Comrades-in-Arms

Su Yu had unleashed a strike of the Thunder Yuan Saber, expending a massive amount of energy, and was currently absorbing yuanqi liquid to recover. At this moment, battles were breaking out in other areas as well. The fighting was not particularly fierce. The All-Races Sect cultists were bent solely on fleeing and were few in number. Before long, the squads took down their opponents one after another. In the courtyard, the sounds of combat were gradually dying down. Captain Liu had rushed back to join the fray. With his Qianjun Ninth Layer strength, dealing with a few low-to-mid Qianjun cultists posed little challenge. Su Yu was fairly pleased. He had slain a mid-stage Qianjun opponent. If nothing else, two merit points were in the bag. This time, he had achieved the kill entirely on his own. Of course, as an unofficial participant, the spoils of war did not belong to him after the kill; they belonged to the Wind Arrest Hall. Everything had to be turned over collectively before rewards were allocated, which had nothing to do with Su Yu. After all, taking part in the operation was essentially riding their coattails. Without the Wind Arrest Hall's coordination, Su Yu would never have had the chance to kill an All-Races Sect cultist on his own. Su Yu glanced around and saw no one else nearby. The Wind Arrest Hall members were all converging on the courtyard to surround and eliminate the remaining remnants. Exactly how many cultists there were, Su Yu did not know, but tallying them up, there were probably a dozen or more. This was no small stronghold; it qualified as a medium-sized one. "Medium-sized..." Su Yu felt a slight jolt. Once their numbers exceeded ten, it counted as medium-sized. Just as the thought crossed his mind, Captain Liu's voice roared violently from the courtyard: "Watch out! There's a leader here!" "Ah!" A sharp, brief scream rang out. The next instant, Captain Liu bellowed in rage. Boom! The courtyard wall collapsed completely! Su Yu was startled and hurriedly looked over. At that moment, Captain Liu was engaged in battle with a sickly, consumptive-looking middle-aged man. Captain Liu wielded a standard-issue military saber, while his opponent wielded a long staff. Both fought with wide, sweeping strikes, their origin qi erupting violently as the surrounding walls crumbled continuously. On the Wind Arrest Squad's side, someone was already lying on the ground, while the others formed a perimeter around the consumptive man. "Xiao Chen..." Someone cried out in a low voice. Su Yu felt a tremor in his heart. Xiao Chen... Brother Chen? The one who had just fallen was Brother Chen? Just moments ago in the vehicle, he had been talking to Su Yu. "Squad Two, form the formation!" As he traded blows, Captain Liu roared, "We've caught their leader! Brothers, take him down and it's a massive achievement!" At his command, a ten-man squad behind him surged forward under their sub-squad leader's guidance. The next instant, chains appeared in the hands of all ten men, each chain tipped with an axe-like weapon. Captain Liu swiftly retreated as the whooshing sound of wind rose! Ten chains were whipped out by the Wind Arrest Hall members, sonic booms cracking through the air. "Ha!" The consumptive man looked frail, but now his voice boomed with vigorous vitality. With a furious roar, he swept his long staff across. With a loud clang, sparks showered from the chains, and one chain was snapped in half on the spot. The other chains were scattered in all directions by his sweeping blow. "Squad One, go!" Captain Liu roared again. Squad One, already prepared, wasted no words and thrust their massive iron pitchforks toward the man. The ten men dispersed in all directions. Unable to take flight into the air, the consumptive man roared fiercely, swinging his long staff and striking the pitchforks until sparks flew everywhere. The final squad didn't need Captain Liu's orders; they had long since spread out around the perimeter. At this moment, several men unfurled a massive net that descended from above, swiftly blanketing over the man. "Always the same cheap tricks!" Furious, the man bellowed and kicked off the ground, leaping forward with a staff thrust straight at the wind arrester blocking his path. The Wind Arrest Hall members rapidly circled around him, never lingering in one spot. The heavy net descended, chains whipped across, and the iron pitchforks continually halted his advance. The man grew increasingly enraged! Meanwhile, Captain Liu had backed out of the encirclement. His gaze was icy. Rather than rushing back in, he circled the outer perimeter. The moment the man showed signs of breaking out, Captain Liu struck alongside the squad members to force him back. Wanshi! At this moment, Su Yu understood. The Wanshi Realm! If not for a Wanshi cultivator, Captain Liu, with his Qianjun Ninth Layer strength, wouldn't