The elevated platform in midair was neither particularly large nor small. All four sides and the ceiling above were tightly sealed by the super-airship's built-in source energy barrier, which still hadn't dissipated.
This barrier was far stronger than the miniature source energy field Alice had cleaved open, and it could be sustained for a long time, so getting out was still impossible.
The arena had abruptly turned into a one-on-one duel.
The limited room to maneuver had initially worked against Han Qingyu and the others, but now the tables had turned, favoring He Tangtang immensely.
While He Tangtang had Alice cornered diagonally across the platform, hacking wildly away, Wen Jifei dragged Han Qingyu, Wu Xu, and Rusty Sister into a corner. Then, after confirming that Young Master Shiheng had probably not been "possessed," he took the risk to dash over and drag him into the corner as well.
"What happened? Why did the noise suddenly stop on your end? Are you..." In the Azure rear, Speaker Kemore pressed in an anxious, urgent voice.
The continuous explosions and booming impacts from moments ago had abruptly ceased, and no information was being reported back. Unable to see the details of the scene, the council hall had plunged into heavy silence and sorrow.
Commander Hua didn't respond. The words reached his ears, but his subconscious mind automatically screened out thinking. Standing upon a jagged block of glacial ice, he tilted his head up blankly, remaining fixated on the utterly baffling one-on-one duel unfolding on the high platform above.
This made Speaker Kemore's heart turn cold on the other end of the line. "Hello? Hello?! Are you still there? Please respond! What's the situation over there..."
"They're chasing down that woman. No, to be precise, that great Kidney Striker—you all know him, He Tangtang—is single-handedly chasing and hacking at that woman with complete abandon." Commander Hua paused. Fearing that the council members back home, who had never experienced a battlefield, wouldn't be able to wrap their heads around it, he rephrased: "The tide of battle has suddenly reversed. What I mean is, the advantage is now in Major Qing and his team's hands."
"..." The other end of the communicator fell collectively dumbfounded.
The feedback they had just received was that the woman who had stepped forth for Snow Lotus, though she didn't look like Ne, was suspected to be Ne, because her strength was terrifying enough to stand on the same transcendent tier as Chen Buer and Ne.
It had seemed a hopeless battle: Major The Qing had collapsed, Lieutenant Wu Xu had collapsed, Second Lieutenant Shen Yixiu had collapsed, and the only ones left able to move on the platform were Second Lieutenant Wen Jifei and the Kidney Striker.
At the time, that had practically spelled the end.
Yet now, Hua Bixuan was suddenly saying the battle had reversed, and the Kidney Striker, He Tangtang, was chasing down that monstrous, transcendent expert suspected to be Ne all by himself.
"Why?" After several seconds of stunned disbelief, Speaker Kemore finally managed to squeeze out those three words. Even if he didn't fully comprehend the gap in high-end source energy combat power, he knew very well that He Tangtang hacking away at a "suspected Ne" was not something that could be achieved simply through stubborn grit or willpower.
This wasn't a Hollywood hero movie or a Huaxian heroic epic. On a real battlefield, grit and bravery alone had never been enough to reverse everything.
"I don't know," Hua Bixuan replied calmly and succinctly with those three words. He truly didn't know—not the slightest clue.
…………
Around the same time, up on the platform.
Her iron armor scraping slowly against the dead iron plates beneath her, Rusty Sister dragged herself forward a little with great effort. Speaking in a whisper as if afraid of being overheard, she asked, "Wh-why is this happening, Qingzi?"
Unlike the people down below, they had clearly witnessed Alice's war saber stop dead twice within range of killing He Tangtang, as if something were intimidating her and staying her hand.
Even now, she seemed terrified of so much as worsening He Tangtang's injuries.
"Pfft!" Han Qingyu lifted his head slightly and spat out a mouthful of blood. Then he slowly shook his head, sounding somewhat feeble and wry. "I don't know either. But my guess is, it's not because of his special trait. That woman is still in fine shape, and she has had plenty of chances to kill Tangtang without physical contact."
With that, as if reassured (or perhaps having resigned himself to the absurdity), he relaxed and lay flat on his back. Drawing out a metal block, he began absorbing and nourishing himself to recover.
If there was any distinct difference between this battle beneath the tractor field and their past struggles, it was that Han Qingyu had ultimately failed to turn the tide as he always had before. He had suffered complete defeat—more than once.
If his desperate struggles had still been a pivotal factor earlier during the assaults to break the gravity field and collapse the tractor field, then in this battle atop the high platform, he had done almost nothing, and could do nothing.
