Chapter Seventy-Seven: The Battle Anthem of the Universe

The moment the blazing sun-fire comet made contact with the Academy of the Arcane Arts, the latter would instantly be engulfed in a sea of flames. The three great formations—the Heaven-Earth Array, the Six Ding Six Jia Array, and the Nine Palaces Eight Trigrams Array—erected to protect the academy, would be shattered and destroyed.

For the Dao Spirit Star Lord, standing at the heart of the Heaven-Earth Array, there was but one choice: to abandon the formation in order to shield the academy. If he did not proactively disperse the formation, it would be obliterated all the same by the meteor wreathed in the fires of the sun. He was just about to rise to his feet when a piercing scream echoed from the foot of the mountain.

“Damn you, you roasted eel! Go to hell! Everyone, hold on! Even if our faces are scarred, don’t you dare let go!”

Sun Xiaoming, stationed beneath the spirit serpent, had already reacted, screaming for her life as she rallied the others, raising their hands against the raging inferno.

Even if the Nine Palaces Eight Trigrams Array could withstand the assault, how could Sun Xiaoming’s mortal body endure the blazing sun-fire? As the external defenses of the formation met the burning serpent, the array was instantly set ablaze. The screams of the girls, seared by the flames, tore through the air of the academy, harrowing the hearts of all present.

Their agonized cries were like daggers stabbing into everyone’s hearts.

Roars of fury rang out from the Six Ding Six Jia formation—the boys of BRAVE.

“Boss! Let’s go all out against this snake!”

“If this keeps up, every one of them will be burned alive!”

The BRAVE team members within the Six Ding Six Jia Array shouted toward Jin Fanyin at the center.

“We can’t let them suffer any further! We can’t just stand by and do nothing!” Jin Fanyin, who had been playing the guqin, could no longer restrain himself. For him, watching helplessly as Sun Xiaoming was burned alive was worse than staking everything on the last reserves of the formation.

Amid their shouts, the entire BRAVE team merged with the Six Ding Six Jia Array, soaring from the academy, fusing in midair with a great sword, and plunging straight at the Xuanwu spirit serpent!

In that moment, Jin Fanyin felt that he and his teammates were truly heroes.

Perhaps it was reckless.

Or perhaps, there was simply no time to choose.

A blinding white nuclear light exploded in the stratosphere, countless figures vanishing into its radiance.

Where the shockwave and hurricane from the blast swept, massive trees were uprooted. The towers of the Six Ding Six Jia Array—Sixin Pavilion, Huixian Pavilion, Qixian Pavilion, and Yuxian Pavilion—were all cut in half and destroyed by the aftermath. Countless buildings within the academy were damaged, the grounds left in ruin. Everywhere, the cries of wounded disciples rose in agony.

After the nuclear blast in the stratosphere, smoke and dust filled the air. Tian Jizi hurriedly led the Xuanxiang Gale Array to the rescue.

In this stratospheric defensive battle, the Cone of Golden Light, the Flaming V-Formation, the Fishscale Ice Array, and the Crane Wing Celestial Array had all been left in tatters. Of the original defensive forces in the troposphere, only the Xuanxiang Gale Array led by Tian Jizi remained largely intact.

Thus, the Xuanxiang Gale Array had to leave the troposphere and ascend to the stratosphere to aid the wounded.

As the dust gradually dispersed, Tian Jizi, stepping onto the grounds of the academy, was astonished to find the Heaven-Earth Array atop the sacred mountain had survived the explosion. It was because Sun Xiaoming’s Nine Palaces Eight Trigrams Array had focused all its defenses on the outer perimeter of the Heaven-Earth Array, leaving the rest of the academy exposed to devastation.

