Imperishable Iron Armor (Part Two)

800 meters... 500 meters... 300 meters. After carving a frontal breach paved in blood, they had finally arrived directly beneath the tractor field. Because they were too close, the soldiers could no longer see the full scope of the tractor field. The blue light canopy felt within arm's reach, shooting out countless piercing, dazzling beams of light that struck everyone's face and body. For these elite human soldiers on the battlefield, three hundred meters was merely the launch distance of a routine sprint burst. As for the two peak combat powers, Han Qingyu and Pegament, so long as they had a little room beneath their feet and around their bodies to brace themselves, along with a fraction of a second to launch, both were fully capable of leaping over the final swarm of Great Spikes and slashing directly at the blue canopy. Would that breach it? Could a collective assault by the battle formation break through the canopy? Could an all-out attack by Han Qingyu and Pegament break it? Combined together, could they break it? No one knew. This had always been a gamble; they had known as much from the moment they decided to attack. All that the soldiers could achieve by giving everything, their very lives included, was this much: just enough to pry open and glimpse the final answer. "Even if it ultimately proves impossible and none of us make it back... at least we can have a clear conscience, and not die regretting that we didn't put up one last fight, right?" Driven by such resolve, against an unimaginable disparity in strength, they had fought their way here. In itself, that was already an immense wonder and a triumph. Yet what greeted them was neither excitement nor joy, but deeper despair. Because they were closer now, almost every soldier on the field could clearly see the wounded Great Spikes retreating into the canopy's perimeter, and see them emerge once more in moments. Because the fighting was taking place right at the edge of the canopy, this cycle had become terrifyingly fast. They were wounded, pulled back inside, and reemerged. The whole process took so little time that ordinary elite soldiers barely had enough time to mount a single full-power strike... As the practically passive defenders on this battlefield, the vast majority of Azure soldiers could not inflict rapid, effective, and decisive kills on the Great Spikes. They lacked the power to kill a Great Spike in an instant; every kill required a process, starting from inflicting an injury... And now, the Great Spikes on the front line withdrew into the canopy the moment they were heavily wounded. The consequence was that the vast majority of the soldiers' desperate fighting yielded no meaningful result. [A comrade who had just fallen beside them traded his life to carve a fatal wound into a Great Spike... yet now, it reappeared, alive and vigorous. And that comrade would never wake again.] The psychological blow of such scenes devastated the soldiers' will far more than death itself. In truth, even the strongest will was likely useless now. Because with the current "cycle," the Great Spikes on the front line were virtually inexhaustible. The situation was no longer humanity pushing inward, but the alien swarm steadily pushing back out. The massive, unrelenting onslaught left the human battle formation barely able to hold its ground. They had already been unable to spare much attention for the flanks, and now they could not even withstand the front. Thus, any possibility of the formation directly slamming into the canopy was completely gone. All hope rested solely on Pegament and Han Qingyu. "Spread out." In his battlefield command, Marshal Hua spoke only two words. Countless soldiers died because of those two words. Spreading out with reckless abandon, the formation finally carved out a tiny pocket of space. At the same time, high-tier combatants fought desperately to peel away the swarms of Red Shoulders that Major Qing and Pegament were tangled with... Then: "We're counting on you." Marshal Hua spoke again. *Boom!* Two extreme bursts of life source energy erupted almost simultaneously. *Whoosh! Whoosh!* Pink hair flying, Pegament sprinted forward to build momentum and leapt, soaring over the Great Spike swarm with his paired combat sabers held high, cleaving toward the blue canopy. Crimson blood spraying, Major Qing vomited blood repeatedly in midair. Gripping a pillar sword before him with both hands, his body aligned parallel to the tops of the Great Spikes' heads, he spun rapidly and thrust straight toward the canopy. The answer finally seemed about to be revealed... Yet—*hum!* A cluster of blue light surged on the canopy. Directly before Pegament, seven Red Shoulders boldly leapt into the air—three in front, four behind—suddenly appearing and swinging their swords to intercept him. *Boom!* After a head-on collision, one Red Shoulder fell dead, but Pegament's offensive was officially broken. Blown backward, he plunged toward the ground and smashed heavily into the Great Spike swarm, swiftly surrounded by surging Red Shoulders. Red Shoulders nearby joined the fray; six quickly became seven, then eight... Separated by the mass of Great Spikes, the human formation was completely unable to render aid. *Hum! Boom!