Iseki felt as though his heart were being fried in oil, though most of it had nothing to do with the current problem.
He knew this mindset was wrong, yet he could not restrain himself.
Sang Gui, utterly lacking in tact, was still urging him. "Supervisor, time waits for no one..."
Iseki finally exploded. "Have your bones grown into your skull until it's solid? Is this just an East 824 District problem? This is a massive headache for global governance! If we don't identify the source of Earth's drastic environmental changes, determine the actual combat strength and developmental conditions of these Celestial-level natives, cut off their roots and take their heads, then throwing in a hundred Ghosts won't do a damn thing!"
Ignoring the stunned Sang Gui, Iseki turned to the lower-ranking personnel in the command room, his fury erupting. "I told you to work on the 'Mental Landscape,' and you still haven't gotten it done. Did you shoot all your salaries into the cracks in the deck?"
His subordinates immediately began complaining: the effects of the Extraordinary Solar Cycle, the Abyss Zone Monitoring System being limited by the temporary platform, the difficulty of sorting through targets across multiple locations, the turbulence in the Mental Ocean making real-time imaging difficult, and so on...
Self-inflicted. This was all self-inflicted!
The more convenient things were in ordinary times, the harder they became to handle at critical moments.
Iseki closed his eyes, drew a deep breath, and forcibly reined in his tone before pointing at Sang Gui again. "Tell Ya Ma that if he doesn't get back within an hour, I'll tie him to his toys, along with that big, dumb, ugly thing you mentioned, and blast them all into East 824 District... Oh, and that's Earth time!"
Sang Gui had not seen