Before their eyes unfolded a stark, vivid portrait of the battlefield:
Survivors of the brutal clash, every one of them wounded and soaked in blood—any warrior who could still stand had risen at this moment. Scattered across the shattered, blood-soaked ground they had just fought so desperately upon, perched at high points and low, their source energy surged as they watched the airship in the sky.
"What's the situation over there right now?!" a tense voice pressed from Azure's rear over the communicator. The Rejectors' broadcast could not provide them with fine details.
"Snow Lotus. It seems Ne is here," Commander Hua said, looking up toward the young woman perched high above.
Clearly, she could not be Ne. Yet from the way she stood there, facing them with supreme confidence, completely disregarding the gathered top-tier combat power of the entire battlefield, it was obvious that Ne had to be present.
"...Spare no effort. Do everything you can to secure Second Lieutenant Shen Yixiu. Do not let Stream Blades fight alone again," Speaker Kemore said from the other end, his tone heavy.
"I understand," Commander Hua replied with a nod.
Yet, in truth, it was useless.
Such was the brutal law of battle in the source energy world. In the face of absolute individual might and an insurmountable difference in tier, even the most resolute and massive unity of will was utterly meaningless.
If the one facing them truly was Ne, only a handful of people on this entire battlefield even possessed the right to draw a blade against him... and even then, they merely possessed the right to draw a blade, nothing more.
Throughout the past thirty to forty years of source energy history, Ne had always been recognized as the greatest source energy scientist. Even after he became the leader of Snow Lotus, Azure had never erased that fact, for it was simply undeniable. At the same time, he was universally acknowledged across the human world as one of the two supreme titans who transcended all concepts of tiers.
Even those who hated and reviled Ne most bitterly had to concede that for all these years, people had only ever dared rank a single person above him:
The Legion Commander of Huaxia—that old man.
People firmly believed Chen Buer was stronger than Ne. As for just how powerful the two were, or whether the gap between them was large or small, no one knew.
"But the Legion Commander has periods of decline, and right now he's in his worst state... Does Ne have one? I've never heard of it, so probably not."
The conclusion Hua Bixuan reached after asking himself left him in despair—what they faced right now was perhaps, at this moment, the truly unrivaled number one powerhouse of the human world.
And the gulf between such immense strength and everyone below it was likely an overwhelming chasm.
Just think back to that year atop Mount Xilang, when Chen Buer had casually cleaved through several super-tier combatants with a single blade strike!
"The old man isn't here either. In the current situation, if Pegament hadn't left, and if Han Qingyu were in top condition, perhaps we would still have a shot at fighting. But..."
Yet there was no Pegament here now, nor a Han Qingyu who could even stand on his own two feet.
With that thought, Hua Bixuan turned his head and scanned the icy plain for Ye Jian, but found no trace of him.
What he did not know was that at this moment, aside from Liu Shiheng himself, the most utterly bewildered person on the entire battlefield had to be Ye Jian.
Though crouched flat in a crevice between icy rocks, Ye Jian had clearly witnessed what had just taken place on the airborne balcony. When Alice slammed Liu Shiheng with the flat of her blade, she certainly hadn't intended to kill him, but there had been no hesitation in the motion whatsoever—in fact, it carried an unmistakable trace of disgust.
"They slept together for an entire year!"
"A whole year!"
"Slept together through countless close brushes with death without a shred of fear! What the fuck is this about..."
"So... love really does just disappear, doesn't it?"
Ye Jian reached down and touched his saber, then let go. "Why would Ne single out the old commander's granddaughter by name?! Shen Yixiu, the internal life-support cycle, the iron armor... Is it because of that white light just now?"
This was the question baffling everyone across the entire battlefield. Meanwhile, on the balcony up in the air, the woman's saber remained leveled straight at the iron armor on the ground.
She waited three seconds.
"It seems this is useless," came the woman's lovely voice again, but delivered in an eerie cadence.
*She might be speaking on Ne's behalf,* people thought.
At that exact moment, *boom!* Source energy erupted. The woman on the high terrace extended her free hand outward in tandem with the blast, then twisted it through the empty air.
