Chapter 1263: Chapter 1263: The War is Over (Vote for us with monthly tickets)
Intense flas roared on the streets, their blazing heat punctuated by the sharp staccato of gunfire.
“Squad Leader, Squad Leader, I’ll pull you out right now.”
A young soldier, covered in dust and blood, crouched beside a toppled truck, his hands clutching the bloodied arm extending from the window. His feet pushed against the ground as he roared hoarsely in desperation.
The older soldier’s waist was caught in the overturned and deford driver’s cabin, with only his head and one arm visible outside the window. He looked at the young man in front of him and smiled, saying, “Stop pulling . You should find a place to hide. Your position is too dangerous—if a stray bullet cos along, it’ll kill you.”
“I should’ve been the one driving.”
The younger soldier ignored the older man’s words, his blood-streaked face taut with swelling emotion. Tears brimd in his eyes, his voice breaking with anguish. “It should’ve been driving! Isn’t the fighting already over? There weren’t even any battles ahead—we were just transporting supplies! Why would they attack us?”
“Precisely because we’re logistics and lack combat ability—they target us,”
The older soldier smiled bitterly as he looked at the younger man. “That’s just how war is. There will always be people who refuse to admit defeat. Even after their leader has died and they’ve surrendered, they won’t stop. They can’t fight the main forces, so they attack isolated units like us in logistics instead.”
Bang bang bang—
As he spoke, scattered bullets rained down, hitting the deford cabin door with loud bangs.
A bullet struck the young soldier’s arm, spraying blood.
His grip faltered; his arm went limp, and he collapsed backward onto the ground.
“Run away quickly,”
The older soldier looked at the younger man in front of him. “Reinforcents should be here soon. Staying here is too dangerous for you. You can still survive—there’s no reason to linger here. Rember, surviving is the most important thing. With these injuries, even if I crawl out, I won’t live long.”
“I have dicine! Doctor Roger gave dicine!”
The young soldier glanced at the blood pouring from his arm, hurriedly fumbling in his pocket for a small dicine bottle, sprinkling its white powder over his wound.
Perhaps it was a trick of the mind, but the instant the powder touched his wound, the young soldier felt the blood flow diminish significantly.
“This dicine works, Squad Leader! This dicine works!”
His hands trembled as he grasped the bottle, frantically pouring the powder onto the older soldier’s injuries.
“Don’t waste it, kid. In war, people die,”
The older soldier coughed and rasped, staring deeply at the younger man. “If we don’t die here, more people will die sowhere else. Don’t waste ti…”
The younger soldier seed deaf to the words, lifting his hands to tug at the warped fra. Jagged tal shredded his palms, staining the steel red, but no amount of effort could move the unyielding structure.
“Ergency rescue, ergency rescue,”
His voice broke with panic. “Didn’t they say this could be opened? Didn’t they say this could be opened?”
Bang bang bang—
Distant gunfire grew more frantic, shadows moving closer, rushing toward them.
“Run—run!”
Seeing this, the older soldier shouted desperately.
The figures in the distance approached rapidly, the vivid hues of the sky blurring across the firmant, pooling in their hearts amidst their struggle.
The advancing figures raised their firearms, aiming toward them.
In that fleeting mont, the older soldier didn’t have ti for more words. He frantically waved his arm, trying to push the younger soldier away.
But no matter what he did, he couldn’t stop the movents of the scattered personnel in the distance.
Just then, a coffin-like nutrient pod pulled up beside the two n.
Seeing the pod, both froze montarily, its tallic presence striking them as vaguely familiar.
At the sa ti, a figure approached them, glancing at them with a hint of confusion. “What are you doing here?”
Upon hearing the voice, the young soldier turned around in sudden delight, shouting toward the source, “Doctor Roger! My squad leader is trapped underneath—please help …”
“Huh?”
Roger frowned and cast a glance at the scene—the older soldier caught in the driver’s cabin.
Kneeling next to the young soldier, Roger reached a hand into the twisted gap, accessing an inner chanism, and pulled a lever hidden under a panel.
