Aside from that high iron wall—dreamed up by who knew which blasted Red Shoulder—the Martian Great Spikes' current defensive tactics were essentially no different from those in Antarctica. Back then, when Pegmont and the Stream Vanguard cohort had attacked the Polar tractor field, the host of Red Shoulders had done the exact same thing: leaping out in formation in midair to intercept them in successive tiers.
The difference was that this time, Pegmont had no comrades at his side to back him up, share the burden, and divert targets, nor did he have plentiful source energy blocks to patiently weave and clash in battle.
Surging upward from below, he had breached his way to the third tier of midair interception.
The top of the iron wall was within arm's reach, but Pegmont's upward kinetic energy was almost entirely depleted. To attempt another burst in midair was beyond his power now.
"Break through it, break through it, break through it!" A voice within him refused to yield, still roaring ceaselessly in the face of the ten column swords whistling down to cleave him.
Yet the reality was that in this relative motion, Pegmont's speed was gradually falling behind.
This meant that even if Pegmont could still swiftly slay the Red Shoulder blocking him head-on, he no longer possessed enough speed to successfully pass through that intercepting pack of Red Shoulders.
*Clang!* For the first time in this battle, Pegmont shifted the war blade in his hands from a forward slash to a horizontal parry.
A solid impact of dead iron rang out. Ten blue-glowing column swords—some striking singly, some overlapping—slashed down upon his war blade almost at the exact same moment.
In the next instant—*boom!* The gathered energy between both sides' weapons collided and erupted. A colossal sphere of compressed air detonated, instantly reducing the swirling earth and gravel across the sky to fine powder and blasting it far away.
*Tham!* Pegmont's entire body was hammered downward like a cannonball fired from a barrel, slamming hard into the ground.
In fact, the speed of his fall was so rapid that the swarm of Great Spikes waiting on the ground to surround and butcher him did not even have time to strike at him.
*Bang!* Another heavy crash.
A medium-sized source energy airship that had been cruising in the sky chased right after Pegmont, diving vertically. With its oval prow pointed downward, it slammed heavily onto the spot where he had landed.
It intended to crush Pegmont to death.
Under the impact of the source energy warship, the earth shook and cracked open. An entire swath of Black Armors and blue-sheened Great Spikes around it was squashed into mincemeat by their own vessel.
With this, the fierce battle that had raged unbroken from the very start came to an abrupt halt.
Following four consecutive thunderous roars, the decisive battlefield mysteriously and abruptly fell into utter silence.
The Great Spikes (including the Red Shoulders that had landed), holding their weapons aloft, formed a massive circle, staring blankly and tensely at the deep crater gouged out by the source energy airship.
The airship's oval prow fit seamlessly into the crater in the ground, giving them the impression that the human had already been flattened... except there was a sizable fissure cutting through the pit, stretching all the way beneath the iron wall.
This fissure was the one Pegmont had cleaved open earlier, at the very onset of his attack.
"Is he... dead? Squashed flat?"
"I don't know."
"Probably not. This human is formidable; we must be careful."
The Red Shoulders conversed cautiously.
In truth, throughout this decisive battle, the pack of Red Shoulders on Mars had always considered themselves the weaker party. Their objective in this final clash was essentially to fight down to the very last soldier, if necessary, just to hold out until the tractor field successfully activated and completed the tow.
This was because Pegmont's previous display had been far too overwhelming—and because they did not know that Pegmont currently suffered from a severe lack of source energy blocks.
"Yes, he is formidable. Then why hasn't he come out? What is he doing?" one Red Shoulder said, gripping its sword with both hands on guard as it cautiously approached the impact site.
"Wait." The Red Shoulder found nothing... except a faint vibration beneath its feet. "What is this vibration?" It looked down, staring at the ground in focused confusion for several seconds.
"...He's not dead!"
"He's digging! He's digging dirt!"
The Red Shoulder was able to think of digging because earlier, while constructing the tractor field and burying the airships, they had done the exact same thing over a hundred times.
It was right: Pegmont was indeed digging dirt—or more accurately, tunneling. Since he couldn't get through above, he was now preparing to dig his way in.
To tell the truth, this had actually been a contingency plan conceived before the fight began. Pegmont might not be particularly adept at certain other things, but when it came to combat, he was undeniably seasoned.
That was why he had cleaved this ground fissure at the very onset of his assault.
One purpose was that he had anticipated early on that if he were blasted downward, he would very likely face a pursuit ram from a Great Spike airship. Thus, he had used this fissure to buy himself a sliver of buffer time. With his strength and reflexes, just a tiny bit was enough.
The second purpose was to test whether dead iron plating had been buried underground in the perimeter of this area, and to probe the subterranean depth of the frontal iron wall through the feedback of source energy ripples.
Although he had always thought Great Spikes were idiotic creatures (or more precisely, they thought each other were idiots), when it came to this decisive battle, Pegmont still gave them ample respect in the details.
The results were in: no dead iron plating was buried in the outer perimeter, and the underground portion of the frontal iron wall was roughly two to three hundred meters deep—not shallow, but not extraordinarily deep either.
*Swish-swish-swish-swish...* Underground, Pegmont had his device running full blast, digging without regard for source energy consumption.