have needed the whole squad's coordination. The entire North Squad was engaging him right now. Among them were several at the Qianjun Seventh Layer. With so many people unable to subdue him after all this time, the man's immense strength made it certain that he was a Wanshi Realm expert. Boom! An explosive blast erupted. Seeing himself hemmed in by cultivators weaker than him, the man went all out in his fury. He brought his staff crashing down, shattering one of the iron pitchforks into pieces. Even though the squad member holding it was several meters away, the transmitted force still fractured the bones in his hands, blood pouring out in streams! Yet at the same time, a chain struck the man. The axe blade attached to the chain instantly carved a bloody gash across his leg, blood flowing unceasingly. "Qianjun slaying Wanshi!" In this instant, Su Yu suddenly understood what his father meant when he said that on the battlefield, Qianjun could slay Wanshi. Thirty Qianjun working in unison—and these were merely Wind Arrest Hall members from a small city—were surrounding the man, steadily wearing him down and grinding him toward death. The Wind Arrest Hall personnel were considered elites in Nanyuan, but on the All-Heavens Battlefield, they were no longer qualified to fight. Yet today, they showed Su Yu firsthand that realm was not an absolute suppression. Two fists could not withstand four hands; against an organized combat unit, even the mighty could be slain. "You want to wear me down to death? In your dreams!" The man roared, "If I fight to the death, you'll lose men too! Liu Pingshan, let me leave! I'll get out of Nanyuan, and everyone walks away better off! "I have another stronghold in Nanyuan with three hundred gold coins stored there. Consider it spoils of war from me to you! "Liu Pingshan, Nanyuan is just a small city. Do you really want to bury an entire unit of wind arresters here?" Nanyuan wasn't strong, and the Wind Arrest Hall didn't have many squads like this. If a Wanshi cultivator fought desperately to the end, even if he couldn't kill everyone, the squad would likely suffer devastating casualties. Captain Liu did not respond. Once you became a wind arrester, you had to expect this day would come. Running into a Wanshi Realm cultivator was also something he hadn't anticipated. A medium-sized stronghold... No, it didn't really qualify. With barely a dozen people, having a Qianjun Ninth Layer would have been the ceiling; who could have imagined a Wanshi First Layer cultivator was hiding here? *No... he probably broke through recently and hadn't been reassigned yet.* Within the All-Races Sect, there was hierarchy and order. A Wanshi cultivator shouldn't be commanding a ragtag bunch like this; he had likely just broken through. From their earlier clash, where the man had failed to overwhelm him quickly, that much was apparent. "Kill!" Ignoring him, Captain Liu kept the three ten-man squads coordinating, depleting his stamina and origin qi. This man wasn't getting away! "Liu Pingshan! You really want to drag us both down?" With another swing of his staff, the man snapped an iron pitchfork. The member holding it spat blood and flew backward, his hand bones fractured, clearly incapable of fighting further. The gap was swiftly filled by another member. The massive net that had fallen from above was forcibly torn open by the man, though he had sustained numerous new wounds in the process. ... From the rear, Su Yu watched with his heart pounding, feeling hesitant. The man was too powerful! He saw a Qianjun Seventh Layer member have his arm blown apart by a single blow of the staff. If this went on, just as the man said, he probably wouldn't escape, but the Wind Arrest Hall would certainly suffer catastrophic losses. Su Yu gritted his teeth, hesitated no longer, and swiftly dashed forward. Soon, Su Yu arrived on the scene. Captain Liu spotted him, but paid him no heed. If Su Yu meddled at a time like this, dying would be on his own head; even Liu himself couldn't guarantee he would survive. The enemy was doomed, but his own North Squad... might end up crippled after today. "Captain Liu..." "Get lost!" Liu Pingshan roared furiously, glaring at Su Yu. If anyone caused trouble at such a moment, he could cut Su Yu down and not a soul would dare object—not even Liu Wenyan! Once combat began, this was a battlefield. Even the Wind Arrest Hall had its own field of war! Faced with Captain Liu's murderous glare, Su Yu felt a tremor. This was a squad captain who had truly taken countless lives, not some ordinary bureaucrat. "Captain, I can disrupt him!" Su Yu's voice was low, intermingled with the clashing of weapons as he spoke rapidly. "I'm a trainee Civilization Master! I can create an illusion to disrupt him for a split second. Captain Liu, can you seize the chance to kill him?" "Huh?" Captain Liu, who had been about