"Thump!" Another impact echoed from deep underground.
Transmitted through several thousand meters of glacier, the sound was not particularly distinct. By contrast, the shaking and shuddering of the ground, along with the fissures continuously spreading across the ice beneath their feet, were far more visceral and concrete.
Was it truly an earthquake? On the surface, amidst shouts of either joy or panic, soldiers fought defensively while scattering in disorder to evade danger.
Han Qingyu had never experienced an earthquake and did not know whether this was one. But he knew with absolute certainty that even if a super earthquake struck right now, it would still fail to halt the operation of the tractor field.
That monstrosity was formed from thousands of Great Spike craft, including nearly twenty mothership-class vessels. Some had been dismantled and reassembled into connective structures, while others remained fully intact... To humanity and the natural forces of this planet, it was indestructible—utterly beyond destruction.
At his peak, Han Qingyu could cleave Daie in two with a single strike or summon tens of thousands of blades in homage to bombard an entire swarm of Great Spikes. Yet even in that state, he could never slash through the thousand layers of dead iron composing this tractor field.
It was all heavy dead iron serving as the craft's armor plating and bulkheads.
In particular, the outer hulls and inner bulkheads of those motherships were not only immensely thick, but also forged from the highest grade of dead iron. Even if left completely undefended for him to hack away, he could never breach them in a short time.
Pegament was naturally no different. He was the de facto strongest combatant on the field and had been the first to charge into the tractor field. Yet at this moment, he had merely entered the compartment of a mothership or some other large craft. He could neither locate the source energy reactor nor cut through the bulkheads.
All he could do seemed to be just this: fighting while searching for a way through the compartments, and if successful, navigating into the next craft, and then the next... relying purely on blind luck against odds of less than one in a thousand.
But there was no time left! The black vortex in the sky was spinning violently; an alien army of Great Spikes was on the verge of emerging.
Time was running out. Pegament alone would never make it in time. Even if the remaining six people in the passage charged inside to search alongside him, the probability remained minuscule and time was too short. Most likely, they would merely wander into the spaces Pegament had already cleared.
...
The slaughter inside the passage continued...
Yet Han Qingyu came to a halt. To tell the truth, he felt profoundly disheartened right now, bone-weary. The world would assume without a shadow of a doubt that someone like Major Qing must have harbored an unwavering conviction of victory from beginning to end—resolute, confident, believing in the future, never giving up.
In reality, that was not so. To a certain degree, Han Qingyu was an absolute pessimist.
His martial prowess and self-awareness allowed him to perceive things that made him acutely aware of a grim truth: humanity's future was so bleak it bordered on total despair.
At the same time, having grown up and lived as an ordinary person for nineteen years, he experienced fear and despair just like most people in this world.
He was simply the kind of person who would still swing his blade for one final strike even in utter despair—the kind of person who would choose to expend every ounce of strength rushing toward death to express his surrender and resignation.
Shortsighted, caring nothing for the far future, looking only at what lay right before him: so long as he had not drawn his last breath, he would keep doing something...
Han Qingyu tilted his head and turned his gaze toward the wall of the passage.
This was a passage the blue canopy had actively opened for the Great Spikes to deploy. Because Rusty Sister had wedged it open with her foot, it could not close, becoming the only path through which humanity could breach the tractor field.
Inside here, they were shielded from the super source energy gravity field.
The so-called passage wall appeared to be merely a denser layer of light. It was this light that kept the gravity field at bay and hid them from the view of the people on the ground.
This barrier of light seemed far more fragile than the exterior wall of the canopy. That was Han Qingyu's observation.
"Fall back," Han Qingyu said. "Since we can't charge through, fall back."
Ahead of him, Marshal Hua looked back, and Wu Xu looked back... Both stared at him, momentarily stunned. Time was running out; they had barely managed to cover Pegament's entry, barely managed to fight their way to this spot.
"I said, get out," Han Qingyu repeated.
"..." They complied. Filled with doubt and bewilderment, they fought off the frontal assault of the Great Spikes, falling back step by step to Han Qingyu's side and preparing to launch themselves backward.
"Qingzi, what are you going to do?" Wu Xu asked.
"I'm going to try and see if I can shatter it." Han Qingyu smiled faintly. As his voice fell, his life source energy erupted past its limit.
Boom! A shockwave heavy as a tidal surge violently blasted backward, shoving Wu Xu, Marshal Hua, He Tangtang, and the others toward the entrance of the passage.
As for himself, he raised his blade with both hands, blasted through the flank of the passage wall in a single strike, and hurled his entire being into the gravity field.
The tractor field contained thousands of compartments, in one of which the reactor was hidden. Outside were thousands of Azure soldiers. If they could all enter, finding the reactor would not be difficult—or at least the probability would be infinitely greater than it was now.
It was a simple elementary school math problem.
Yet because of the gravity field, they could not enter. Not only could they not enter, but among the top combatants inside the passage, only Pegament had made it through so far.
Thus, Han Qingyu had reverted to the prior choice: he was going to smash this super gravity field apart from the inside.
Slashing at this thing from the outside was like hacking a blade into a lake or a mire—it held little effect or meaning. In that case, he would tear it apart from within.
