Act.10 [The Solitary Brilliance · The Light of Loneliness]

Foreword:

Even when your expectations are dashed one by one, you must remain steadfast and calm.

[ --Henry Wadsworth Longfellow]

[Part 1: Helpless]

Inside the armory, everyone gathered in a circle, lit a campfire in an iron bucket to keep warm, and discussed the results of the artillery test firing.

Apart from A Xing, everyone else looked disheartened.

Yibu, head bowed, took out a cigarette case and handed one to each of his brothers.

A Xing's eyes lit up when he saw the cigarette.

"Me! Me! Thank you, thank you!"

3301 put on a sour face, approached A Xing, and his bright yellow beast eyes were full of anger.

A Xing said with a pitiful look, "I just turned nineteen, let me give it a try."

VIP Xia Xia moved closer to 3301 and also adopted that fierce, squinting look.

Neither the wolf girl nor the half-wolf girl likes the smell of smoke. The monsters hate nicotine, a highly toxic substance. Only humans and apes can smoke tobacco; other creatures will actively avoid it.

3301 pried open Yibu's hand and said to A Xing, "No smoking."

Putting aside these insignificant details, Yibu looked restrained and flustered, with some mud still stuck in his beard, which he hadn't had time to clean.

Jason took out a razor and trimmed his brother's beard.

Yibu, smoking a cigarette, slowly began to speak.

"Brothers, we might have reached the end of the road; we might not make it to that place."

When a leader says something like that, other Slavic men can't really say anything.

Only Jason remained resentful, but he didn't immediately retort or scold him, waiting for Yibu to finish speaking.

Yibu pulled out some scorching hot firewood from the iron bucket, asked his friends to come up and light cigarettes for him, and explained why.

"The peonies can't kill them—they won't even have time to fire a second shot."

Immediately, some unconvinced young people spoke up.

"Brother Yibu! We can split into groups! An artillery squad only needs a minimum of six people."

Yibu interrupted, "But... can you even fire the cannon? We've tried so many times, and you haven't even had a chance to touch the gun mount; you've only been able to move shells."

The young man remained silent for a moment, still trying to put on a brave face.

"I can be the bait! If the Ice Man wants to kill me, it definitely won't care about you!"

"That's a good idea." Yibu shook his head and lit a cigarette for Jason. "But as soon as I show my face, the Ice Man's first target will definitely be me. It can hear my voice, and we don't have radios. It's impossible to use sign language to command operations from dozens of meters away."

There's one more thing Ibrahimovic didn't mention.

Given the caliber of the peony flower, even if it hits the Gate of Death Rune of the Laughing Man or the Ice Man, it would be difficult to achieve a fatal blow.

The runes in their skulls were so large that even if the material of the runes were equal to the mass of concrete, it would be difficult for the 203 artillery to completely shatter them.

The runes alone are over twenty meters in diameter, making it a fossil several stories high and large, with some flesh and blood acting as elastic cushions.

To these giants, the peony-shaped cannonballs were like sesame seeds; even if they hit, it was difficult to guarantee that the destructive power of the cannonball's kinetic energy would remain entirely within the rune.

The first shot at the Laughing Man landed on the giant's shoulder and neck, causing half of his upper arm to twitch, but the damage was negligible.

It only needs to use its fingernails to scrape away some of the mud, ash, and flesh to remove the shell, and its wounds will heal in the time it takes to breathe.

Yibu had always hoped that Jason Megan would return. For the past three years, he had tried to fight the giants every month, occasionally losing one or two companions, but the ritual never stopped.

It's okay to fail once or twice, and it's also okay to fail dozens of times.

Because Ibrahimovic has always believed in Ming De.

He believed in the BOSS's obsession, and that this beast would never abandon the outpost, nor this seemingly meaningless mission.

But when Jason Megan returned, he brought only this many people. It was even fewer than the emergency summons mission three years ago. Back then, at least two reinforced battalions from Guangling Zhixi came and fought the giants to the bitter end, using up all their ammunition and food, only to return defeated.

