On Mars, in an extraordinarily brief span of time, the Human Expeditionary Force had already staked every chip they could throw onto the table.
Apart from the hundred thousand veterans who could not arrive in time, and Master Duosang Jiacuo, whom nobody knew what to do with aside from having him chant scriptures and pray for blessings, all core forces had been committed to this all-or-nothing gamble, concentrated in the narrow airspace above the deep valley where the tractor field lay.
The origin of it all lay in the battlefield impulse—or decisive resolution—of humanity's two super-geniuses, Han Qingyu and Pegmont.
They might have seized the sole key to victory in this expedition, or they might have personally triggered annihilation. No one could definitively judge whether they were right or wrong.
Moreover, looking back to debate right and wrong was utterly meaningless now.
Above the tractor field valley, continuous, suicidal collisions raged on.
Hopelessly outmatched in both performance and numbers, human ship formations flew in groups of three to five, charging at full speed from every direction across the distant sky, hurtling recklessly into this aerial slaughterhouse.
Suddenly, amidst this brutal melee of source energy vessels, the silhouette of a human being appeared.
An old man, holding a small hatchet, strode with solitary poise through the surging currents of source energy in the sky.
Before people could react—before the Great Spikes could either—
he had already made his move.
Accompanied by the thunderous boom of a source energy burst, the old man shot forward through the airflow. In rapid succession, he tucked his body, arched his core, and unleashed his momentum, swinging the small hatchet in his hand straight into a dense swarm of Great Spike ships!
"Whoosh! Roar—"
In this scene, the vast disparity in scale between man and battlefield, hatchet and warship, made the sight appear so fragile, yet so awe-inspiring.
Following Han Qingyu, he was the second existence in the expeditionary force daring enough to confront source energy ships with his bare flesh. His name was Jiang Longchi, hailing from an earlier era of youthful ambition and glory forged in a hundred battles.
To this day, he was still an active-duty general in Azure.
Once, he was the other warrior god of the Huaxia Front, spoken of in the same breath as Chen Buer.
Once, he had fought blood-soaked battles across the ice plains, cutting straight through Snow Lotus's lair...
He had forgotten all of this long ago.
"Don't be afraid, Qingyu. Grandpa's here to save you."
"..." Because this shout echoed down amid surging source energy, Han Qingyu, locked in bitter combat at the bottom of the valley, suffered a momentary lapse in concentration and was nearly impaled through by a hundred pillar swords.
Boom! A reverberating crash rang out above the valley.
It was the collision between hatchet blade and ship hull.
Before everyone's eyes, that solitary, tiny figure with his little hatchet had struck a Great Spike ship flying at breakneck speed, cleaving its massive prow completely off course!
Knocked askew, it plowed straight into the dense swarm of Great Spike vessels beside it.
Above the Vault! Beyond any shadow of a doubt, Above the Vault!
Thirty years of forgetting events, forgetting people, and forgetting himself. Today, Jiang Longchi—once twin star and warrior god of the Azure Huaxia Front—stepped into Above the Vault with his aging body, returning to the pinnacle of humanity.
"...Roar!"
After a brief daze, a synchronized roar suddenly erupted over the communication channels, echoing through the air, across the ground, and throughout the entire Human Expeditionary Force.
Everyone was electrified.
Three Above the Vault!
The Human Martian Expeditionary Force possessed three Above the Vaults, and they had already breached the tractor field! As long as we buy them a little more time, could we really not shatter it?!
Such were the thoughts of the soldiers.
For the two expedition commanders watching from afar, the emergence of a third Above the Vault on the scene was certainly exhilarating, but its practical impact on the outcome of the battle was likely not as immense as imagined.
Because whether it was Wen Jifei or Yergana, both knew in their hearts that General Jiang Longchi would never obey commands.
Even if you exerted every ounce of effort to tell him what to do and finally managed to make him understand, he would completely forget it in the next second.
What if you told him to go down to the valley floor?
If he went down, grabbed Han Qingyu, turned around, and bolted to take him back to Fenglong'ao, what then?
How wronged would Pegmont be, who was likely still digging holes down there?
How would humanity feel?
Thus, it was better to let the old man remain in the sky. Even if intercepting ships with his bare flesh was far less efficient, it was at least an indispensable aid to the blockade.
Otherwise, once the Great Spike forces on Mars successfully returned to reinforce the area, the overwhelming disparity in numbers, vitality, and defensive resilience between the two sides would become painfully evident.
Endless Great Spikes would ultimately crush and pulverize everything, including the three Above the Vaults present.
"We came here bearing a mission. We found the tractor field, launched our attack, and fought our way into the core area. This is the final decisive battle," Second Lieutenant Wen Jifei's voice sounded across all-frequency communications. "Remember, if the Great Spike fleet manages to reinforce them, we and this war will all be over."
These were two declarative statements. Not a single word of the impassioned mobilization or calls to fight to the death that Wen Jifei excelled at was spoken; he simply laid out the reality of the situation for everyone.
As he finished speaking, the space carrier Doomsday Great Wall, one of the expeditionary force's two command ships aboard which he stood, completed the evacuation of all non-essential personnel and began slowly ascending into the sky.