*Whoosh—crack!*
Even the most ordinary warriors could see with their naked eyes the rapid condensation of the air in that instant.
They had initially thought the woman took a hostage because she needed to. Now, it was clear they had been completely wrong.
She had no need for a hostage at all.
The air condensed like water freezing into ice, forming a tunnel roughly three meters in diameter in an instant.
This tunnel aimed straight at Second Lieutenant Shen Yixiu.
The steadfast iron armor, having just advanced to super tier and recognized as far from an ordinary super-tier combatant, could not mount any resistance at all. Her entire body was yanked clean off the ground and shot into the air with a piercing *whoosh*.
This was not like Han Qingyu's earlier method of manipulating dead iron to pull bodies.
She had carved a source energy field directly out of the air with her bare hands!
That tunnel was itself a source energy field, where source energy churned like a vortex, generating an overwhelming suction force.
"Fuck! Alice is this strong?!" Ye Jian was completely dumbfounded.
Commander Hua was stunned for a moment as well. This person was clearly not Ne, yet she was another entity who transcended the concept of tiers!
*Two beings transcending tiers?!*
"Second Lieutenant Shen!"
"Help her!"
Frantic, chaotic shouts rang out from all across the battlefield, but they did not include Han Qingyu, Wen Jifei, Wu Xu, or the others.
Standing closest to Second Lieutenant Shen Yixiu, none of them cried out.
Nor did they attempt to grab hold of the iron armor.
In the scene that followed, the soldiers saw that it was not just Second Lieutenant Shen Yixiu's iron armor flying through the air—it was all of them. Major Qing, First Lieutenant Wu Xu, He Tangtang, and even Second Lieutenant Wen Jifei!
Every single one of them had deliberately plunged into the suction range of the source energy field, hurtling into the sky alongside the iron armor.
...
This maneuver was an impromptu decision. In the sudden emergency, seeing Rusty Sister being dragged away, they simply leaped in after her without needing to exchange a single word.
Yet charging together was something they had already resolved to do moments before.
Facing Snow Lotus's Ne, with Young Master Shiheng collapsed up above and the enemy singling out Rusty Sister by name... Wen Jifei had quickly understood that this might be the greatest crisis the core team of Stream Blades had ever encountered.
Under such circumstances, they had no alternatives, nor the time or opportunity to hesitate or maneuver. They could only charge up together and, carrying their despair, wage an all-or-nothing battle of life and death.
They had originally assumed Ne would appear, but he hadn't. That woman had attacked directly. If she, too, was a presence transcending tiers, then they would fight to the death against her. From the look of it, the enemy might possess two beings who transcended tiers... Well, there was nothing else they could do anyway.
*Hum!* In mid-flight, Wu Xu suddenly unleashed his gravity field at full throttle to briefly resist the pull.
At the same time, *bang! bang!* Wen Jifei opened fire, even though he knew it was almost certainly futile.
The saber in Major Qing's left hand left his grip, while Rusty Sister struck with Dimple Slash. At the same time, his right hand reached back as a streak of blue light shot up from the ground. Catching the sword in his right hand, his left hand snapped over to join it. The moment both hands met on the hilt, Major Qing swept across in a horizontal cleave, blade and body surging forward as one!
He Tangtang's source energy detonated as he activated his Near-Death Surge, pushing his special trait to its absolute limit... *Dying doesn't matter! As long as I touch her before I die, I'll devour you!*
Blood sprayed through the air...
Aside from Major Qing's battered physical state, what unfolded before them was perhaps the ultimate combined strike of the Stream Blades core team. Of course, had Weize been present as well, it might have been even stronger.
They had never ganged up to kill anyone like this before; not even Daie had received such treatment.
Every warrior watched in apprehension, yet held their breath in anticipation of the strike's result.
Yet, on the balcony.
Young Master Shiheng, who had been slapped senseless earlier and was completely unaware of what followed, was clutching his head as his senses barely began to return... Seeing this sight, his eyes went wide. Scrambling to his feet, he attempted to shield Alice with his own body while screaming at the top of his lungs toward Han Qingyu and the others:
"Don't do it! She's your sister-in-law!"
Chapter 852