to kick Su Yu away, paused in surprise, then snapped to attention. "An illusion? Disrupt him for how long?" "I don't know. Maybe... one second?" Su Yu was uncertain; he had never tested it before. Captain Liu looked at the man still attempting to break out. After two or three seconds, he said grimly, "I'll create an opening and give him a chance to break through! You disrupt him. Su Yu, military orders are absolute: I order you to disrupt him for at least one second! "Fail... and I die! "Succeed, we kill him, and the squad doesn't have to lose any more men!" Captain Liu swiftly formulated a plan: open an exit to lure the man into breaking out, have Su Yu disrupt him, and strike with a killing blow in that instant. If he failed to kill him, going in close for a mortal strike meant that once the man recovered his senses, Liu would die—though the man would also be critically injured. To gamble or not? He did not hesitate! If he died and the man was heavily wounded, the others would soon finish him off, and no one else would have to perish. In the heat of battle, there was no time for second thoughts. Many in the Wind Arrest Hall were veterans retired from the All-Heavens Battlefield, and Captain Liu was one of them. At a critical juncture, he was willing to wager everything. Su Yu's heart trembled. A military order... He didn't know if he could pull it off. Earlier he had thought it possible—after all, it had affected even Liu Wenyan and the others, so against a mere Wanshi, it should have some effect. Yet... if he failed, Captain Liu would die. Could he bear such a responsibility? Captain Liu gave him no time to vacillate, barking out sharply, "Squad Two, fall back three meters! "Squad One, pin him!" The ten-man squads moved without hesitation, disciplined and resolute, executing the orders instantly. The man roared once more, swinging his staff in a watertight flurry that forced the members back. Many had hands streaming with blood, yet their will to fight remained unyielding. Captain Liu stepped into the zone between Squad One and Squad Two. Without glancing back at Su Yu, he muttered in a whisper barely audible, "The moment he breaks through Squad One's perimeter, create the illusion. I'll kill him!" As for whether Su Yu could seize that exact moment, Liu didn't dwell on it. The outcome would be the same either way! The only difference was whether the casualty in the squad would be himself or someone else. Su Yu's heart was in his throat. He felt the urge to devour blood essence and join the fray, but even if he did, he would only possess the explosive power of the Qianjun Realm, which would do nothing to help kill a Wanshi cultivator. Su Yu gritted his teeth. *I can only rely on an illusion to restrict him!* *What kind of illusion will work?* To make it convincing enough to make him lose focus, an ordinary illusion wouldn't do. Su Yu's mind raced. *The Hall Master? No, the Wind Arrest Hall Master is only a Wanshi too...* *The City Lord... If the City Lord showed up, it might plunge him into deeper despair and drive him to unleash his full fury.* *I have to give him hope... I can't drive him to despair...* Facing a Wanshi cultivator under siege, doing what he did before wouldn't work. *Right, it has to be his own allies—allies coming to rescue him...* The next instant, Su Yu made his decision. He knew this choice held the life of a hardened warrior in the balance. Though he was not close to Captain Liu, he didn't want the man to die here. Nor did he want anyone else to die here! ... The man pressed his breakout relentlessly. More and more squad members were being injured. The man himself had accumulated numerous wounds, blood staining his clothes crimson. Like a cornered beast, he snarled and bellowed, "Liu Pingshan, if I die, you die with me! Before I go, I'll take every last one of you down!" "Say that when you've done it!" Liu Pingshan remained impassive and ice-cold, shifting with saber in hand to plug every breach. Just then, another member's pitchfork was struck by the man. With a sickening crack, his wrist bones shattered completely, and the pitchfork dropped. Liu Pingshan's expression changed drastically. "Stop him!" He rushed toward that sector, while the man was overcome with wild joy. An opportunity... an opening to escape! He had no desire to tangle with these people; he had wanted to flee all along. As for Liu Pingshan, his earlier words had been mere bravado. He had never intended to fight to the death. Who would choose death if they could survive? Just as the man broke through, Liu Pingshan arrived before him, the distance between them less than three meters! The man brandished his long staff. Bringing it down in a crushing blow could bash Liu's skull to pieces. Of course, if Liu Pingshan swung his saber with suicidal abandon, even in his final breath he could severely wound the man. Unwilling to risk