In this world, there was only one person whom Han Qingyu, Wen Jifei, Wu Xu, and Rusty Sister would ever address as "Young Master."
That guy who had accompanied them all the way from boot camp to Squad 1777. He came from wealth, was terrified of dying, lazy to the bone, loafed around, played the field, lived by compromising, and constantly talked out of his ass... In short, aside from being rich, he was a walking collection of flaws; there were almost no complimentary words to describe him.
Yet even so, he remained a decent person. Some things run in one's bones, unalterable no matter how scoundrelly the surface appears. If not for that, they never would have become friends and brothers back then.
That person was named Liu Shiheng.
In truth, by age, Young Master Shiheng ought to have been the oldest of the group aside from Captain Milla. It was just that back when they were together, nobody had ever been willing to indulge his demands and call him "Brother Shiheng."
In memory, it seemed only He Tangtang had ever called him that once. That time, Liu Shiheng had risked his life to rescue him from the clutches of Ye Jian and a bunch of Snow Lotus people, bringing him back to the Squad 1777 garrison... and then, without looking back, had become a deserter.
After that, not a word had been heard from him.
Over the years, Han Qingyu and the others had never gone looking for him. They had entertained hopes that he might reach out of his own accord one day to seek protection, but that had never happened either.
And so, with attitudes of "best wishes" and "hope," they assumed Young Master Shiheng was living a life of drunken luxury in the ordinary world, enjoying himself while waiting to die.
No one could have imagined that he would show up on an occasion like today, under such dire peril and desperate straits... and in a manner verging on the absurd: piloting a super source energy craft emerging from beneath the glacier.
"Didn't see that coming, did you? Hahahahaha... Call me Brother Shiheng!"
Right in the middle of such a battlefield, that bastard broadcasted over the open comms, laughing maniacally. From the laughter, those who knew him could immediately and clearly tell his current state: utterly puffed up with triumph.
Young Master Shiheng's laughter grew higher and further away. That was because throughout this entire time, the source energy craft's upward piercing thrust had never stopped.
It was an elongated Great Spike craft resembling a human battleship, boasting high speed, immense impact force, heavy armor plating, and a colossal battering ram.
Nobody knew how Liu Shiheng had gotten his hands on such a thing.
Surging suddenly from beneath the ice like a rocket launch, it drove straight upward, bow raised high, smashing through the gravity field, shattering the base of the tractor field, charging up all the way.
The energy fluctuations of the Great Spike tractor field completely fractured. Immediately afterward, the black-hole-like vortex in the zenith contracted and vanished.
Deep in outer space where no one could see, a Great Spike fleet no smaller than the Zenith War's invasion force was silently annihilated within the abruptly closed tractor conduit, reduced to ashes...
Thus, across the century-long history of human civilization's resistance in this world, the person who had wiped out the most Great Spikes to date was actually Liu Shiheng.
It was just that for now, not a single soul—including Liu Shiheng himself—knew about it.
Liu Shiheng was currently relishing the thrill of piercing straight through and wrecking everything in sight. The entire super tractor field—a colossal dead iron tower over two thousand meters tall—was collapsing tier by tier under his impact...
Amid thunderous rumblings, the dead iron framework snapped layer upon layer, massive sheets of iron falling continuously.
In the unfolding spectacle of disintegration, the vast majority of the Great Spike craft comprising the tractor field were destroyed, tumbling toward the ground. However, a small portion of craft whose structural integrity remained intact, having not suffered a direct hit, managed to power on mid-fall.
By visual estimate, roughly two hundred craft, including five to six mothership-class Great Spike vessels, ultimately completed their takeoff, leaving near-ground airspace and hurtling beyond the zenith.
Down on the ground, an entire contingent of Great Spikes died the instant the blue light dome shattered, littering the ground with corpses. The remaining hordes broke into a rout.
No one paid much attention to these details; after all, even if they cared, humanity had no way to stop those craft from escaping.
At this moment, all of humanity was immersed in the same joy: they had succeeded. In the final instant, humanity had halted this super traction, once again temporarily reversing the desperate, bleak fate that had seemed destined for their race.
Then came the same worry and anticipation: were those people still alive?
Was Major Qing alive?
Was Pegament alive?
Was Handsome Hua alive?
And how many soldiers of Azure and Stream Blades had survived in the end?
...
With the collapse of the gravity field and the dissipation of the white light, Rusty Sister's form plummeted from the sky. Major Qing fell as well, tumbling down alongside Wu Xu, He Tangtang, Handsome Hua...
