*Crack.* Bones shattered. The human-monkey didn't even have time to utter a sound of struggle or pain.
If the previous two brief silences had been choices made by the Cleansing Faction, then this moment was intimidation in the purest sense.
From the moment all four human-monkeys leaped into the air, Plague-Chicken Fei careened onto the scene in the van and slammed the brakes into a hard sideways stop, to the iron armor bursting through the roof, plucking one human-monkey right out of mid-air, crashing onto the ground, and casually crushing it to death—the entire process had taken less than three seconds.
...Silence fell over the scene once again.
The black iron armor stood silently on the worn-out old street, head tilted slightly up toward the side, looking at the people on the rooftops... The dead human-monkey hung curled up, still gripped in one hand.
A very manly, very warrior-like sight.
Yet Han Qingyu knew that beneath the iron armor was actually a girl who wasn't even eighteen yet—quite tall... and, as she had claimed herself, not fat.
The contrast made him want to laugh, which pulled at his wounds and made him wince in pain.
*Clatter.*
Shen Yixiu finally let go.
The human-monkey's corpse thudded to the ground.
"Whoa... damn," Liu Shiheng breathed in slow amazement.
The people on the rooftops finally reacted. Mr. Zhu's voice was terrified. "Wh-what is that?!"
Answering him was the Cleansing Faction fighter who had crashed to the ground earlier, only now finally managing to scream a warning: "Mecha... It's a mecha!"
He cried out at the top of his lungs, his voice thick with despair.
They had just gone to intercept what they thought was a suspected Grade A near the van, only to run into a legendary... mecha.
Whether Azure or Snow Lotus, mechas had once been an avenue of research for both, even if they had both temporarily abandoned it in the end. The term was hardly unfamiliar to them.
"How could this be?! Azure has a mecha?!"
"Impossible."
Just those two sentences, spoken without even an ounce of conviction by the speakers themselves, and met with no further reply.
Wen Jifei pushed open the door, hopped down from the van, and dashed over to Han Qingyu, immediately checking the three's injuries. As someone who was always cheerful and optimistic, for once he showed a deep, anxious look of shame and guilt.
"It's my fault, all my fault... If I hadn't been there, Iron Chick would've arrived way earlier."
They had forced their way out; the enemies on that side hadn't even all been eliminated yet.
Then Wen Jifei lowered his voice. "Actually, if Iron Chick hadn't ambushed it like that, it wouldn't have been easy to catch that thing either. It's way too agile... If only Milla were here too... Sigh, too bad my marksmanship isn't good enough yet."
He sounded dejected, blaming himself.
"A-are you all right?"
Just then, Shen Yixiu turned her head, looked Han Qingyu up and down, and walked over to stand beside him.
Han Qingyu smiled. "Nothing much."
*Pfft.* A mouthful of blood.
He puffed out his chest, held up a hand, and said, "It's fine. In Regiment 425, spitting up blood doesn't count as an injury."
"...Mm, I've heard. The Blood Calabash Baby Regiment."
"..."
In this standoff, some twenty-odd Cleansing Faction fighters were scattered across the rooftops on both sides of the street. Those on the ground had already fled and were peeking out from the alleys. They had overwhelming numbers, backed by human-monkeys and a major, yet none of them dared to make a move.
Meanwhile, the five on this side just stood in the middle of the street, blades in hand.
*Clang-clatter...*
The grating sound of dead iron scraping against dead iron echoed as Shen Yixiu drew the blade from her back.
Only now did everyone finally notice that she had a blade too... She simply hadn't used one when sparring with Han Qingyu before. And having not seen it earlier, it had likely been stashed somewhere inside the van.
"Hey, where'd you get the little girl?" In the center of their group, Wen Jifei asked Liu Shiheng.
"Found her. Good timing, here you go." Liu Shiheng held out both the girl and the backpack. Wen Jifei's actual situation was something his closest companions, like He Tangtang and Liu Shiheng, had all learned recently.
Wen Jifei looked at him and waved his hands. "You hold her."
"No, you hold her."
"You hold her! Who knows, maybe I'll unleash an explosive strike."
"Come on, at least I can swing a blade reliably."
The two traded looks... Never mind, both of them were dead weight. Sigh.
"Get ready. We'll fight our way out together," Shen Yixiu said beside Han Qingyu.
"Fight our way out?" Han Qingyu echoed in confusion.
"Yeah." Shen Yixiu was confused too. In the current situation, the real disparity in combat strength still put them at a disadvantage. If they didn't break out, were they supposed to fight?
"Rusty Sister... have you never hunted, or robbed anyone?" Han Qingyu paused, then added, "Cleansing Faction equals source energy blocks."
The eyes beneath Shen Yixiu's visor lit up, and she turned to look at Han Qingyu.
"You can't make a fortune just being a sparring partner... Let's make money together from now on, mechanical girl." Han Qingyu stole a glance upward; the people on the rooftops were hesitating.
"Mm, but..."
"No buts. What matters right now is momentum."
With that, Han Qingyu directly activated his dormant apparatus, kicked off a wall, and shot onto the rooftop. Sweeping his dual blades in a horizontal slash, he bellowed, "Don't let a single one escape!"
The Cleansing Faction fighters scattered and fled in every direction...
In the end, they managed to leave behind one more human-monkey and four corpses.
That was the absolute limit of what Han Qingyu and the others could accomplish... They weren't able to keep Mr. Zhu, the major, or most of the others from getting away.
However, near the scene, they found a vehicle the enemies hadn't had time to drive off.
...
"One, two, three..." Under a river bend not far from the battlefield, the leather case retrieved from the car was popped open.
"Eighteen in total." Han Qingyu finished counting and looked up. Eighteen blue crystal source energy blocks lay arranged inside the case.
The five gathered around, all eyes fixed on him.
What did eighteen blue crystal source energy blocks mean? For a captain like Lao Jian, that was roughly four years' worth of source energy allowances aside from combat requirements. For Shen Yixiu, at her most conservative rate of consumption, it was nine months of life.
"Sh-should we turn this in?" Liu Shiheng stammered, looking at Han Qingyu.
"Turn it in my ass," Wen Jifei cut in.
Yet every gaze remained pinned on Han Qingyu's face, waiting for his decision.
Han Qingyu: "Turn it in my ass."
"Haha... But when they get here in a bit..."
"They can eat shit," Wen Jifei cursed. "Where the hell were they when the fighting started?"
"Yeah."
"The question is, how do we cover this up? How do we avoid getting caught?" Shen Yixiu spoke up for the first time, demonstrating that she wasn't rigid at all... or perhaps she had simply adapted to the company around her.
"Simple. We don't wait for them to arrive at all," Han Qingyu said.
"Ah? Then we..."
"We didn't win at all. The Cleansing Faction only fled in a hurry because they realized reinforcements were coming... As for us, we barely managed to break through the encirclement and escape, with even the roof of our van smashed open... fleeing in panic. Understand?" Han Qingyu looked around at them.
"...Understood." Everyone, including Shen Yixiu, nodded vigorously.
Right around then, a dense clamor reached them from the direction of the battlefield... It sounded like the reinforcements had finally arrived.
"Shame we couldn't finish sweeping the battlefield."
In the rush, he had only managed to loot the source energy blocks off two or three bodies. Han Qingyu felt a pang of regret, lamented inwardly, and led everyone into the van before driving away.
There were holes in this story, of course, and not small ones.
But Han Qingyu had already made up his mind: if that lunatic Qi Shantong dared to investigate him... he would dare to take his complaints straight to the legion.
Chapter 88