"Second Lieutenant Wen, what are you doing?" an astonished, suspicious voice called over the comm channel. The staff officers responsible for battlefield coordination had received no prior notice of the Doomsday Great Wall's operational plan.
"Going to take a look," Wen Jifei answered. "If necessary, I want to try putting a lid on that valley and see how long it can hold."
The lid he spoke of was naturally the hull of the Doomsday Great Wall. It was large enough that, if it successfully breached the area, it might attempt to seal the deep valley and hold out for a while.
Yet this was undeniably a foolish plan. Aside from his own certain sacrifice, Wen Jifei appeared prepared to personally sever the last sliver of hope Han Qingyu and Pegmont had for retreat.
He was going to trap them in a desperate impasse, struggling until the final second.
"No, I object to this plan." The private communication that abruptly cut in came from General Yergana, who no longer concealed his panic.
With things having reached this point, Yergana, under immense pressure, had nothing left to hide from Wen Jifei.
"In the classified directives I received, securing the survival of Major Qing and Major General Pegmont is an option that cannot be abandoned under any circumstances at any time during this expedition. That is why we kept a mothership concealed in the distance all along," Yergana said rapidly, spurred by panic and urgency. He paused, then added, "The Board of Elders' decree: even if we are defeated, even if all the rest of us die in battle on Mars, they must return."
As for this, Wen Jifei had actually deduced it long before the expeditionary force set out. A defeat on Mars was indeed a cataclysmic crisis, but back on Blue Star, Azure still held one final trump card. That weapon was exceedingly peculiar; it could likely fire only once, and its probability of success was entirely uncertain, because its target was very likely Miwang.
Therefore, even if it miraculously succeeded against miniscule odds, humanity would still need peak combatants like Han Qingyu and Pegmont to finish the remaining battles; otherwise, that trump card's existence would be devoid of meaning and value.
Wen Jifei could understand that logic, but...
"It's already too late, General," he said, his tone lightly tinged with sorrow and wry helplessness. "You don't know Han Qingyu. He won't leave."
If one were to ask who in this world understood Major Qing best, the answer would not be his parents, but Wen Jifei.
Even if Han Qingyu got married in the future, that probably wouldn't change.
Of course, he might never get married in the first place.
When it came to Han Qingyu, if he were staking his life alone, he could easily tuck tail the second things looked bad, turning on his heels and fleeing without caring in the slightest about what anyone thought.
However, if a group of people followed him to lay their lives on the line, or if people charged into that fatal battlefield because of him, he would never leave on his own.
Don't talk to him about the greater good or the future.
It was useless.
The future inevitably held too many variables, and Major Qing had always been disinclined to think on behalf of this world or the whole of humanity. He looked only at the life and death he could see before him, and he was always willing to give his all for it.
And so, today, Qingzi was definitely not going to leave.
And so Wen Jifei decided to head into the center of the battlefield as well.
Of course, he did not convince General Yergana. As an orthodox commander from Azure Headquarters who had served for decades without faltering, the old general possessed his own battlefield ideals and convictions—or rather, an ingrained sense of absolute obedience.
At this juncture, the battlefield rift between the expeditionary force's two commanders formally emerged.
This was not something that could be brought out into the open, nor did the two have time to continue arguing... Over the all-frequency communications, General Yergana issued his orders in the most prudent manner possible:
"Closely monitor the situation in the valley. While holding off the enemy, select warships may independently seek opportunities to close in and stand ready to rescue Major Qing and Major General Pegmont if necessary."
He said rescue.
Though phrased diplomatically, it still conflicted glaringly with Second Lieutenant Wen Jifei's previous directive.
Between the two commanders, one had already resolved that the entire army would fight to the death here, while the other was still arranging to seek possibilities of rescue and retreat.
No one could have imagined that such a low-level, naive, and foolish command problem would emerge on such an important battlefield at such a critical juncture.
"Rescue them and take them away?" Only a small fraction of the ships on the battlefield had the leeway to think, their attention drifting to General Yergana's command.
Then they began seeking opportunities to approach the valley, hoping to assist Major Qing and Pegmont at the pivotal moment.
The unfolding reality proved that on such a battlefield, even slight wavering among a few individuals could cause immense repercussions and damage.
Cracks began to show in the ironclad aerial defense line, and in an instant, two Great Spike ships broke through the blockade and dove straight toward the valley.
"Damn it!"
"Has the pressure completely crushed Yergana's brain?!"
Wen Jifei could naturally issue a corrective order immediately, but even if he did, hesitation on the battlefield would undoubtedly persist, potentially causing even greater command chaos.
After all, he was only the expeditionary force's deputy commander-in-chief, whereas the vast majority of the pilots in this fleet hailed from Azure Headquarters.
Just as Wen Jifei was consumed by anguished urgency and helplessness—
"No retreat. No rescue." Han Qingyu's voice, carried in an indescribable tone, abruptly sounded across the battlefield-wide comm channels for the first time.
It felt like the decree of a king on an ancient battlefield, or the low, raspy breathing of a primeval behemoth.
"Go," he continued. "Hold your defense lines."
"If we win, we go home together. If we lose, we'll be buried on Mars together." Major Qing fell silent.
Chapter 923