"Fuck! We have to tell Plague Chicken and the others right away. By the looks of it, they might not even know yet." By the time Gu Zhazha thought of this, Han Qingyu had long vanished from sight, while the communicator lay crushed into a flattened lump, resting quietly on the ice.
He had lost communication with the regiment long ago, but fortunately, at Qingzi's speed, catching up to them probably wouldn't take long.
At the same time, with a sharp *clack*, the crisp sound of a metal casing snapping open and shut, his subordinate quickly finished replacing Gu Zhazha's life source energy block.
The life source energy blocks Han Qingyu had back-infused were not medicine for healing wounds, nor were they any sort of panacea. Their most vital function was to help a dying man cling to his last breath, replenishing life source energy so it would not be exhausted.
Against wounds that were instantly fatal on the spot, they were useless. In most other circumstances, however, they could buy precious time.
Vault-level life source energy, even if the infuser felt he hadn't put in much, was still abundant and formidable to an ordinary source energy warrior.
As for how long it could help one hold out, that depended on personal strength, the specific nature of the injuries, and whether subsequent medical treatment was prompt and effective.
"Sigh." The first breath Gu Zhazha drew as he came around felt like taking a deep drag from a cigarette and slowly blowing it out, yet sounded like a weary sigh. Lying flat on the ice, he squinted at his four subordinates. "How about I just die after all?"
"Huh?!"
"Think about it. Once Qingzi gets back and tells them we're still alive, hiding out on a peak... those bastards will definitely give me shit and say I was slacking off again."
Gu Zhazha thought to himself: *My damn life. I've been a sly rogue my entire life, and even when I finally want to go out in a blaze of glory, it's this hard.*
"But..." His subordinate hesitated, then bared his teeth in a grin. "Boss, I think they'll all be thrilled to know you're still alive."
"Really? I guess so," Gu Zhazha mused, perking up a bit.
"Of course, they definitely won't believe it at first, and you won't escape the teasing either," the subordinate added.
"..." Gu Zhazha nearly choked on his own breath. Catching himself after a moment, he grumbled, "Then I really should just die. Otherwise, it's way too humiliating."
***
On the western front, with the proportion of Red Shoulders dropping and Pegmont temporarily tying down Daie, the march back to reinforce the rear finally became much smoother.
They drew closer and closer to the peninsula,
and farther and farther from the pole.
Their backward glances were laden with too much guilt and heartache, but their footsteps could not halt for even a single second.
At the Antarctic Peninsula, the dajian swarms seemed to have received their orders as well. Knowing that the window of their advantage was rapidly closing, their frenzied onslaughts surged forward in wave after mounting wave.
Wolf stood alone with twin spears, battling two Red Shoulders single-handedly.
Logistics staff and staff officers were now manning the giant javelin emplacements.
Amidst repeated impacts and violent tremors, Yao Yue clung desperately to the doorframe of the communications room, refusing to let go, just to catch one more scrap of news from the eastern front.
*Hiss, hiss... click!*
A signal arrived from afar as Azure Headquarters' highest-priority, theater-wide broadcast suddenly cut in.
This was an override they had refrained from using even earlier when out of contact with the eastern front—first, because Council Chairman Kemore insisted on never applying coercive pressure on Stream Blades, and second, because doing so would monopolize a vast amount of Antarctica's communications resources.
Time was precious; the communicator carried not a single wasted word.
"The scapula. After breaking through the right shoulder blade from behind, there is a pulsating red point that can inflict maximum damage," a woman's voice said. "It is very small, nestled between the seams of bone. It is extremely difficult."
Having finished speaking, Zhe Qiuhong repeated it once more.
Dajians had no heart. Their battle-oriented evolutionary history had concealed virtually every fatal weak point; this was the single organ-like pulsating node that Laboratory No. 0 had finally discovered after shattering nearly every inch of bone in the Daie corpse.
According to the deductions and assessments of the few researchers present, piercing this node on an ordinary dajian should guarantee its death.
Its effect on Red Shoulders remained unknown, but it ought to cause severe damage.
Against a Daie, it was genuinely unknown—because the death of the Daie on the dissecting table had had nothing to do with this weak point at all. It had died after Han Qingyu cleaved it clean in two.
When the laboratory made the discovery, the Azure Council erupted. Chairman Kemore made an immediate decision and initiated the theater-wide broadcast cut-in... Yet, Zhe Qiuhong knew:
In truth, the practical value of this discovery might not be as great as everyone imagined.
The pulsating point itself was tiny, encased within an abnormally thick shoulder blade evolved for defense—the front was even thicker, and even if shattered, the node was difficult to see. In short, it was hard enough for ordinary warriors to break through the bone, let alone strike the weak point with precision.
Furthermore, dajians were tall; even ordinary dajians towered over humans. To strike this weak point, a human source energy warrior had to flank behind, leap into the air, strike the shoulder blade, leap into the air again... This sequence of maneuvers was far too difficult and dangerous for the vast majority of warriors.
It was even harder than the standard kill protocol.
"It can't be done! Doing it that way is worse than just hacking through blow by blow and slicing them to death!" On the western front, warriors quickly sent back practical feedback from the battlefield.
Such maneuvers could probably only be pulled off with ease when a super combat power faced an ordinary dajian. But super combat powers had no need for such finicky tactics against ordinary dajians—they could simply hack them down directly.
Therefore, the discovery certainly retained some value. For instance, when top-tier combat powers fought ordinary dajians, they might save considerable combat time, and under certain special circumstances or coincidences, it might abruptly turn the tide in isolated skirmishes.
However, it lacked the universal value people had envisioned—at least for now.
Then let that be it. The broadcast should not occupy the channel for too long. Having repeated the instructions twice, Zhe Qiuhong reached out to terminate the transmission.
She knew what Stream Blades was doing, and felt an urge in her heart to say something to Wen Jifei and the others, but she held back. Saying anything was meaningless; the former plump doctor of Stream Blades remained far more rational than emotional.
"Got it," a voice suddenly answered.
The Azure officials monitoring alongside showed no reaction, but Zhe Qiuhong froze completely.
A theater-wide transmission on this frequency could be heard by nearly every communicator in Antarctica, but communicators with authorization to reply numbered fewer than twenty across the entire continent.
"That voice..." *Beep! Beep!* Just as Zhe Qiuhong was about to press further, the Azure official beside her hurriedly cut off the transmission.
*Is it Qingzi? No... is it that guy?!* Setting down the handset, Zhe Qiuhong stood dazed, a gleam in her eyes as the thought raced through her mind. In the end, she kept silent, because she wasn't certain either—it was merely an inkling.
At that moment, no one knew that on the distant eastern front of Antarctica, an unfortunate black-armored dajian was suddenly snatched away by a blurred silhouette in mid-sprint...
With a blade, casually piercing the iron armor on its back,
with the flat of the blade, shattering the right shoulder blade,
and finally, right into the pulsating diamond-shaped red point between the seams of bone, delivering a careless jab with the tip.
Dead.
Cast aside.
Sheathing his warblade back behind his shoulder, Han Qingyu continued racing forward at breakneck speed.
Chapter 807