his life against Liu, the man was just about to slip through the breached perimeter when his vision blurred slightly. The next moment, an All-Races Sect cultist who had fled earlier suddenly appeared not far away, roaring, "The Hall Master has arrived to reinforce us! Pin them down, and it's a monumental achievement!" This Hall Master was not the Wind Arrest Hall Master, but an All-Races Sect Hall Master! The Hall Master was here? The man froze, then was overwhelmed with ecstatic joy! Every Hall Master was a Tengkong Realm powerhouse! The Hall Master had actually come to their aid! He recognized the messenger—a member of his own squad who had fled earlier. Who would have thought he'd return? To dare come back at a time like this, he certainly wasn't here to throw his life away. In that single instant, the man was delirious with delight! Not only would he survive, but he would also claim great merit by wiping out an entire Wind Arrest Hall combat squad! The next moment, in the distant sky before the man's eyes, a figure streaked through the air. The figure looked somewhat ethereal, but the man didn't mind; at such distance, a little blurriness was nothing to fuss over! He was here! He really had come! It was one of their own—if it had been a Nanyuan powerhouse, his subordinate would already be dead! Everything happened far too quickly. The man had no time to notice any flaws, nor any time to think. For instance, the underling was on the ground while the Hall Master was in the air; if the underling had never met the Hall Master, how could he know he had arrived? The Hall Master wouldn't have announced his name and shouted that he was here to help the moment he arrived, would he? There was no time to ponder such things! The man only knew one thing: he was saved! His previous willingness to fight to the death evaporated instantly. He couldn't die now! As long as he held out for a moment longer, these detestable wind arresters would be annihilated! Right then, the scene before his eyes suddenly wavered and rippled. Not far away, Su Yu felt a splitting headache, as though his skull were about to burst! His willpower was too weak. Directing it against a Wanshi Realm cultivator with all his might brought an instant sense of utter depletion. However, it bought enough time. Captain Liu was so close to him that the moment it happened, he seized the opportunity—the bastard had actually zoned out. In the midst of a life-and-death struggle, he had lost focus! Su Yu had succeeded! Without uttering a single roar, Captain Liu clamped his jaw shut, and his saber slashed down with thunderous speed! The sonic boom shattered everything, jolting the man back to reality. In that instant, where were the underling and the Hall Master? There was only Liu Pingshan's ferocious face, and that blade fast as lightning! "Civilization Master..." That was the man's final thought. He could not believe it. A Civilization Master... had come to kill him? Could it be Liu Wenyan? "Die together!" With final desperation, the man bellowed. Allowing the saber to split his head wide open, he brought his staff crashing down with vicious fury! Boom! The staff sent Liu Pingshan flying through the air. Liu's shoulder caved in completely, his entire body soaked in blood. Yet at that moment, Liu Pingshan smiled. With a thud, the man, nearly cleaved in two, crashed to the ground. Dead! "Captain!" The Wind Arrest Hall members cried out in alarm. Several Qianjun Seventh Layer members rushed forward to deliver follow-up strikes, hacking the corpse nearly into mincemeat before running over to Liu Pingshan. "I'm fine..." Liu Pingshan endured the searing agony. He had only lost an arm to take down a Wanshi cultivator—it was worth it! His voice trembled slightly as he commanded quickly, "Keep searching, confirm the kills, sweep the battlefield!" With that, he turned his head toward Su Yu, who had his eyes closed nearby, his face deathly pale. Liu Pingshan bared his teeth in a grin—a grin made exceptionally fierce by his bloody visage! Su Long's son... really was no coward! ... More than ten minutes later. Su Yu had recovered somewhat. Though his face remained pale, he was much better than before. At this moment, Su Yu felt no joy, only silence. Two dead, over a dozen wounded—that was the final tally. The bodies of the fallen Wind Arrest Hall members had already been gathered, resting before everyone. Captain Liu had crudely bandaged his shoulder wound. The arm was completely ruined, but he didn't care much. Forcing down his grief, he grinned and said, "Well done. Thirteen killed, one of them in the Wanshi Realm—a major achievement! "As for the two brothers who left us..." Liu Pingshan's grin was grim and twisted on his blood-smeared face. "When you step onto the battlefield, you're prepared for this! When you die, Nanyuan pays three hundred thousand in pension, and the Great