A miraculous scene unfolded...
A spectacle resembling a divine wonder.
Clad in cold, unyielding iron armor belonging to humanity, she stood directly upon the canopy wall of the Great Spikes' super tractor field. With nothing beneath her feet, she seemed to stand upon the light itself.
Meanwhile, the radiance belonging to an alien civilization—light that had once plunged mankind into terror and despair—was continually converging toward her, as if offering homage, submission, and sustenance.
Second Lieutenant Shen Yixiu stood there, all alone.
Countless Great Spikes within the canopy, including Red Shoulders, charged relentlessly toward her—perhaps five hundred, perhaps a thousand, or perhaps even more.
She raised the sword in her hand. The blade was now enveloped in radiance, resembling a relic of legend as it slashed down repeatedly.
Slashing down,
Slashing down...
One suit of armor held the pass; ten thousand Spikes could not breach it. That was precisely the scene before their eyes.
In the hundred-year history of human civilization's struggle, this was without question the single most insulting battle ever fought against the Great Spikes, a civilization of super martial might.
For never had a human confronted a horde of Great Spikes in such a manner. Han Qingyu had not, General Bochen had not, and Chen Buer had not either.
*Whew! Thank goodness the white light can penetrate the iron armor too!*
Seizing a gap between strikes, Rusty Sister thought to herself, heaving a massive sigh of relief. A breach had opened in her iron armor earlier... and she wasn't wearing any clothes underneath.
The ends of her long hair swayed, brushing against both sides of her waist—a tactile sensation Rusty Sister could feel with total clarity.
*Wait...*
Snapping her head down, she glanced at the breach at her abdomen. Though the enveloping white light kept her from seeing clearly, she quickly realized something else:
*It doesn't seem to hurt!*
In the past, Rusty Sister had survived fatal, near-mortal injuries solely by relying on this closed-cycle dead iron source energy life-support system. Any tiny crack in the armor would have caused her agonizing pain and drained her life away in moments. Yet now, when a section of the armor had shattered, nothing happened at all.
*Is it because of the white light that it doesn't hurt, or am I really fully healed?* Rusty Sister thought, feeling both excited and apprehensive.
Then her thoughts began to wander:
*Oh no, what if I didn't grow up pretty?*
*I told Qingzi and the rest of those bastards that I'd definitely grow up gorgeous.*
*A girl changes eighteen times between childhood and womanhood, and I was so pretty when I was little...*
*Please don't let me have turned out ugly, Shen Yixiu, or they'll never let me hear the end of it.*
*If that happens, I might as well hide in this iron armor forever.*
At such a time and in such an environment, standing amidst a magnificent radiance watched by all of humanity, this young woman mechanically swung her sword in battle while agonizing over precisely these frivolous worries.
She had not truly realized the exhilaration and shock she was delivering to the battlefield and the entire human world.
Because of this spectacle, the entire battlefield had briefly frozen moments ago. After that, no more Great Spikes emerged from within the canopy. Although the chaotic brawl soon resumed, the pressure on the front line of the Azure battle formation had lessened dramatically. This gave the soldiers time to witness this miracle unfolding, leaving them awestruck, bewildered, thrilled, and overjoyed.
"That white light was originally meant to repair wounded Great Spikes, but now it seems to be pouring entirely toward Second Lieutenant Shen Yixiu."
"Yes."
The Great Spikes were no longer being treated or repaired. Second Lieutenant Shen Yixiu's constitution seemed far better suited to attract and assimilate the white light than theirs.
Up to this point, no one on the front lines or in the rear knew that the white light was actually a form of source energy—a special energy known as vital source energy, which was exceptionally precious even to the Great Spike civilization.
"It's the jade bone," Han Qingyu said to Wen Jifei over the communicator during a lull in the fighting.
Years ago, during the Flag War at Xilang Peak, Han Qingyu had infiltrated the interior of a Great Spike mothership and retrieved a piece of jade bone for Rusty Sister. That object was like a miraculous medicine for healing injuries, but it was effective only on her.
The bone had not been very large, but it had taken until today to be completely consumed.
Now, it was likely that the jade bones brought by all the Great Spike crafts in this invasion were actively releasing their energy, which was then being continuously absorbed by Rusty Sister.
"Qingzi, Rusty Sister seems to have advanced," Wen Jifei's voice suddenly came through from the other end.
From his observations through the scope, Rusty Sister's sword-swinging speed, offensive force, and lethality were all noticeably higher than before. The white light was not merely healing her; it was making her stronger.
Super. Following He Tangtang, Stream Blades had gained another super-tier combatant today—Second Lieutenant Shen Yixiu had advanced to super.