Because this position was already very close to the iron wall, all he had to do was dig diagonally downward first, and then dig horizontally toward the tractor field... Once he bypassed the iron wall and reached the site, he would swap in his very last tube of source energy blocks and smash that tractor field to pieces at all costs.
……
When a super source energy warrior ranked among humanity's top four combatants channeled his full power into tunneling, the tunneling speed... defied not only common sense, but also human imagination.
"What do we do?"
"What do we do?"
The swarms of Great Spikes on the ground grew increasingly anxious and frantic.
The airship shifted aside, and they saw patches of loosened earth.
The Red Shoulders could certainly chase down from the same spot, but Pegmont barely cleared any soil out as he tunneled. He only needed a passage wide enough for his body to advance; with every foot dug, he simultaneously scooped and packed the dirt tight.
So the Red Shoulders would also have to dig, feeling their way through the dark and tunneling after the sound...
And because some time had already been lost, combined with the disparity in raw strength, they were very unlikely to catch up.
Even if they did manage to catch up by sheer chance, they stood no chance one-on-one. Once a few were skewered to death in the cramped underground tunnel, the passage would only become even more blocked.
Nor was there any possibility of digging ahead to cut him off, because the distance here was already very short, and Pegmont's tunneling rate was vastly faster than theirs.
"What should we do now..." Many Great Spikes were gripped by panic and at a loss, hesitating in indecision.
"Fall back. Retreat inside the iron wall." A clear command came from among the Red Shoulders, carrying a surprising sense of composure and confidence.
As a special caste in the Great Spike civilization between the nobility and slaves (tools), Red Shoulders could be considered junior officers in their military. Only in small-scale assaults or unexpected situations did they take on command roles... such as atop Xilang Peak years ago, or like this occasion.
The ones responsible for commanding the remnant Great Spike army on Mars this time were three hundred Red Shoulders that had followed Daie and stayed on Blue Star for nearly two years. They possessed knowledge and study of human civilization, along with extensive experience fighting humans.
……
*Clang!*
The moment the tip of his blade struck a sheet of dead iron, Pegmont froze entirely. In that instant, a crushing blow of despair and frustration nearly floored him underground.
"These stupid things... are actually this smart?!"
By now, Pegmont had successfully bypassed the iron wall and tunneled into the inner perimeter. He had been thrilled and excited, striving to dig toward where he remembered the tractor field to be.
Yet on his path forward, a dead iron plate appeared.
No dead iron plates were buried beneath the outer perimeter, but there were in the inner ring. It was a massive, heavy bulkhead salvaged from a damaged Great Spike mothership.
In total darkness, Pegmont refused to give up, trying to dig downward several times. The source energy feedback from the tip of his blade told him that this dead iron plate was buried very deep.
He could only try to go around it.
Pegmont shifted his angle and kept tunneling... but soon, another colossal dead iron plate blocked his way.
*Deducing from this, the Great Spikes must have buried an entire ring of giant dead iron plates around the tractor field—maybe even more than one layer.*
*I can't dig anymore. If I keep digging, I'll run through all my fucking source energy blocks.*
At this point, Pegmont had only one option left: breach the surface.
Go up and attack the tractor field right before the eyes of the Great Spikes.
Of course, it was best to act the instant he broke through the soil, catching the Great Spikes before they could react. Otherwise, once surrounded, Pegmont would most likely exhaust his source energy blocks and be ground to death.
"Right here. This is the closest spot." Mind made up, Pegmont did not hesitate. Swinging his war blade diagonally upward, he swiftly carved a passage to the surface.
With just over a meter left, he did not dig straight through. Lying on his side, Pegmont first composed himself.
Then—*shoom!* With an eruption of source energy plus the absolute limit of his life source energy, Pegmont swept his blade, tearing effortlessly through that final meter like shredding paper and bursting out of the earth.
Throughout this process, the lean of his body and the angle of the long blade in his hands were both locked onto the position of the tractor field.
Once out of the ground, he would not pause for even a split second...
*Boom!* Pegmont had barely emerged—not even a third of his body clear—when over a dozen blue-glowing column swords came crashing down directly onto his head in unison.
He hastily parried. *Clang!*
Then—*boom, boom, boom, boom, boom!* Countless column swords hammered down circle after circle, row after row, wave after wave without pause. The ground was pummeled as if struck by meteorites, a huge crater gouged open.
Pegmont was unharmed; he had simply retreated underground again. All things considered: thank god he withdrew fast enough.
There were over ten thousand Great Spikes on the surface, especially those three hundred Red Shoulders. The inner perimeter was not large to begin with; they were neither blind nor deaf.
Pegmont's movements before breaching the earth had all been under their watchful gaze.
……
When Pegmont ducked back underground, the Red Shoulders did not choose to chase in after him. Going in would only mean courting death.
All the Great Spikes on the surface halted their steps and fell silent.
They only turned their bodies in slight increments. Every single Great Spike stared fixedly at the ground, watching and listening intently.
Whenever a Red Shoulder detected something, the Great Spikes around it would shift toward it in unison, encircling the target location.
"Here he comes!"
The moment a patch of earth suddenly shifted slightly upward—
*Boom, boom, boom, boom!* In an instant, hundreds of column swords smashed down upon it.
Chapter 881