Chapter 72

Chapter 73: Leave him, hurry to the Combat Zone and save people

Zhao Qing’s eyelids grew heavier and heavier. As his mind scattered, he felt his body plummeting. He forced his eyes open, wanting to see if the two Frost Sparrows were still after him. [I hope they will not even spare my body. That should buy my comrades another half minute.]

From the day he joined the Awakener Warriors, he was ready to die. Unlike Awakeners who raided Dungeons, the Awakener Warriors protected the people behind them. They stayed in the Combat Zone year round, always ready for Magibeasts to pour out, holding them at the final line. He had imagined his end long ago, so when death came, he accepted it calmly.

He had little family left. When his parents and younger brother died in a Magibeast outbreak, he swore his life to the battlefield, to guard the thousands of families of Song City so their children would not suffer what he had suffered. [I think I did it, right?]

He closed his eyes. His last wish was simply not to hit the ground and shatter. He tried to ignore the pain and shock and, with bitter humor, savor the smooth quiet of falling.

Suddenly, a hand caught his collar. He had no strength to open his eyes, but he thought, [At a time like this, the only one who could catch me in midair is either a Frost Sparrow’s claw or Su Ang.]

A human voice sounded above him, cool and even: “Do not sleep.”

He sighed inside. [So it is the young Commander Su.] But even if he stayed awake, he could not live. His lower body was gone. He was bleeding out. He wanted to say, leave me, go save people in the Combat Zone. He wanted to tell Su Ang everything about the Second B Combat Zone, but his lips could not move. He gathered all his will and forced out one thin syllable: “Leave…”

The next second, he blacked out.

Su Ang frowned slightly. He set the hovercar to autopilot, planted his boots on both sides of the door to brace himself, pulled Zhao Qing’s chest tight against him, tore open a Hemostatic Potion pack, and poured it over Zhao Qing’s waist. Then he popped a hidden compartment on the car’s side, took out a syringe, and drove a special dose into Zhao Qing’s body.

Zhao Qing’s breathing evened out almost like a miracle. Su Ang glanced at the torn Hemostatic Potion wrapper. He had not expected the potion paired with this shot to work this well. He had used this special drug once before. It could save a life, but it left the user in critical condition for seven days. Even so, Zhao Qing’s situation looked far better than his had back then.

Su Ang set a destination for the hovercar and looked coolly at the two Frost Sparrows ahead. He cast his Psychic Power across the forests below.

The small Frost Sparrow, thrilled and angry, beat its wings and dived at the hovercar to smash it and reclaim the prey it had marked, Zhao Qing. Su Ang did not turn the car. He lifted his gaze and met the small Frost Sparrow’s eyes. A hard light flicked in his black pupils. The small Frost Sparrow’s whole body stiffened, as if bewitched, and it whipped a storm of wild wind blades at the big Frost Sparrow.

The big Frost Sparrow, which had been letting the small one vent its anger, sensed something and stopped acting like a spectator. A B class Magibeast already had intellect. Realizing Su Ang was a psychic type, it snatched the controlled small Frost Sparrow and flew for the center of the battlefield.

Su Ang drew back his gaze. His mental web had already locked onto Zhao Qing’s lower half. The hovercar slid down toward the trees and skimmed through the forest at high speed. At the right moment, Su Ang leaned half his body out of the car and scooped the broken half up from the ground.

He did not know whether Zhao Qing could ever have a whole body again, but there were things he had to do. He shoved Zhao Qing’s lower half into the car, braced on the rail, and drove the hovercar after the big Frost Sparrow.

Even with the car’s speed, catching a Frost Sparrow was hard. Su Ang spread his Psychic Power and soon slowed the big Frost Sparrow’s flight. As the hovercar reached a point above it, he sealed the door, sprang, and landed steady on the Frost Sparrow’s back.

The small hovercar shot away with Zhao Qing toward the set destination. Su Ang, hands loose at his sides, walked the wide back as if on a garden path. His calm black eyes turned to the center of the fight and came to rest on the two remaining B class Magibeasts.

By now, the Second B Combat Zone was a bloody ruin. The Black Dragon Beast had stepped into the center. Its giant fists slammed the ground and sent Warriors flying. Lava spouted where it struck. The screams there were like the cries of the damned and made the heart tremble.

Lin Mo was forcing a standoff with the B class psychic type Magibeast, but because he also had to command the field, he was being pushed back. By the time Su Ang arrived, blood ran from Lin Mo’s nose and mouth. Magibeasts overran the ground around him. Without Wang Shuo and Cheng Qing fighting to shield him, he would have been knocked down and trampled to death.

From above, Su Ang spoke to Lin Mo with Psychic Power: “You worked hard. Withdraw your Psychic Power.” Lin Mo finally let out a long breath. He wiped his nosebleed and looked up. Under the cloudless blue sky, a silver haired young man in a suit stood on the Frost Sparrow’s back. With only his right hand raised, he froze both the B class psychic type and the Black Dragon Beast in place.

Expressionless, he looked at the two Magibeasts. After a moment, he fixed on the psychic type. A blade formed from Psychic Power took shape and struck cleanly. The Magibeast, already straining against Su Ang’s hold, sensed the attack and snapped up a mental shield, but under the crush of Su Ang’s solid, raging S class Psychic Power, the shield was like paper. The blade punched through and hit the psychic type Magibeast right in the brow.

In a heartbeat, the psychic type howled. Its Psychic Power went wild. For a moment it hammered its own body like a mad thing, then it wandered in place like a lost child. It could not find its mind. Only raw beast instinct was left, and it attacked everything around it without aim.

Su Ang stood with hands at his sides on the Frost Sparrow’s back and said evenly: “The rest is yours. I will take these three B class alive. You hurry and finish the Black Dragon Beast.” He glanced toward the Warrior reinforcements rushing in.

Lin Mo answered at once. He did not wonder why Su Ang was not taking the Black Dragon Beast too. In the Combat Zone, turning in high level Magibeast bodies brought large rewards. Su Ang could have taken all the B class targets but left one for them. That alone made Lin Mo glad. He steadied himself and began directing the surviving Awakener Warriors to end the remaining beast tide.

Qian Qi jolted awake from the edge of death yet again. Wiping sweat from her brow, she pressed a hand to her pounding heart and took a long breath. She had dreamed of the B class Black Dragon Beast.