* An almost identical scene played out within half a second: Major Qing was blasted to the ground by another group of Red Shoulders that appeared abruptly in midair, and then trapped in their deadly encirclement. "They didn't even touch the canopy." "It's not about whether it can be broken." "They can't even touch it!" "Major Qing and Pegament, the two peak combat powers, struck together, yet they didn't even get the chance to touch it once." "And now, no one can help them." As this realization sank in, for the first time, thoughts of giving up crept involuntarily into the hearts of these soldiers who had come here prepared to die. They had risked their lives to reach this place just to see the answer: was it even possible for humanity to breach the canopy, destroy that super source energy gravity field, and charge into the tractor field? Yet reality told them that they did not even possess the qualification or the opportunity to take that single look. ... "Marshal Hua! Marshal Hua!" Wen Jifei's voice suddenly crackled over Hua Bixuan's comms. Gunfire had continued across the battlefield, so Hua Bixuan was not surprised by his and Milla's presence. "You..." Marshal Hua muttered in confusion. "Did you notice?!" Wen Jifei said directly from the other end. On the fringes of the battlefield, Wen Jifei and Milla had been firing continuously. Yet against such a massive, dense horde of Great Spikes, guns were practically useless and could offer little help... But Wen Jifei had just spotted something through his sniper scope. In a short window of time, the blue canopy could open at most two "doors." These doors meant exits through which the Great Spikes emerged from within the canopy. They could open extremely fast, and anywhere along its surface. Yet just now, when one pack of Red Shoulders "opened a door" and emerged to attack Pegament, while another pack not far away also "opened a door" to attack Han Qingyu... through Wen Jifei's sniper scope: A group of Great Spikes that was charging out of the canopy—including two Red Shoulders—suddenly had their iron armor shatter without entering combat at all, bursting and dying as if compressed and crushed. From this, Wen Jifei swiftly deduced: the passage they were emerging from had abruptly closed. This proved two things: First, the Great Spikes themselves could not withstand their own super source energy gravity field unless they traveled through a designated passage. Second, in an extremely short span of time, the canopy could open at most two passages simultaneously. This might be the final glimmer of hope. Wen Jifei relayed this to Marshal Hua as fast as he could. Others listening in on the battlefield's highest communication frequency heard it as well—Han Qingyu, Pegament, Azure's other super combatants, as well as Wu Xu, Rusty Sister... "We need a third person!" "A third person capable of lunging directly at the canopy." Every single one of them grasped this in an instant. "No, first Major Qing and Pegament have to break free from the Red Shoulders' encirclement at the same time, but their positions..." They quickly realized another point—the fatal flaw in the plan right now. "...We can't do it." After only a brief moment of thought, Hua Bixuan admitted frankly that this three-pronged strike was currently impossible to pull off. Under the present circumstances, he could try to be the third person himself and die in the attempt, but they could not break the encirclement currently suffocating Han Qingyu and Pegament. If those two could not extricate themselves at the same time, nothing was possible. There was a brief silence over the comms... save for the sounds of slaughter. "Peg, get ready. It's up to you," Han Qingyu's voice suddenly broke in, thick with ragged breathing and pain. "All right!" Pegament replied instantly. Then, "Tangtang!" Han Qingyu shouted abruptly—not through the communicator, but bellowing through a surge of source energy. In a daze of battle, Han Qingyu had forgotten that he and Tangtang had already received new communicators from Azure after returning. "...Here!" He Tangtang turned his head and shouted back with equal force, his voice anxious and edged with helplessness. He was not as strong as he had imagined. He was very powerful now—for instance, in a one-on-one fight, he could find an opening to devour a Red Shoulder directly without waiting for it to be mortally wounded. Yet the Red Shoulders on this battlefield were far too dense and rarely isolated, and they fought in formation, covering for each other. And in regular combat without using his specialty, He Tangtang found the gap between himself and Wu Xu was still vast. Compared to Wu Xu's formidable combat strength, combat experience, and battle instinct, He Tangtang was still far from accustomed to peak super-tier combat; he was no fighting genius. Moreover, the growth devouring Red Shoulders granted him