ABST Chapter 16

Golden eyes…

 

Kill-on-sight warrant.

 

Elansno suddenly said: “You’re the one who rescued young master Suto before?”

 

Lan Xia walked closer step by step, voice gentle: “A brief encounter—the Admiral’s memory is good.”

 

Elansno: “I don’t remember you.”

 

“That doesn’t matter,” Lan Xia smiled. The bottom of his usually gentle eyes floated with the coolness of night. “As long as I remember.”

 

The last sentence was so low it was nearly a rain-fog whisper. Elansno didn’t hear clearly: “You—”

 

Sharp purple light coated with a layer of blood red, attacks overwhelming as the sky crashed down toward all of Elansno’s vital points.

 

The warm, restrained facade was instantly torn apart by omnipresent killing intent.

 

Elansno counterattacked extremely fast. Golden and purple mental powers collided thunderously, the raised storm sending those pursuing from behind tumbling head over heels.

 

Hundreds fell from the air like broken-winged birds, made even more wretched by the tenacious wall-spine ants.

 

But the leaders of each faction couldn’t care about this now. Eyes gleaming, extremely excited, their gazes fixed deadly on that person confronting Elansno ahead.

 

“S-level evolver! Another S-level evolver!”

 

An S-level evolver no one had ever seen before, and looking at the current situation, this mysterious evolver was hostile to Elansno!

 

Since the death of leader Suto, their anti-Federation side no longer had an S-level evolver presiding. Everyone had different thoughts but reached the same destination—

 

Recruit!

 

No matter what means, get this person into their own faction.

 

Xinghui’s Second Commander surveyed the area, ordering in a deep voice: “All Xinghui personnel immediately retreat. Don’t be affected by the battle ahead!”

 

“Yes!”

 

They all knew—S-level evolver battles were no joke. One S-level could be killed by surprise, but once two S-levels fought together, that was disaster. The magnetic field fluctuations disturbed by different mental powers around them were enough to give everyone present a rough time.

 

And indeed it was so.

 

Golden mental power brilliant as morning sun, purple mental power tranquil as moon—transforming into two flowing lights constantly colliding. Both sides were extremely violent. With Elansno and Lan Xia as the center, the surrounding stone forest all turned to powder.

 

Small hurricanes rose from the ground, sweeping up shattered rock and gravel, forcibly enlarging the right exit of the chaotic magnetic zone by a full circle.

 

Before facing Lan Xia, Elansno had already consumed most of his mental power. Now engaging in this kind of battle requiring high concentration and full effort, it didn’t show at first, but as time passed, inevitably flaws appeared.

 

And Lan Xia was waiting for precisely this flaw.

 

He slightly raised his eyes, condensing a killing strike in his hand. But when meeting those deep purple eyes hidden beneath Elansno’s mask, his movement stalled.

 

The latter instantly dodged. That attack grazed Elansno’s neck, crashing straight into the cliff behind with a boom. Large chunks of shattered rock rolled down, and extremely deep cracks appeared in the mountain.

 

Lan Xia snapped back from that moment of distraction, frowning slightly. Mental power gathered again, slamming the Admiral—clearly somewhat exhausted—against the cliff with a bang!

 

Elansno’s back crashed hard, a muffled groan escaping.

 

He still braced himself with nearly depleted mental power to resist Lan Xia. Now only one strike was needed to kill him on the spot.

 

But for a long while, Lan Xia made no next move.

 

Yet Elansno laughed.

 

At the boundary between their mental powers floated three spatial rings filled to the brim with munitions.

 

“Why stop fighting?” Elansno’s breath carried the scent of blood.

 

After a long moment.

 

Lan Xia looked at him, emotion indiscernible, voice flat: “They say you’re a madman. They’re not wrong.”

 

Three spatial rings filled with munitions were already extremely unstable, on the edge of explosion. Now Elansno had placed them at the boundary of their two mental powers—

 

The only place where the magnetic field was relatively stable.

 

Like placing a stone on a thin thread—one careless move and it would plummet down a ten-thousand-foot cliff.

 

Visibly, these three rings had already begun constantly trembling. Once either side had any turbulence, or if either withdrew their mental power, everyone here—or rather, this entire chaotic magnetic zone—would be razed to the ground.

 

No one would have any possibility of survival.

 

Elansno laughed lowly twice but couldn’t help coughing. Tilting his head slightly back, leaning against the icy cliff behind him, he found a comfortable position before seriously examining Lan Xia’s face.

 

After a long while, he evaluated: “Fake.”

 

Lan Xia: “What’s fake?”

 

Elansno: “You’re like me. Clearly wanting to kill the other, yet still pretending—” He paused, lips curling wickedly. “Just kidding.”

 

Lan Xia said flatly: “If you don’t want to die, don’t say these meaningless things. Now there’s only one way—we withdraw our mental power bit by bit, maintaining the rings’ balanced state.”

 

“Is it me who doesn’t want to die, or you, all of them, who don’t want to die?” Elansno looked to the side.

 

Whether First Army people or anti-Federation organizations like Xinghui and Dawn, all had their eyeballs shocked out by the changes between the two of them. Cold sweat poured down, yet they dared not move recklessly, fearing that even a gust of wind they stirred would make those extremely unstable rings explode on the spot.

 

Looking at this fellow S-level person before him, Elansno looked toward the other’s golden eyes more than once.

 

Pale, like the first ray of sunlight shining on seagull wings.

 

His gaze shifted slightly. Elansno looked at the black hair strands blown by the wind, then lowered his head to look at his own white hair, hidden in the cast shadows, the ends already stained with blood and dust from the fight.

 

White was very clean, but when dirtied, it became even more thoroughly filthy.

