<h4>Chapter 285: The Finale (2)</h4>
<strong>Trantor: </strong>As Studios <strong>Editor: </strong>As Studios
“Compared to the pollution you caused in the past... and will cause in the future, I’d feel it’s more environmentally friendly to cut down this tree of yours,” Han Xiao said mockingly.
In his previous life, no yer could dig out the origin of the leader—it was truly hard to find the true identity of an ordinary missing person in this age of war. After Han Xiao heard the leader’s description, he had a clearer understanding of him.
The leader was a firm patriot, one of the few Gollum citizens that escaped Raylen’s invasion. He hid in the dark, purposely fighting at the edge of death to look for breakthroughs and the power to revenge, one of the superhumans that started ordinary and reached the peak of the, ambitious and extreme.
Now that he had met a dead end, he decided that he would rather die thanpromise; it was clear that the hatred was already deeply buried in his bones.
<i>The experience of a main character is indeed really interesting and legendary. Every main character has a history that can be dug out, </i>Han Xiao thought with mixed feelings.
When he was still very weak, the leader had been like a mountain, and he had needed to act with caution and be stronger. Finally, he had gained the power to face him head-on and defeated the Germinal Organization.
The Germinal Organization was the main antagonist of Aquamarine in Version 1.0. Han Xiao had also participated in this storyline during his previous life as a yer. Now that he had a different identity, his impact was much higher, and it was a totally different experience. Although Han Xiao looked very calm, it did not mean that he did not enjoy the victory—there was still a sense of aplishment in his heart.
The leader shook his head and said, “I never thought that an escaped test subject would be my greatest enemy. When you stole the secrets and broke through my ambush, I already knew that the Germinal Organization would undoubtedly lose. I never give up, but there was nothing I could do; it was barely even a struggle before death.”
Because he had predicted this long ago, no matter how bad the situation was for them, he was not surprised. Seeing the organization that he had built slowly slide into the abyss, he was actually still calm.
“To me, defeat means death. The Six Nations want to see me surrender so that they can take all the knowledge that the Germinal Organization has gained throughout the years. I won’t let them get anything.”
Han Xiao raised his brows. “About that, I heard you captured quite a few hostages. If you activate the explosion, all of them will definitely die, and the nuclear st will affect the climate, worsening the environment of the entire, endangering the everyone’s future in this. Are you sure you want to do this?”
The leader kept silent. The sound of breathing was the only thinging out from the speakers. Han Xiao was not in a hurry; he watched the screen calmly.
After a while, the leader spoke in a low voice.
“You’re going to persuade me to surrender?”
Han Xiao shrugged and said, “I’m not nning to, because you don’t seem like someone that can be persuaded, but the guys opposite me want me to...”
He was in a meeting room of Sanctuary One at the moment, holding hisptop and sitting on the sofa. Bet sat opposite him and listened to the entire conversation. He kept using hand signs to tell Han Xiao to persuade the leader. Both sides suffering was thest thing Bet wanted to see.
Han Xiao felt that Bet was daydreaming. To have him, the very person that caused their defeat, do the persuasion, was that notpletely adding fuel to the fire? Even if the leader had nned to surrender originally, he might change his mind instantly after seeing Han Xiao’s face. Luckily, the leader had always been very firm, or he would have been quite worried... Wait a minute, that logic felt somewhat weird.
Bet kept giving him signs. Han Xiao had no choice but to give it a try, or Bet would nag him like a mother again.
“I’d rather bring everyone with me,” the leader said maliciously. “This world shall know pain!”
Han Xiao’s mouth opened wide, a ssic reference stuck in his throat.
<i>Pain, is that you? </i>[1. Pain is a character in a Japanese manga/anime series, one of his signature lines is “This world shall know pain.”]
The leader sneered. “I hate this world—why should I care for it? Even if the Six Nations won, don’t even dream of not paying anything! The Six Nations are killers, too, only reaching their position today after destroying countless nations. They stood on the ruins and praised their actions. The winner is always on the side of justice, and these blood debts will all be buried in history. No one will know, no one will find out, and no one will fight for justice of the old era. These governments that have luckily survived have enjoyed themselves for too long, and it’s time for them to pay a little interest!”
The leader did not care about what the world would be after he died; he would rather betray others than to be betrayed. Even a normal person might feel this way, not to mention the malicious, ambitious leader.
