Among the expatriate visitors who disembarked from the warship, some who had not returned for many years finally set foot on their homeland.
With tears in their eyes, they could not help but bow down and kiss this pure land.
Perhaps such actions seemed incomprehensible to us, but for those who had left their homeland for decades, they finally felt grounded.
Even if wandering children living abroad were clothed in silk and fed delicacies, they always carried the drifting feeling of having no roots beneath their feet.
Because their roots were not here.
Their native land might not have been as prosperous or luxurious as the outside world, but it was always something they held close to their hearts and worried about.
And only their own countrymen would lend them a hand in times of crisis, rather than kick them while they were down.
The motherland was their true mother.
Although the expatriates' hometowns were not in Dalian, the moment they stepped onto this land, they had already come home.
Here, yellow-skinned, black-haired compatriots were everywhere.
No longer were they surrounded by blond hair and blue eyes in a foreign land.
It felt so familiar.
It was already late, and they could either leave immediately for their hometowns or accept the government's arrangements to stay the night.
Of course, everyone had to sign a confidentiality agreement before leaving.
After all, Mount Tai had landed here. What that implied went without saying.
Moreover, the fall of the Sky Breaker Squad had not yet been announced and remained under a news blackout.
Once the expatriate visitors had been evacuated, the large salvage ships in the rear began their work.
Some of the fighter wreckage was incomplete.
Most of it had exploded after losing control and crashing into Mad Ape.
Naturally, there would be no bodies left.
The memorial could only proceed in the form of cenotaphs.
The moment the fighters were salvaged ashore, every soldier saluted at once.
Including Xiao Shou and Xie Yushan, who were still inside Mount Tai's cockpit.
The Sky Breaker Squad's families were also sobbing uncontrollably. Without question, they were the most heartbroken ones.
Among them were newlywed women, elderly people, and children still in swaddling clothes.
Soldiers of iron had not crawled out of cracks in stones. They had families too.
They might even have been the pillars of those families.
Xiao Shou did not dare look into their eyes.
If only we had arrived earlier. Maybe we could have prevented this.
Xie Yushan, beside him, was far calmer.
She was not a newly enlisted and overly sentimental rookie like Xiao Shou.
She was a soldier too.
And as Jaeger pilots, they were meant to fight on the front lines.
Jaegers were not invincible.
Even the Wanderer pair, with the highest neural synchronization score, could fail, could they not?
Since they had chosen to become soldiers, they should have possessed such resolve.
Someone had to do these things.
As the saying went, when the sky fell, the tall ones held it up.
Soldiers were those tall ones.
Mount Tai did not remain there long and was sent directly back to the Shatterdome base for repairs.
Mount Tai had suffered considerable damage in this battle and needed immediate maintenance.
After all, time waited for no one.
Only twenty days had passed since the last monster attack.
And the threat was no longer confined to one location or a single monster.
This suited Xiao Shou just fine.
The cries of the martyrs' families cut through Xiao Shou's heart like knives.
Just like the Old Director back then.
After returning to base, there were far fewer people around.
Many had gone to the harbor to see their former comrades off on their final journey.
Mao Shucheng said nothing when he saw them. He merely told them to rest well and dismissed them.
He did not criticize their earlier hesitation.
As long as the outcome was good, the process did not matter.
Protecting civilians was important too.
In times of crisis, choices naturally had to be made, but it had not come to that yet.
Early the next morning, Xiao Shou dressed neatly. He was no longer wearing his usual combat uniform, but a formal military dress uniform.
Because the memorial service for the heroes began today.
The Jaeger Combat Department naturally could not be absent.
Since the venue was in Dalian itself, any emergency would not affect their response time.
The memorial venue was the first-floor lobby of a hotel.
There were no lavish decorations. Portraits of the twenty-two fallen heroes stood in the center, while the families of the martyrs and soldiers filled the entire hall below.
Several cameras stood in the corners, with reporters delivering live coverage.
The higher-ups had decided to stop concealing the truth. The heroes' sacrifices deserved to be remembered.
Not only those of the Sky Breaker Squad,
But also,
the more than 8,700 soldiers who had died in Dalian's earlier Shanlan battle.
The news had previously been suppressed to prevent public panic.
At that time, their means of dealing with monsters had been limited. Without deploying nuclear weapons, they could only wear them down slowly.
The casualties had been severe, and releasing the numbers would have caused an uproar.
After all, there had not been casualties on such a scale since the War of Resistance more than seventy years ago.
It would inevitably have caused social unrest.
But things were different now. They had Jaegers. They had Mount Tai.
They had the ability to protect their country from the harassment of foreign enemies.
The families of the fallen martyrs no longer needed to hide themselves away.
They would give the heroes an answer—a long-overdue answer.
Before you continue