Major Qing walking among a horde of dajian... It sounded like the title of a painting.
This was a scene that humanity on this planet had never been able to imagine.
Across nearly a century of civilization's resistance, people had seen it countless times: a black-armored Great Spike, using only the area-of-effect attack upon ejecting from its capsule, would kill a dozen or twenty human warriors equipped with second- or third-generation source energy devices.
In those days, every mission meant deploying hundreds of people at once, paying with human lives to fill the gap.
In that murky history long shrouded from view, there had also been numerous instances in the human world where an entire village or nomadic tribe was slaughtered in a very short span of time.
And the perpetrators of all that had merely been two low-tier dajian.
With just a single charge, leveling their swords, they could easily plow through a dense crowd and slaughter hundreds...
No one could fight back.
Later on, devices continually improved. Yet for an ordinary source energy squad to slay a single black-armored Great Spike, they still had to strike several times first, trying to breach its iron carapace, before braving danger to look for an opening and cut and hack inward along the gap.
Often, it took a dozen or even dozens of blows to truly kill a single low-tier dajian.
Later, even when humanity had super combat powers, when slaying ordinary dajian, the vast majority still had to fight them one by one. If the dajian grew too numerous and they were surrounded, their lives were equally in peril.
In recent years, humanity's source energy combat capabilities had advanced by leaps and bounds, like a dazzling galaxy of stars... And yet, still no one dared imagine or hope for a scene like this:
A solitary man, walking alone into a horde of dajian.
The slaughter began!
The man was a weapon, harvesting lives with near-manic lethal efficiency.
He merely walked forward, and along his path, dajian continuously collapsed.
At this moment, the slaughter was still ongoing.
Ashleia had already transmitted photographs from the scene to Refusal, but on the other side, Wen Jifei's observations and conclusions had not yet been relayed outward.
And so, at this very moment, all of Azure went wild.
Everyone was asking: What on earth is this? What are the limitations of operating this way, and what are its limits? Was humanity's future suddenly flooded with light?
Because of this, many among them even overlooked another matter that was originally just as crucial: that man was Major The Qing. He seemed to have returned—and might be even stronger than before.
"Actually, we cannot determine from this alone that Qing... that Major Han Qingyu has truly recovered completely," Zhe Qiuhong said calmly, having just arrived and standing before the conference table in Azure Headquarters' Research Institute.
"Why?" Along the long table, the gazes of all of Azure's top scientific geniuses turned toward her.
If Voyage had lost certain things some time ago, Zhe Qiuhong had by now won back trust and reliance through her brilliance and contributions.
"Because he possesses dual traits."
Zhe Qiuhong spoke of this so openly because it had never been a secret within Stream Blades or among Azure's high command; it was just that no one had ever openly researched the matter.
Han Qingyu could replicate another person's trait within a certain time window by enduring their strikes.
After he "inherited" General Ivan's magma trait and slew Daie with a single slash during the Zenith War, this point had been widely discussed and understood by many.
In addition, he could manipulate dead iron within a certain range.
The most dazzling and well-known manifestation of this trait was the lightning-fast mutual attraction between him and the blue-light column sword.
Then there was what a select few had seen or heard of: during his first encounter with General Ivan, he had once borrowed blades from the enemy lines, controlling hundreds of dead iron battleblades single-handedly to bombard General Ivan.
"Back then, while with Stream Blades, I kept pondering whether his Yanxiu possessed dual traits in the first place, or if one of his traits had no direct or necessary connection to Yanxiu at all."
Zhe Qiuhong paused, then continued, "As a matter of fact, there is a deduction in a research report I am currently preparing to submit. I believe that the traits of those super combat powers do not necessarily all stem from Yanxiu. When an individual's life source energy grows powerful enough, certain innate human faculties may also become strengthened or magnified."
This statement was somewhat abstruse, but fortunately, those present all belonged to the scientific research system.
"Clairvoyance? Clairaudience?" a Huaxian scientist present said with a smile.
Zhe Qiuhong looked directly at him and nodded. "Such things are not impossible. However, I am more inclined to believe that more latent abilities evolve first. For example, self-healing. Human regenerative ability is actually not weak, as everyone seated here surely knows... Furthermore, to my knowledge, there is someone in this world who does not possess Yanxiu, yet returned from the dead."
The person and matter referenced here were likewise no secret to those present.
However, it was taboo.
Having reached this point, Zhe Qiuhong seemed to realize it as well. She did not pursue the topic further, turning to gesture at the photograph on the screen.
"My guess is that this slaughter is likely an enhancement of Major Qing's dead iron manipulation trait. He is using the dajian's iron armor to slaughter the dajian."
The long-range photographs from Ashleia actually did not reveal the dajian's manner of death at all, yet Zhe Qiuhong, relying solely on deduction from the rear, had deduced the truth ahead of everyone.
Then she continued, "His manipulation trait never truly disappeared. I conducted private tests back then and discovered it was still there, only rendered extremely weak for a time. Meanwhile, Major Qing's replication ability indeed vanished completely along with Yanxiu and the magma trait."
Zhe Qiuhong was qualified to make these assessments because throughout the period of Han Qingyu's coma and waking, she had remained at his side as his sole physician.
"Therefore, until he displays his replication ability once more, I cannot be certain whether he has truly recovered completely—or whether his Yanxiu has truly awakened."
Zhe Qiuhong's deduction sent several old bastards in the secret chambers of Azure Headquarters into ecstatic delight.
It filled the rest of Azure with subtle dread.
Antarctic battlefield.
"Qingzi looks a bit tired." Milla lowered her sniper rifle, turning around with concern.
"Yeah. It seems doing this takes an immense toll on him," Wen Jifei said with a furrowed brow.
They were right. This method of killing was by no means easy, demanding a colossal expenditure of energy. Han Qingyu wasn't doing it just to put on a show; rather, this killing efficiency was vastly superior. Otherwise, if he had to hack his way through, he might have spent the better part of a day cutting them down here.
This dajian horde to their rear had already grown far too massive, and it was far too close to Stream Blades.
They seemed capable of running like this indefinitely, but the soldiers of Stream Blades could not.
Having assaulted their way across the ice, most of the soldiers were wounded and utterly exhausted. At the same time, layer upon layer of perilous obstacles still lay before them.
Thus, the existence of this dajian horde had in fact become Stream Blades' most lethal hidden threat, and they lacked the luxury to turn around and deal with it first.
If Red Shoulders were the greatest issue on the Peninsula battlefield, then on the eastern front, the sheer number of dajian was a problem at least equal to the Red Shoulders. Formidable as Stream Blades was in combat power, their numbers were far too few, and time was against them.
By the same token, this hellish expedition could not be accomplished by a mere handful of high-end combatants alone.
Therefore, Han Qingyu had to resolve this crisis right now. He not only needed to get through this dajian horde, but he also had to inflict maximal casualties and shatter it entirely.
Chapter 810