Beyond the Zenith

An autumn wind swept through the mountains in the early hours before daybreak. Moonlight lit up the pale road, which twisted between dark, undulating peaks and stretched into the distance. The wheels of over a dozen military trucks spun furiously, their engines roaring loud enough to scatter birds and beasts.

On board were roughly six hundred recruits, armored for less than twenty days, and twenty instructors. All of them were deathly quiet. Some trembled from fear or ‌excitement, while others faced a choice.

“Regiment 425 and 491 recruits, currently en route,” one instructor said through the communicator.

“Recruits? Don’t come. Get them out of here!” the other side cut in frantically. “Turn around! Now!”

With that single exchange, the conversation ended. The trucks sank back into dead silence, broken only by the sounds of battle pouring through the communicator.

The clash of metal and the screaming of men.

Blood and brutality that none of them could see.

The Sharpies were on a rampage. Soldiers were dying. The massive wheels of their trucks kept rolling forward. They were drawing closer to the battlefield with every passing second.

Beep. Someone opened the recruit unit’s internal channel. “From the sound of it, they won’t be able to hold out until the nearby district platoons arrive.”

That was all they said. Nothing more. There was no opinion or suggestion attached to it.

No one responded.

A mountain bend appeared up ahead.

Zhang Dao’an picked up the communicator for the first time from the lead truck, his head lowered, his voice cold as he said, “All vehicles, slow down. At the mountain bend ahead... Turn around.”

As the transmission ended, the driver of the lead truck turned to glance at Zhang Dao’an.

Zhang Dao’an stood up, walked over to him, and guided the vehicle through the turn in the mountain bend.

One by one, all the trucks completed their turns.

“Accelerate,” Zhang Dao’an ordered through the communicator, then cut the internal channel.

The convoy picked up speed, and the trucks raced back the way they came.

Inside the swaying trucks, the wide-area channel on the communicator came back to life. The chaos of battle, the furious roars of men fighting for their lives, continued.

After a while, a voice broke through. “Platoon 1123, still fighting...”

That was the last transmission. The calls for help ended there, though the sounds of battle persisted. Perhaps the soldier handling communications had also dropped the communicator and drawn his blade to join the fight.

Two minutes passed, then four.

The wheels carried six hundred recruits forward amid the alternating waves of violence and silence, pulling farther and farther from District 1123’s battlefield.

Suddenly, they heard the crack of a communicator shattering. The sounds of fighting on the channel cut off abruptly. Platoon 1123... likely felt forsaken at that moment.

Two minutes passed.

“Platoon 1123... they’re probably still fighting,” someone on the internal channel said, voice wavering as if barely holding a sob back. “Reporting. Instructor Zhang Zhao of the 491st Regiment’s recruit unit, requesting the head instructor’s authorization to provide independent assistance. Platoon 1123 has soldiers from my old recruit dormitory. I think... I just heard one of their voices. The recruits can keep heading back. It should be safe enough for them.”

His words stirred a brief commotion across the communicators in each truck.

A minute passed.

“Comms,” Zhang Dao’an said through the communicator. “Old Cao?”

Old Cao was the head instructor of the 491st Regiment’s recruit unit.

“Yeah. The recruits should be safe enough. Let’s go and buy them some time.”

“Alright,” Zhang Dao’an agreed.

The transmission ended.

Zhang Dao’an stood up and tapped the driver on the shoulder. “Keep driving after we get off. Remember, keep driving. Don’t stop.”

Then, standing by the front door, he turned to look at the recruits in the truck. His eyes briefly met Han Qingyu’s before shifting to He Tangtang, then to Liu Shiheng.

“Lend me a blade,” he said, abruptly leaning down toward Liu Shiheng in the front row.

Liu Shiheng froze for a second, then unstrapped his blade and handed it over.

Zhang Dao’an took it. Since he already had one on his back, he held this one in a reverse grip in his right hand.

Mira stood up from the back row.

“Stay here, First Lieutenant Mira. Just in case,” Zhang Dao’an instructed. “If something does go wrong, you’re the one with the strongest ability to pin down a Sharpie on your own. You’ll need to... lead it away.”

“Yes, sir.”

Zhang Dao’an turned back to the driver. “Stop the truck.”

The driver stopped.

“I’m leaving the children to you.”

With those parting words, Zhang Dao’an opened the front door and stepped out.

One instructor from both the 425th and the 491st stayed behind. The other eighteen piled into one of the emptied vehicles, turned around, and tore off at breakneck speed.

“Convoy, keep moving,” Mira ordered through the communicator.

The wheels rolled on. Six hundred recruits continued their retreat from District 1123.

***

“Check your energy core levels. All of you,” Zhang Dao’an commanded, wielding a dead iron straight blade in each hand as he stood up.

“Check complete.”

“Good. Get off.”

The truck slammed to a halt. Eighteen instructors leaped out with blades in hand, activated their maneuvering devices in unison, and charged through the underbrush toward the valley below.

Broken trees, blood, and bodies littered the path.

They could hear the sounds of battle in the distance.

“Formation?” asked Old Cao of the 491st, surveying the terrain ahead while running.

“Main attack position,” Zhang Dao’an called out.

“Flanking position.”

“Left wing.”

The formation rapidly took shape, adapting to the terrain. Up ahead in a stretch of woodland, a single Sharpie stood covered in wounds. Seven or eight injured members of Platoon 1123 surrounded it, locked in a final, desperate fight to the death.

“Regiment 425.”

“Regiment 491.”

“Recruit unit instructors, here to assist.”

Without so much as another word, Zhang Dao’an and his group threw themselves into the fight.

Zhang Dao’an took the Sharpie’s lateral sweep head-on with both blades. The remaining seventeen blades struck at its joints from every angle.

***

The Sharpie collapsed with the same sickening, teeth-grinding sound of fracturing that the soldiers knew all too well.

The instructors paid the price of two dead, but they and the remnants of Platoon 1123 had ended the fight as quickly as possible.

“Your platoon leader...” Zhang Dao’an paused, his heaving chest soaked in blood. “The other two Sharpies, where are they?”

“Why did you come?!”

“We—”

“Over there! They got away. We chased them but couldn’t hold them!” a badly wounded soldier of Platoon 1123 cried out, raising a weak hand to point in a direction.

The instructors froze in collective horror.

That was the same direction the two regiments’ six hundred recruits had gone.

The trucks had taken the winding mountain road, while the Sharpies had cut straight through the mountains.

“The last one to emerge was powerful,” another soldier of Platoon 1123 said, eyes bloodshot and wide with terror. “Our platoon leader tried to hold it back...”

“A Red Shoulder?” Old Cao asked tensely.

“No, but stronger than a regular Sharpie. Probably the kind the Red Erasers have encountered on support missions before.”

Zhang Dao’an’s entire body jolted. There were a thousand ways he could’ve reacted, but there was no time for any of them.

“Comms. Comms. Requesting comms,” Zhang Dao’an called through the internal channel. “First Lieutenant Mira!”

The remaining fifteen instructors waited in silence behind.

No response.

Then, boom!

A deafening crash came from the communicator. It was the sound of a vehicle being struck from the side with tremendous force.

They could hear the vehicle tip over with a bang!

The recruits were screaming.

Finally, the screeeech of a pillar sword slicing through sheet metal.

Zhang Dao’an turned around woodenly. “The children... they’re under attack.”