Han Xiao did notment. The results of a nuclear attack would have a minimal effect on him, as he would sooner orter leave Aquamarine. Furthermore. The next version was Mutation Disaster. Arger disaster wasing, and inparison, this climate disaster would be nothing.
The Germinal Organization had survived in his previous life, and there had been a potential risk of theming back again. Now the Germinal Organization had been annihted at once, but it brought aststing negative impact. As for which one was better, Han Xiao did not really know, but thetter would definitely clear his [Fall of the Germinal] mission.
To other people of Aquamarine that did not know this, the result of thetter was horrifying. The climate was deeply connected to their lives, and no one would wish for an environment deterioration.
Sitting opposite, Bet was anxious. He wished he could just fly to the Germinal Organization headquarters and kill the leader before he could press the button.
Han Xiao looked at the clock and said slowly, “There’s still quite some time till the deadline that the Six Nations gave. Aren’t you going to wait any longer?”
“I prefer to decide my time of death myself.” The leader’s eyes became firm. He reached out his hand, held onto the nuclearunch keys, and started turning slowly.
A suffocating pressure came out of the screen, and the leader’s movement seemed to besting forever. Bet hands wed at the sofa’s armrests and tore the leather open.
Every degree he turned, one second was taken away from the countdown clock of countless lives.
The second hand gradually pointed toward the final result.
Han Xiao looked at the leader’s face calmly and suddenly asked, “I never got your name.”
“My name?” The leader lifted the corner of his lips and gave a ferocious smile. “Not important.”
“You’re right, so... goodbye then.” Han Xiao sighed and waved his hand.
The keys turned one hundred and eighty degrees.
The sound of a quake came out of the screen—that was the sound of missiles rising into the sky.
The leader retracted his hands and sat on the chair like a statue. At that moment, his tone did not have any hatred, regret, or sadness of almost facing his death; there was not any intense emotion. Like old neighbors passing each other, he nodded at Han Xiao.
“Goodbye.”
...
“Warning! Warning! Fast-moving objects are rising from the Germinal Organization headquarters!”
All of the waiting military officers in the Six Nationsbat conference stood up in shock; this was the worst-case scenario. Although the people present were mentally prepared, when this moment arrived, they still found it hard to ept.
A nuclear st killing hostages, resulting in pollution, burning the Germinal Organization headquarters to the ground, countless ssified technology lost forever... It could not be considered a win for any party.
“Activate anti navigation?” the assistant said shivering.
All the officers had no choice. Without hesitation, their responses were the same. “Activate immediately!”
In the Germinal Organization headquarters, the ground and the buildings were trembling slightly. The hiding Germinal Organization soldiers looked up to the sky through the windows and saw the missiles rise one after another.
An atmosphere of silence and death spread among the people. Everyone knew the leader’s decision and what was going to happen next.
Tears, despair, madness, twitching, trembling, screaming, growling, indifference...
The countless emotions and responses right before death.
In the sky far away, a dense number of ck objects approached rapidly—some shed with the rising missiles, and somended in the headquarters.
Hum—
The first sound was a high-pitch explosion undetectable to the human ear. Most of the people in the Six Nations camp faraway covered their ears, but blood was still flowing out.
A fire pir, tens of kilometers in diameter, shot up the sky. The group of bases disintegrated in an instant. ck dust was spat out from the blinding firelight, gradually rising and turning into a condensed ck mushroom.
In the Six Nation camp far away, the people who looked out could only see white. The light had temporarily blinded most of the people, and even the superhumans had to close their eyes. No one could stay natural in the face of this kind of power; everyone felt small and insignificant, like they had be sand that was going to be blown away by the next wind. Unable to control their own fate, they started to shiver uncontrobly.
Even in further areas, the fire could be seen to soar through the clouds above the Germinal Organization on the horizon, and the clouds formed a circle in the sky.
Right after, the firelight shone a second time, emitting a yellow spherical shockwave mixed with dust and ash. Everywhere it passed, the ground cracked, and the buildings shattered into pieces. Countless bent pieces of metal easily flew for miles like feathers, falling onto the wilderness like rain.
The shockwave finally arrived at the camp. Like the breath of the god of wind, tents were blown away, spinning like dandelion seeds; heavy vehicles rolled like balls; for the people there, a few broken bones was just a light injury. The onlooking yers were shocked and excited—they recorded the moment and did not want to miss out anything.
