"Qingbai, get ready to drop it at any moment."
"Understood, I'm watching."
"Qingbai, that's enough."
"I'll hold on a little longer."
"Qingbai."
"Right away. I'll drop it right away, don't worry."
"Hurry!"
"Got it!"
"Drop it! Drop it now!"
"Okay!"
"Dropped." Yang Qingbai finally released the dead iron chain and the satellite hanging from it.
Humanity did not actually know what offensive means Puta'er possessed, nor its maximum attack range, especially when striking with all its might.
Therefore, the only way to anticipate its strike was its initial stance.
Yet Puta'er had already begun its motion. Whether Yang Qingbai dropping the satellite at this moment was already too late, no one knew.
"Puta'er is raising its sword!" Wen Jifei roared.
Fortunately, Yang Qingbai had listened to Han Qingyu just now and made a wide turn.
Because of that wide arc, a human airship managed to arrive in time, rocketing straight up from behind the Great Spike super dreadnought.
The ascending airship's dorsal launch hatch opened, pointing directly at the super dreadnought and Puta'er standing atop it.
With a burst of source energy, the silhouettes of two human warriors catapulted out.
Han Qingyu shot through the void. Drawing a dead iron straight sword first, he unleashed Rusty Sister Dimple Slash, sending the spinning blade whistling straight toward the back of Puta'er's head.
Then, drawing another sword and gripping it with both hands, he threw his entire weight forward to slash into Puta'er's lower back, roughly where a human's right kidney would be.
Spurred by Han Qingyu's strike, Pegmont's confidence surged back. Gripping his sword in both hands as well, he lunged forward, slashing at the bend of Puta'er's right knee.
*Boom!*
Attacked from behind in two places, Puta'er, who had been raising its sword to strike CA117, was forced to temporarily abort its assault and turn around.
Its seven-ridged greatsword remained held high—a simple, unadorned slash that came crashing down with blinding speed.
*Clang!*
So swift was the blow that the three impacts merged into a single deafening crash.
In the next instant, the spinning dead iron straight sword was knocked hurtling into the distant void, while Han Qingyu and Pegmont were blasted straight backwards.
If Puta'er had pounced forward to strike again right then, the survival of both Han Qingyu and Pegmont would have hung in the balance.
Fortunately, the satellite CA117 had dropped was beginning to fall under the moon's gravity. In Puta'er's eyes, the skeletal remains were naturally far more important; it rushed over at the first instant and caught the satellite.
And then... tore it apart on the spot.
"Roar!"
Discovering it had been duped, Puta'er flew into a berserk rage, commanding the super dreadnought to charge back toward the battlefield.
At the same time, just as it had prepared to strike CA117 earlier, it raised the seven-ridged greatsword straight up once more.
The difference was that this time, it held the sword aloft for several seconds... motionless, completely still.
"What is it trying to do?!"
Wen Jifei observed with shock and suspicion, only then suddenly realizing something—because of the realistic maneuvering earlier to shield CA117 from pursuit, out of the fewer than three hundred source energy airships humanity had left on the battlefield, nearly half were densely packed along a single straight line. What was worse, most of them were moving at low speeds, crowding each other's positions and acceleration room... In a sense, it was like a massive traffic jam.
Even the command ship where Wen Jifei was stationed happened, by twist of fate, to be near the tail end of that line.
Although that line was also interspersed with a dozen-odd Great Spike airships that had not managed to pull away in time, in Puta'er's fury, it clearly no longer cared about any of that.
And this was precisely the situation Wen Jifei had done everything in his power to avoid since taking over battlefield command. He had always worried about humanity suffering an area-of-effect attack from Puta'er. Yet who could have foreseen that due to an unexpected situation no one could have anticipated, things would end up like this after all.
"It's my fault... Qingzi!" In a moment of despondency, Wen Jifei cried out sharply.
"Flee!" In the current situation, all they could do was save as many as they could.
The human fleet began scattering in all directions behind him.
Puta'er made its move. The seven-ridged greatsword, held aloft all this time, gathered unprecedented energy and cleaved down in a single blow.
*Whoosh! Buzz—*
A colossal energy storm, like a horizontally laid tornado with a diameter exceeding three kilometers, laced with blazing ripples of flashing light, came sweeping rapidly forward. Wherever it passed, black spatial rifts occasionally tore open.
"We're doomed!"
Han Qingyu's figure appeared at the very front of that straight line, his back to everyone.
"What does he think he's doing? Has he gone mad?!"
The doubtful cry came from Pegmont, who had always drawn his own strength from believing Han Qingyu was invincible.
Because not even Pegmont believed Han Qingyu possessed any qualification or strength to stand there right now.
Han Qingyu was not crazy. He just... had to do it, while being utterly shattered by a sense of powerlessness.
The gap was still simply too immense—so immense that even with a surprise ambush, they had not been able to withstand a single exchange.
The surprise attack he and Pegmont had launched against Puta'er had been easily repelled, completely shattering all the confidence Han Qingyu had built up over years of bitter, desperate battles and hard-won comebacks.
It was not a question of whether he was injured, nor was it a question of whether Yanxiu energy and bone source energy could be fully mobilized. It was just the gap—a real, insurmountable chasm of a gap. Against this strike, even if his body were completely uninjured, even if Yanxiu fully awakened, the situation would not change in the slightest.
This collapse of faith had probably begun when he encountered the Puta'er on Mars, and with that strike just now, it had completely shattered.
Yet while another person's shattered faith might lead to surrender, he was Han Qingyu—the pinnacle of humanity's fighting spirit over all these years. His shattering was not dejection, but a choice to pour his very life into delivering this final strike.
In the beginning, he had thought what he needed, and what he must do as always, was to seize the chance to shoulder this most vital battle.
Back then, he was still imagining that through battle, he might be able to awaken Yanxiu, and then fight with everything he had, leaving no regrets.
Yet reality told him that whether Yanxiu could awaken, and whether he could hold out until that moment, was completely meaningless before Puta'er.
Han Qingyu no longer believed he had to stand until the skeletal remains appeared.
So, put plainly, Han Qingyu believed he could die in battle now.
Even if he died, it would not have any major impact on the overall outcome.
Besides, the Army Commander was here. He would arrive in time.
*Whoosh! Whoosh!*
Standing there, Han Qingyu hurled the large and small blue-glowing pillar swords from his grip, launching them to strike the tornado storm. He did not presume he could break it; he only sought to disrupt some of its energy structure and provide a sliver of resistance.
"I'll hold for one more slash." That was his answer to Wen Jifei.
At the same time, gripping the only remaining standard-issue dead iron straight sword in both hands, Han Qingyu raised it high above his head just like Puta'er, poising to slash.
Since Yanxiu was wounded and unconscious, and since bone source could not be fully mobilized, Han Qingyu simply cast aside the two sources of energy he had relied upon most.
Relying solely on the device's source energy to drive him, and taking life source energy as his single foundation... in an instant, he poured out all of his life source energy, including what was needed to sustain his very life.
Then, Han Qingyu murmured softly to himself: "You said not to forget the part of being human, right, Army Commander? Well then, as a human, I will pour out everything to deliver this slash."
"Fuck Yanxiu, fuck Puta'er, fuck the cosmic civilization era, ahhh—!"
He was going to slash that tornado storm.
Amid a death-defying roar, the Azure standard-issue dead iron straight sword cleaved straight down.
Chapter 987