Snow and ice crunched beneath their feet. Even along stretches where they met no blockades, blood stained the snow and ice wherever their footsteps fell... The wounded grew ever more numerous, yet they could not stop.
On the eastern front, Stream Blades naturally heard Zhe Qiuhong's battlefield-wide broadcast as well.
A dajian's lethal weak spot?
For Wu Xu, of course, this did not mean much. In his battles against Red Shoulders, if he had the time to distinguish left from right from behind them, his Binggu Spear would have long punctured and detonated the Red Shoulder's head entirely. Still, since it was all stabbing anyway, there was no harm in giving it a try.
Furthermore, because their average combat power was higher, its overall boost to Stream Blades would theoretically be somewhat greater than to ordinary Azure units.
Only, right now they could hardly put it to use. All of their fighting at the moment consisted of breaking head-on through blockades and moving on immediately, never lingering in battle. Aside from supers and top-tiers, ordinary warriors had few chances to even see a dajian's back.
Those who truly gained the greatest boost were a tiny handful of people on the battlefield: snipers.
Azure had prepared more than a thousand source energy sniper rifles for this battle. Though the firearms were still fragile, their efficiency could now be maximized.
At the same time, upon this purgatorial battlefield, there were two Endless sniper rifles—Elegy of the Plaza and Captain Miss, wielded by Wen Jifei and Milla.
In the hands of those two, source energy bullets had long been capable of dealing one-shot kills to ordinary dajian (though at times there was a brief death struggle). Yet this feat itself was not easy; it relied on driving the bullet into the dajian's chest and detonating it from within.
From the experience Plague Chicken and Milla had pieced together in the past, they had always thought a dajian's heart was likely located in the right side of its chest. Thinking back now, it was probably that when the bullet pierced the right chest and exploded, it had damaged that pulsating node.
In the past, this kill method had been largely ineffective against Red Shoulders. Their physiques were tougher and their source energy defenses stronger, exerting enough pressure to keep the bullet from detonating or reducing the detonation's wound to almost nothing.
Therefore, whenever Wen Jifei and Milla had provided long-range support to teammates battling Red Shoulders, they had mostly targeted the eyes. Even if they missed, they could disrupt the enemies' vision and movement trajectory.
Now, they might have a chance to inflict far greater damage on Red Shoulders.
However, given a Red Shoulder's speed and strength, the precision required was exceedingly high and the window of opportunity hard to seize, mostly requiring comrades to help create the opening.
In short, the boost Zhe Qiuhong's discovery brought to Stream Blades was real, and by no means small.
Only, at this moment, no one had the luxury of rejoicing.
"They've slowed down." As Refusers' feed continued transmitting, behind Azure's front lines in the command room, several staff officers cried out almost in unison, their voices tight with profound dread.
"...It's normal. They've been fighting and charging forward continuously for far too long. They have to make adjustments." Even as senior commanders said it was normal, their brows were deeply furrowed.
Because being normal did not mean it wasn't dangerous.
In fact, it was dangerous in the extreme.
"The blockade ahead isn't so bad for now. They're relatively far off this time, so there's still a buffer."
"But the rear—the rear is catching up fast."
The situation the staff officers discussed was shown with stark clarity in Refusers' high-altitude aerial imagery. This was the situation Stream Blades currently faced.
And it did not end there.
"The reason the dajian blockade ahead pulled back on its own initiative," Xu Xiaohong said before the projection at Huaxia Sole Witness Legion headquarters, his brow furrowed as he spoke in a suppressed tone, "is because they are massing their forces, while waiting for the Red Shoulders reinforcing from the western front to arrive."
With just that single sentence, silence fell over the conference room, and a tide of sorrow spread.
For this meant that along Stream Blades' path forward, they were about to encounter a dajian swarm whose scale and proportion of Red Shoulders far surpassed anything prior.
At the same time, the moment they were held up, the dajian swarm behind them would catch up, closing the pincer from front and rear.
Soon, this map of the battlefield situation was publicly broadcast onto television screens... and so, the entire world clearly witnessed the plight of that lone army.
It seemed an inescapable death trap where the moths would ultimately be encircled and slaughtered.
***
Wen Jifei naturally knew the current situation as well. The battlefield intel from Refusers had not ceased for a moment in the ears of him, the Little Prince, and the others.
Stream Blades' formations had decelerated a minute ago, yet they still maintained their straight-line advance. While running, the warriors freed up their hands to swap out source energy blocks, perform rough bandaging of their wounds, adjust their source energy surges, and reform their ranks to fill the gaps...
"Do we keep going? Going forward means death!" Theodore finally spoke the truth over the team comms channel.
Although the outcome had been sealed the moment they set foot on this journey—death for all—they had not yet reached the tractor field, and their redemption remained unfulfilled. After carving a path of blood all this way, they were unwilling to fall here.
