When Alice held her war saber against Liu Shiheng's neck, forbidding him from speaking and making it unmistakably clear she would genuinely slaughter him if he made a sound, the young master had chickened out with utter decisiveness. Until now. This was the first sentence he had uttered since:
"Don't! She's your sister-in-law!"
Because his mind was still in a muddled daze, Liu Shiheng scrambled up without pausing to observe or consider further. Not only was he clueless about the situation unfolding before him, he had even forgotten how coldly Alice had just held him hostage.
Subconsciously, he knew Alice possessed decent combat power, but that was only compared to ordinary experts. Yet the ones charging to strike her down in unison right now were Qingzi, Wu Xu, Rusty Sister...
Even forced out while Qingzi was critically wounded, the momentum of this strike was not weak in the least. Perhaps this combined assault possessed enough might to slay a Daie.
*Alice will die.*
In his daze, Liu Shiheng thought they were pouncing to kill her because she had held him hostage and wounded him.
Though baffled in his heart and unable to understand what had gotten into Alice today, Young Master Shiheng still chose without the slightest hesitation to spread his arms wide and throw himself in front of her to protect her.
*Maybe Ne forced her. It's okay, I'm not angry.* Thinking this and shouting at the top of his lungs, Liu Shiheng dashed diagonally forward.
On the other side, in midair.
The offensive launched by Han Qingyu and the other four did not halt completely, but it noticeably hesitated and faltered.
"Sister-in-law?!"
Those words alone were enough to give them pause, to say nothing of the self-sacrificing stance Liu Shiheng had taken—a brand of fearlessness that had never existed in the man before.
The young master was profligate and terrified of dying; they had always known this.
Because she was their sister-in-law? But her tone, her target, and the terrifying strength she had just displayed...
The five dared not truly stop.
A collective strike like this could not be repeated. Even if the others could manage it, Han Qingyu could not—the oil in his lamp had run completely dry.
And without him, there wouldn't be a shred of hope in whatever came next.
"Get out of the way!" Dense cracks crisscrossed the iron armor. Having finally broken free from the vortex's pull, Shen Yixiu snapped through the air with a mechanical clack, twisting her frame, drawing her blade, arching her torso, and shouting at Liu Shiheng as she leaped down into a slash.
Because Rusty Sister was closest, she could see clearly that the woman's gaze was brimming with greed and insane murderous intent.
That twisted, terrifying look gave Rusty Sister the impression that it shouldn't even belong to a human being.
"It's a misunderstanding!" Young Master Shiheng had rarely been foolish in his life, but this time, upon hearing Rusty Sister's warning, he did not stop. Instead, he kept shouting explanations while rushing in front of Alice.
Only, his "Alice" seemed to have no intention of appreciating it.
*Buzz... Bang!* An invisible wall suddenly shuddered. Liu Shiheng slammed into it and was hurled backward, his body crashing heavily against the bulkhead behind him before sliding down, spitting blood.
Even so, his eyes still stared forward, filled with blank grief, yet still clinging to worry for her.
*Boom!* The frontal clash inevitably occurred.
A collision completed in a fraction of an instant.
The result: Alice blocked it.
Ye Jian acknowledged that had he been standing there instead, there was no way he could have parried such a blow. Yet Alice had done it—and seemingly without much difficulty.
Through a torrential surge of source energy slashed out from her war saber, she severed the momentum of Han Qingyu and Wu Xu, while simultaneously condensing a transparent yet solid wall that blocked the remaining three.
In the end, the joint strike of Han Qingyu's five didn't even make contact with a weapon.
*Is this Ne's true strength? No, she's clearly Alice!*
In his subconscious, Ye Jian didn't truly believe Alice could be this powerful. No matter how brilliant a genius she might be, it was impossible. True power of the caliber of Chen Buer or Ne was not something genius could attain simply through growth; they had to have undergone certain historic turning points and seized extraordinary fortunes from them.