had diminished to almost nothing. Frustration, anxiety, bewilderment... He Tangtang had fought tooth and nail the entire way, recklessly testing his specialty among the Red Shoulders whether the timing was right or not. He had already eaten four Red Shoulders, but that was far from enough. He wanted to do more, but couldn't. So when Qingzi called out to him at this moment, He Tangtang had no idea what he could do. He simply used his firm response to tell Qingzi that he was here, ready for anything. "Get ready to relax your body." Qingzi's second sentence came through the communicator this time. "Now I'll tell you what to do..." Han Qingyu finished explaining. "Got it." Answering without a second of hesitation, He Tangtang abandoned his source energy surge and even let go of any physical muscle tension, relaxing himself completely amidst the swarm of Great Spikes. Tied to his body were still more than a dozen pieces of dead iron he had strapped on at Mount Erebus to guard against molten lava; since they were already tied to him, he figured they worked well enough as makeshift armor. What happened over the next three seconds: He Tangtang's entire body suddenly flew into the air, soaring across the Great Spike swarm and hurtling down toward Pegament, who was being besieged by seven Red Shoulders. At the very last instant, he re-armed himself. The moment he touched down, his specialty erupted to its limit, instantly devouring two Red Shoulders that had their backs turned to him and had already been wounded by Pegament. *Whoosh!* An opening appeared. Pegament charged straight through with reckless abandon, accelerating over a short distance, and leapt into the air toward the tractor field. Standing amidst the Red Shoulders, He Tangtang once again relaxed his body completely. Immediately, he took flight again. Grazing past the Red Shoulders' pillar swords, he flew toward the blue canopy... He Tangtang drew his saber in midair, re-arming himself once more. *Spurt!* As Han Qingyu did all this, a pillar sword from a Red Shoulder slashed across his back, launching his entire body forward and upward. *Swoosh!* Twisting his body in midair, a beam of blue light left his grasp. The blue-light pillar sword flew from Han Qingyu's right hand like a streak of lightning, shooting toward the canopy. Then his entire body followed the pillar sword, flying toward the canopy... drawing a combat saber with his left hand in midair. At the exact same time, three figures flew toward the blue canopy. In fact, there were more than three. In the air right now, other things were flying as well. When Han Qingyu desperately manipulated dead iron to launch He Tangtang toward the canopy, several Black Armor Great Spikes had been swept up alongside him, also flying through the air. In short, the assault once thought impossible had manifested. Among the three, Pegament paused briefly in midair. *Hum! Hum!* The canopy flashed rapidly twice. Four Red Shoulders materialized abruptly, blocking Han Qingyu. Another four slashed He Tangtang out of the air. A continuous roar—*whoosh! Boom!* Pegament erupted once more in midair, his two combat sabers slamming into the blue canopy. Just as Wen Jifei had deduced, being the third person attacking almost at the same instant, no third group of Red Shoulders emerged from within the canopy to stop Pegament. ...Did it work?! Violent shockwaves of source energy shook the entire ice field! *Craaaack...* The sound of the canopy on the verge of shattering echoed out. Suddenly—*hum!* It restored! The wall of the canopy, like a mirror on the brink of shattering, suddenly repaired itself, flawless and intact. ...It failed! After his desperate strike, Pegament fell like a kite with a severed string, plummeting toward the Great Spike swarm. By just a hair, he had failed to shatter the blue canopy. Pegament had never really pondered whether the canopy could be broken. He merely believed firmly that he was close to Han Qingyu's peak state, and as for just how strong Han Qingyu's peak state was, he had his own benchmark... defined by slashing Daie until it fled versus slashing Daie to death. Striking with that level of power, Pegament had failed. That seemed to prove that even Daie could not have done it, nor could Major Qing in his peak condition. After all, this was a super source energy gravity field created through the resonance of nearly twenty Great Spike motherships and thousands of source energy airships. ...It was over. This time brought true despair. Those plunged into despair were not just the Azure soldiers, Marshal Hua, and Wen Jifei... but even Pegament and Han Qingyu themselves. At this moment, both of them, like He Tangtang, were about to fall into the Great Spike swarm and be trapped once more in the deadly encirclement of Red Shoulders... They would not get another chance. Everything was coming to an end... *Whoosh!