Clunk—
With a crisp sound, a section of the dashboard sprang open.
A sturdy hydraulic rod slowly extended, rising upward.
The hydraulic rod’s top housed a cara that scanned the surroundings before its upper segnt unfolded, forming a support beam that propped up part of the deford structure.
Snap—
Amidst the sharp chanical noises, the crushed parts encasing the older soldier began to shift.
Eyes wide with amazent, the young soldier imdiately reached out and yanked the older soldier free.
Then, with a mix of shock and joy, he turned to Roger and blurted, “Doctor Roger, what is this?”
“The smart ergency rescue system for the new transport trucks,”
Roger frowned slightly, casting a questioning look at the young soldier. “Didn’t you receive training when you got this vehicle? I even went through the training myself.”
“I… uh… cough, cough—”
Both soldiers hesitated in unison, their gazes awkwardly averting.
Bang bang bang—
In that instant, gunfire erupted from another direction.
Roger looked confusedly at the two n. Suddenly, he was struck twice by bullets.
In the young soldier’s stunned expression, Roger calmly plucked the small bullets out of his hand, turned his gaze toward the soldiers who fired at him, and asked coldly, “You shoot doctors too?”
He raised his hand, and several surgical knives flew through the air.
Thud thud thud—
With barely audible sounds, those shadows collapsed onto the ground.
Retracting his hands, Roger turned back to the young soldier, his expression unchanged. “Where were we… ah, right—didn’t you pay attention during your training?”
“I, uh…”
The young soldier snapped back to reality, blinking in a daze. “It was boring. I only rembered it could open but forgot where.”
“The training is pretty dull, that’s true,”
Roger nodded faintly in agreent. Then, noticing sothing, he glanced at the dashboard. “Ah, your main system’s broken—that explains the lack of alert ssages.”
He returned his gaze and continued, “Still, anything related to your survival is worth paying closer attention to.”
“Understood.”
The young soldier nodded.
Roger continued, “In situations like these, take a closer look—you might find ergency rescue buttons in the vicinity.”
“I’ve seen many rcenaries and rcenary corps,”
He surveyed the area, his tone steady. “Among all those ‘leaders,’ Vian is the one who values the lives of ordinary soldiers the most.
“In his eyes, you aren’t numbers to asure cost—you’re living, breathing lives.”
“Nolanka Group’s equipnt cos with smart safety features for ergencies. If there are no prompts, search around nearby.”
“Alright!”
The young soldier nodded vigorously. The older soldier also nodded.
“Thank you.”
The young soldier looked at Roger and spoke again, sincerely.
“Don’t thank —thank Vian,”
Roger glanced at the nutrient pod behind him and continued, “Also, thank yourselves. Thank everyone, including you, who fights for their ideals on this path.”
Turning around, Roger gazed into the distance.
Amidst the hazy smoke, soldiers clad in exoskeleton armor gradually erged from its depths.
It was the arriving reinforcents.
——
Dawn City
Silver hair like silk draped over a chair’s backrest as a petite girl slowly lifted her bare, tender feet, bending her knees and drawing most of her slender legs into her white skirt.
Her delicate heels pressed against the hard edge of the tal chair, while her suspended feet and toes stretched taut.
She wrapped her arms lightly around her legs and lifted her head to gaze at the screen before her.
Countless monitors filled the space ahead, supported by a massive curved fra, forming an arc-shaped wall of displays in front of her.
Curled up on the small seat, she stared quietly at the rows of screens.
Most of these screens displayed scenes of radiant light enveloping the city.
Only the central monitor showed a snapshot of the Crimson Giant and Crystal Giant locked in battle.
But the capture wasn’t focused on the two giants—it lingered on a faintly yellow blur of light between them.
The equipnt had clearly been pushed to its limits, the light too small for facial features or outlines to appear. However, judging by its shape, it looked like a well-built middle-aged man.