...
Whoosh!
On the ground, the Azure soldiers heard that roar of eruption, followed immediately by the figures of Marshal Hua, Wu Xu, and two others abruptly flying back out to the entrance of the passage.
What happened? Where is Major Qing?! they wondered in their hearts.
"Where's Qingzi?!" Rusty Sister demanded anxiously. The passage was too long and the white light too dense; standing at the entrance, she was equally unable to see what was happening inside.
Before anyone could answer Rusty Sister's question, another massive commotion erupted across the ground, and the soldiers' gazes snapped elsewhere.
There, in midair, Major Qing's figure appeared.
Having exited the passage, he had appeared directly within the transparent blue light of the gravity field.
The scene looked as if he were walking upon empty air through pure, crystalline blue water, giving an impression that was almost tranquil and beautiful. But...
Blood.
This was a tractor field formed by the resonance of thousands of Great Spike craft! There, a super gravity capable of crushing an entire swarm of Great Spikes—including Red Shoulders—in an instant was squeezing Han Qingyu's body from every conceivable direction, every inch, every millimeter.
Blood seeped from Major Qing's face, hands, and combat uniform. It did not flow, but hung frozen directly in the transparent air.
Major Qing held his ground within that super gravity field. His spine could not fully straighten, his shoulders sagged, his knees buckled several times... yet he stayed on his feet.
No one could fathom that agony through mere imagination.
Then, they saw Major Qing finally stir, attempting to take a step.
He walked with agonizing slowness. Accompanied by bursts of source energy, he forced out a single step, leaving behind a pool of red where he had stood... Another step, leaving behind yet another patch of congealed crimson.
...
"He's trying to adapt to the gravity field."
"Mm, it looks like he wants to use his own source energy bursts to shatter it from within, creating collisions through source energy fluctuations at different frequencies..."
"If he catches the exact right moment and position, it might not be entirely impossible."
In the rear, Azure's top scientists quickly deduced Major Qing's intention.
Yet... "Shatter it with vibrations?"
"Perhaps 'tear it apart with his bare struggle' is more accurate."
Major Qing's state right now looked far more like a struggle—an all-out effort to break free.
...
He raised his blade.
At a pace resembling slow motion, Han Qingyu slowly raised the battleblade in his hands within that transparent expanse.
This straight dead iron sword, which looked almost identical to a standard Azure-issue blade on the surface, was actually forged from the high-grade dead iron salvaged from the core of the Great Spike mothership on Mount Xilang years ago. And the smith who forged it was Jiang Chou, the dead iron blacksmith renowned throughout the entire human world.
Had it been otherwise, this blade would have shattered long ago.
With both hands, Han Qingyu finally raised the dead iron blade above his head. His life source energy operated at full throttle, exceeding every limit in an eruption of near-total depletion...
Drip.
Drip.
"Roar!"
"Kill!"
Boom!
Source energy of the same nature as the gravity field carried acoustic waves outward. Every roar and shout echoed like a call through a profound mountain canyon, desolate and distant, reverberating with an endless, heavy resonance.
This was Major Qing's first fluid movement within the gravity field, executed with impressive speed—he struck out with that blade.
The edge came down, and thrust forward...
Until it came to a dead halt, hovering in the space before him.
At the very tip of the blade: Crack!
Crack, crack, crack, crack...
Crunch, crunch, crunch...
Within the transparent interior of the canopy now stripped of its white light, that super source energy gravity field finally took on visible form and substance for the first time... Fissures appeared upon it.
Fractures like ice shattering from within.
White cracks like fractured glass.
One by one, in countless lines, they emerged erratically like the root system of a tree, then continuously branched outward in every direction from Major Qing at the center.
Crack, crack, crunch, crunch...
"Roar!"
The gravity field appeared on the verge of collapsing.
Every person on the battlefield watched the sight, bracing themselves for an explosive sprint to charge into the tractor field.
Major Qing was about to accomplish it once more, about to save...
Abruptly: Hum!
A vibration of light. After that single sound, all the fractures in the air were smoothed away.
The entire source energy gravity field returned to being dense, intact, and transparent.
And Major Qing...
Spurt! A plume of crimson human blood burst open within that pure expanse, then froze motionless.
The battleblade in Major Qing's hand slipped and fell... Head bowed, he hung suspended in empty air.
This time, he had failed.
"Qingzi!" Wen Jifei stowed his sniper rifle and sprang to his feet, shouting toward the tractor field in agony. Behind him, two soldiers leaped forward, pinning him down in a vice-like grip according to the orders Major Qing had left long ago.
"Qingzi!" This cry came from Rusty Sister, from Wu Xu, from He Tangtang... from Fenglong'ao.
"Major Qing!" This cry came from Azure, from the mountains, rivers, lakes, and seas; from Asia, Europa, Africa... from countless nameless homes.
"Qingzi." This whisper came from a thousand meters beneath the glacier.
Young Master Shiheng gripped the ship's controls with white knuckles. Stung by the smoke from the cigarette between his lips, he closed his eyes for a brief moment.
Chapter 844