Subglacial City, Liu Shiheng

Han Qingyu's second attempt had exhausted everything, yet in the end, it still ended in failure. This feeling of helplessness rarely came over him. Even during the Mount Xilang incident back then, facing off against the first-generation Starlight families, though he had been at a disadvantage, he could at least still settle grudges with reckless abandon. Rather than like now, where powerlessness forced him to watch helplessly as his 4,500 scarred soldiers were still driven onto that road of certain death in the end. Stream Blades had ultimately resorted to the "Little Prince's method"—using lives to pack into the tractor field. Only in the minds of the soldiers, they were no longer dying in an assault on the tractor field for the sake of the world; they were going to bring back Stream Blades' Major Qing. That reason made the bandits feel so much better. As Han Qingyu's figure fell amidst the swarm of Great Spikes, Stream Blades' arrowhead formation, spearheaded by Wu Xu and the other top combat forces, thrust like an arrow straight into that black hell. The Rejectors' satellite imagery—silent and slightly grainy footage—clearly presented everything unfolding on the battlefield before the eyes of the entire world... Stream Blades surged forward. Their elite combat forces blasted open a breach, blasting out a path ahead. The soldiers charged in rapidly, shifting into a defensive formation back-to-back, holding both flanks to prevent the flowing marsh of the Great Spike swarm from closing back up. In that black hell, the ice was once again laid bare, reflecting the auroras in the sky. The luminous section formed an equilateral triangle pointing forward with its top vertex, stretching ceaselessly ahead, growing progressively narrower and longer. This moving yet soundless visual persisted for a full twenty seconds, devoid of even a whisper of sound. Yet "Thump! Thump! Thump!"—this was perhaps the most synchronized, heavy, and violent collective heartbeat in human history. Everyone had seen it now: against the scale of the frame, how minuscule Stream Blades' 4,500 people were. Everyone also knew what they had gone there to do, what kind of battle they were enduring, and what awaited them in the end. By this moment, even the most blindly optimistic people in the ordinary world could no longer muster any optimism, for they had just witnessed Major Qing's figure falling into the swarm like a solitary streak of light, swallowed by a black mire. ... "Help them." "Help them." "Is there truly no way at all?" "Think of what they did for us, help them..." Across the entire world, frontlines and home fronts, ordinary citizens, Azure personnel, military commanders, and researchers—countless people were asking the very same question. Even in the Headquarters Council, some council members wept as they stood up to propose a rescue, even though as they made the proposal, they could offer no remotely feasible plan for rescue. ...Rescue was impossible. In truth, this had always been a scene most people could have foreseen long ago, the destined mission and conclusion of the Redemption Offensive in the broader Antarctic campaign. The fate and ending of Stream Blades' 6,000 troops had already been sealed the moment they chose to depart from the Eastern Front's coastline. Only, when this scene truly came to pass at this moment—when that tragedy, despair, and cruelty were laid bare before all of mankind—it was still almost impossible to accept with reason. Azure Headquarters, at the wartime conference of the research department. Zhe Qiuhong suddenly halted her presentation on Yanxiu traits. She lowered her head in silence—one second, two seconds... Two seconds later, she turned and strode toward the conference room doors. "Miss Zhe?!" Elber stood up behind her, calling out with bewilderment written across his face. "My apologies, Mr. Elber, but I need a source energy airship right now... Please assign me a Swordfish-class ship. I have my own medical team and equipment," Zhe Qiuhong said, pausing with her back to him at the doorway. At that moment, all the Voyage personnel present stared at her, their gazes and gestures conveying shock, incomprehension, and disapproval. For this ran entirely counter to Voyage's interests, and it did not fit Zhe Qiuhong's past character or demeanor in the slightest. Yet all of this was completely ignored by their great and resolute Navigator. For the first time in her rational life, Zhe Qiuhong was dominated by an impulse... She was going to Antarctica. "You—Doctor Zhe, you're going to the Antarctic battlefield?" Elber naturally understood Zhe Qiuhong's medical stature and abilities in the source energy world, and he also knew she had lived with Stream Blades for over three years. "But right now, our airships can't get in at all. The Great Spikes' fleet is frantically intercepting from the perimeter. Even Corps Commander Chen hasn't had a chance to enter the battlefield..." "I know," Zhe Qiuhong said. "Yet what if an opportunity appears? Even if there is only a one percent chance, please give me a ship. I can take my people and wait at the perimeter." She wanted to be on the battlefield the instant an opportunity to administer treatment arose. That way, perhaps one more person might survive. As a heavyweight within the Azure Headquarters research apparatus, Elber did have the authority to allocate a Swordfish-class ship. However, the responsibility was immense—the liability of losing a ship was heavy, and the responsibility and loss of getting Zhe Qiuhong killed were equally monumental... Elber hesitated for two seconds. "All right." "Thank you." Zhe Qiuhong turned to express her thanks, then turned back around and strode directly out of the conference room. She was going to Antarctica. To cover the bleeding wounds of old