The disciples of the Xuanxiang Gale Array soared above the Enchanted Lake, but below, not a single patch of unspoiled land remained. Of the three formations within the academy, the Six Ding Six Jia Array and the Nine Palaces Eight Trigrams Array had both been completely destroyed. The array diagrams upon the water’s surface were shattered remnants, and the members of the HOPE girl group lay strewn upon bloodstained fragments, unable to sustain the barrier any longer.

From thousands of meters above, the dark shadow of the Underworld was faintly visible from the academy. They now faced the Underworld and countless beasts—how much longer could they endure?

“If we do not act now, the blood of our disciples will be spent!”

At the center of Xuanwu Sacred Mountain, the Dao Spirit Star Lord slowly lowered his hands from their arcane gestures.

“Perhaps this is the calamity the world must bear.”

Through his blood-streaked vision, the world seemed filtered in deep crimson.

Sun Xiaoming struggled to open her eyes, finding her eyelids stuck together with blood.

“It hurts so much! When I get back, I’ll have to yell into a fan for half an hour to get over this mess!”

She looked at the orange, semi-transparent mystical barrier; beneath it was the surface of Enchanted Lake, with golden carp darting to and fro.

“Thank goodness it hasn’t shattered. If everyone sank to the lakebed, there’d be no way we could ever perform at Bird’s Nest Stadium. How awful, truly rotten luck!”

She forced herself to bear the pain, her limbs feeling as if they’d fallen apart. When she tried to sit up, her body felt as heavy as if filled with lead, her temples threatening to explode.

At such a moment, she couldn’t even be bothered to check where she was hurt.

Still, her arms and legs seemed to retain feeling. To have survived such a fierce explosion at this range—she, too, had worked a miracle.

With blurred vision, Sun Xiaoming surveyed her surroundings. Her teammates were collapsed upon the shattered array, blood everywhere. The blood of different members had even pooled together in small puddles. Recalling the chaos just moments before, she searched for Jin Fanyin and the others, but the land was barren—there was no sign of the Six Ding Six Jia Array.

“Jin Fanyin! Who asked you to meddle? If you don’t protect yourselves and focus only on saving us, that’s the most annoying thing! I don’t want to owe you anything!”

Sun Xiaoming’s voice was hoarse and weak, her tears falling onto the array diagram.

She suddenly remembered—the countless times during performances when Jin Fanyin would come to cheer her on from the audience, shouting with such abandon, as if he were her greatest fan. Whenever she felt exhausted in practice, Jin Fanyin would appear in the dance studio with a case of purified water, hand her a bottle, and say:

“Don’t lose heart. Every drop of sweat you shed is watering the seeds of success.”

There was even a time when the old fan broke, and he managed to fix it himself.

People are like that—we accumulate so many debts of kindness without even noticing, never quite knowing how to repay them.

Wounds of all sizes covered her body, her clothes and skirt soaked red with her own blood. If it had been a few years ago, she would have lain down and wailed for her life. If she were a child, she would have cuddled up to her grandmother and begged for comfort.

“Is this as far as I can go? No regrets?” Sun Xiaoming forced herself up. “There’s so much pain, you become numb to it!”

She pressed a hand to a deep gash on her arm, gazing up at the starry sky and the countless sky lanterns drifting above.

She saw the academy disciples still fighting desperately against the monstrous beasts. She saw the Heaven-Earth Array, now a flickering candle in the wind, unable to bear another blow.

Cries of battle and the roars of beasts echoed through the night, the academy’s banners dyed crimson with blood. The tide was turning against them.

What can I do?

Or should I—

Just give up.

Sun Xiaoming stared at the orange sky lanterns dancing in the black night.

Orange—what color is that? There was a glimmer in her eyes.

She bit her lip, her lips turning pale from the pressure of her teeth.

That is our support color.

Sun Xiaoming let her hand fall from her wound, letting the blood flow freely.

Why is our group not forty-six, not forty-eight, not one hundred and one, but sixty-four?

It’s no coincidence. That’s the reason we now stand upon this battlefield in the stratosphere.

It’s destiny.