At the same time, Ye Jian did not believe Snow Lotus possessed two individuals who transcended the concept of tiers. If that were the case, the direction and dominant voice of the world would have slipped from Azure's hands long ago.
*What on earth is going on?*
While Ye Jian pondered, *thud, thud, thud...* up in the air, Han Qingyu and the others tumbled one after another onto the massive dead iron plate spread out before the cabin.
Wu Xu supported Wen Jifei, swiftly shielding him behind his back.
He Tangtang caught Rusty Sister.
Han Qingyu... stood firm.
After overexerting himself on that final strike, he looked as though he might die at any moment. He should have collapsed outright, yet he didn't. Swaying on his feet, stumbling ever so slightly, Major Qing held his ground. Standing right there, he seemed always to have been that kind of man.
"Don't, Alice." By now, Young Master Shiheng finally understood the situation. It wasn't Qingzi and the others trying to kill Alice; it was Alice who wanted to kill them—and she clearly possessed the means to do it.
Slumped on the other side of the iron plate against the ship's bulkhead, Liu Shiheng forced himself to his feet once more. Blood welled from his mouth as he spoke with desperate, frantic, slurred urgency:
"They're my best friends! I talk about them to you all the time!"
Alice ignored him, not even turning her head. Her greedy gaze lingered on the iron armor, then drifted across the others. Watching them, she slowly advanced.
"She might not be your Alice," Wen Jifei said in Chinese, tapping the butt of his gun against the edge of the iron platform behind him. As expected, the area was sealed shut.
"Think about what might be going on, and see if there's a way out," Wen Jifei said, striving to remain calm as he addressed Young Master Shiheng.
"...How is that possible?!" Young Master Shiheng shook his head, wanting to say he even remembered the tiny mole behind Alice's ear down to the finest detail. The person in front of him could not be a fake. It was just that today, she seemed...
Wait! Liu Shiheng suddenly remembered something. Early on, for a period of time, Alice had repeatedly tossed books on psychology and consciousness at him. He hadn't read most of them, but the few he had casually flipped through generally dealt with multiple personalities or unique conditions where distinct consciousnesses independently coexisted within a single person.
*So Alice was hinting that she has multiple personalities? That she has two... or several consciousnesses inside her?*
*And one of those consciousnesses—one I've never seen before—is actually this strong... Holy shit! That couldn't be Ne, could it?!*
The excessive, cognition-defying might Alice had suddenly displayed naturally evoked thoughts of Ne! And as it happened, Ne's physical body had never once appeared before Liu Shiheng.
The moment that realization struck him, Liu Shiheng froze.
"..."
Even as the steady, distinct thuds of Alice's footsteps echoed ahead, and even though the situation was bizarre and perilous beyond measure, Young Master Shiheng's thoughts still veered completely off track, sending a bone-chilling shiver straight through him.
*Doesn't that mean I... fuck!*
As profligate as Young Master Shiheng was, even he couldn't swallow that reality.
Alice struck.
*Shk!* A slash from over twenty meters away cut through thin air straight toward Wu Xu.
A source energy field. What she had unleashed was yet another source energy field! Unlike the barrier or the gravitational vortex from before, source energy crisscrossed its interior like razor-sharp blades.
This was a strangulation field.
She intended to slaughter Wu Xu.
To Nikola, all of these people on the platform except for that set of iron armor had to die, and the sooner the better, because it could not occupy this body alone for long.
Once Ne's consciousness returned, Nikola could never predict what he would do. After all, even in the eyes of an extraterrestrial, Ne was an unfathomable lunatic and psychopath.
And should Alice's consciousness return, she... Nikola worried she might directly commit suicide, given that it had nearly killed Liu Shiheng just now and truly wouldn't mind finishing him off in a moment.
"Xu'er!" Han Qingyu wanted to move, but his limbs were excruciatingly sluggish. He only had time to call out a warning.
What Han Qingyu was warning about was not Alice's strike itself, but to tell Wu Xu that it could not be parried.