A black figure blurred into an afterimage on the ground, sprinting madly toward where they were falling.
Up until now, many people still simply and intuitively assumed that it was the craft alone that had shattered the gravity field. But in reality, it wasn't. It was the confluence of Han Qingyu's dying struggle, the shattering of the molten dragon, the all-out strike of the black dragon phantom, and the craft's collision—all three linking together perfectly to forge this miracle.
Few people knew who that black dragon had been just now. They included a few old men at Azure Headquarters in the rear, the chief of staff of the Huaxia Front, and a certain someone on the scene.
Ye Jian was rushing to catch someone.
*Thud!* He let the iron suit hit the ground beside him.
*Thud!* He let Han Qingyu hit the ground beside him.
*Thud, thud, thud, thud...*
Ye Jian halted mid-sprint, sheathed his blade, tilted his head back, held out both hands, and leaped into the air.
He caught a figure clad in bloodstained white.
Decelerating midair, he touched down smoothly.
Hua Bixuan looked at him.
Ye Jian looked back at Hua Bixuan.
"Not bad. Not dead yet," Ye Jian said with a faint smile.
"Throw me on the ground," Handsome Hua said coldly. "Right now."
"..."
"Right now, or I'll hack you to death."
"Sigh, still so dramatic... fine."
*Thud!* Ye Jian dumped him onto the ground with both hands, turned, and dusted the crushed snow and ice shavings from his hands. Standing amid the chaotic rain of falling craft and dead iron fragments filling the sky, he looked upward.
By now, the magnificent spectacle of midair explosions had nearly concluded. The craft had rammed through more than two-thirds of the structure, and the two-thousand-meter Great Spike tractor field had almost entirely collapsed.
Those Great Spike craft that had successfully taken flight shrank into tiny black dots in their vision, soon disappearing altogether.
Amid the chaos of the battlefield, cries, scrambling footsteps, searches, cheers, and sobs mingled together. In every corner of this world, humans were celebrating and rejoicing...
"The Great Spike hordes on the ground are scattering. Yes, they have temporarily lost their aggressiveness."
"Handsome Hua is alive."
"Major Qing is alive..."
Battlefield communications swiftly and promptly relayed the news to The Refusers and Azure Headquarters.
At Azure Headquarters, waves of cheers surged higher and higher...
"Where's Pegament?" a member of the council presidium suddenly asked out of nowhere.
"..." That's right, where was Pink Peg? The battlefield communicator looked around blankly, stunned.
He didn't seem to have fallen down.
Perhaps he was inside one of the crashed craft on the ground and hadn't crawled out yet.
*Szz, szz-szz...*
On the highest communications frequency of Azure's Antarctic battlefield, a somewhat faint signal suddenly cut in: "Hey, is anyone there? Can anyone hear me?"
Pegament's voice was a bit fuzzy, but it was unmistakably him.
"..." For a moment, nobody answered. An eerie, ominous premonition rose simultaneously in many hearts.
"What's going on out there? What was that huge sound just now?" Pegament continued. "I've pretty much chopped down all the Great Spikes in this mothership, but I couldn't find the reactor... Also, why does it feel like I'm flying right now?"
"You... you mean you're still inside a Great Spike mothership?" Council Chairman Kemore asked cautiously.
"Yeah," Pegament answered, then paused for two seconds. "Fuck, where am I?!"
He knew he was inside a Great Spike mothership, but there were no viewports looking outside. Pegament suspected that his current position might not be very promising.
At this point, the situation was already painfully obvious: Pegament was inside one of the Great Spike motherships that had just successfully escaped. He had already broken away from the planet's surface and was probably on the verge of leaving the atmosphere.
Jumping down from his current position would almost certainly mean death. Pegament thought about it, experiencing a rare moment of utter bewilderment in his life, and asked slowly, "Where do you guys think I'm heading next?"
"..."
No one could give Pegament an answer. Even Azure's top scientific research teams could not provide any logically grounded deductions for this question.
"Do you know how to pilot a spaceship, Peg? Like a mothership?" Wen Jifei's voice came over the comms, asking seriously.
"Nope," Pegament replied flatly.
"Hmm... then I suggest you hold off on killing the Great Spikes in the bridge for now," Wen Jifei said after some thought.
"Oh. Okay."
"With your strength, as long as you have source energy replenishment, you don't need oxygen, right? Also, can you go a long time without eating? Or maybe you could try eating Great Spikes?"
Chapter 847