friends with her own two hands, and tell them that Stream Blades still had such a friend—and that she was the greatest doctor in the world. ... "Brother Ye," in the Subglacial City, Liu Shiheng leaned against the sofa, glancing upward with his chin raised. "Did you feel that? Seems like things have kicked off up there." Ye Jian was looking up as well. Pulling his gaze back, he gave a nod. "Yeah. At least one Beyond-the-Dome combatant, or a half-step Beyond-the-Dome, is fighting up there with everything they've got. Otherwise, the source energy fluctuations couldn't possibly reach down to us." "Oh, but you said that tractor field was terrifying, and there are tons of Great Spikes up there... Fuck, it wouldn't be Qingzi, would it?!" Liu Shiheng scrambled upright, staring straight at Ye Jian. He had known Qingzi and the others were coming this time—known it for a long while. But now that they were actually here, and so close, he still felt flustered and at a loss, followed by deep anxiety. "It's possible. If it isn't Chen Buer or Bochen, it has to be him. It's not like Azure produced another newcomer who reached Beyond-the-Dome this past year." Ye Jian rubbed his chin with one hand and said, "Actually, going by that short list, it's almost certainly him." That meant the force attacking the tractor field above was very likely Stream Blades—Qingzi, Plague Chicken, Rusty Sister, He Tangtang, and the rest... A noob like Tangtang going up there was probably just committing suicide, right? Liu Shiheng worried haphazardly in his heart, looking up into Ye Jian's eyes. "So, Brother Ye, you're just going to sit here and do nothing?" "Me?" Ye Jian pointed at himself. "Yeah. Don't you always say you're at least a half-step Beyond-the-Dome? Saying you want to clash with Daie too, and that even if you left Azure, you'd still butcher Great Spikes just the same? Oh right, you also said you really appreciate Plague Chicken." Nod, nod, nod, nod. Ye Jian acknowledged every single point Liu Shiheng made, then gave a bitter smile. "I'd have to be able to get up there first!" He gestured toward the glaciers thousands of meters overhead and said, "Don't forget, the Subglacial City has been completely sealed off, and the only person who calls the shots here is Ne. Instead of stoking fires with me, you'd be better off whispering pillow talk into Alice's ear. After all, in the entire Subglacial City, she's the one who has Ne's ear the most." Ne hadn't chatted with Young Master Shiheng for a long time now. Ever since he and Alice crossed that final threshold, Ne had stopped summoning him to the little blue chapel for idle conversation. As the founder and leader of Snow Lotus, this guy was definitely hostile toward Azure, and he definitely desired the large-scale arrival of the Great Spikes. Yet after prolonged interactions, Liu Shiheng felt that Ne could not be considered an outright spike-slave or spike-dog; his ultimate plan was still to fight the Great Spikes, just not right now. "How do you know I haven't brought it up with Alice?" Liu Shiheng's expression flickered with worry and dejection. "I've mentioned it to her several times, but what can she do? She's just a secretary. She doesn't even speak as boldly as I used to." Alice stood in the little chapel. She stood alone, yet within the blue mist, all three consciousnesses were present. Compared to Liu Shiheng and Ye Jian, they had a far clearer grasp of the situation above. "Do something," Alice said, looking up. Yet she said this not out of loyalty to Young Master Shiheng's entrustment, but because Alice needed Han Qingyu and the others to come down. At the beginning of the story, she had viewed Liu Shiheng as a variable of fate, largely because of the people behind him. They could always change things. Regardless of what they could achieve this time, for Alice—who was destined to die among the three consciousnesses—it was undeniably an attempt with everything to gain and nothing to lose. As for whether they would die, Alice did not care in the least, even though she knew Young Master Shiheng would grieve over it. The air remained tranquil. Because their minds were linked, Alice could sense Ne's attitude toward this. He seemed completely unbothered, having no opinion on the matter; at this very moment, he was absorbed in contemplating the structure of that colossal tractor field. "No!" Nikola's coarse, raspy voice rang out. "We should wait patiently and harvest everything at the very end." "Is that so?" Alice's voice turned cold. "I wonder if you've ever considered one issue: the sole successful experimental subject, Shen Yixiu, should be up there right now. If she dies, you might have to live in fear of me forever..." Boom! A sudden flare of furious rage erupted in the realm of consciousness. Nikola grew violently agitated: "How do you know about that?!" As the strongest among the three consciousnesses, Nikola had always believed it was capable of guarding certain secrets despite their interconnected minds—such as its expectations and plans for the sole successful experimental subject. It wanted to use that body—the closest to a Great Spike in all of humanity—to replace Alice, while completely devouring Ne's consciousness to emerge genuinely independent in the civilizational war between humans and Great Spikes. And after that, create an entirely new race belonging solely to itself, with itself as the Creator. "I guessed," Alice said with a slight smile. Combining Ne's enduring interest in Shen Yixiu with Liu Shiheng's everyday descriptions of Rusty Sister, she had arrived at this conclusion long ago. "Is that so? Then what else have you guessed?" Nikola's tone turned somewhat wary. For it harbored an even greater secret: where on the Blue Star the gathered Yanxiu remains were actually hidden. That was a secret even Ne did not know yet.