Major Qing's situation seemed dire. His body was wracked with pain and injury, radiating weakness, and even as he spoke, he remained locked in combat, struggling bitterly against the relentless onslaught of the swarm of Red Shoulders and the Daies.
Yet his meaning had been conveyed with unmistakable clarity: he and Pegmont refused any rescue or retreat. They would fight on—fight to the very end.
"Yes, Major Qing!" After less than a second's hesitation, nearly every voice on the Expeditionary Force's pilot channel answered in unison, followed by: "We stand with you!"
"Yes, Major Qing," echoed the ground forces, logistics personnel, and staff officers far off, who were currently helpless to intervene.
Then, over the command frequency, Second Lieutenant Wen Jifei spoke, adopting the posture of a soldier obeying orders: "Yes, Major Qing."
With that, Wen Jifei's taut, grim mood eased.
Compared to him, Qingzi had always been a man of few words. Yet in critical situations, when something absolutely had to be said, he would speak—and the effect was almost always decisive, setting the matter in stone.
The reason was simple: because he was Han Qingyu.
As the living legend whose combat prowess was the mightiest and whose achievements were the most glorious in this open era of civilizational war, his influence over humanity's source-energy-armed forces—and indeed the entire human world—was now no less than that of Chen Buer, the undefeated under heaven.
In an instant, all the bewilderment, hesitation, and division across the battlefield vanished.
Even General Yergana closed his mouth and said nothing more.
Perhaps he too knew that whatever he said now would be completely useless.
The political correctness and overarching schemes of Azure's upper echelon appeared so pale and powerless before the infectious conviction and unyielding combat will of Major Qing.
"Another Huaxia martial brute with the manners of a bandit!"
Yergana thought of Chen Buer and cursed under his breath. Over the past thirty-odd years, that old Huaxia brute had trampled on the authority of Azure Headquarters time and time again, leaving the high-ranking generals of the headquarters faction constantly infuriated, resentful, and helpless.
"Why does this nation always produce the most deep-seated strategists and the crudest, most savage powerhouses at the exact same time—and then have them stand firmly side by side?!"
The old man was forced to acknowledge something he probably should have admitted long ago: the fate of all humanity on Blue Star had become ever more deeply intertwined with the rise and fall of the Huaxia nation.
By now, Yergana was virtually powerless to affect the unfolding situation. Yet strangely, this sense of powerlessness brought him a flicker of relief and release.
On the battlefield, the decisive fight raged on.
Because of Han Qingyu's declaration, further chaos had been stemmed.
However, in those few seconds of confusion alone, two medium-sized Great Spike warships had already broken through the defensive line, diving toward the mouth of the valley and preparing to plunge into its depths.
No one knew how many Great Spikes were packed inside that ship, how many Red Shoulders were among them, or if yet another Daie was aboard.
"If there's another, that makes four."
Wen Jifei's assessment carried a subjective bias; naturally, he believed it impossible for another Daie to appear from within.
Yet even if his wish held true, three had already appeared. One had been slain not long ago by the joint efforts of Han Qingyu and Pegmont, and the other two were still locked in a death match with Qingzi at the valley floor.
At the thought, Wen Jifei's heart tightened violently, as though an immense dread were closing in on him.
"Even during the Zenith War, with that massive invasion and immense Great Spike army, there were only two Daies. So what do three signify? What does this mean?!"
"The scale of the Great Spike forces on Mars clearly isn't as massive as back then..."
Wen Jifei had no time to ponder further into the future. As the Doomsday Great Wall rapidly closed the distance, he saw clearly through the observation periscope that the Great Spike warship was plummeting into the valley entrance.
Aboard the other reinforcement craft, Wu Xu, Rusty Sister, He Tangtang, and the rest of the super combatants saw it as well.
"Eject! Right now!"
"Drop us in!"
"Hurry!"
They shouted urgently, giving the attack order to the pilots, even though their current altitude and distance were far from ideal.
Right at that moment—*BOOM!*
A colossal eruption of energy and aura surged upward from deep within the valley.
Immediately following came a roar: *"Aoooowww..."*
A dragon!
Even without the Little Prince present, everyone could clearly recognize and confirm that it was a dragon.
A Huaxia-style colossal dragon appeared, looking as if it had stepped out of primeval antiquity—more feral, ferocious, majestic, and terrifying. It slammed head-on into the Great Spike ship that had just plunged into the gorge, forcing it back by sheer brute force, then jerked its head up to flip the entire vessel away.
The dragon surged upward, its body formed of raging, burning red and yellow flames. Its head roared toward the heavens, thrusting straight out of the gorge into the sky.
It was a posture of desperately trying to tear through chains and slaughter, a struggle for survival.
Its roar, too, seemed enveloped in immense agony.
"Major Qing?"
The question was utterly redundant.
"But didn't rumors say his Yanxiu shattered back during the battle at the South Pole? And Major Qing seemed to have admitted it himself."
"Yes, his Yanxiu shattered," Wen Jifei said, swallowing his heartache and speaking with absolute conviction. "So this is Han Qingyu himself. He is burning his own life force."
Qingzi had fused with his shattered Yanxiu; one could consider him to have no Yanxiu now, just like Chen Buer.
This was perhaps one of humanity's highest-level secrets, but right now, that no longer mattered.
As Wen Jifei's words fell, people suddenly realized that the dragon's burning body was bleeding.
Blood welled like a spring, coursing along the flame-like scales before showering downward.
"Save him! He's fighting to survive!" General Yergana's voice rang out again, shouting at the top of his lungs without regard for command confusion, casualties, or cost.
