Chapter 116 - The World of Masters

When young people sat down to eat with an old man, especially a senior in the same line of work, their favorite thing to do was to pry and listen to stories.

In the Azure Coalition, “story” mostly meant legends and the people behind them—those who stood at the very peak and the things they had accomplished.

The old man in front of them had once been the commander of the Ninth Army.

“Army Commander Shen,” Han Qingyu prompted.

“Hm?”

“Just how high can the masters of our world go?”

This was the question Han Qingyu cared about most, not because he wanted to aim far beyond his limits, but because he wanted to gauge his strength. That way, he could work out whether the assassins from the City of Sin would be easy to kill.

The most important thing when baiting and hunting was to avoid accidentally turning into the prey.

“That depends on which level you’re asking about,” Shen Fengting said, mulling it over. “If we’re talking about something close to home... For example, when you and Shao Xuan were up in the combat arena, that slash of yours, whatever it’s called—ahem—Even if he hadn’t turned to block it and just tanked it straight on, he would’ve been perfectly fine. It would’ve been a little embarrassing, that’s all.”

Basically, the only damage he would’ve taken was social, not physical.

The three beside him had mouths full of rice, and a few muffled curses came from them.

“Oh.” Han Qingyu nodded, fairly unperturbed. After all, that wasn’t his trump card, and it had also been his first time using the Rust Girl Vortex Slash against an opponent.

“That slash you brought down on the little White Eraser boy, though,” Shen Fengting mused, “if you had put everything into it, even Shao Xuan probably would’ve needed to block a bit.”

“It would’ve been that effortless for him?!” He Tangtang cut in, his face full of disbelief.

“That’s right. Shao Xuan is already on the threshold between elite combatant and super combatant. He has half a foot across it. When he came to see me this morning, he brought it up himself, saying he would break through to super combatant within three months.”

Shen Fengting had just handed these youths a new concept.

The peak that most soldiers on the front lines of the Only Witness Legion and at the army bases could see was the elite combatant. For the vast majority of people, that was the ceiling.

Breaking out through that ceiling meant leaving the category of ordinary soldiers altogether. This was a super combatant.

Not every super combatant was S-rank. Even Shao Xuan wasn’t an S-ranker. He was A+.

According to the old man, the difference between a super combatant and an ordinary elite was a change in the body’s source energy constitution.

While the specifics were complicated and varied from person to person, they all shared some crucial traits: they were all impervious to blades and bullets, even without armor. With armor, they could take a dead iron straight blade head-on from any fighter below the elite tier. The source energy surging through their bodies was also endless, like the ocean.

Another essential aspect was the fact that all found their own path.

In academics, it was called a specialty.

In martial arts, it was a signature technique.

Put more mystically, this was about one’s own Dao, known as the Way.

Strength varied among super combatants, of course, though life and death couldn’t be settled by such simple comparison. Super combatants could almost always take a gamble based on their own Way.

With that, the former army commander finished his explanation.

Han Qingyu couldn’t help but recall how Shao Xuan hoped to assassinate Ye Jian in five years and wipe that stain of historical disgrace off the Erasers. That was probably the exact kind of gamble the old man was describing.

As he thought this, he wondered, Platoon Leader Shao is friendly, entertaining, and ?good with people... What will his Way look like once he becomes a super combatant?

“You’ve never seen an S-ranker, have you?” Shen Fengting suddenly asked.

“I have,” Han Qingyu said. “One. At District 1123. He cut apart that wounded Glowing Blue Sharpie in under ten seconds. He—”

“Legendary Lu.” Shen Fengting had worked it out from that simple description alone. “Legendary Lu is fast, while Marshal Hua is sly. Nobody ever sees Legendary Lu draw his blade, and nobody ever sees Marshal Hua unless he wants you to. That’s how the top brass used to joke about the two of them. I owed them both quite a few energy cores after stepping down, so I stopped running into them.”

The old man gave an awkward laugh, then asked, “You didn’t see his face, did you?”

“He was wearing a mask.”