Meeting this blow with a weapon would be utterly futile.
"Understood!" Facing the hurtling source energy field, Wu Xu didn't confront it head-on. Instead, he spun around, facing away, dropping onto one knee. In that motion, leveraging the torque of his twisting body to whip his arms, he slammed the butt of the Binggu Spear savagely against the dead iron plate.
*Boom... hum!* Another field—the most standard source energy gravity field. This time, Wu Xu didn't employ it for offense, but wrapped it completely around himself.
*Kzzzt... crack!*
The gravity field shattered.
Even so, the strangulation field Alice slashed over was largely dismantled, finally sweeping past like a fierce gust of wind... leaving a dozen cuts of varying depths across Wu Xu's back.
Alice cast him a glance.
Leaning on the Binggu Spear, Wu Xu struggled to his feet and turned around, offering no retaliation.
Not because he lacked the will or desire, but because he was powerless to do so.
Not just him; Han Qingyu didn't take the opportunity to attack Alice either.
They lacked the capability to fight back.
Everyone watching understood, and quickly realized: what was about to unfold before their very eyes would be a one-sided slaughter.
No one knew what Major Qing and Second Lieutenant Wen trapped within the lockdown were thinking, but for this world, it was simply too cruel.
...
*Boom!* The tremor and clash of source energy suddenly rang out from midair behind Han Qingyu and the others.
It was an all-out strike delivered by Commander Hua.
The isolation field shuddered, unbroken.
The figure fell back down.
*Boom!* Another Azure super combatant arrived with a slash, their war saber crashing violently against the barrier encasing the platform.
The isolation field held.
The figure plummeted back.
*Boom!* A third super struck.
They could not have leaped this high on their own.
On the battlefield below, Azure soldiers had used their own flesh and blood to construct a human pyramid atop the ice.
The structure had steps for sprinting upward and ledges for launching into the air.
One by one, the super combatants charged up, leaped, and hacked upward...
That was the sheer force of super combatants kicking off at their absolute limit.
The human pyramid below bore the brunt of it all. Tier upon tier of Azure soldiers coughed up blood and grunted under the relentless, crushing shocks, yet not one let go, not one pulled back a shoulder—they held their positions with grim resolve.
*Boom!*
*Boom!*
*Boom!*
...
"Give up. It's useless," Ye Jian said as he left. Before departing, he took a communicator from a gravely wounded Azure officer and spoke to Hua Bixuan.
Even now, Ye Jian didn't understand the exact circumstances, but the reality before his eyes was glaringly obvious: it was over. The colossal chasm in power obliterated any possibility of a miracle.
Unable to help, unable to bear watching, and needing to stay alive, Ye Jian chose to walk away. He had always been that kind of person.
Hua Bixuan did not reply.
Nor did he stop.
The Azure soldiers remained silent. Whether the warriors holding up the pyramid or the super combatants striking out, all bore a desperate silence, repeating their seemingly futile efforts over and over again.
"Give up, Commander Hua," Wen Jifei finally patched into the channel and said. "Thank you. Take the brothers and go."
As he said this, Qingzi and Wu Xu, covered in wounds, had already collapsed to the deck. The iron armor lay prostrate as well. The only ones on the platform still capable of agile movement were he and He Tangtang, who had been virtually disregarded.
"Let me try again..." Hua Bixuan still refused to accept it.
"Go!" Wen Jifei urged, his tone laced with agony and pleading.
At the same time, another person had been speaking continuously:
"Please don't, Alice! Don't..." Everything was simply too cruel. Especially for Liu Shiheng, the cruelty and despair he bore were doubled.
And so, grown man that he was, he wept, pleading as the tears fell.
What entered Liu Shiheng's sight at this moment was Alice's first close-quarters strike. Merely using ranged source energy fields seemed insufficient to swiftly dispatch Han Qingyu and Wu Xu. Realizing this, she walked forward, preparing to thrust her war saber directly into Han Qingyu's body.
