Throughout human history, the pursuit of speed—whether through the body alone or with the aid of machines—had never ceased. This was He Tangtang's first time sprinting in the state of a peak super. Every feature of the landscape flashed past his eyes like phantoms. The wind was pierced and parted to either side, forming currents of air that felt almost tangible.
It was an unprecedented experience, bringing an exhilarating, thoroughly satisfying thrill to both body and soul.
Even though the destination they were rushing toward remained a battlefield steeped in despair, and an overwhelming worry and urgency inevitably pressed upon his heart, He Tangtang still couldn't resist savoring, along the way, the intoxicating joy born of immense power.
"Food. Red Shoulders, Daies, supers, Above the Dome... Heh, they're all just food."
Humanity's peak super, the only known Yanxiu-devouring beast among humankind, terminator of Daies, the greatest kidney-striker and Super Magic-Kill Fighter in human history... was letting it go to his head, unable to keep his mouth shut as he ran.
At this moment, like a child whose school grades had made a miraculous leap, He Tangtang wanted to tell so many people, wanted so many to witness his sheer power. Faces flashed across his mind in rapid succession until they abruptly froze at one.
It was a strikingly beautiful face. They hadn't known each other long, but the impression was vivid and deep—because she was probably the first "woman" in He Tangtang's life to make him so conflicted.
She was the knot in his heart.
She was an inescapable brush with fate in a rough boy's coming-of-age—a narrow encounter from which he couldn't emerge unscathed. And though their paths had parted, his heart lingered behind.
The S-class genius rookie of the Thailand Front Army, Nisha.
"I wonder how you're doing back on the Peninsula battlefield?" He Tangtang couldn't help feeling a pang of worry after all, turning his head to gaze into the far distance.
…………
Nisha was dead.
He Tangtang didn't know yet.
…………
On the Peninsula battlefield, when the supers and elites returning from the western front swept across the battlefield like a howling gale, searching the entire grounds for any trace of Red Shoulders under the guidance of the soldiers and the Rejectors...
The last surviving generals of the Thailand Front Army halted. Standing upon the blood-stained, shattered ice plains, they looked around in a daze, weeping in silence.
In this battle, they had lost so many—so very many. Among them was that girl named Nisha, the front army's most promising prodigy in nearly forty years.
Yes, a girl. They insisted on calling her a girl.
On the blood-stained corpse, pale-faced with long eyelashes fluttering faintly in the wind, a crimson badge rested upon Nisha's chest.
The moth-to-the-flame badge of Stream Blades covered the fatal wound on her torso.
More than ten days ago, when Stream Blades set out to march east and Nisha was sorrowfully hiding beneath an ice rock eating roasted fish, their Second Lieutenant Shen Yixiu had specially brought it over to her.
"Our Tangtang likes you, you know," she had said back then. "Actually, all of us could tell. It's just that he's a dork who's never been in love before, so he's too shy to admit it to you. Don't worry, just wait for us to come back. When he can't hold back anymore and comes looking for you, it's bound to be hilarious."
Throughout the days that followed, Nisha had been happy... truly happy.
…………
Han Qingyu vaguely caught He Tangtang's earlier words through the wind that was thick as a solid wall. Opening his eyes to glance at him, he wanted to tell him to get lost.
On second thought, he held his tongue.
After all, he was still being hauled along under the guy's arm, swaying back and forth with the swing of his stride. Closing his eyes again, Han Qingyu strove to adjust his physical state while carefully sensing and taking measure of He Tangtang's current power.
He firmly believed their brothers beneath the tractor field were still alive. But he didn't know what he could possibly accomplish once he returned in his current condition.
Perhaps for many things, they could only count on Tangtang now.
He Tangtang was stronger than Alphonse—that was certain. In his prime, Alphonse had once been ranked fifth on the Dome Leaderboard. Current He Tangtang most likely wouldn't rank in the top five, yet he was still definitely stronger than that first-generation Starlight.
That was because humanity's high-end combat power as a whole had already risen by an entire tier. Furthermore, Alphonse's ranking back then had always involved far too much speculation.
Just look at what he had fed on.
That cowardly, sinister old dog had only ever dared, right up to the end of his life, to hatch conspiracies and squeeze out scraps of residual life source energy and what little Yanxiu energy might remain from the corpses of young human prodigies. Because unleashing his trait under such circumstances yielded far less than it cost him, he chose to draw it out slowly through a sordid contraption...
He Tangtang, on the other hand, had lived on Red Shoulders—live ones—ever since that first assassin from the Maple Leaf Nation. On this expedition to Antarctica, he had consumed over a dozen in one go.
And then, just now, he had devoured a Daie—alive.
To date, humankind had witnessed only two Daies. One was hacked to death by Han Qingyu, and the other was swallowed alive by He Tangtang.
The logic of such devouring could be roughly analogized to a Komodo dragon swallowing a Tyrannosaurus rex alive. Through this, He Tangtang had shattered his bottleneck in one leap, ascending to super combat power and stepping straight into its peak.
The same Yanxiu—no, the same Yanxiu-devouring beast.
Different masters.
Completely different diets and paths of growth.
"Under these circumstances, there's a strong likelihood that Tangtang's trait has also evolved, far surpassing Alphonse's level," Han Qingyu deduced.
Only because there was literally nothing on hand to taste-test besides himself did he rein in his curiosity and refrain from suggesting He Tangtang give it a try.
