A balanced, deadlocked battlefield did not mean it was any less brutal. Humanity and the Great Spike fleet were locked in a fight to the death, and casualties on both sides were heavy. But as long as this balance held, the scales would soon begin to tip in humanity's favor.
Because Chen Buer was coming.
This redoubled the soldiers' confidence.
Yet sometimes accident arrived before good fortune. In the very next moment, the crucial factor maintaining this battlefield equilibrium suddenly vanished—Nikola broke off from the fight, and Puta'er did not press the attack either.
After a prolonged clash—or perhaps mutual probing—both had likely realized they could not kill the other without paying an enormous price.
And so, they chose a temporary truce.
High in the heavens, "tiny Alice" and the massive, silver-armored Puta'er stood suspended in the void, swords drawn as they faced each other.
Hundreds of meters beneath their feet, the Great Spike super dreadnought slowly drifted into position.
"And you call yourself a Creator? A rebel who cannot even kill me. Once Miwang arrives in person, you will be wiped away like a speck of dust," Puta'er took the initiative to speak.
"Hahahahaha..." Nikola laughed loudly. "Miwang? Can that useless piece of trash even come here? Does it dare set foot into the teleportation channel?"
"Miwang shall descend."
"Indeed. But by then, I will have long established my divine kingdom, and my power will be more than enough to slaughter that useless trash," Nikola continued mocking. Gesturing toward the surrounding human starships, it added, "And I must say, it was that fool's idiotic strategy that personally nurtured humanity—who originally had no means of resistance whatsoever—to the point where they can now wage war against you. How utterly laughable."
"You court death!"
"Fight, fight, fight again..." Like countless Azure commanders, Wen Jifei was once again praying in his heart, hoping they would disagree over a single word and start brawling again.
Yet they did not. Though the Puta'er named Yeke was furious, it seemed to have no intention of striking.
Nikola was the same.
Suddenly—*boom!*
Without any warning, no one had time to react.
A colossal golden beam of light shot forth from the launch port atop the Great Spike super dreadnought hovering below.
The sound of clashing dead iron followed from within the beam.
It lasted for over thirty seconds.
When the light gradually dispersed, the first sight to enter everyone's eyes was Nikola, having retreated far across the void. A massive, bloody hole pierced straight through "Alice's" shoulder. It might have only been grazed by the sword tip, yet the damage was already horrific.
Only then did people finally notice: standing beside the silver Yeke at some unknown point was a relatively smaller Great Spike, roughly a dozen meters tall and clad in dark gold, holding a platinum-gold pillar sword.
Aside from the coloration of its armor and weapon, its overall appearance differed little from the silver Yeke. However, its faceplate was not smooth; instead, it wore an elephant-like mask, intricately engraved with a long trunk and massive ears.
A Puta'er. Without question, that was another complete-form Puta'er. Judging from that strike just now, it might be even stronger than the silver Yeke.
"This..." Wen Jifei felt as though his entire brain had been struck by a hammer.
This was an all too despairing sight.
Yet thinking back, humanity had known early on that before entering the lunar battlefield, the Great Spike fleet had used the dreadnought as a tractor field midway through transit to execute a super-traction. The Great Spike race was determined to seize the skeletal remains at all costs—how could such a traction have brought only a few dozen Daie-class and other escort vessels?
After all, following the battle in Antarctica, they must have realized Blue Star possessed beings capable of fighting a Puta'er-level entity... even if many had struck together then, and even if it had only been a heavily wounded Puta'er.
Thus, the true objective of their mid-transit super-traction was to bring an even stronger Puta'er to ensure victory without fail.
"Gunie," Nikola spoke.
Unlike its questioning of Yeke earlier, this time Nikola directly called out the other's name or title.
From the looks of it, perhaps back when Nikola was still on the Great Spike homeworld, the two had already known each other well.
"Indeed, Nidu. I never imagined you would degenerate to such an extent." The dark-gold Puta'er named Gunie raised the pillar sword in its hands. "For blaspheming Miwang, you shall perish."
"Hahahahaha! By what right? By the fact that you hid inside the ship nursing your wounds, not daring to show yourself sooner? Or by the fact that you could only wound me with a sneak attack?" One major quirk Nikola had developed after merging with a human consciousness was laughing loudly with that damn 'hahahaha' all the time, followed by stubborn bravado.
"Speaking of which, you were injured during the traction teleportation, weren't you?" Nikola continued.
"I have fully recovered," the dark-gold Gunie said.
"Oh? Did you recover as fast as me?" Nikola asked abruptly. Then, before all eyes, its left hand shoved a super-concentrated source energy block into the bloody hole in its right shoulder.
The source energy block flared to life. In the brilliant glow, the hole smoothed over rapidly, restored to pristine condition.
That scene left both Yeke and Gunie visibly startled on the other side.
Back when it was a Great Spike Puta'er, Nikola had once been incomparably powerful. But due to old age and frailty, it had ultimately had no choice but to pilot a ship alone into the cosmos on exploration. Now, it had finally shaken off aging and attained the path to eternity.
That was why Nikola said Rusty Sister was just like it, both pure source energy life-forms—though Rusty Sister was still far from that stage. As for Nikola, as long as it wasn't utterly eradicated and possessed ample source energy, it seemed truly immortal.
"Haha, so what? Haven't you already tried? You cannot kill me anyway."
"Follow me and become my subjects. You, too, will attain eternity like me." Nikola actually started recruiting on the spot.
"Roar... Blasphemy against Miwang!"
The dark-gold Gunie paid no heed to its words, charging forward with sword drawn.
The two instantly clashed in a chaotic melee.
From the flow of combat, although Nikola possessed the gift of eternity, its actual combat prowess was still slightly weaker than Gunie's. For most of the fight, it remained on the defensive, even fleeing at times, not daring to engage in a genuine life-and-death clash with Gunie.
"Let's hope the Great Spikes have some traditional rule where internal duels can only be one-on-one."
"Even that won't do. There's still another one over there. If two Puta'ers attack Nikola together, it probably won't last more than a few exchanges..."
Wen Jifei thought anxiously. The situation was growing increasingly complex and desperate for humanity. He could only focus on the immediate present, and right now, Nikola staying alive was undoubtedly the most advantageous scenario for humanity.
He had just finished that thought when—
"Miwang shall descend!" Gunie shouted as it charged.
"Miwang shall descend!" The silver Yeke echoed the same battle cry, raising its sword and charging forward to join the fray.
"Help it! Help Nikola!" Wen Jifei blurted out in desperation, without even having time to think about how.
Given humanity's current situation, they didn't seem capable of helping at all.
Chapter 985