Beyond the Zenith

The standoff took place on a slope that stretched from high up the mountain down to a reasonably open stretch of ground. The shrubbery barely reached their shins, and the autumn weeds were short.

Under the moonlight, the ground seemed almost black, with some exposed boulders and bare rock faces catching the light.

When the instructors appeared, some of the fleeing recruits stopped their frantic escape across the hillside. As they stood there, watching the instructors, a mix of emotions washed over them—the relief of surviving, the helplessness that followed terror, and even a lingering hatred.

Liu Shiheng was among these recruits.

He had gotten separated from both Han Qingyu and He Tangtang during the chaos in the valley. During the evacuation, he tried to find them, only for an instructor from Regiment 491 to grab him and drag him along.

As luck would have it, of the six retreating groups of recruits, he ended up in the one that encountered the Sharpie. He had been running for his life nearly the entire night.

Liu Shiheng’s dead iron straight blade was with Zhang Dao’an. Back in the trucks, Zhang Dao’an had asked to borrow it, and he had handed it over.

Maybe Head Instructor Zhang figured I’d be the least likely to need a blade.

Coming from Harbor City with a family fortune worth hundreds of millions, Liu Shiheng had never made much effort to hide his determination to survive at all costs. The blade in his hand was one he had picked up during the evacuation, pulled from a pool of blood beneath a dead comrade.

He had done nothing but run the whole night, yet he picked it up anyway, though he couldn’t explain why.

The recruit wasn’t someone he knew, but the blade still had their blood on it. He looked down at the serial number inscribed: 9-771248.

Sorry, Brother. I can’t avenge you. Maybe my blade can, though.

Liu Shiheng raised his gaze to the row of figures standing between him and the Sharpie, eyes seeking Zhang Dao’an, the one holding two blades.

His blade was still in the head instructor’s hands. He couldn’t tell if it was in his left hand or his right, but it didn’t matter. Either way, it would be cutting into the Sharpie soon enough.

A fellow recruit from the 425th Regiment ran past him, then turned back and tugged at him. “What are you standing here for? Run!”

“Yeah, but...” Liu Shiheng didn’t move. The instructors will kill it, won’t they? Of course they will. One, two, three, four... seventeen of them.

“Instructor Zhang told us to run,” the recruit said, pulling him along.

Confused, Liu Shiheng ran with him, eyes still fixed behind him. Many others were doing the same.

The row of figures blocking the way grew less and less distinct as they fled. The moonlight merged them with their shadowed backs and blades with those cast on the ground. It made the line of veterans look more imposing, solid enough to form a wall. Nearly a hundred recruits were escaping behind them.

Perhaps forty or fifty meters in front of that wall, the Sharpie stood like a machine, its back to the mountain. After descending from the mountainside, it had emerged from the treeline to stand at the edge of the broken forest.

Its pillar sword dragged along the ground with its curled and jagged edge. The tip trailed a deep gouge in the earth. The black armor encasing its body caused it to resemble a statue when still, albeit one that gave off a faint, barely perceptible blue glow under the moonlight.

When it moved, it was simply to peer down at the ground, then up at the scattered, fleeing crowd in the distance. Finally, it turned its gaze to the seventeen people standing before it.

This was a remarkably human-like response for an ordinary Sharpie.

“It’s definitely one of those things,” Zhang Dao’an said flatly.

“Yeah, it came out second. It was carrying the aircraft. This thing is powerful. Our Platoon Leader Liang... died at its hands,” the second lieutenant from Platoon 1123 said the last part quietly.

A badly wounded soldier beside him asked for a cigarette. The second lieutenant gave him one. The soldier stuck the cigarette in his mouth but, unable to move his right hand, couldn’t strike the lighter and had to lean over to let a comrade beside him light it.

“So what’s the plan?” an instructor asked.

The Sharpie’s aircraft was no longer with it. Most likely, it had already set up the signal device somewhere on the mountain behind it and was waiting for it to activate. None of them understood the exact mechanics, but word was that the activation process took a long time.

“We do what we can. If there’s an opening, two people break through and head up the mountain to destroy that thing,” Old Cao from Regiment 491 said, his previously resting maneuvering device humming back to life with a blue glow.

There was nothing else to it. They would do their best, and if that wasn’t enough, there was not much they could do about it.

“Do we wait for the recruits to get farther away?” another instructor asked, his own device activating in unison with the rest. “I’m worried we... won’t be able to hold out very long.”

A row of blue lights lit up. Their situation was dire. The signal device was likely already in place up on the mountain ahead, but there were also still fleeing recruits behind them.

“Come on now, why is everyone so gloomy? You’re all...” The cigarette-smoking soldier from Platoon 1123 laughed and coughed, breaking the pessimistic atmosphere. “Who knows? Maybe we’ll actually kill it. Wouldn’t that be one hell of a deal? Haha, am I right?”

Then, turning to the Sharpie with a grin, he taunted, “Hey, you dead iron bastard, how many of you did your momma squeeze out?”

Laughter broke out. The hearty kind that sounded as if they had come out of negotiations with the better end of the bargain.

This was reckless laughter before a fight to the death.

Everyone joined in except Zhang Dao’an. The desperate battle ahead and the sight of the recruits’ fading silhouettes brought him an inexplicable sense of relief and lightness. It was just that he had gone so long without laughing that it felt unnatural. Even wanting to do it seemed difficult.

Zhang Dao’an glanced up, almost absently, and caught sight of something.

What is that?!

He froze. On the mountainside before them, between the rock face and the trees, a figure was creeping and scrambling upward.

That kid again?! Why hasn’t he evacuated? Is he going to... After a moment’s thought, Zhang Dao’an understood. He must have overheard us saying we’d sacrifice our lives to destroy that device.

Reckless fool. That sneaky little... He’s got guts. What a damn good soldier. That one’s going to be our 425’s next Color Eraser platoon leader.

Platoon Leader Wang, are you seeing this?

With that thought, Zhang Dao’an quickly looked away and briefly lowered his head. Then, throwing it back, he burst into sudden, uninhibited laughter.

“Everybody, get ready. Today we don’t advance, and we don’t retreat. We nail this thing right here!” he declared.

The soldiers and instructors all grinned. “You make it sound so simple.”

Most of them had also spotted the figure on the mountainside and understood Zhang Dao’an’s intentions. They couldn’t let the Glowing Blue Sharpie look back.

They just had to keep it here. It didn’t get any simpler than that. All it would cost was their lives.

The pillar sword dragged across the ground with a screech. Its weight tore open the soil and stone. The sound was a signal that the fight was about to start at any moment. The Sharpie was about to move.

“Heh, who do you think you’re scaring, you piece of shit?! Give us back Platoon Leader Liang!” the cigarette-smoking soldier from Platoon 1123 roared, flipping from laughter to teary, bloodshot eyes in an instant.

Flicking his cigarette butt at the Sharpie, he drew his blade with his left hand, already lunging forward before the butt could even hit the ground.