Chapter 72
Chapter 72: “Fuck, Keep Chasing Me!”
The sky burned with rolling heat waves.
A B-rank icefrost sparrow swept past, more than twenty meters long, its deep ice-blue wings spread wide enough to blot out the sun. It threw back its head and screamed—a sound sharp enough to rattle teeth.
With a single breath, its freezing aura devoured the heat in its path. The air crystallized into chunks of ice that fell like hail, smashing down through the updrafts. Even at a glance, it was obvious: this thing outranked the black dragon beast.
It arrowed toward the smaller icefrost sparrow, and the instant it saw Zhao Qing attacking, fury exploded.
A wing swept.
A gale packed with extreme cold slammed toward Zhao Qing, shaping into a massive wind blade. The air boomed as it cut through.
Zhao Qing’s eyes sharpened. He kicked his flight skill hard, trying to slip out of the blade’s range—
And the smaller icefrost sparrow snapped its wings too, firing a second icy wind blade straight into his back.
Front and back. A brutal cross-slash.
Zhao Qing gritted his teeth and forced himself off-center, dodging the deadliest line by a hair.
It still hit.
The shockwave from the collision punched through him like a hammer. His organs lurched. If not for his defensive armor, he would’ve been shaken into pulp and scattered across the battlefield like wet confetti.
“Fucking hell,” Zhao Qing rasped into the communicator, throat raw. “So what good is a B-rank flight skill?”
He didn’t have the luxury to whine. In the entire Second B War Zone, he was the only support-type who could fight in the air. If they wanted these two B-rank flyers kept inside the war zone, it came down to him—bait them, drag their attention, and hold out until reinforcements arrived.
But could he really stall two B-rank flying magic beasts?
“Zhao Qing!” Lin Mo’s voice snapped in his mind, cold and fast. “I’ll use mental control on the big one. You lure the small one east and rendezvous with Commander Su Ang. Remember—three minutes. That’s all I can give you!”
Zhao Qing’s jaw tightened. “Got it.”
Compared with single-skill awakeners like him, Lin Mo—mental-type—had far more options. Mental-type awakened could share and train psychic skills. Lin Mo’s control wouldn’t hold long, but it could scramble the big bird’s target.
The moment Lin Mo’s psychic pressure surged, Zhao Qing yanked out a C-rank throwing dart and snapped it toward the smaller icefrost sparrow’s eye.
The sparrow shrieked, knocked the dart away with a shockwave, and lunged.
Zhao Qing twisted, shot east, and risked a glance back.
The larger icefrost sparrow didn’t follow.
It hovered, blinking faintly, then began attacking at random—wing blades tearing empty air as if it had forgotten what it was supposed to kill.
Zhao Qing let out half a breath. He dodged the smaller sparrow’s ice blades and stabbed at his lightbrain, trying to contact Su Ang—
And the smaller sparrow suddenly veered away from him, turning hard toward Lin Mo.
“Shit!”
Zhao Qing spun back, slashing at the sparrow’s tail feathers with flying knives, trying to drag its attention off Lin Mo.
Annoyance flashed in the sparrow’s eyes.
Its wings shivered once.
Dozens of ice spikes condensed in midair and shot at Zhao Qing like a storm of spears.
Zhao Qing snapped his flight skill again and again, dodging by instinct, then lunged back in, viciously carving at the tail feathers.
Just as he thought he’d bought a second—
A different roar detonated behind him.
Not the icefrost sparrows. Not the black dragon beast.
This one slammed straight into the brain.
Pain tore through the battlefield. Awakened soldiers on the ground clutched their heads and screamed, collapsing in place as their bodies forgot how to move.
Zhao Qing’s skull screamed too, but it only lasted three seconds. He bit down, forced his vision to steady, and heard Lin Mo’s curse rip through the communicator:
“Damn it—B-rank psychic-type magic beast!”
Zhao Qing’s face went cold.
A B-rank psychic-type magic beast was a nightmare. It could twist minds, shatter focus, even force awakeners into slaughtering each other. Lin Mo would have to throw everything he had into countering it.
Which meant—
Zhao Qing’s neck went stiff.
He turned.
The larger icefrost sparrow—supposedly scrambled—was staring at him across the sky. Its blue eyes were flat and cold, and for a flicker of a second, Zhao Qing could’ve sworn he saw mockery.
It didn’t move. It didn’t need to.
The sense of death swelled in Zhao Qing’s chest. His heart hammered. Something invisible felt like it was sliding closer.
He tried to flee.
The danger clung to him like a hook.
Then the air around him began to heat up, as if the cold had been sucked clean out of the world.
Zhao Qing jolted.
It was drawing in the ice element. Charging.
He didn’t know what skill was coming, only that his defenses wouldn’t survive it.
So he made the only choice he had.
He spun and drove straight at the smaller icefrost sparrow.
If he was going to die, he’d at least hurt it enough to pull both birds’ fury onto himself—buying time for everyone else.
The moment he moved, the water and ice elements around him vanished in a violent vacuum. Heat rushed in, suffocating and blistering. His armor started to melt at the edges like wax held to fire.
“Wang Shuo! Cheng Qing!” Lin Mo barked, voice strained. “Support Zhao Qing!”
Wang Shuo and Cheng Qing took one step—
The larger icefrost sparrow screamed.
A paper-thin shard of ice appeared at Zhao Qing’s waist, sharp as a scalpel.
It cut.
Zhao Qing’s body separated in midair.
“Gah—!”
His scream came out ragged, wet.
He was already close to the smaller sparrow. He didn’t even look down at the half of himself falling away. With shaking hands, he snatched the ice shard, clamped onto the sparrow’s wing, and drove the blade into the dense, armored feathers with everything he had left.
“Fuck!” he roared, voice tearing. “Keep chasing me!!!”
Blood spilled from his mouth.
The smaller icefrost sparrow shrieked and flung him off with a wingbeat.
Zhao Qing spun, coughing blood. It sprayed behind him in a red rain.
He smeared the melted remains of his armor against the wound, trying to slow the bleeding, and dragged half a body east through the air.
One second. Just one more second…
The injured sparrow screamed and chased.
The larger one followed.
Wang Shuo and Cheng Qing stopped, staring at the figure in the sky—still flying, still clawing east, held together by sheer refusal.
Their voices came out heavy.
“Officer… don’t bother saving him.”