"I know," Wen Jifei paused for a second before saying. "I'm thinking."
He meant that for now, he hadn't thought of a solution yet.
Silence fell across the internal channel as everyone waited...
Roughly two seconds later, "I'll go."
The Little Prince's voice suddenly cut in. In truth, he knew Wen Jifei had already come up with an answer, because he had thought of the very same plan just moments ago.
"Pick a formation. I'll lead them and keep charging straight ahead, and you guys loop around from the right." The Little Prince laid out the plan plainly.
The plan both of them had thought of was quite simple: leave a certain number of soldiers behind to maintain the current charge, drawing the attention of the dajian swarms ahead and behind, to face the coming pincer assault and fall right here.
Meanwhile, others would peel off gradually while running, heading right to exit the Ice Peak Gorge. After regrouping, they would take a detour and thrust toward the tractor field from another angle.
To ensure their subsequent assault remained sufficiently threatening, the vast majority of Stream Blades' high-end combat power had to join the departing force.
"Don't overthink it, I'm the most suitable." Someone from the core team had to stay. The Little Prince possessed organizational skills and tactical adaptability; moreover, he was already injured—severely so, to the point where his mobility was gravely compromised.
Therefore, leaving him behind to lead a formation in a straight-line charge was the most fitting and correct choice.
Only... Wen Jifei turned his head and looked at him. He seemed to want to offer a smile, but his mouth wouldn't open, curling down into a bitter grimace.
"What're you acting all sentimental for all of a sudden?!" The Little Prince cursed through gritted teeth, as if trying to persuade him, or perhaps rationalizing it to himself. "We're all going to die in the end anyway. We knew that the moment we decided to come. It's just a matter of dying sooner or dying later. I'm sick of running, and my wounds hurt like hell. I'll just take my break right here."
When another second passed without a response, the Little Prince grew serious. "If you don't decide now, the rear is going to catch us, Plague Chicken."
It was a rare moment of him speaking properly, though his eyes looked away. The Little Prince gestured over his shoulder with his head; behind them, the rumbling footsteps of a massive dajian swarm were already audibly thundering.
"...Yeah." With a somewhat muffled grunt, as if expending enormous effort, Wen Jifei finally forced out the word.
Then, he ran over.
"Take this." A blue crystal source energy block flipped into Wen Jifei's hand, and he thrust it toward the Little Prince.
A life source energy block. Back in Shenghai, Wen Jifei had reclaimed from Zhe Qiuhong seven life source energy blocks that Qingzi had back-infused and left behind.
Such things were undeniably precious, especially on a battlefield like today's. Hence, Wen Jifei had previously handled them with strict rationality, pragmatism, and utilitarianism.
Out of seven blocks in total, he had given one to Wu Xu, one to Theodore, one to Weize, one to Rusty Sister, one to He Tangtang, one to Regiment Commander Fengbao...
The sole criterion for who received one was combat strength.
Only by ensuring that the strongest fighters survived—even if merely clinging to their last breath to keep fighting—would Stream Blades have a chance of fulfilling their mission.
And now, Wen Jifei handed the final spare block to the Little Prince.
In fact, earlier, right before they set out, he had begged Wen Jifei for one, but Wen Jifei had refused him then.
"Fuck!" The Little Prince seemed to freeze for a moment, eyes wide as he stared at Wen Jifei. Pausing half a second to process, he cursed, "Why the fuck are you giving this to me now?! Don't play hypocrite with me! What damn good is it?!"
With that, the Little Prince glanced toward the front and rear, his gaze conveying his meaning: *Since I've decided to stay behind, I'm bound to end up as minced paste. What's the point of giving me a life source energy block? You'd be better off saving it...*
"I know," Wen Jifei said. "I'm just under too much pressure, and suddenly I wanted to be irrational for once."
"...Psychopath."
"Haha, like you can tell me what to do!" Wen Jifei tossed the source energy block with an underhand flick and quickly sprinted off. "Listen up, everyone! As it stands, we're about to face a pincer attack from front and rear... We are splitting our forces..."
Stream Blades had to split their forces and send a portion of their people to die first. Wen Jifei not only had to make the decision with his own hands to send the Little Prince, Zhu Jiaming, to his death, but he also had to... send the wounded to their deaths.
Even if all of them would die in the end, the immense agony and torment of doing this with his own hands still pushed Wen Jifei to the brink of a mental breakdown.
Yet this was a battlefield—a hopeless battlefield plunging toward hell, one where achieving the objective demanded that one be cold, ruthless, and rational to the extreme.
He had to do it. He had to hold on until he laid eyes on the tractor field, until he could fire at least a single shot at it, and only then find release, dying content.
