Song Chen lowered his saber, staggered a step, and dropped to one knee on the outer wall.
Zephar released the gun in his hand and stepped back twice. He looked at the two halves of the corpse, then turned toward Song Chen.
Gu Tu lay nearby, no longer able to stand.
Zephar spoke. "Come on. To the command room. There are still two more there."
Song Chen rose, walked over to Gu Tu, and looked down at him.
Gu Tu was wounded all over. The cannon barrel on his right arm had shattered into three pieces, and half his faceplate had flown off somewhere.
Song Chen tried to help him up, but Gu Tu waved him away. "Go. If we lose the command room, I'll have taken these wounds for nothing."
Song Chen said nothing more and turned to fly back into the defense line.
He had to carve his way through the rest of the route.
By the time Song Chen returned inside from the outer wall, the fighting within the defense line had reached a fever pitch.
The enemy had deployed large numbers of troops in every direction, but their most elite forces were all concentrated along the route to the command room.
The moment Song Chen entered, he ran into Blood-Eclipse Combat Forms packed as tightly as a swarm of ants. Those sixth- and seventh-rank enemies charged toward the Core Zone as if they had gone mad.
He had no time to hesitate. Gripping his saber, he plunged into the slaughter.
Void Traverse became the most terrifying weapon on the chaotic battlefield. Each time he appeared, he landed precisely where the enemy was thickest, unleashing Star-Splitting Slash once more.
Wherever his blade flashed, enemies fell in swaths, as though harvested by an invisible scythe.
With an ever-growing