Working together, Wu Xu and Weize had little trouble holding off five Red Shoulders. The problem was killing them—and doing it fast.
Through the breach forced open by the pack of Red Shoulders, subsequent Great Spikes were pouring in relentlessly. Because of the threat posed by the Red Shoulders, the warriors could only harass them from the flanks, powerless to seal the breach.
At the same time, having penetrated deep into the battle formation, the Red Shoulders could attack the wounded on the ground at any moment. Some of the wounded were even lying just paces from their feet.
They could also choose to disengage, scatter, and strike at the Stream Vanguard formations that were pushing outward with everything they had, unable to turn back even knowing the danger at their rear.
The latter was the most dangerous scenario of all, capable of causing the entire Stream Vanguard formation to collapse.
Therefore, clearing out this group of Red Shoulders had to be undertaken immediately and finished swiftly.
Yet even for Wu Xu and Weize, killing five Red Shoulders in a short time was a virtually impossible task.
Although humanity's overall combat prowess had made immense strides over the years, the rule that Great Spikes scaled greater than the sum of their parts remained unchanged. What was more, these were Red Shoulders—five of them—and they coordinated with one another.
"Another one's coming!" a warrior suddenly shouted.
The pack of Red Shoulders became six.
Wen Jifei drew back his gaze. "I'm leaving it to you... Make it fast."
It was not that he did not know how difficult this was, yet he still said it.
This was a battlefield. On a battlefield, there were always situations where intellect and strategy meant nothing. At the same time, because it was a battlefield, there were always things where "acting within one's means" was simply not an option.
Such was the situation before him. Powerless to do anything else, Wen Jifei could only choose to trust Wu Xu and Weize, throwing all the pressure onto their shoulders, heedless of reality and utterly unreasonable.
The only thing he could do was remain standing there, neither fleeing nor dodging.
Just like the charging warriors, who clearly knew the crisis emerging behind them, yet maintained formation and held the line facing outward, never looking back.
Like Wen Jifei, they chose to trust Wu Xu and Weize. Things had come to this; they had no choice but to trust Wu Xu and Weize.
If Wu Xu and Weize failed, Wen Jifei would be the first to be attacked... With his level of strength, he would certainly die. Afterward, the pack of Red Shoulders would run rampant through Stream Vanguard's lines with none to stop them, and everything that had happened here today—all the defiance and perseverance, all the waiting and hope against impossible odds—would come to an end.
Having spoken those words, Wen Jifei looked at Wu Xu and Weize no longer.
He turned his head, looking one by one at the warriors fallen on the ground. At last, his gaze settled upon Xu Shiliang.
Just then, Xu Shiliang slowly opened his eyes to look at him as well.
His consciousness seemed to already be fading. Xu Shiliang paid no attention to the crisis on the battlefield; merely seeing that Wen Jifei was still standing unharmed, he parted his lips and broke into a happy grin.
Blood streamed from the corner of his grinning mouth like water.
With strength merely approaching the peak of the top tier, choosing to clash head-on against five Great Spikes—Xu Shiliang was quite possibly the first human ever to make such a choice.
Not far in front of him was the battleground of Xu'er and Weize, the violent clatter of collisions echoing continuously...
"Uncle Shiliang."
In the end, Wen Jifei did not utter those words of thanks—thanks for saving his life. His eyes rested on Xu Shiliang, taking in that quintessential, honest face of a fifty-year-old Huaxian man, and did his best to call out to him as he always had.
"...Cough! Aye." Xu Shiliang smiled again, seemingly rallying a little, struggling to open his eyelids wider.
Wen Jifei knew that this was not a recovery. The wounds Xu Shiliang had suffered were beyond what even a life source energy block could sustain.
"Uncle Shiliang... any last words?" On a battlefield like this, even the slightest parting sentimentality was an impossible luxury. Wen Jifei forced himself to ask the cruel question, then added, "Azha is on the eastern coast. He should be safe for now. If we can make it back..."