***
The warriors raised no questions. For once, there were not even any curses; they simply accepted it with laughs and grins.
The advancing force prepared to peel off as they continued onward. To their right stretched continuous icy peaks—an exceptional opportunity, and their final chance.
"Looks like your buddy's stepping out ahead of you."
"Suits me fine. I couldn't run anymore anyway."
"See you on the road to the underworld! We'll be waiting by the roadside to shake you down for protection money."
"You guys make damn sure you reach the tractor field! Don't bust your asses all this way and not even get to see the thing."
"That'd be too damn embarrassing."
"Yeah, we're Stream Blades after all..."
While running, the wounded said their goodbyes, tossing spare source energy blocks to comrades about to peel away—to long-time friends, or to bitter rivals they usually couldn't stand.
The warriors about to depart turned their heads away, unable to bear the sight, choked of words.
A lone army on an ice sheet... a sight no one could bear to watch.
Yet there was no time for sentimentality, nor any time left to hesitate. The dajian swarm ahead was waiting for the returning Red Shoulders, while the swarm to their rear drew ever closer.
At this rate, they would likely be overtaken by the dajian behind them first.
"Huh?"
Suddenly, someone uttered a surprised sound over the communicator.
Then, collective silence.
Puzzled, everyone glanced back over their shoulders.
Because they had all just heard the thunderous pace of the pursuing dajian swarm behind them appear to slow down, its rumbling rhythm turning somewhat sluggish and disordered.
Could they also be waiting for the Red Shoulders ahead to reinforce them?
And then mount a simultaneous pincer attack from front and back?
With Daie commanding in Antarctica, Wen Jifei believed this was entirely possible. Still, they couldn't afford to worry about it.
***
Just as Gu Zhazha had anticipated, Han Qingyu was swift. After scaling the Transantarctic Mountains and sprinting relentlessly onward, he finally saw it... A dense, pitch-black sea of dajian spread before him, all with their backs turned to him, running forward.
He ran too, chasing after them.
Not wanting to shout, Han Qingyu was only noticed once he had chased them down to roughly a hundred meters.
The dajian swarm that spotted him seemed momentarily stunned, caught in surprise and confusion:
A human. Just one.
Where did he come from?!
Why is he chasing us?
Is he trying to surround us?!
It was precisely because of this confusion that the dajian swarm gradually decelerated, its rhythm falling into disarray.
Naturally, they were still running forward, and only a portion of the dajian turned their heads to look, perhaps waiting for orders, unsure whether they should dispose of this human first.
Han Qingyu followed them, running another stretch.
He had assumed the dajian swarm would immediately turn around to hack at him, and had already planned his breakthrough route one step ahead. But they didn't, which was rather frustrating.
His steps ground to a halt.
***
The dajian swarm behind was beginning to appear within line of sight. Once they drew near, executing the plan would become exceedingly difficult, so there was no time to second-guess.
"Ignore them. Begin peeling off as planned." Wen Jifei hesitated for an instant, then spoke into the communicator, "I'm sorry, brothers. I..."
In the end, he couldn't help himself; he wanted to bid farewell to the Little Prince and the wounded.
Before he could finish, however—
*Clang—hummm!*
*Hummm-ong-ong-ong!*
The singing ring of a blade.
Just a blade's chime. Everyone in Stream Blades was intimately familiar with that sound, for it was merely the ordinary ring of a human source energy warrior drawing a weapon—the blade catching the hook peg and clearing the shoulder sheath.
The problem was, this chime just now had been too loud, too sharp.
Carried by surging source energy, the sound detonated in the air like thunder, echoing outward in an endless resonance.
Its lingering resonance was so sharp that it made the warriors' eardrums throb with pain.
This was not the sound of an ordinary super-tier combat power drawing a blade.
Moreover... it came from behind the dajian swarm, from very close range.
The dajian swarm gradually ground to a halt.
As they began to turn around, their dense formation spread out somewhat.
"What is that?"
The soldiers of Stream Blades unconsciously slowed their pace, halting their peel-off maneuver, and looked back.
The distance was still somewhat far, and too many dajian stood between them; they couldn't see through the swarm.
Wen Jifei could.
Standing atop an elevated crag of ice, Wen Jifei raised Elegy of the Plaza. Through the sniper scope, he saw a familiar figure less than two hundred meters behind the dajian swarm.
The halted dajian swarm seemed to finally recognize an unmistakable threat and turned back in droves.
Where they looked.
Where Wen Jifei looked.
In a black Stream Blades combat uniform, bearing the red moth-to-flame badge on his chest, three weapons still strapped behind his back, stood the man named Han Qingyu, holding a single horizontal blade in his right hand.
Rank upon rank of dajian formations turned toward him like an overturning wave of black water.
Chapter 808