 

Lan Xia: “What do you want to do?”

 

“Just want to ask a question,” Elansno said.

 

Lan Xia: “Ask.”

 

The air fell silent for a few seconds.

 

“You—” Elansno paused, lowering his voice a bit.

 

“Your name.”

 

Lan Xia pressed his lips: “Just this?”

 

“Just this.”

 

After a moment, “Lan Xia,” he said.

 

“…Lan Xia.” Elansno softly repeated it twice.

 

Lan Xia. Lan Xia.

 

An illusion of a vast purple flower sea flashed past like a phantom.

 

A few seconds later, he looked up, meeting Lan Xia’s eyes, and smiled. “Good name. I’ll remember it this time.”

 

Lan Xia said nothing for a long while. After a bit, his gaze fell on Elansno’s jaw.

 

“You’re crying.”

 

The person before him was clearly smiling—powerful, wicked, playful, filled with indifference toward life—yet beneath that silver mask, tears named by humans as ‘fragile’ flowed down.

 

As if the entire person had been split into two extremely contradictory parts.

 

“…Hmm?” Following his gaze, Elansno raised his hand, his fingertip wiping at the side of his face. His fingertip touched something crystalline. “This is tears?”

 

He was quite surprised. “Why am I crying?”

 

Long wind mixed with the scent of blood swept past the huge moon.

 

The young Admiral was utterly confused.

 

But no one gave him an answer.

 

Only an unavoidable sense of emptiness and sorrow welled up in his heart.

 

Yet the memories stored in his brain didn’t tell him what sorrow was, what emptiness was. His brain didn’t know how to process this emotion, but his body’s instincts had already made their own response.

 

Extremely strange, extremely interesting.

 

A peculiar light suddenly ignited in Elansno’s eyes. He wiped away the remaining water traces on his face. His gaze toward Lan Xia also changed, mixed with undisguised intense interest.

 

The smile at the corners of his mouth grew larger. He laughed lowly: “Too interesting. You’re much more interesting than leader Suto. Right now, I—

 

Really want to kill you with my own hands.”

 

A Dawn subordinate had caught up not long after Elansno and Lan Xia started fighting. Since then, he’d been hiding behind a boulder at no great distance, risking his life holding up a light brain recording.

 

Hearing this sentence out of the blue, he shuddered.

 

…

 

The left and right exits weren’t far apart. Kang Quan could hear—the explosion sounds from the right exit were gradually decreasing.

 

That side was almost over.

 

He believed the Admiral could emerge safely, so the time left for him wasn’t much either.

 

The two rings in his hand had pressed deep bloody marks into his palm.

 

Kang Quan hid behind a boulder. There weren’t many people here anymore. A thousand meters ahead was the exit. Though there were still some wall-spine ants ahead, with his skills, it was just a matter of some effort to get out.

 

But right now he’d already been hiding here for nearly ten minutes.

 

Even if only one of these two rings contained the experimental equipment, he didn’t know which one. If he just gambled on luck and discarded one… the probability was only fifty percent.

 

Moreover, just discarding it here—if the Admiral sent people to search again, aside from some time, they could find it again.

 

If he directly destroyed it, the entire left exit along with their First Army people would probably all be affected…

 

A dilemma.

 

“—Alright, let’s stop here. There shouldn’t be anything we’ve missed.”

 

Algiers and Shou Bing’s figures appeared beside a wall-spine ant corpse.

 

The two teenagers wiped sweat from their heads, in quite good spirits. Sneaking around collecting equipment, they’d really gotten quite a few good things. Even if Dawn couldn’t use them now, they could sell them at the black market.

 

Shou Bing still clutched a thick ant leg in his hand.

 

Algiers excelled at strategy. Shou Bing hadn’t completed evolution—aside from high alertness, his leg techniques’ lethality wasn’t high either.

 

The two working together had no problem with self-preservation, but anything more wouldn’t work. They both knew their own strength. They hadn’t followed Lan Xia to add to the chaos, nor had they walked further ahead.

 

The wall-spine ants ahead that hadn’t been cleared were extremely fierce. Going over there would be delivering themselves as food.

 

*Rustle…*

 

An extremely faint sound of falling pebbles came from the left front.

 

Shou Bing’s ears twitched. His expression suddenly became tense. He yanked Algiers to the side, alert like a puppy: “Who?!”

 

Algiers was also startled.

 

He followed Shou Bing’s gaze.

 

Only to see ahead on the right at a high point, behind a rock, vaguely protruding half of a tall shadow, waist bulging as if carrying a gun.

 

Shou Bing had previously learned the basics of training soldiers from his father. He could tell at a glance that this person’s location and even standing posture were very unusual.

 

Could completely conceal his own form and appearance, yet not affect observing the surrounding situation.

 

And now that person was looking at them with a cold gaze evaluating and sizing up prey.

 

Not knowing how long they’d been watching.

 

He even had an intuition—that sound just now was deliberately made by this person. Otherwise, in this environment, the two of them absolutely wouldn’t have discovered this person’s hiding place.

 

Algiers quickly calmed down, slowly pulling Shou Bing’s arm back with his opposite hand, stepping forward half a step himself to block in front.

 

“May I ask…”

 

That person didn’t wait for him to finish speaking, raising their hand to throw something over. A faint light reflected in the air.

 

Both their hearts jumped, only having time to leap away. But unexpectedly, after that thing landed, nothing happened—only the sound of *clink clink*—

 

A round ring rolled to Algiers’ feet.

 

*Clink.*

 

This was!

 

Algiers’ heart shook. This was clearly the spatial ring that Elansno had been holding just now, containing the new munitions everyone here wanted to get!

 

Author’s Note:

 

Algiers: Easy win.

 

**

 

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