"Qingzi!" Wen Jifei watched, utterly powerless.
Rusty Sister was powerless.
Wu Xu was powerless.
Liu Shiheng was powerless.
Commander Hua and the thousands of Azure soldiers present were powerless.
*Clang!* For the first time, the war saber in He Tangtang's hands made direct contact with Alice's blade.
Dead iron clashed against dead iron. He parried the strike meant for Qingzi.
Upon impact, his saber was violently forced back against his own chest. The spine of the blade bit into his flesh, and blood gushed forth.
"Die!" Roaring these words, his special characteristic erupted to its absolute limit, channeling through the dead iron weapon... This was He Tangtang's desperate, suicidal gambit.
Yet it was useless.
Alice possessed terrifying power and was in prime condition, without a single wound on her.
The characteristic attack proved completely ineffective.
Casting a cold glance at He Tangtang, Alice drew her saber back slightly and thrust forward.
The thrust was blindingly fast and unavoidable; it would pierce straight through He Tangtang's heart.
He Tangtang didn't dodge.
He couldn't dodge.
Nor did he want to.
Because right behind him was Han Qingyu, struggling to stand.
*Swish!* In a final effort before death, He Tangtang recklessly raised his saber and slashed back.
*Can my death at least leave a scratch on her?* he thought in his heart, offering a feeble prayer.
"Tangtang..."
Amid the cries, He Tangtang would be the first to die.
Yet he didn't.
Alice's war saber came to an abrupt halt roughly ten centimeters from his heart.
At the same time, her eyes filled with panic and bewilderment, harboring a colossal terror—as if her very life had come under imminent mortal threat.
Because of this momentary pause, *shk!* He Tangtang's saber landed, slicing across her shoulder.
For the first time, they had drawn blood on Alice. Regrettably, because the disparity in strength was so vast, it left only a relatively minor wound.
By all logic, He Tangtang should have seized this opportunity to immediately trigger his special characteristic attack.
He didn't, purely because he thought he was already dead—that his heart had been pierced through.
"Huh?"
Looking down, he stared at the tip of the blade hovering inches before his chest. He Tangtang felt none of the joy of survival, only stunned disbelief, surprise, and confusion.
Immediately after, the saber moved.
Alice seemed unwilling to believe what she had just sensed, so she tried once more...
The outcome was identical.
The war saber froze less than ten centimeters from He Tangtang's heart. She dared not plunge it in.
Because he was already gravely injured, Alice didn't even dare harm him further.
"What is that thing?!"
She cried out in panic, retreating of her own accord.
"Me? Yours truly is..." Answering subconsciously, he nearly launched into his grand string of aliases, which would have taken forever. He Tangtang turned to glance at Wen Jifei.
"She dares not kill you," Wen Jifei stated bluntly. Truth be told, he hadn't fully worked out the reason or logic behind it either.
Regardless, the fact lay plainly before them. Whether the person opposite them was Alice, Ne, or anyone else... she dared not kill He Tangtang.
"Cut her down!" Wen Jifei barked decisively in the next breath.
"Oh, right!" He Tangtang turned back, raised his saber, and charged. "Die!"
A twist—an utterly incomprehensible scene—unfolded just like that.
And then, everyone on the platform, including Han Qingyu, was stunned. The entire battlefield was dumbfounded. The whole world was flabbergasted.
That incomparably powerful woman was actually dodging He Tangtang—she was running away!
Put another way: He Tangtang was hunting her down, pursuing an entity suspected to be Ne, or at least a transcendent combatant on par with Ne... slashing with sweeping abandon, utterly devoid of defense, locked in mad pursuit.
There was no absolute defense in the source energy world. Furthermore, this was Alice's physical body, whose foundation was genuinely frail. Therefore, when Nikola dared not kill He Tangtang, nor even gravely injure him... it had no choice but to run.
Chapter 853