Han Qingyu had just told the Little Prince that he intended to skip a stone. Now, skimming high above the swarm of Great Spikes, he was like a flat pebble skipping across water, ricocheting farther and farther away.
"...That bastard!" His eye glued to his sniper scope, Wen Jifei cursed, his composure on the verge of fracturing.
At this moment, Qingzi had already plunged far too deep into the swarm.
What was worse, he had just hurled away the very last blue-glow column sword he had on him.
That column sword was supposed to be his guarantee of a return trip.
From the look of things, the reckless fool had made up his mind from the start to touch the traction field directly. Wen Jifei suddenly recalled Qingzi once mentioning that he could directly absorb energy from source energy fields. Years ago, during their fusion testing, he had drained and extinguished Azure's large-scale source energy field entirely.
That did seem like a possibility.
Yet he was wounded now. There was still a considerable distance ahead—could he even reach it?
Even if he reached it, this was a super traction field brimming with boundlessly concentrated, near-solid energy. Could he truly withstand colliding with it? Could his body endure such force?
Could he ever come back?
"Attention, everyone!" At that thought, supporting his rifle with his right hand, Wen Jifei raised his left arm in a signal. "Prepare to reinforce."
"Sir!" came the unified response.
The battle lines surged forward. Spearheaded by the three super combat powers—Wu Xu, Theodore, and Weize—Stream Vanguard fell into formation almost instantaneously, stepping down from the glacial rock.
An arrowhead formation, pointing directly along Major Qing's path of return.
***
By now, less than three hundred meters remained between Han Qingyu and the traction field. Close, yet battered by injuries and consecutive bursts of strength, his body was already nearing its absolute limit.
The blue-glow column sword shot ahead through the air, with Han Qingyu right behind it. Countless column swords thrust upward at him from below, and horde after horde of Great Spikes leaped into the air, lunging toward him.
*Hah! Either I swallow you whole and slay Daie, or you tear me apart and we go down together!*
The sharp pain of sword tips grazing his skin kept his consciousness razor-sharp. Han Qingyu's gaze remained fixed straight ahead on the traction field expanding steadily in his sight.
Then—*boom!* More than a dozen source energy surges erupted almost simultaneously, coalescing into a single deafening blast.
The blue protective barrier outside the traction field bulged outward abruptly, its azure light momentarily fading before snapping back. In that fleeting instant, fifteen Red Shoulders surged down from high atop the traction field. Red Shoulders had been lying in ambush within the field all along.
Fifteen of them, divided into three rows of five, descended in echelon. Midair, they raised their blades and cleaved downward to intercept him head-on.
*Clang!* Bearing the brunt of the assault, the flying blue-glow column sword was struck squarely. Already at the end of its momentum, it offered no resistance whatsoever, plunging straight into the swarm below.
Carried by immense forward inertia, Han Qingyu appeared unable to halt himself, hurtling directly toward the ambush.
"Qingzi!" A shout soaked in overwhelming dread, carried aloft by surging source energy, had just rippled over the heads of the Great Spikes.
In their line of sight, Han Qingyu's posture suddenly flipped from upright to horizontal.
At the same time, his source energy forcibly flared once more.
*Pfft!* Still airborne and without suffering an external blow, he violently coughed up a mouthful of blood.
*Whoosh!* The blue-glow column sword that had just fallen into the swarm whipped back on cue. Han Qingyu thrust out his right hand, caught the hilt, and swung his arm straight backward in a single motion. *Whoosh!*
The column sword streaked like lightning back toward the path he had come from.
A fraction of a second later, his body was pulled along, hurtling backward in reverse.
*Thank god. The attempt failed, but at least that idiot still plans on coming back.* Wen Jifei breathed a momentary sigh of relief, only for his chest to tighten again instantly.
Given Qingzi's current position and physical state, returning would hardly be as straightforward as going in.
***
"Daie is dead!"
"The traction field is destroyed!"
"Run!"
"Run, find your own way out, survive!"
The four alien voice simulators whirred to life once more, sowing confusion.