Even now, they remained unaware of the seismic shifts Daie's death had brought to the entire battlefield and the tractor field.
…………
"No good! Can't break through!" Beneath the tractor field, Pegament finally turned his head and yelled.
Wen Jifei knew he couldn't break through; his sniper scope had been tracking that streak of pink the entire time.
Pegament had already posed a threat to the tractor field. Although he lacked any clever tricks and hadn't pushed as close as Qingzi had earlier, his furiously berserk rampage had drawn the attention of the Great Spike swarm to an even greater degree.
Their shifting formations underwent a change, stacking defensive lines increasingly toward the front of the tractor field.
"I know! Get back here, quick!" Wen Jifei shouted back urgently, waving him to return immediately.
Earlier, when Han Qingyu was driven off by Daie, Stream Blades had already given up on attacking the tractor field, knowing they couldn't pull it off.
Now, Wen Jifei was even more certain: they couldn't do it. Even with Pegament added to the mix, there was zero chance. Because he had made another observation that he hadn't yet shared with the warriors of Stream Blades.
That super tractor field... aside from being a tractor field, was also a fountain of life.
Through his sniper scope, Great Spikes that had previously retreated from the battle with severe wounds reemerged shortly after entering the tractor field, rejoining the fray in fierce, peak condition.
To verify this, Wen Jifei had deliberately tracked two Great Spikes with distinctively damaged iron armor.
The result proved that it was indeed so.
The tractor field couldn't repair their iron armor, but it could rapidly restore those heavily wounded Great Spikes.
This meant that assaulting the tractor field had become utterly impossible. As long as the remaining Great Spikes dug in outside the blue barrier enclosing the field's perimeter and fought in continuous rotations, even if all two hundred thousand elite troops from Azure's western front arrived, they would still hardly have a chance of breaking through.
"Hold our ground right here and hang on." That was currently the best choice. Wen Jifei still firmly believed that Qingzi and Tangtang would return. Of course, before that, he had to get Pegament back.
"Plague Chicken... Plague Chicken!" Little Prince suddenly returned from the frontline, standing beside him and shouting.
Wen Jifei paused, lowering his scope and turning around.
"Look," Little Prince said, sweeping his hand in a half-circle.
Wen Jifei followed his gesture.
The black swamp of Great Spikes was flowing in reverse; the swarm across the entire battlefield was contracting.
Pegament had already given up on attacking the tractor field and was fighting his way back, yet they continued to gather and contract toward the base of the tractor field without the slightest sign of stopping.
"Why?" Wen Jifei wondered in confusion.
At the same time, "We might live!" Little Prince turned excitedly, gesturing in the other direction.
Over there, the Great Spike defensive line on Stream Blades' flank had grown significantly thinner than before, and it was continuing to thin out.
They had a chance to break out.
They might actually survive—so long as they could leave this place before the counter-encircling Great Spike units converged upon them.
"Daie is dead!" "Rejectors battlefield announcement! To all fronts, the rear, and all humankind... Daie is dead!" Suddenly, an intensely emotional voice blared from the communicator on Wen Jifei's chest.
"Antarctica's eastern front, Mount Erebus region: Major Qing, severely wounded, fought Daie once more, joining hands with the great Kidney-Striker to achieve the final slaying!"
Because the satellite imagery was not clear enough, the Rejectors had failed to capture the moment He Tangtang devoured Daie. However, the shocking spectacle of his advancement and power eruption atop the volcano crater had been observed. Thus, the broadcaster made the announcement based on deduced logic.
At that moment, after two seconds of stunned silence, the Peninsula battlefield erupted in cheers. The ten thousand elite reinforcements rushing south cheered as they sprinted. The entire world was rejoicing.
"Looks like Tangtang's quite famous now—even the Rejectors know his moniker." Little Prince finally found a moment to ease his tension, speaking with snarky sarcasm: "Joining hands to achieve the slaying? As if! What could that He Tangtang even do?!"
Wen Jifei glanced at him. Since his own mood was also temporarily relieved and joyful, that glance was loaded with profound meaning.
Little Prince had no idea that by now, Tangtang was someone he probably couldn't afford to provoke anymore.
Since the one dead was Daie and not Qingzi, that Daie had most likely been devoured by He Tangtang.
Having consumed a Daie while teetering on the cusp of peak top-tier, what exact level of combat power He Tangtang possessed now was beyond Wen Jifei's knowing. But he was certain of one thing: current Tangtang was definitely not someone Little Prince could mess with.
Whoosh! Pegament returned, a severed Great Spike arm slipping off his shoulder. Glancing at Wen Jifei, he asked, "What's the situation now?"
"Daie is dead," Wen Jifei answered simply, his words firm and powerful.
Pegament looked at him. "Oh." He took it as if it were the most natural thing in the world, then pressed, "So what do we do now...?"
"Break out." Wen Jifei turned, surging his source energy to bellow to the entire army, "Daie is dead! Qingzi is waiting for us! Break out right now!"
Daie was dead; the Great Spikes on the battlefield had lost their commander. Seizing this moment to break out, they might still have a chance to bypass the surrounding Great Spike swarms closing in from all sides and escape with their lives.
As for the tractor field, it couldn't be breached. But now that Daie was dead, so what if it sat right there?! Wen Jifei thought.
Chapter 833