*If we weren't still in the middle of battle, I'd give her proper congratulations, and then use a sparring match as an excuse to give her a sound thrashing for acting on her own,* Han Qingyu thought to himself.
*Wuuuuum...*
A low, continuous vibration suddenly echoed from the Great Spike tractor field. Along with the sound, the entire tractor field seemed to shudder.
Was it shattering?
No, it was not.
Rather, it was accelerating the traction process.
Without Daie's commands, the Great Spikes' objective had become simple and mechanical: to complete this super traction at all costs.
"Look up there!" a soldier on the ground shouted, pointing his blade toward the sky.
A portion of the fighters tilted their heads up.
Directly above them, where the spire of the super tractor field pointed, a massive vortex resembling a black hole was forming. With a slow, forceful momentum, it gradually expanded and swelled... as though something colossal and overwhelmingly powerful was about to emerge.
This sight fell into the eyes of every officer and soldier present, and soon appeared before the eyes of the entire world.
Were new Great Spike forces arriving?
Or perhaps an even higher tier of Great Spike?
Had they failed to stop it after all?
"Attack!" Marshal Hua suddenly roared at the top of his lungs.
"Attack!" All the Azure commanders began shouting anxiously, their voices hoarse, nearly hysterical.
*Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh...*
A desperate charge instantly erupted across the battlefield. Everyone still capable of movement burst into a frenzy, throwing themselves toward the tractor field.
However,
The hordes of Great Spikes behind them and on both flanks continued to crush down upon them.
The blue light canopy outside the tractor field still had not broken.
It had shut down its passageways, no longer allowing the Great Spikes to enter or exit, seemingly dedicating all its energy to consolidating the source energy gravity field in order to finalize the traction.
*Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!*
Supers, top-tiers, and ordinary soldiers—thousands charged without regard for their lives, and hundreds breached the final frontal Great Spike defenses, slamming one dead iron battleblade after another against the canopy wall.
Yet against such attacks, aside from slight energy ripples and wave-like undulations across the surface, the blue canopy remained completely intact.
*Boom!*
Pegament struck it once, twice.
Han Qingyu struck it once, twice.
It could not be breached.
Even they could not break through.
In truth, even if they could blast open a breach, so long as the blue canopy remained intact as a whole, could the vast majority of soldiers here truly step inside that super source energy gravity field? After all, moments ago, even a Red Shoulder had been crushed and blown apart the instant the gravity field actively closed the passage.
Time was running out, and the stench of despair washed over them once more...
"You can come through my way! You should be able to, right?" Rusty Sister's voice suddenly came over the communication channel, tinged with uncertainty.
Although she was wrapped in white light on the canopy wall, unable to advance, and lacked the offensive force to push back the Great Spike horde on her own, she could hold that breach open.
If Qingzi and the others wanted to charge in, why didn't they go through here? Rusty Sister was genuinely puzzled.
*Oh right!*
In an instant, all the elite combatants on the scene—including Han Qingyu, Pegament, and Marshal Hua—cursed themselves as idiots in their hearts, and then silently branded one another idiots.
As things stood, the blue canopy could not be breached and would no longer open passages on its own. However, one of its passages was being held open by Rusty Sister! It was like a stone gate of a fortified city being wedged ajar, unable to close.
That was why the Great Spikes inside the canopy were desperately charging outward toward Rusty Sister.
It was their way out, but it was also humanity's way in.
"Coming," Han Qingyu answered briskly once he understood.
Rusty Sister stood at a height of roughly a hundred meters. For an ordinary soldier, or even an ordinary super, that was not an altitude reachable in a single bound.
For him, however, so long as there was run-up space, it was no problem at all. Pegament likewise had no...
*Whoosh!*
Faster than Han Qingyu, a streak of pink blurred through the air, appearing at the passage held open by Rusty Sister. Then, without a second's hesitation—*Swish!*—with a secondary burst, he slipped directly beneath the iron armor's armpit and dove straight in.
Pegament had entered the passage.
"How is it?" Han Qingyu and Marshal Hua asked simultaneously.
"Crowded as hell!" Pegament replied hurriedly amid the furious clatter of dead iron clashing.
How could it not be crowded? Inside, Great Spikes were packed shoulder to shoulder.
*Whoosh!* Han Qingyu detonated his source energy and leapt upward.
He Tangtang intuitively relaxed his body, allowing Qingzi's dead iron manipulation to carry him skyward, landing beside Rusty Sister.
"Take me up too!" Down on the ground, Marshal Hua clutched a large sheet of dead iron against his chest and yelled upward.
*Swish! Swish!*
He soared up. Wu Xu went up with him.
Next were two top supers from Azure.
