The four-ridged column sword cleaved entirely through empty air. The blazing energy storm trailing along its blade scraped past the lower flank of the Doomsday Great Wall, missing by the barest margin.
Even in missing, Puta'er's strike stirred a massive, thunderstorm-like shockwave across the sky.
The Doomsday Great Wall fell into violent pitching and rolling. The relentless screech of crushing metal groaned through half its hull, making it seem as though it might buckle at any moment and disintegrate in midair... Yet in the end, the ship endured. It held, regained its balance after a bout of heavy shaking, and prepared to accelerate once more.
The pilots, still unaware of how exactly they had survived, could not hold back from throwing up their arms and cheering.
Victory. In a sense, this was a near-impossible, magnificent victory and a miracle belonging to the fugitives. Just moments ago, at least half of humanity's hope and future had brushed shoulders with death.
"Was it stopped?"
"Yes, it was stopped."
The silhouettes of Rusty Sister and He Tangtang remained suspended in the air.
Lubi Azha and the ship he piloted were still there as well. Holding the angle of impact with prow raised high, it silently fissured, shattered, and lost its shape... Small fragments fluttered through the sky like a rain of blood and iron, showering down toward the pool of blood and the battlefield below.
The three of them, joining their strength, had accomplished this miracle together.
Within this outcome lay a hypothesis destined never to be proven or disproven in retrospect.
Had there been no collision from Azha and his craft, could the desperate interception by Rusty Sister and He Tangtang alone have thwarted Puta'er's strike? Would they have taken too much of the direct impact and died on the spot?
And if their strike would have been enough without him, would sticking to the original plan—ramming the Great Spike superdreadnought, plunging into its ejection port to cripple or even bring it down—have been the truest, most advantageous choice for the human fleet and the future of all humanity?
It no longer mattered.
It made no difference.
Even if, in truth, Lubi Azha ought to have kept going to ram that Great Spike superdreadnought—even if doing so would have wrought catastrophic destruction and altered so much of what was to come—Wen Jifei would feel no regret, nor would Lubi Azha harbor any remorse.
Because people did not always make the most correct decision.
Lubi Azha was, after all, merely an ordinary man in this cruel world crushed under the weight of doomsday. Orphaned at a young age, raised by Uncle Shiliang in that chaotic place called the City of Sin, his combat power had always been unremarkable, his life always wretched. Never knowing what tomorrow held, never knowing when he might die... Until, later on, he met someone, and came to cherish a quiet longing he could never speak aloud.
And so, there was never truly any hypothetical trade-off to be made. In that split second, without half an instant's hesitation or conflict, Lubi Azha had simply followed his heart and done the one thing he wanted most to do.
It was also the happiest, proudest thing he had ever done in a life that had known only cruelty and loneliness.
In that moment, Azha cared nothing for humanity. He cared only whether that person would live.
***
Aboard the Doomsday Great Wall, while the hull was still violently pitching, Wen Jifei had already scrambled to his feet and stumbled toward the hatch.
By the time he arrived, two people were already there.
One was Ashilia. She had tethered herself to a handrail beside the hatch with a specialized safety line, clutching the camera to her chest with all her might amid the fierce turbulence.
Within that camera was recorded every frame of what had just unfolded.
The other was Rusty Sister's grandfather, Shen Fengting. The old man had already been standing there. That meant it was he who had chosen not to stop his only granddaughter earlier, allowing her to throw herself out of the ship and charge Puta'er.
Now, this retired army commander of the Huaxia Front was urgently fastening another specialized rappelling rope around himself.
He was going to jump.
Because down in the sky below, Rusty Sister and He Tangtang were losing their upward momentum and beginning to free-fall, while the formidable Puta'er, after briefly losing its center of gravity, had swiftly regained its balance and stabilized its colossal frame in midair.
Shen Fengting took in the sight. He had to save his granddaughter—no matter how inadequate his top combat power was here, no matter how slender the hope, he had to go.
Wen Jifei froze for a moment, unsure whether he should speak up to stop him on Rusty Sister's behalf.
Just then, a roar exploded from the communicator on his chest.
"Catch her!"
It was He Tangtang's voice.
Tangtang was the first of the two to regain consciousness. He had come to the moment the recoil tossed them back. After a fleeting instant to brace himself and assess the situation, He Tangtang channeled his Near-Death Surge, forcibly detonating his power in midair.
With a low hum, he streaked across dozens of meters.
Both hands grabbed Rusty Sister.
Then, whoosh!
Stirring his source energy once more, He Tangtang threw Rusty Sister upward toward the Doomsday Great Wall with all his might.
And propelled by the counterforce, he accelerated downward, rapidly tearing free of the airspace around Puta'er and plummeting straight toward the Martian surface.
Shen Fengting had already leapt out.
Midair, his right arm cleanly caught his granddaughter as she hurtled toward him from He Tangtang's throw.
Source energy erupted, forcibly steadying their momentum.
At the same time, his left hand hauled fiercely on the tether. With a resonant thrum, the rope pulled taut and launched grandfather and granddaughter diagonally upward until they rebounded safely back through the hatch of the Doomsday Great Wall.
Wen Jifei witnessed every second of it, having reached the hatch opening.
Rusty Sister was back...
"Tangtang?!" Wen Jifei grabbed the communicator, eyes locked on the shrinking figure below, and yelled with all his strength.
"Go!" He Tangtang roared back in an even louder urge.
"..." After less than a second of hesitation, Wen Jifei called out, "Survive!"
"Bullshit!" As gale winds howled, blood choked He Tangtang's throat. His voice was slurred yet furious as he snarled, "Of course I'm gonna fucking survive! If Pegmont can live, who the hell am I?!
"I'm staying right here to eat Great Spikes! I'll eat until I'm fat, eat until I'm a demon god, eat until I reach the Vault... I'll eat Mars clean and eat my way into becoming a star!"
He Tangtang's words were naturally meant to comfort Wen Jifei and push him to make up his mind to leave at once. Perhaps they were also meant to encourage and comfort himself, to fend off terror and despair.
What he did not know was that this scrambled, nonsensical outburst of his had inadvertently given a name to humanity's combat tier beyond the Vault—the Star tier.
***
In the sky, Puta'er hesitated for a brief moment before stepping through the air and boarding the superdreadnought.
Led by the massive dreadnought, the Great Spike craft continuously converged into formation, setting off in pursuit of the Expeditionary Fleet.
It seemed the aggro He Tangtang had drawn was not enough to divert Puta'er's target.
And on Mars itself, the number of Great Spikes left behind remained immense.
"Move!" Wen Jifei gritted his teeth and gave the order.
The Doomsday Great Wall completed its maximum acceleration, rocketing off in pursuit of the human evacuation fleet ahead.
"Mars, Mars... this is the Doomsday Great Wall.
"Please hold on. Do not give up.
"All of us... will live."
Chapter 953