—had once been possible only for the Great Spike Daie. Later, after that fateful strike at Zenith, Han Qingyu had also stood high in the sky for a short while. He had been the first human to achieve it. From that, people had deduced that once someone mastered the proper techniques for manipulating source energy, Legion Commander Chen and Admiral Bochen might be able to achieve it as well. Yet nobody had ever imagined that the second person to accomplish this feat would be Pegmont. Just as people had once calculated who in this world could stand toe-to-toe against Daie. The answers had been: Legion Commander Chen; Ne, who was rumored to be closest to him in strength; the former Major Qing; or perhaps General Bochen, if his body ever fully recovered. No one had factored in this pink-haired kid, a guy whose embarrassing jokes and death-seeking stunts had been published in compilations. Not a single soul—including the past Pegmont himself. And including Daie. Compared to the humans, Daie at this moment found the reality before its eyes even harder to accept. Humans were, by nature, imaginative creatures who always harbored hopes for miracles and unexpected twists. Great Spikes, on the other hand, were exceedingly rigorous. Over the past year and more, Daie had conducted meticulous statistical analyses and combat planning. Consequently, after this second clash of blades, Daie was rendered completely speechless. The understanding of humanity it had painstakingly built over more than a year of intense learning was thrown into total chaos. Its reaction highlighted a question that humanity had not yet researched or addressed: just how complex was the Yanxiu system? Because even Daie, an advanced being hailing from a Yanxiu civilization, clearly had never heard of or understood a trait as bizarre and utterly shameless as Pegmont's. Otherwise, it would have at least suspected something along those lines. As the person who had once occupied the number one spot on the Hope List for the longest time, Pegmont was the single greatest glitch in this world. Even after his ranking later slipped to second, he remained so. At the same time, however, among the great figures who understood the world best, someone had once remarked: when it came to weird traits, Pegmont could only rank second. As for what the weirdest trait in the world was, whom it belonged to, and what it did... to this day, no wider audience knew. It had never even been mentioned. *** "On what grounds?" Daie finally spoke. Daie's voice was very distinct. According to the autopsy and analytical results from Laboratory No. 0, Great Spikes produced sound via source energy vibrations. Daie's voice was like that of a gigantic loudspeaker—deep, raspy, accompanied by resonance and reverberation. That vocal texture lent a comical nuance to its tone when it completed the sentence. "On what fucking grounds?" It was spoken in pure, fluent Huaxian, thick with confusion. Most people understood it. Given the Huaxia Front's massive influence in the world of source energy, nearly everyone understood a bit of the language. If it weren't so difficult to learn, it might have replaced English in communications across the various Azure factions. No one answered it. Because at this very moment, many people were wondering the exact same thing: *On what fucking grounds?!* Just moments ago, this pink-haired fellow had been panting and sweating just fighting a Red Shoulder, hadn't he? Had he known Daie was here all along and held back his strength? "Well? How's that? Fierce or what?! Hahahahaha!" Hovering in midair less than thirty meters from Daie, Pegmont suddenly turned his head and bellowed with laughter. By now, he had concluded that Daie could not kill him. "Fierce!" "Mighty!" *"Roar!"* Excited shouts resonated through the entire canyon. "Then leave this thing to me," Pegmont turned back around, pointing his blade at Daie, and called out, "Rest easy! At the very least, I'll stall it!" At that exact instant— "Badass," Wen Jifei murmured with mixed emotions far away on the Eastern Front, listening to the situation on the Western Front over the Rejectors' channel. He had a faint hunch and vague suspicions that Pegmont possessed some peculiar quality, and that the Chief of Staff's order for Qingzi to call him and say those specific words had a hidden purpose... but none of it was certain or concrete. Naturally, that couldn't be brought up for open discussion. So the circle of people around him remained just as bewildered and dazed as the forces on the Western Front. "Sigh!" Simultaneously, elsewhere. Chief of Staff Xu Xiaohong, who had temporarily stepped out of the conference room to sit alone in a separate room, sighed in unison with three old fogies secluded in a secret chamber at Azure Headquarters. That sigh carried both helplessness and regret. Pegmont's ego inflated very quickly, but in the end, it hadn't inflated to the point where he believed he could hack Daie to death. Because in his heart, his ceiling lay with Han Qingyu—and slightly below him at that. And Han Qingyu had previously relied on General Ivan's trait to charge into the decisive battle at Zenith and kill Daie with a single strike—a desperate, fatal slash that had left him grievously wounded in the aftermath. *Why does this idiot... why does he have to be logical?!* Equally regretful was Makarov, who was right there on the scene. Unlike the others, alongside his regret, Makarov felt tremendous alarm. Through his sniper scope, Daie appeared to be pulling back. Just as Pegmont adopted an offensive stance for the first time, Daie retreated. And when Pegmont finally slashed his long blade forward— *Boom!* Moving at a speed surpassing ordinary human cognitive limits, Daie shifted its form, streaking diagonally downward and slamming directly into the very front of the charging human column. In a split second, over a hundred soldiers were killed. Then, as Pegmont pursued it hot on its heels, only a blur flickered past. *Boom!* Daie evaded, snapped back, and struck the Azure vanguard once more. It was fleeing, yet also fighting, using an utterly disgraceful tactic to obstruct the advance and reinforcement of Azure's Western Front army. This was an outcome no one had anticipated. Logically, it made total sense, but its actual occurrence caught everyone completely off guard. Many soldiers never even realized what shift had taken place on the battlefield before they met their end. *Boom!* Another impact. Corpses littered the canyon in swaths. "Fuck! Do you have even a shred of warrior's pride left?! Fuck your Great Spike grandmother, you shameless piece of trash!" Pegmont pursued in its wake, howling and cursing in sheer fury... Yet it was useless. Long experience had already taught humanity that Daie was impervious to taunts and would never act purely out of emotion. Pegmont could certainly go slaughter Red Shoulders instead, but because the human army's current objective was not to wage a decisive battle here, doing so held little meaning. Twisting its form again in midair, Daie's target this time appeared to be the seven top super combatants. They had just broken out on their own initiative, intentionally presenting a posture of leading a breakthrough. "Here it comes." "Yeah." A billowing wave of source energy arrived first, followed by the slash of a column sword... "...Hold it here," Commander Hua said in a low voice, his eyes flashing with resolute murderous intent as he glanced at Pegmont rushing in from the air behind.