Five seconds was difficult. But with strength nearing the top-tier peak, Xu Shiliang was the first to launch a frontal charge, giving the Red Shoulder the impression that the incoming enemy posed a genuine threat and had to be parried or matched blow for blow. Only because of this did the subsequent charges of the warriors succeed in slowing it down.
Unlike within their own race, where power levels were tied to outward appearance, Great Spikes could not gauge a human warrior's combat strength from looks alone.
On the battlefield, this was a seemingly ordinary detail that often carried profound significance.
Naturally, by now they could already recognize Wu Xu and Weize. With the battle having progressed to this point, the high-end combat against the Red Shoulders had been fought mainly by Wu Xu, Weize, and Theodore, leading a portion of their top combatants.
Among them, Wu Xu was without question the linchpin the entire battle relied upon. As humanity's pinnacle powerhouse ranked seventh on the Dome Leaderboard, he had already possessed the strength to solo-kill a Red Shoulder in a short time even in his normal state. In this fight, striking from the outset with his Near-Death Surge activated, Wu Xu's combat strength exerted a degree of crushing dominance even against a Red Shoulder.
From the perspective of the Great Spikes, this human was growing increasingly powerful and terrifying as the battle dragged on.
This was because Wu Xu's wounds were multiplying... Near-Death Surge: the closer to death, the stronger the surge!
Aside from Wu Xu, the person in Stream Vanguard who posed the greatest threat to the Red Shoulders was not Theodore, who had advanced to super years ago, but Weize, who had broken through to super less than three months prior.
He was stronger than Theodore. Because his eerie, unknown advanced trait was unimaginably powerful.
At times, the warriors would even wonder and doubt whether Weize might be stronger than Wu Xu, for on occasion he could instantly kill a Red Shoulder.
A breach meant instant death.
Such instant kills were rare; up to now, it had happened only four times, but each time could practically be credited with salvaging the entire battle.
Were it not for Weize's presence, it was hard to say whether Stream Vanguard's defensive line could have held out until now.
The warriors on the battlefield readily accepted Weize's incomprehensible power and dreadfulness, and so did Theodore, because he—Corpse Man Weize—had always been an anomaly.
Weize had been "refined."
Beginning when he was twelve years old, someone he had never seen locked him in a laboratory for five whole years. For those five years, he was like a lab rat, enduring countless agonies beyond the imagination of ordinary people.
In his memory, there had been many others made into experimental subjects alongside him back then. Later, all of them died, and only Weize survived, enduring it all the way through.
Until one day, he suddenly discovered that the dead iron door was unlocked. Pushing it open and walking out, he found that the entire research facility was completely deserted...
After staying alone for two days, simply because being alone terrified him too much, he finally decided to leave.
Afterward, he drifted from place to place and eventually reached the City of Sin.
Weize had a massive demand for source energy blocks. This need went beyond increasing his strength; it was a matter of survival—without enough source energy blocks, he would die. Thus, Weize became a solitary assassin in the City of Sin who gave a damn about no one.
On the night the Alliance of Independent Bands rose, having been hired to fight, Weize battled Han Qingyu and lost.
Not long after, the consistently solitary Corpse Man Weize surprisingly took the initiative to join them, enlisting in the Azure Dragon Gang.
The true reason stirred up much speculation at the time, but the truth was simple, boiling down to just one thing: source energy blocks. Back then, Han Qingyu's wholehearted extortion of the larger factions made Weize suddenly realize that this man might be the hardest-working and most adept earner of source energy blocks he had ever seen in his life.
And so, for the first time, he chose to have companions.
After staying in the Azure Dragon Gang for a time, Weize naturally became a member of Stream Vanguard. On the day Han Qingyu led ten thousand people out of the City of Sin, he grabbed a bag, boarded the ship, curled up in a corner, and came along.
And there he stayed for more than three years, right up to the present.
Over these three-plus years, everyone grew accustomed to his walking-corpse-like presence. Or rather, the guy barely had any presence at all; he was usually silent when alone, and even if someone occasionally struck up a conversation or teased him in jest, he would only look at them without responding.
Except for one thing, which Gu Zhazha suddenly discovered—or rather realized—one day: throughout those three years, Weize had been present at nearly every gathering where they drank and chatted, sitting quietly in a corner, watching them fool around, listening to them talk, drinking along with them, but never uttering a sound.
After noticing this, they went around asking and learned that the reality went even further: over those three-plus years, Weize had not only shown up at their gatherings, but whenever they didn't have one, he would wander out looking on his own, turning up wherever groups of soldiers gathered to drink, quietly staying in a corner, watching, listening, drinking, and never saying a word.
Almost no one knew that Weize was actually someone who loved lively company.
Before he was twelve, he had been a lively, warmhearted child. But the five years he endured starting at age twelve left him deeply terrified of being alone inside, desperately craving the warmth of human presence.
He also loved to laugh. Sometimes at the drinking table, watching them clown around, listening to them brag or crack jokes that were funny or even not particularly funny, Weize would laugh—laugh until he could barely take it.
It was just that his face was rigid, incapable of forming a smile; his vocal cords were stiff and coarse, unable to produce normal laughter; even his body could hardly show any physical reaction driven by emotion.
Over those three-plus years, Han Qingyu and Weize had never been particularly close, but Han Qingyu had always been very generous with source energy blocks, providing as much as needed. Even later, when Weize was at the top-tier peak and Zhe Qiuhong determined that his physical defects meant he could almost certainly never advance to super in his lifetime, that never changed in the slightest.
The twist came a few months ago. At the time, Han Qingyu had lost his memories and returned to the Stream Vanguard base. To help him readjust to combat as quickly as possible, Wen Jifei and Little Prince decided to have Weize hunt him relentlessly day and night, seeking every opportunity to ambush him...
And so, Weize pursued and attacked him tirelessly for three months, until suddenly one day, he himself advanced to super.
During that time, fewer than ten sentences were exchanged between him and Han Qingyu, and most of them were "Mm" and "Okay."
Thus, Stream Vanguard had two famously taciturn men: one was Wu Xu, and the other was Weize.
There was a difference between them, too: Wu Xu didn't talk because he was like a block of wood, whereas Weize didn't talk because he was like a dead man.
Weize had one friend in Stream Vanguard—meaning the kind of genuinely close relationship—only one... and that friend was Wu Xu.
Sometimes they would arrange to spar together, climbing up to the summit of Xilang Peak to fight, or practicing underwater combat together...
It was said that they would also sit together to drink and chat.
People had seen it, but no one had ever heard it.
And so, even now, no one in Stream Vanguard knew how they actually talked or what they talked about.
Chapter 827