Let Tangtang Come

The battlefield fell into an eerie stillness. Stream Blades held back from attacking because they had already rendezvoused with Han Qingyu, accomplishing their initial objective. As for the second step—assaulting the traction field—with Daie present on the field, it seemed even more unrealistic. On the contrary, the Great Spike swarm grinding to a halt was somewhat baffling. Logically, with Daie having arrived, there was no reason for them not to seize the opportunity to press the attack. Holding a war blade in one hand and pulling out her camera with the other, Ashleia—who had just thrown herself into the fight entirely as a warrior and had been wounded as well—still captured the scene before her: Major Qing was covered in blood. Blood slid down his cheeks and dripped from the backs of his hands, his fingertips, and his war blade... His combat suit was torn in several places. Gripping the blade in one hand, his back turned to the swarm of Great Spikes, he tilted his head slightly upward and gazed resolutely forward. There, scarcely twenty meters away, Daie stood massive in its ferocious iron armor, resting its right hand on a colossal column sword planted into the ground, watching him in turn. "It... knows I'm injured and wants to duel me first?" Han Qingyu actually hoped Daie would do just that, because compared to facing Daie all on his own, he feared far more that it would attack the others. In that case, it would be difficult for him to stop it completely. Besides, if they started with a one-on-one duel, Pegmont might arrive in time. The pink-haired pest's sudden, bizarre surge in strength was incomprehensible, yet the fact remained: on the western front, he had held Daie off single-handedly without yielding an inch. If he arrived, he could change a great deal. "Right, isn't it afraid of Pegmont arriving and joining forces with me to kill it?" As this thought crossed Han Qingyu's mind, crunch, crunch echoed across the ice as Daie dragged its column sword along the ground, taking two steps forward and closing the distance between them. "I know you. A human in whom great hopes have been placed. You killed Pangleres." Aside from a hoarse, deep pitch and an utter absence of inflection, Daie's speech was almost indistinguishable from a human's. Nodding slightly, Han Qingyu offered a faint smile. "So, do you intend to avenge him?" "Vengeance? No. There is no such ridiculous emotion in our civilization. Death proves weakness, and the weak must accept being trampled, defeated, and slaughtered. That is our logic," Daie stated in earnest. Han Qingyu: "Oh." "Therefore, there is no vengeance. There is only that you are injured, heavily injured, and I can kill you right now." As Daie spoke, it slowly raised the column sword in its grip. "So that's how it is. Fine... you can try," Han Qingyu replied, tilting his head slightly to signal Wu Xu, Weize, Rusty Sister, and the others behind him to hold back. "Yes, I will do so momentarily. It is just that I suddenly wished to say: throughout my study of humanity, I have been fascinated by your strange emotions—hatred, love, bonds, agony, and helplessness. They are all so exquisite, are they not?" Daie had abruptly delivered a rather bizarre speech. "..." If Wen Jifei or the Little Prince were here in his place, or Liu Shiheng and Yang Qingbai, they would probably have struck up a conversation with Daie. Han Qingyu, on the other hand, had no idea what to say. As for Wu Xu and He Tangtang, neither of them would have had the patience for so much nonsense; they would have charged in long ago to fight, or would already be dead. "I still consider you the greatest threat to the traction field. Even though that pink human surprised me earlier, he and you have already disrupted my plans." "I believe I will not kill you so quickly, even though you are heavily injured." "I imagine you must want to protect them far more than you want to protect yourself." Daie abruptly reverted to its mechanical cadence, turning its head toward the warriors of Stream Blades, who were now completely trapped within the swarm of Great Spikes. "Therefore, as they are crushed to pieces one after another, you will surely feel immense agony." "I will force you away from here to fight. Deprived of sight, left to imagine their endless wails and deaths, you will surely be distracted and filled with despair." "And then, I will kill you." Daie's deep voice echoed across the entire battlefield, brutally frank to the point of despair. This time, Han Qingyu did not speak. He knew his condition; he had no way of dictating the pace of this duel, and he knew the terror lurking in his own heart. At the same time, though he had recovered, some of the emotions belonging to the eighteen-year-old Han Qingyu had remained with him, leaving him less cold-blooded and decisive than he once was. Daie was right. What it described was precisely the state Han Qingyu feared most, the one where he felt utterly helpless. "Heh heh. Talk all you want, you're still just scared that once Pink-hair gets here, the two of them will team up to kill you," the Little Prince scoffed, clutching his wound and tilting his head back. Daie turned to look at him, stared for a second, then looked back at Han Qingyu. "You are correct. That is why I must force him away first and kill him. Then we shall see, once that pink human arrives, whether he chooses to go search for his corpse or remain here to help you." Even as the sound of its voice spread, boom! Daie erupted in power, cleaving downward with its column sword. Han Qingyu brought his blade across to block. Buzz! The surging source energy blasted him into the air, hurtling backward. A column sword on the ground shot up, thrusting toward Daie's right shoulder blade. Daie straightened and vaulted upward, taking the blow directly on its back, and using the impact to accelerate forward, slanting its body to slash again... Midair, Han Qingyu parried yet another strike. His body spun out of control, driven farther back. Daie's momentum was simply too immense; not even his column swords could pull him back into position. Thus, exactly as it had declared, Han Qingyu was being forced away from the battlefield. As he flew backward, his gaze dropped downward in helpless worry. Down there, like a swamp, the swarm of Great Spikes had begun churning again. Fewer than four thousand Stream Blades troops were trapped firmly in their midst, enduring wave after wave of grinding, merciless pressure... "Don't worry about us, Qingzi! Fighting anywhere is the same—don't overthink it, just kill it!" shouted Wen Jifei from his receding field of vision. "Only if you ignore all of this and focus on fighting to kill it do we have a sliver of hope to survive! Do you hear me, Han Qingyu?!" roared the Little Prince. "I will protect them and wait for you to come back," Wu Xu said. "Don't get all sentimental on us, our... King!" rang out the final cry, shouted in unison by the soldiers as they fought desperately for their lives. Under an unrelenting, tempestuous onslaught, Han Qingyu barely managed to parry strike after strike, retreating continuously. Finally, a beam of blue light shot out from the ranks below and landed in his hand. One war blade, one oversized column sword—severely wounded, Han Qingyu was off to face his solitary battlefield. "Tell Pink-hair not to come!" That was the second-to-last sentence Major Qing left behind for this battlefield. If Pegmont arrived, tell him not to come looking for me. That was an order. Even though, given his current state, defeat against Daie seemed practically certain, and the so-called battle was merely a question of how long he could endure. "Find a way to let Tangtang come!" shouted Han Qingyu in his final words. Very few people understood what this meant; most were bewildered. Wen Jifei and the Little Prince understood. The moment they realized, their entire bodies and souls shuddered, not daring to utter a word to anyone... Because the unspoken meaning behind Qingzi's words was: Tangtang, If I kill Daie, eat it. If I am about to die, eat me. Whichever of the two he ultimately devoured, He Tangtang would undeniably become a super-terrifying existence.