Boom—
At this mont, the door behind the girl swung open abruptly, and a young woman in a simple uniform peeked in hesitantly, asking cautiously,
“Miss Vianne, Mr. Christos called to ask—were you the one who hijacked the advertising screens? The city center is already destroyed. Right now, in Dawn City, only this facility has such extre magnification monitoring equipnt left.”
She paused upon seeing the vast array of images displayed on the monitors.
“Yes.”
A soft response echoed through the flickering beams of light.
——
Purple mist filled the murky void.
The shattered earth, distorted sky, and city scattered like fragnted snowflakes across an infinite emptiness.
The surrounding darkness flowed gently, dissolving the fragnts like sunlight lting frost.
Various hues of light intertwined in the blackness, as ancient, majestic presences seemingly faded away.
What remained in this void was eternal silence.
Then, the dense purple mist began to churn, coalescing into a faint humanoid shape in the void.
The figure raised its head, looking at the crumbling remnants of the city, nearly dissolved completely.
An invisible force stirred in the darkness, gently drawing purple glimrs from those remnants.
These glimrs gathered before the humanoid figure, swirling and eventually forming a phantom-like miniature model of the city.
This city model began to turn slowly, shaping into vague forms of the Crystal Giant and the Crimson Giant.
The purple figure lowered its gaze upon the two phantom giants, then lifted its slender fingers to rest upon the Crimson Giant’s head.
The swirling mist surged violently, pulling residual energy drifting in the void to converge around the Crimson Giant’s form.
Like a turbulent tide, these remnants spun rapidly, projecting visions around the Crimson Giant’s body.
Dimly, a narrow snow-covered mountain crevice appeared—a section with advancing armies clashing with defending figures began to erge from the mist.
Fragnts of events, seemingly residual mories from so other reality, started to reveal themselves.
The purple figure gently moved its fingers, shifting the visions. The scenes rewound as if a videotape were played backward.
But suddenly, a streak of gray-white light pierced through the void, slicing through both the mist-bound city and its overworld constructs.
In an instant, the phantom city and scenes disintegrated entirely.
The purple figure lifted its gaze toward the source of the brilliance, catching only a faint, dissipating gray luminescence.
Lowering its gaze once more, it raised its hand again—every phantom projection before it was gone.
It lifted its head to survey the surroundings, noting how the floating city fragnts dissolved completely.
Finally, in this dim void, the purple humanoid figure dispersed, fading into pure emptiness.
The world returned to silence once more.
——
The Wasteland
“This is Dawn City’s City Governnt. We announce to our neighboring cities that the recent rebellion in Dawn City has been quelled. Remaining rebel forces within the City Defense Army and the rcenary corps have surrendered. The City Governnt has temporarily taken over the defense system. Thank you for your support.”
“This is Dawn City’s City Governnt…”
The repeated broadcast echoed through darkened night skies and gaps filled with corpses and the aftermath of artillery fire.
“It’s over?”
A blood-soaked elder in tattered Yilan military garb raised his head, gazing at the dissipating motley light at the edge of the sky. His expression seed to predict the inevitable outco, and he sighed deeply.
Amid the waning embers of war, silence crept in.
——
“Is it over?”
Fiss listened to the voices coming through his headset, gripping a massive sword. He lifted his gaze toward the ruined temporary fortifications ahead.
The corpses of charging soldiers lay scattered over the ground, while rows of soldiers in damaged Cain-type armor stood in ranks behind the fortress, cautiously watching the front.
Not far off, another group of soldiers crept toward them.
“Broadcast the ssage we’ve just received,”
Fiss adjusted his headset and ordered firmly.
“This is Dawn City’s City Governnt…”
Soon, Dawn City’s ssage was transmitted into the depths of the night.
The soldiers advancing froze upon hearing the broadcast, exchanging hesitant glances.
Eventually, their movents ceased entirely.
From afar, the artillery fire seed to gradually die down, echoing the spreading words.
Fiss stuck his massive sword into the ground, quietly watching it all unfold.
The war was over.
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