If I can no longer fight, what can I still do for this world?

What more can I do to support this world?

A battle anthem!

Only a rousing anthem can ignite the spirit!

To cheer for the world we love!

Never revealing her weakness or pain to others, always showing her most beautiful and proud side. So what if I bleed? So what if I’m hurt! Now is the time to bravely become the person I once dreamed of being. With every last ounce of strength, let our support fill the sky, fill the galaxy!

“Everyone, open your eyes and look carefully! The sky of the second half of this battle—”

Sun Xiaoming wiped away the tears and blood from her face with the back of her hand. With her scarred face, she forced a long-lost idol’s smile, clenching her right fist and raising it high to the sky.

“—is the stage that truly belongs to us!”

This is our light—our battle anthem, fighting alongside the world to the very last moment!

Beneath the boundless sky, a frail, solitary figure stood. Her blood-soaked plaid skirt weighed her down, but Sun Xiaoming didn’t care. Facing the monstrous beasts closing in from all sides, she began to sing the battle anthem—

The “Ode to the Universe,” a song they had performed countless times!

Using the last shreds of spiritual power in the array, Sun Xiaoming sent the rousing anthem soaring from Enchanted Lake toward the distance.

“The blood boiling in my heart, the blood that burns within
My eyes, unwavering, gleam in this starry river
I hold back my tears, striving for the highest glory
Gazing at the splendid battle flag that guides our way
Unfurling the canvas of the future, leaving my name behind
Burning with my own light, I bring dawn to the world
This is my everything, the moment history will forever remember
Soar across the sky, quake the earth
Brandish the cold blade, traverse mountains and seas
Even if I lose it all
I hold nothing back, never retreat
Were it not for true dreams
How could my wildness be so stubborn
Love, the brightest gem in the vast universe
Love, the warmest poem on this lonely planet
This is why I fight, the meaning of it all
Ode to the Universe
A song of praise for this world
For you, I offer my final support
For you, I will shed my last drop of blood.”

In the boundless night sky, the girl’s song echoed across the battlefield. When all roads end and courage is lost, it is hope that sustains people to fight to the end.

Surrounded by ever-increasing hordes of beasts, Sun Xiaoming showed not a trace of fear.

At that moment, the thunderous roar of airplane engines swept across the sky!

How could there be airplanes? Sun Xiaoming thought she was hallucinating from blood loss. She forced her eyes open and looked up, only to see hundreds of fighter jets roaring past overhead! Their engines sounded the trumpet of battle!

In an instant, the airspace around the academy was filled with air force and navy fighter jets! Among them were J-10s, J-20s, and even the stealth J-31 “Gyrfalcon”—a fleet of six or seven hundred planes!

In a flash, the sky above the academy was streaked with fiery missiles and glowing red tracer rounds, the explosions, roars, and shrieking missiles drowning out the howls of the beast horde!

The girl waved her arms to the stars.

The arrival of the air force powerfully repelled and struck back against the waves of beasts. None of the academy disciples could have imagined that the air force would appear on the battlefield of the Worldguard War—this brought them untold encouragement!

After the academy had been besieged for so long, most of the nearby sky lanterns had fallen. Now, with the fighter jets circling above, disciples finally had a place to stand. Some even stood on the wings, fighting alongside the pilots and, together, resisted the assault anew.

Amid the resounding battle anthem, Sun Xiaoming noticed a golden light flying toward her from afar. The exhausted warriors all saw this golden meteor.

The golden meteor grew faster, brighter, closer—revealing itself to be a young man, dressed in the fire-scorched robes of the academy, the patterns on his robe transformed to blazing red flames.

Just when all hope seemed lost, just as the song of hope resounded—

The young man finally reached the heart of the Worldguard battlefield!

In his hand he held that very shaft of golden light—that legendary, oft-sung and storied divine weapon of the ancients—

The Golden Staff of Ruyi!