At the head of the formation, every member of the elite combat group had pushed their source energy surges to the peak, poised at any moment to dive into the terrifying swarm circling the traction field—a horde that could swallow them a thousand times over.
In the ranks behind them, azure light linked across the lines as every warrior unleashed their power and built momentum, bracing for the final fight to the death.
"We're going to get him," Wen Jifei said in a low, steady voice over the general comms frequency.
"Understood!" the soldiers roared.
Before the echoes of their response could fade, a resonant hum abruptly vibrated from the distant traction field.
Perplexed, the crowd looked up to see a section on the front face of the blue barrier indenting inward... as if a colossal fist had struck violently into a thick sheet of transparent blue rubber.
Clearly, it was no fist.
As the spectacle unfolded, almost everyone—on the front lines, in the rear, and across the civilian world—realized the truth within moments.
It was a blade.
Major Qing's blade.
Even in that perilous bind, he had launched an attack. The moment his right hand caught the column sword and flung it backward, his left hand had hurled away his dead iron combat saber.
That was the true reason he had forced an eruption of power so severe he spat blood.
An all-out, desperate Super Rusty Sister Dimple Slash!
The glowing saber turned nearly invisible as it traced a sweeping arc through the air, bypassing the three rows of Red Shoulders and slamming directly into the blue barrier.
The point of impact was the exact position from which the Red Shoulders had just emerged.
*Hum!* The blue barrier groaned once more.
The indentation remained.
This meant the contest between the blade and the source energy field was still raging... The line between breaking and holding hung by a hairsbreadth.
*Shatter!* the soldiers pleaded in their hearts.
"Shatter!" they finally roared aloud.
"Shatter!" roared Azure Command, the research institutes, and the field hospitals.
"Shatter!" roared the entire world.
*Shatter...* Han Qingyu prayed inwardly, his gaze fixed unblinkingly on the traction field even as he was flung backward through the air.
The light in his eyes shifted from fierce determination to desperate hope... and finally dimming into darkness.
Soaring backward over the heads of the Great Spikes, Major Qing closed his eyes in near despair. As the master of the blade, he was the first to know the outcome. He also knew he would not get a second chance.
*Clang!* Exhausting its final momentum, the dead iron combat saber fell from midair, plunging into the swarm.
The blue protective barrier of the traction field had held.
In the end, he had failed, and getting back alive seemed just as remote.
This failure carried immense weight. The deepest agony came from Han Qingyu knowing exactly what would follow now that he had come up short.
*Clang!* Bracing himself, he snapped his eyes open and drew the final combat saber from his belt.
His body grew heavy, beginning to drop. Beset and suppressed by heavy resistance, the blue-glow column sword could no longer carry him clear. Han Qingyu knew he would crash into the swarm within seconds.
In those final moments, suspended in midair, he twisted his head to look back...
Stream Vanguard was coming!
Coming to get him!
And then, without looking back,
To accompany him to the traction field,
To see him to the traction field...
Amidst the deafening roar of surging source energy across the sky, forty-five hundred soldiers formed a single arrowhead formation and drove recklessly into the alien lines.
Across the dense masses of Great Spikes, Han Qingyu saw Wu Xu's figure crashing in first.
***
Ranked seventh on the latest Dome Leaderboard, second combat power of Stream Vanguard, a peak human super... This was Wu Xu, directly triggering his Near-Death Surge.
*Boom!* The black-clad figure slammed into the ground, driving his black spear hard into the ice.
An entire ring of Great Spikes encircling Wu Xu was instantly launched airborne.
At the same time, a continuous, cacophonous *crack-crack-crack-crack* echoed without pause.
All around Wu Xu, and especially directly before him, swathes of Great Spikes collapsed under the noise, their iron armor caving in as their bodies buckled and crashed violently to the earth.
A source energy gravity field.
This application was not exclusive to Great Spikes; a handful of human masters had mastered it as well, and among them, Wu Xu was likely the most adept and the most formidable.
A breach was blown open.
"Kill!"
The warriors of Stream Vanguard flooded in, bracing both flanks to hold the gap open.
The elite combat group continued to slaughter their way forward, driving straight toward the spot where Han Qingyu was falling.
Chapter 819