Up to this point in the battle, Pegmont down at the valley floor had made no sound for quite a while.
And Major Qing's current display truly resembled a dying man's desperate bid to break free.
Yergana had made his choice.
Some of the soldiers hesitated once more.
Yet Wu Xu would not hesitate, Rusty Sister would not hesitate, He Tangtang would not hesitate...
One after another, small against the vast expanse of the sky, the figures of humanity's super combatants surged with fierce source energy explosions, plunging recklessly from on high straight toward the valley.
At that moment—*THUD!*—a heavy tremor resonated from the depths of the valley floor.
Pegmont was shaking the tractor field.
The greatest bug in human history was finally making good on his innate talent. The tractor field had moved; he must feel success within reach, and therefore, succeed he would.
So long as the hundreds of Red Shoulders and the Daies—who had been relentlessly hunting Han Qingyu and had only now realized something was amiss, attempting to fall back to guard the tractor field—could not return.
"You aren't going back."
From within the solid phantom of the dragon, Han Qingyu's voice rang out once more.
Then—*"ROAAAR!"*
Amid the bellow, the great dragon lowered its head and plummeted violently toward the valley floor.
As it dove, the dragon's body coiled and spiraled at high speed, interwoven with swirling blue beams from pillar swords and the flashing gleam of dead iron blades.
All the way down.
All the way, the ringing clash of metal against metal echoed without end.
All the way, a directionless, indiscriminate planar sweep butchered and dismembered dozens of Red Shoulders.
From the heights of the gorge down to its midsection, severed limbs and shattered torsos of Red Shoulders filled the air.
At last, less than twenty meters above the tractor field, the spiraling dragon phantom suddenly fractured and dissolved into nothingness.
Han Qingyu's blood-soaked figure was revealed.
He stood there, suspended in midair, leaning slightly back, a flesh-and-blood-drenched dead iron war knife gripped in each hand, looking upward at the swarm of Red Shoulders and the Daies above.
The two blue-lit pillar swords he had relinquished were embedded silently into the high cliff walls, one on either side.
This moment froze briefly in time.
Severed limbs, shattered torsos, and mangled gore from the dead Red Shoulders above rained down past Han Qingyu toward the valley floor in a bloody torrent.
The surviving Red Shoulders gazed down in collective dread and disorientation, momentarily forgetting to attack.
The two Daies—one severely wounded, the other seemingly unscathed—also hovered in midair, silently gazing down at that human who was so formidable yet ought to have been so fragile.
"You cannot leave," one of the Daies spoke.
Thanks to the translator on his person, Han Qingyu understood immediately.
Is that so?
But what did it matter if he couldn't leave?
As Han Qingyu felt the vibrations of the tractor field beneath him, the corners of his mouth pulled back into a grin, smiling up at that Daie and every Great Spike glaring down at him.
*BOOM! CRASH! RUMBLE...*
The immense tractor field beneath him began to collapse.
The ground gave way along with the spire, exposing the gargantuan tower structure beneath.
The tower itself was disintegrating.
Heavy, intricate layers of dead iron structure broke apart and crashed to the ground one after another.
And at the very bottom, in the center of the tower's foundation, Pegmont stood cloaked in solid blue source energy radiance. He too looked up, laughing as his eyes turned toward the heights.
They had done it.
Because the man holding off the enemy here today was the strongest human of the new era, Han Qingyu—and the man tasked with shattering the tractor field was the greatest bug in human history, Pegmont.
The Daie seemed somewhat taken aback.
Yet it leveled its pillar sword once more and repeated, "You cannot leave."
Before the words had even faded, the figures of Wu Xu, Rusty Sister, and the others shot down from the valley's entrance.
And in the space where the collapsed tractor field had once stood, a slow, low sequence of syllables echoed out like a reverberation.
The voice seemed transmitted through the tractor field from the distant depths of the cosmos, laden with majesty and overwhelming pressure; the sheer sound of it sent shivers through the soul.
"Record it!" Wen Jifei shouted with tense urgency over the communicators worn by the fighters in the gorge, which had remained active the entire time.
Simultaneously, Han Qingyu rasped, "Kill them."
He raised his arm, his blade pointing straight at the two Daies.
According to humanity's accumulated experience on Blue Star, within the Great Spike hierarchy, only Daies or higher possessed true command capability. If they all perished suddenly, the Great Spike forces would descend into total disarray—even more chaotic than when Red Shoulders and Black Armors operated independently without any command at all.
Back in Antarctica, they had routed completely on the spot.
Therefore, merely destroying the tractor field was not enough. Only by killing them—by ridding Mars of every Daie—would the outmatched Expeditionary Force on the surface, especially those hundred thousand retired veterans, have a chance to return alive.
Finishing his sentence, Han Qingyu forced a grueling eruption of power and shot upward like an arrow at the end of its flight.
Pegmont charged up from the valley floor, brandishing his long blade.
Wu Xu and Rusty Sister crashed directly into the ranks of Red Shoulders, hurtling toward one of the Daies.
All the arriving human super combatants hurled themselves into the fray.
A brutal melee erupted...
"Die!" Suddenly, an ethereal beast phantom swept past, slamming the heavily wounded Daie clean out of the Great Spike swarm and hurtling with it until they crashed heavily into the cliff face.
He Tangtang's figure appeared.
Due to the disparity in their size, he clung to the Daie like a giant lizard, teeth locked onto its throat in a death grip.
This was a sight never before witnessed in the century-long war between human and Great Spike civilizations.
Faced with this abrupt spectacle—
this sudden glutton...
The Great Spikes froze in stunned silence.
The humans froze just as hard.
Chapter 924