A hurried dinner. The emergency meeting held right after dragged on for hours, running from seven in the evening deep into the night.
At the meeting, the Azure Board of Elders and the leadership core did not outright demand that Han Qingyu and the others immediately rush to the perimeter of the Moon to join the search for the remains and prepare for battle.
After all, they had channels through which they had been tracking Han Qingyu's physical recovery all along.
If he went this time, just how much could he actually accomplish? On one hand, he certainly could not be underestimated, because he was Major Qing; but on the other hand, from a realistic perspective, it was truly unwise to overestimate him or expect too much.
Still, even as they devoutly prayed for Major Qing's injuries to heal as quickly as possible, Azure's leaders ultimately expressed with utmost earnestness the necessity of being prepared to enter combat at any moment.
One of the reasons was the lack of humanity's peak combat power in the vicinity of the Moon.
The Azure Coalition currently confirmed only three Vault-tier combatants: Chen Buer, Han Qingyu, and Pegmont.
Among them, Pegmont could only be counted as half of one for now, as the true peak of his strength did not entirely depend on him.
Currently, not one of these three was near the Moon.
What was worse, Chen Buer, originally the strongest among them and utterly invincible, could no longer even get down from the table.
Under these circumstances, even though Azure had already deployed nearly all the elite high-end combat power at its disposal to the lunar perimeter—such as Wolf, who in his entire life had rarely left the African savanna, along with a vast host of renowned generals and genius Supers old and new—if Puta'er truly led a fleet to strike, they would still be frail, completely powerless to resist.
Humanity had by now conceded that before locating the remains, there was no way they could defeat Puta'er.
Yet at the very least, Azure needed the capacity to rally a group of fighters who, at the critical juncture, could step forward to put up a desperate struggle, buying some time and keeping it occupied.
After all, the remains were right there, liable to be found at any moment and claimed by either side.
And once the remains fell into Puta'er's hands, all hope would be extinguished, and the doom of the human race would arrive immediately.
Thus, Han Qingyu and Pegmont had become the human combatants who simply had to be on that battlefield.
They were the only ones among humanity who, even if unqualified to truly match the enemy, had to hold the line... and whose presence at the front might still offer the world a final, glimmering sliver of hope.
And people like Jiang Longchi, Wu Xu, and Rusty Sister, together with Bochen, Wolf, and Azure's other topmost Super combatants, were the inevitable constituents of that final resistance force.
Azure stated that once Han Qingyu and the others set out for this battle, Pegmont would depart with them, remain by their side throughout, and follow orders.
"Empty words," Wen Jifei retorted on the spot. "Who in this world can truly predict Pegmont's actions? You didn't even dare invite him to this meeting."
The Azure top brass: "..."
"For that matter, we don't need him to obey completely or follow our lead anyway. For Pink Peg, letting him think, imagine, and make his own decisions on the battlefield is the best way to go. Of course, having him come along is fine." Wen Jifei agreed to bring Pegmont along. After all, he was currently at this very base, still rambling every day about wanting to eat at the Han family home again.
"I want to know what the current primary search focus is for the remains. Why haven't they been found after all this time?" Having settled Pegmont's matter, Wen Jifei continued with his questions.
"The Moon itself. We suspect our earlier assessment was flawed. The artificial object containing the remains might not necessarily be a satellite—or even if it was, it might not be in a floating orbit. It may have already crashed into the Moon, or perhaps it was buried directly beneath the lunar surface from the start," the leader of the Refusers answered rigorously.
Wen Jifei: "That will make it very hard to find."
Xu Xiaohong: "Extremely hard."
With the remains proving so difficult to locate, Azure's second reason for wanting Han Qingyu to appear in the lunar area as soon as possible surfaced.
They believed—or rather harbored a fantasy—that the half of the remains Han Qingyu already possessed and had fused with might, at an opportune distance and moment, produce some sort of connection or resonance with the other half buried on the Moon.
That way, the human fleet could use it to determine the bearing and position, locating where the remains were buried far faster.
"If that's the case, why didn't your previous orders send us straight to the Moon to join the search?" Rusty Sister asked, feeling frustrated.
"At the time, we were primarily worried about Major Qing's injuries, as well as you, Pegmont, and Lieutenant Wu Xu..." Azure's third-generation speaker spoke up, attempting to explain.
"We misjudged the situation and made an erroneous decision," the Refusers' leader cut in, interrupting the excuses, and confessed frankly. "We were harboring wishful thinking back then, believing that the search around the Moon could proceed safely without interference and yield results quickly. We thought sending you to the Moon carried the greater risk of drawing Puta'er's fleet straight there."
"Understood. It's actually normal to make errors in judgment; the only ones who never make mistakes are in the movies. Besides, this can't entirely be counted as a blunder. When it comes down to it, it was just a gamble—a matter of which side you chose to bet on."
Wen Jifei waved a hand, letting the matter drop. Just as he said, errors in command decisions were simply representative of normal human fallibility. With the gamble's outcome about to be revealed, dwelling on it now was meaningless.
At this point, a silent pause fell over the meeting, as though the transmission signal had encountered an issue.
"Wasn't there mention of a suspected third party?" Han Qingyu spoke up.
Meetings had always been Wen Jifei's job; Han Qingyu had only spoken up for the first time now, as the discussions reached their final stage.
"Yes. Regarding the activity signs of that non-allied spacecraft, we currently have two suspicions: first, an advance scout ship of the Great Spikes; second, the mad Ne," Speaker Kemore said.
Azure referred to the woman seen earlier in Antarctica—the body housing three consciousnesses in one, though dominated by Nikola most of the time—as "the mad Ne."
This was likely because Ne was the enemy they had been familiar with for so long. Humans always felt more confident and less fearful when facing what was familiar.
But what was the reality?
The reality was that in terms of top-tier combat power, humanity could not possibly beat Puta'er right now, and there was a high probability they couldn't even defeat this mad, familiar third party either.
Because inside that body was a complete set of remains—and if it was not truly deranged, it was also a mature-form Yanxiu.
Judging from previous intelligence, when Nikola originally entered space from the Great Spike civilization, he had likely been an aging Puta'er who had entered a period of decline.
Chapter 964