Han Qingyu could have brought more people up, but there was no time left, nor was there any point. The passage was not wide; given the density of Great Spikes inside, only a handful of people present were capable of fighting in such tight quarters.
They vanished into the opening.
The battle on the ground raged on.
No one could see the fight inside the passage, nor how Major Qing, Pegament, and the others were faring.
Waiting.
Ten seconds.
Twenty seconds...
"How are they doing?" Finally, Azure Headquarters could no longer contain itself. Speaker Kemore chose to direct his inquiry to Wen Jifei.
Instead of answering verbally, Wen Jifei patched the Speaker directly into the battlefield's high-tier frequency.
Over the line, there was only the endless, violent clashing of dead iron, ringing out without pause.
Finally:
"I'm in, damn it!"
It was Pegament's voice.
They had broken through—at least Pegament, the first to breach, was already inside. A second later, deafening cheers erupted from Speaker Kemore's end. Even Wen Jifei, worried as he was for Qingzi, Xu'er, and Tangtang, felt a surge of excitement.
"Wait, how do we destroy this thing?" Pegament's voice came again, suddenly tinged with bewilderment.
His question stumped the entire world.
No one had ever destroyed a super tractor field like this.
Back when Han Qingyu was still a recruit, he had destroyed the smallest type of tractor field. At that time, inside an upturned, pot-lid-like Great Spike craft, he had found a pyramid-shaped energy pile and absorbed it, settling the matter.
Human history had recorded more than a couple of instances where similar small tractor fields were destroyed... Every Azure officer and soldier knew that when confronting a Great Spike tractor field, they simply needed to destroy that pyramid-like energy pile.
Yet now:
"I can't find that thing! It feels like I'm inside one of their motherships, but there's nothing like that here!" Pegament continued to fight as he spoke, trying to find an opening to hack directly at the cabin walls, but superficial damage accomplished nothing.
"..."
Silence fell.
Whether it was the blind cheering from moments ago or the desperate need for plans and suggestions now, not a single person could utter a word or make a sound.
In this final offensive that held humanity's fate in the balance, the ten thousand Azure soldiers and those illustrious names had already performed miracle after miracle. From fighting to the base of the tractor field, to breaking through the canopy, to breaching the field's interior... at every step, they had turned the impossible into reality.
Yet it still seemed insufficient.
Before their eyes, the black hole in the sky grew larger and larger, its rotation becoming ever more powerful.
It appeared ready to cross the critical threshold of accumulated traction energy at any second, ushering in a fleet of Great Spikes from the depths of the cosmos...
The entire world fell silent. Even the most optimistic among them felt a bitter irony, resigning themselves to this fate. For no one could have imagined that humanity would ultimately fail because of a task like this:
[Searching for an object. Finding one specific thing in a place vast and incomprehensibly complex.]
If the thousands of spacecraft forming the tractor field were imagined as thousands of rooms, they had to locate the single room hiding the pyramid energy pile among thousands.
Humanity was likely out of time. After paying such a terrible price, they were about to fall short at the final threshold.
*CLANG!*
A dull, gargantuan crash sounded.
The ground shook.
Fissures tore across the ice beneath their feet.
Humans and Great Spikes across the battlefield swayed in unison.
The impact seemed to originate from deep underground.
"An earthquake?!"
"Is it an earthquake?"
"A miracle of nature?! Could it shake the tractor field down?"
Ordinary people might think so, but how could an earthquake possibly topple this super tractor field? Even if the entire pole collapsed and sank into the center of the earth, the field would remain completely unharmed.
Unless...
***
Thousands of meters beneath the ice sheets, inside Under-Ice City, the core base of Snow Lotus and Ne's stronghold.
Rumor had it that this city was itself a Great Spike craft—a super craft piloted into cosmic exploration by an elderly Puta'er two to three hundred years ago, which had crashed onto this blue planet.
Under-Ice City was shaking.
The entire city was violently convulsing.
"You! What are you doing?!" A group of Ne's white-robed followers stood outside a chamber resembling a bridge. Their leader peered anxiously through the narrow, blurred metal observation window, shouting inside.
The door had been locked from the inside.
It was an outrageously thick plate of high-grade dead iron; there was no way they could breach it in short order.
A single person stood inside the bridge—a person not wearing white robes.
Young Master Shiheng had specifically donned the combat uniform of Squad 1777 today. This was the very uniform he had worn back when he deserted Squad 1777; for some reason, over all these years, he had never gotten around to throwing it away.
With both hands gripping the controls and a cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth, Liu Shiheng glanced back at the small window behind him. He took a drag, the cigarette tip glowing bright for an instant... His lips curled into a hearty, uninhibited grin, and he said:
"Me? I'm... piloting a spaceship."
Chapter 843