Xia Prefecture adds another two hundred thousand—that's five hundred thousand. Add what the brothers chip in and the rewards from this merit, and damn it, that's another million secured! "It's just a shame about Xiao Chen. He was still so young... As for that sly old fox Old Zhou, he got his money's worth!" Captain Liu grimaced, whether laughing or weeping impossible to tell, his face covered in bloodstains as his features twisted. Xiao Chen was dead. The young wind arrester who had spoken with Su Yu in the vehicle had been the first to be killed. He was the first to spot the enemy hiding on the roof of the courtyard utility shed. Because of that, the opponent had struck with full power, showing no restraint, and killed him in a single blow. At the side, Su Yu remained silent. He had seen dead people before, but Brother Chen had just been chatting with him, and now he was gone. An indescribable feeling welled up within him. His father... was fighting on the far more brutal All-Heavens Battlefield! A hundred times, a thousand times more brutal than this! *The All-Races Sect... the myriad races of the all-heavens...* Su Yu repeated the words in his heart. In this moment, he suddenly felt a wave of disgust toward the Sixth Headmaster of the Civilization Academy. He had heard... that the Sixth Headmaster intended to enroll beasts from the myriad races! Right now, he suddenly had no desire to attend the Civilization Academy! He refused to share an academy with beasts from the myriad races! He suddenly understood why Xia Longwu was so vehemently opposed to letting beasts from the myriad races enter the Great Xia Prefecture. Seeing fallen soldiers, seeing fallen comrades-in-arms—put Su Yu in his shoes, and he wouldn't be able to bear it either! The All-Races Sect was merely the dog they kept. Now the master was arriving, expecting to enter the academy openly and study alongside them... Su Yu gritted his teeth. He refused to be around those beasts! At this moment, he had no thoughts of earning merit, no thought of the merit points he was about to receive. He had only one conviction: these beasts deserved nothing less than total extermination! From the side, Captain Liu approached unnoticed and patted his shoulder with his bloodstained left hand, smiling. "Good job! From now on, you're our comrade, our brother-in-arms through life and death! Next time you see your old man, it'll be fine to call him fellow veteran!" Su Yu forced a tight smile, unable to truly laugh. "Don't dwell on it. In this line of work, we lick blood off blade edges; you have to see through life and death! Dying isn't a losing deal. Of course, you're still young, so when you get to the academy, study hard, cultivate diligently, become stronger, and slaughter more of those beasts—that is the duty of your generation!" Captain Liu said solemnly, "Don't be afraid, and don't think we took a loss. Trading two lives for thirteen is worth it! On the All-Heavens Battlefield, if you can kill several times your number, that's a massive win! "The All-Races Sect is nothing but an itch on the skin! In what year doesn't the Great Xia Prefecture bathe in rivers of enemy blood?" Captain Liu patted Su Yu again, grinning fiercely. "If you don't want people to die, if you don't want to watch your brothers-in-arms fall before your eyes, then work hard! If you were in the Tengkong Realm, not a single person would have died today. We're old and washed up, but you still have hope and opportunity! "Reach the Tengkong Realm as soon as you can. The City Lord is old, and Instructor Liu is old too. If you can return as a Tengkong expert to lead Nanyuan in the future, maybe... fewer of us will have to die!" Tengkong—that was Captain Liu's hope for Su Yu. Was reaching the Tengkong Realm difficult? Exceedingly difficult! At least in Nanyuan it was. Many went to the Great Xia Prefecture every year for advanced cultivation, but how many ever reached Tengkong? He was merely motivating Su Yu, yet he genuinely believed Su Yu had hope. He was already at the Kaiyuan Eighth Layer! Even if this kid couldn't become a Civilization Master, in ten or twenty years, he had a shot at reaching Tengkong through the physical path, becoming yet another Tengkong genius hailing from Nanyuan. A Civilization Master was too far off, but Tengkong... the odds were very, very good! How long had it been since Nanyuan produced a Tengkong powerhouse of its own? "Mm!" Su Yu nodded heavily. He would reach the Tengkong Realm—no, he would become even stronger! What his teacher had not taught him, this squad had shown him today: life and death! The life and death of comrades, the life and death of brothers-in-arms! Fighting bathed in blood was not for any single individual, nor for any high-ranking official, but for oneself, for these bloodstained brothers-in-arms, and for the comrades fighting endlessly across the all-heavens!