Xu Shiliang had a nephew in Stream Vanguard. Lubi Azha was his comrade-in-arms' son, but Xu Shiliang had raised him, and the bond between them was that of father and son.
Wen Jifei thought this would likely be the concern weighing heaviest on Uncle Shiliang's heart.
"No." Xu Shiliang gave a slow shake of his head and said with difficulty, "The world today has no room for such entrustments. No need for special care. Azha is grown now. Let him do what he feels he ought to do... and as for life and death, that is up to fate."
In a world like this, death was far too commonplace. If a person could die for a choice of their own making, die a worthy death, and feel glory in their heart as their eyes closed for the last time, was that not, in truth, a stroke of fortune?!
This was Xu Shiliang's own mindset. Thus, facing death, he felt no sorrow.
He merely had one regret buried deep within his heart.
"Second Lieutenant Wen knows Ye Jian, right? If you ever see him one day, please do me a favor and ask him... Were those other thirty-eight brothers who escorted the equipment with us back then truly killed by his hand? And why were Lu Jian and I spared...?"
That year, the elite squad to which Xu Shiliang and Lu Jian belonged had volunteered to escort, alongside Ye Jian, a cache of vital equipment seized from a Snow Lotus stronghold to be handed over to the research institute.
During a rest break on the way, Ye Jian vanished briefly...
Xu Shiliang and Lu Jian were ambushed from behind by an expert and blasted unconscious. When they woke, all thirty-eight of their other brothers had been killed in action, and the equipment was gone.
Soon, news came that Ye Jian had defected from Azure and joined Snow Lotus, with that batch of equipment and the elite squad serving as his entry tribute.
The kill order issued by Azure also bore the names of Xu Shiliang and Lu Jian.
Left with no choice, the two of them had fled far away to the City of Sin...
By all rights, even in the City of Sin, they should not have survived. Yet unexpectedly, Commander Hua's people had never come looking for them.
Just like why they had survived that earlier battle, it was equally eerie and baffling.
Through all of this, no one had ever offered Xu Shiliang and Lu Jian so much as a single word of explanation. For more than twenty years, neither Azure nor Snow Lotus had paid them any heed at all. Azure never questioned them about what had happened back then, nor did it grant them any avenue to plead their innocence or learn the truth.
Just like that, they were left to fend for themselves in the City of Sin.
Later, Lu Jian died.
Xu Shiliang carried on living with Lu Jian's child. Squalid days and the long passage of time wore down many things, but one thing never changed: Xu Shiliang wanted the truth.
Just the truth. If Azure was willing to provide an explanation, fine, but it was best heard from Ye Jian himself. Beyond that, even whether he could ever clear his name with Azure had gradually ceased to matter to him.
During his days in Stream Vanguard, Xu Shiliang had thought many times of asking Major Qing to help look into the matter.
Yet in the earlier years, Xu Shiliang worried that the youth's strength and influence were not yet sufficient, and poking into this cold case would bring unnecessary trouble. Later, after the Battle of Zenith, Han Qingyu possessed all the strength and influence required, but unfortunately he was wounded and lost his memory.
Xu Shiliang had originally hoped that after this battle, once Qingzi had recovered, he would thicken his skin and bring it up to him...
"All right!" With just that one word, meeting Xu Shiliang's eyes that stubbornly refused to close, Wen Jifei nodded.
He gave his word.
Though most of the time Wen Jifei did not appear to be an especially serious or solemn person, Xu Shiliang knew that once he gave his word, so long as there was an opportunity, he would see it through. At the same time, his promise was as good as Major Qing's.
"Heh." Lacking the strength to say anything more, Xu Shiliang let out a soft laugh—just one—his expression relaxed and at peace as he slowly closed his eyes.
In the autumn of 1995, during humanity's Lost Continent Expedition, beneath the tractor field at the South Pole, former lieutenant colonel of the Azure Huaxia Front and later top-tier combat power of Stream Vanguard, Xu Shiliang—known to young and old alike in Stream Vanguard as Uncle Shiliang—fell in battle.
With his own life, he had saved another. That person's name was Wen Jifei.
Chapter 828