* Among those Black Armor Great Spikes flying through the air, one suddenly erupted, raising a sword and blasting toward the blue canopy. No, that wasn't a Black Armor Great Spike. That was human iron armor. Inside that iron armor was a young girl whom the world called Second Lieutenant Shen Yixiu or the Human Iron Armor, while Han Qingyu and the others usually called her Bucket Sister, Iron Chick, or Rusty Sister. All of Rusty Sister's actions had mirrored He Tangtang's, almost in exact synchrony. Back when He Tangtang had stood in his original spot relaxing everything, Rusty Sister had stood behind him, listening to Qingzi's instructions over the communicator, and relaxed herself completely as well. They had flown over together. And together they had flown toward the canopy. He Tangtang had been battered down by the Red Shoulders, falling toward the Great Spike swarm below. Yet Rusty Sister had not... She knew it was virtually impossible for her to shatter the blue canopy. But hadn't it almost broken just now? Wasn't she already right here? Wasn't everything coming to an end anyway? "I'll give it a try," Rusty Sister said. She wanted to add "Qingzi," but there was no time. Han Qingyu couldn't reply with a single word either, able only to cast a pained gaze toward her. Everyone turned their eyes toward her... *Boom!* Iron armor, weapon, and body slammed together into the blue canopy. In an instant, the canopy's surface blazed with magnificent light as source energy surged violently. Mingled with that was a quiet *crack!* The next second, in Han Qingyu's sight, in everyone's sight... a suit of iron armor was standing in midair. To be precise, Second Lieutenant Shen Yixiu was now standing in midair upon the canopy wall, with most of her body inside the canopy. She stood upon empty air... or perhaps there was something invisible providing her a foothold. In any case, a suit of grim black iron armor now stood in midair a hundred meters high, within the canopy of the tractor field, amidst the magnificent glare. "She broke through..." Perhaps because Pegament's strike had already pushed it past its threshold, the canopy had been breached by Second Lieutenant Shen Yixiu's peak top-tier strength. "But..." Yet despite being breached, the blue canopy did not shatter completely. Humanity had previously imagined it like a mirror that would shatter upon impact, but in reality, it was like the surface of a lake: even if struck open, the breach lasted only an instant, quickly beginning to heal once the ripples passed. The iron armor was not squeezed out. Instead, the entire canopy wall closed in around her. Remember, that was a super source energy gravity field itself! Wen Jifei had already described the scene of that Great Spike pack, Red Shoulders included, being directly crushed to pieces... When it closed up, how could Rusty Sister possibly remain standing inside it? Perhaps in the next second, she would be pulverized into nothing in midair. Even if the gravity there wasn't as intense because it happened to be a recently opened passage, the next group of Red Shoulders emerging from within the canopy would soon swallow her whole. Second Lieutenant Shen Yixiu was humanity's strongest combatant below the super tier... but she was still below super tier. Her combat power was far from enough to face an entire pack of Red Shoulders. ... No one had time to say a word before sorrow began to swell. In their sight, the blue canopy did not crush Second Lieutenant Shen Yixiu. The black iron armor remained standing there in midair. At the same time, light began to flow within the blue canopy. To be exact, the portion of light that resembled white mutton-fat jade was moving, coalescing rapidly into what appeared to be tens of thousands of rays. They converged entirely upon a single point: that suit of black iron armor. The iron armor was completely enveloped. As the white light enveloped it, countless blue-and-white beams of light burst outward from around her body. A divine spectacle. ... The blue canopy had lost its white component, yet it still had not shattered. *Hiss-roaaar!* The Red Shoulder swarm arrived. In a daze, Rusty Sister raised both hands crosswise, parrying the first pillar sword that slashed at her. But she failed to block the second pillar sword thrust straight toward her... The pillar sword drove toward her abdomen. *Chrrk!* The sound of the iron armor being pierced by the sword tip rang out... And then, the pillar sword stopped. After piercing the iron armor, it stopped there, failing to enter Rusty Sister's body. It couldn't even break the skin. "..." Rusty Sister glanced down at herself, raised her head, and swung her sword. She chopped off the head of the Red Shoulder, which had visibly frozen in shock. To do so, she struck three times in succession. This seemed to prove that Rusty Sister's strength—at least her offensive power—had not experienced a fundamental leap. Then was it invincible defense?! No, but also yes. Because when a person's skin constantly regenerates at a rate of hundreds of millions of times per millisecond, it is simply impossible to pierce or shatter. And so, standing in midair upon the canopy wall of the super tractor field, amidst the magnificent white radiance... was a suit of imperishable iron armor.