“Right. S-ranks usually like it that way. The higher-ups require it as well. As a rule, you may hear of them but never see them,” Shen Fengting explained. “I heard news of Hua Bixuan not long ago—”

“A woman? Marshal Hua is a woman?!” Wen Jifei cut in, astonished.

“Even if Marshal Hua were a woman, what’s there to be so shocked about?” Shen Fengting glanced at him. “He’s a man, though.”

“I think it’s a woman. That sounds like a young girl’s name,” Wen Jifei muttered sullenly.

Shen Fengting was dumbfounded. What’s there to argue about? Even if you win the argument, that person’s actual sex doesn’t change!

“Then what about Little Tao, the sixty-two-year-old guard who watches the gate at the rear base? He’s still called Little Tao, isn’t he?” the old man said, puffing up as he made his point.

Everyone immediately got goosebumps. That old fellow’s called Little Peach?![1]

“Anyway, Marshal Hua is a man,” Shen Fengting firmly concluded. “The last I heard of him was two years ago, when he challenged Ye Jian to a duel in the City of Sin. They spent the two days sharing drinks together first, though.”

“They know each other?” Wen Jifei asked. They all knew Ye Jian’s story.

“Comrades, back in the day.”

“Didn’t Ye Jian defect, though? Doesn’t that make them enemies?!”

“Maybe Marshal Hua knew Ye Jian couldn’t outdrink him and planned to get him drunk before killing him,” He Tangtang offered.

Shen Fengting paused to glance at his granddaughter. Xiuxiu, your mental fortitude is better than mine.

“Old ties first, positions second. Matters of life and death can always come after. What’s wrong with that?” Shen Fengting asked, even despite knowing such a concept was beyond these kids for the moment. “At their level, unless it’s an assassination, it’s easier to just calmly meet and talk. They can always pick a day to settle life and death later.”

“So, who won?”

“Nobody knows.”

“How can nobody know? The person who didn’t come back lost and died, right?”

“The problem is that nobody knows whether Ye Jian went back. As for Marshal Hua, the Coalition has granted him free movement anywhere in the world. He only has to report in once every three years. Nobody knows whether he’s returned either. For now, at least.”

The kids nodded. “Oh.”

While the others were lost in the stories, Han Qingyu's thoughts followed a different line. “Commander Shen, I have another question. If their source energy surges are that terrifying, what about energy cores? Do they have enough? How do they sustain it?”

“The cores they use aren’t like yours. The research institute deals with the details, so I don’t really understand it myself, but my guess is that they’re more concentrated. They also load more than one into the combat case at a time.” Shen Fengting suddenly laughed. “Take the legion commander you met yesterday. He’s a special case. To this day, he still prefers his custom sixth-generation device. That thing looks like a military vest, with twenty-eight magazine pouches packed across the front and back. Every one of those things can hold an energy core.”

What an outfit! Everyone pictured it on the legion commander they had seen the day before, and their faces went a little strange.

“He’s old now, too...” Shen Fengting took a sip of liquor. “Back in the day, he fought to the very end and took that Red Shoulder’s head off with a single slash!”

“Took it off? Just like that??” Han Qingyu asked, startled.

“Yes, just like that.” Shen Fengting nodded. “The Red Shoulder was already spent by then, true, but that one slash... They say a good many of the people who saw it in person went on to become masters themselves. After that slash, Chen Bu’e aged twenty years overnight.”

The table went silent.

“People with high integration levels who have absorbed enough source energy don’t normally show their age at all,” Shen Fengting added, his voice bleak.

A speculation struck Han Qingyu. Does he store source energy in his body and use it in tandem with the device? Is he like me?

“So now he...” Liu Shiheng and Wen Jifei thought back to the legion commander’s appearance.

“He looks very old, doesn’t he?” Shen Fengting’s eyes shone. “Every master in the world still respects him and fears him, though, all because of one rumor. They say he still has one more slash in him. Its target is guaranteed to die.”

1. His name, 桃 (táo), means peach ☜