With the expanding shockwave came the second explosion, and the frequency could be caught by human ear this time, almost breaking people’s eardrums.
Boom!
The sound was like the sky was falling apart!
Deafening!
The camps behind started to stand their ground andmanded the troops to retreat quickly.
The continuous firelight was the only thing left on the wilderness. The image was like a punishment from the gods, and the tumbling mushroom cloud kept changing its shape like the smile of a devil.
The leader, with his unfulfilled belief and the organization that he had created, turned into a bright firework that lit up the entire sky.
The Germinal Organization had ended.
The nuclear explosion that burned the headquarters to the ground marked the end of the Aquamarine war.
...
The highest ranked officials of the Six Nations hosted an emergency meeting. The enemy had been defeated, but the uing impact was not optimistic.
“In ordance to the scale of the explosion, the climate bureau created a calculus model. The first batch of radiation dust will enter the atmospheric cycle in the next three to six hours. Within the next month, thend of Andrea will enter a nuclear winter that willst for at least half a year. During that time, thend will not be suitable for any lifeform. Flora and fauna will die in droves, and thend will be aplete death zone. The radiation will reach the sea area near Andrea, which might cause the marine food chain to copse. Some sea creatures might also go through unknown mutations.
“High-density radiation and pollution will enter the sea cycle, then spread to the entire world through the form of rain. This process will take about 300 to 500 days toplete. By then, the entire’s climate will start to deteriorate. As the affected area is muchrger, the deterioration is not as severe as it will be in Andrea, but it still will heavily damage the atmosphere and have a negative impact in every way. This impact mightst as long as more than ten years. In this time, the entire’s technology is estimated to be unable to advance and might even recede.”
The high ranked officials of the Six Nation all had serious expressions. This was not just about a nation—it was about the entire world, the entire race.
An anti-war official mmed the table and said wrathfully, “Look! Look what you did! Our troops suffered huge losses. Not only do we not get any benefits after winning, it even led to this result. We never should have started the expedition and the war in the first ce! We should have let the Germinal Organization hide in Andrea and stopped after we destroyed their sub bases!”
Back then, when the expedition was decided, some politicians had been anti-war, because once the war started, the resources and authority would heavily nt to the military. Of course, some high ranked officials would not be happy about it. However, majority ruled, and their voice was ignored. Now that they had justified excuses, they decided to stand up for themselves after what had already happened.
“We are already at this point; don’t say any more useless things.”
The bitter fruit of war had to be borne by the entire world; it affected a lot of innocents. In order to get rid of this enemy, they had paid such a big price. Some high ranked officials started to ask themselves if this was all worth it.
The answer was yes.
At least in the eyes of the high ranked officials, such a strong enemy posed more of a threat than what they called a-scale climate disaster. After they got rid of that, only then could they feel safe and have the condition to grow steadily. The high ranked officials of the nations all thought that. Everyone had to face the climate disaster threat, everyone had to deal with it, so they were still on the same starting line, and it was fair for everyone.
At least the result could still be saved.
“Should we lock down the news and not share it with the civilians?”
“Too many people already know about it. There’s no a need for that. Announce it officially.”
“The people will definitely protest and me us for causing this.”
“Not important, the war has ended. What we need to face now is the disaster that wille after that. Let everyone know we’re on the same boat, and they should let go of the past and not dwell on what was wrong or who was right. We have to work together to get through this.”
“Then, what about...”
The high ranked officials of the nations discussed one suggestion after another.
...
With a furious expression, Bet walked back and forth in the room, mumbling to himself. Han Xiao sat on the sofa with his legs crossed. He looked up the blue sky outside the window and shook his head.
The leader had turned to ash with the headquarters.
The Germinal Organization could be considered as the first big BOSS that he had faced, and this big main storyline on Aquamarine had been destroyed by him. He started to like this feeling a little.
No matter how legendary the leader’s past was, he had been Han Xiao’s enemy. Han Xiao very rarely showed mercy to his enemies. Victory meant victory, and there was no need for the winner to fake regret and remorse.
With a deep breath, Han Xiao got excited. He opened the interface and browsed the notifications that had shown up.
_____________________
You have received Legendary Points—[Germinal Organization yer]!
Grade A Main Storyline Mission [Fall of the Germinal] Completed!
Grade: Unbelievable
You have received mission reward for [Unbelievable] grade
Calcting reward...
Calcting reward...
Please wait patiently...