Not just him; every peak fighter present—including Wu Xu, Rusty Sister, Wen Jifei, and the thousands of Azure soldiers on the ground—was equally powerless.
It was He Tangtang alone who had stepped forward out of nowhere, single-handedly turning the tide and reversing the entire battle.
"Run!"
"Keep running!"
"..."
Holding the diagonal, He Tangtang continued his berserk onslaught, hacking away without the slightest regard for defense while clamoring loudly.
"Do you think Tangtang himself knows what's going on?" Wu Xu, who was likewise lying on the ground, asked with rare earnestness.
Han Qingyu shook his head. Rusty Sister shook hers as well. "I don't think he has a clue."
"Mm," Wu Xu nodded.
Standing in front of them, Wen Jifei hadn't joined the conversation. He looked up, his knitted brows relaxing slightly, before turning back to ask Liu Shiheng, "Who is she, really?"
"Your sister-in-law, Alice... though right now, she's probably Ne," Young Master Shiheng said, his voice brimming with inner conflict and worry.
"Ne?!" Even though they had suspected it all along, the moment the confirmation came from Liu Shiheng's mouth, Han Qingyu, Wu Xu, Rusty Sister, Wen Jifei on the platform, and even Commander Hua listening in via communicator below, were completely stunned.
Ne! It really was Ne!
The greatest scientist of the past forty years, the leader and faith of Snow Lotus, the only transcendent expert in the world who could stand on equal footing with a prime Chen Buer... was being hunted down one-sidedly by He Tangtang!
In human history, only two people had ever pursued Ne: Chen Buer and Jiang Longchi during the battle on the ice field over thirty years ago... but Ne back then was still a far cry from what he later became.
By that count, He Tangtang was likely the third person in history to chase down Ne! What's more, he was the only one to do it in a one-on-one duel, pursuing and hacking at Ne wildly... and against a much stronger incarnation of Ne, no less.
The news was transmitted to the rear.
First to Azure Headquarters, then swiftly spreading to the Huaxia Front, the Mitli Front, the City of Sin... and into the ears of an old man currently swimming somewhere in the ocean.
The once distinct hierarchy of combat tiers in the source energy world, and the collective understanding of every historian and top expert, thoroughly collapsed right then and there.
…………
Only after switching off the communicator did Wen Jifei follow up: "You're saying our sister-in-law... that Alice has two consciousnesses inside her, right?"
Liu Shiheng nodded. "It should be like that."
"So has Alice returned now?"
"Probably not. If she had, there'd be no need to fight. Her eyes and demeanor are all wrong." Liu Shiheng paused, his gaze growing anxious. "But this body has always been hers. Look..."
He wanted to ask if they could tell Tangtang to be careful and not actually chop his sister-in-law to death. But thinking about it, he couldn't bring himself to say it. Alice was also Ne right now—she was Ne. If Tangtang didn't strike her down, everyone here would probably die, including Young Master Shiheng himself, and Rusty Sister would be taken away to face an unimaginable doom...
Torn by this helpless contradiction, Liu Shiheng grimaced in agony, gritting his teeth, closing his eyes, and bowing his head.
Wen Jifei didn't share that dilemma in the slightest. It wasn't that he lacked sympathy, but that he simply had no luxury to care about it. Focusing his thoughts for another two seconds, Wen Jifei snapped his head toward Han Qingyu and asked:
"Qingzi, do you remember where Tangtang's yanxiu—no, that scavenger beast—came from?"
"Yeah," Han Qingyu nodded.
Rusty Sister and Wu Xu were actually aware of it as well, though Han Qingyu had been present at the scene. Back then, he and He Tangtang had pursued Alphonse to the center of the underground city. In Alphonse's heavily wounded, dying state, his scavenger yanxiu had suddenly leaped onto He Tangtang of its own accord.
It seemed to be an entity that was terrified of death above all else.
According to Zhe Qiuhong, the yanxiu, as an ancient race of rulers who once roamed the cosmos, were supposed to be immensely proud. Most of them would choose to die in battle alongside their hosts, or upon their hosts' deaths, return to a dormant conscious state to recuperate and await their next awakening... A host transfer on the spot like that was utterly unprecedented.
"So..." A flash of inspiration struck Han Qingyu, his eyes lighting up as he looked at Wen Jifei.
"That has to be it," Wen Jifei said. "The reason Ne doesn't dare kill Tangtang must be that he's afraid that creature will jump into Alice. With Tangtang on the verge of death at any moment, the creature's survival instinct locked onto Alice as its next host. And Alice's body probably can't bear the consciousness of another ancient yanxiu... If it crosses over, they'll all die together."
Chapter 854