Yibu's one-sided speculation--

--Has Ming De already given up on this place?

After all, this place is a dead zone; there's nothing here.

There is no gold or silver, nor any precious rare earth resources.

Oil extraction is extremely difficult, and the environment of the Spirit Calamity is unsuitable for human survival.

What exactly is in the ocean?

For Niflheim, as the Soviets it, the boss has already done a lot, spent a lot of money, and sent a lot of people—is calling Jason over this time just a perfunctory explanation to fulfill a previous agreement?

Yibu had no idea who these two unfamiliar VIPs were. He thought to himself, if they really had any divine power, they would have shown it long ago, instead of having to flee in such a sorry state with us ordinary people, being strangled by the Ice Man's minions.

Perhaps they are scholars?

Perhaps they are just medical staff?

Their spiritual power was insufficient to deal with the giants.

They simply brought the younger generation from the station to this place to experience the spiritual pressure of the giants and accumulate experience.

Just then, Xia Xia spoke to her older brother, Yibu.

"Cheer up!"

Yibu clung to it like it was a lifeline.

"Distinguished guests from the station, do you have a solution?"

He took out some grain from his dirty overcoat; it was sorghum cakes produced in a greenhouse, and there wasn't much left.

Xia Xia didn't accept the gift. Instead, she took out candy from her pocket, intending to give the sweet, high-quality glucose to the Soviet man, and then innocently said something about giving up.

"No!"

Yibu's spirits had been lifted, but now he's completely gone.

Xia Xia grabbed Yibu's hand, pried open the rough man's palm, and shoved the candy inside.

"I can't deal with those things! They're too big, and there are too many targets! To move the Earth, you'd need a very sophisticated and sturdy lever! My soul power is too simple; I can't do that!"

After Big Wolf Girl finished talking about her own soul power, she then began to talk about A Ling's soul power.

"Even my soul power as a servant couldn't do that. The energy within these giants is so immense that even the two of us combined couldn't defeat them—it's a mythical unit. Even if we stood still and tried to scrape them, it would probably take us a year and a half to recover their blood as quickly as they breathe."

Yibu was dejected, and morale plummeted.

"So, what do you mean by telling me to cheer up, esteemed guest?"

"I can't do it, but the Lord of Cinder can!" Xia Xia Tian said innocently. "When we were traveling, we encountered the Lord of Cinder's soul power attack halfway. That ability is very special. It can steal our five senses and pull our spirits out of our bodies. I think the Lord of Cinder can also push the spirits of these giants out of their bodies, which is why he has the courage to come here to hunt."

Ibrahimovic's face turned extremely ugly. He had never wanted to have too deep a cooperation with the Madness Butterfly Sect, people who would stop at nothing to achieve their goals and even enjoyed cannibalism.

Lending them the city's public facilities is already the biggest concession Yibu has made. To negotiate any further deals with the Lord of Cinder, he might not even be able to protect his own elemental essence.

The twenty or so young people present were almost the last generation of Soviet citizens, and they were all men.

When the Heaven's Ladder team arrived at RSH, Yibu and the Master of Ceremonies discussed sending the girls back to Albert Research Station to avoid them being targeted by these lawless ogres.

"And I've never understood," Xia Xia said, stubbing out the cigarette from Yibu's mouth, "Don't you have nuclear weapons? Something with a small yield, like 800,000 tons of TNT would be fine."

Yibu was shocked when the VIP asked that question.

Whether it's the adorable smile on the face of a VIP as they effortlessly stub out a cigarette with their finger.

There's also the nonchalant ease with which one talks about "nuclear power."

"No way?" Xia Xia leaned close to Yibu and whispered, afraid someone would hear. "Although the station orders prohibit anything related to [nuclear], refined uranium or yellowcake can't be brought in, and the Philosopher Foundation forbids the Abyssal Railway from having any nuclear weapons, you must have some hidden away, right? From what I learned in the Arcane Library —a few decades ago, hunters were still using man-portable nuclear bombs to fight monsters, although those hunters eventually ended up in jail. The Soviet Union was a nuclear superpower, you wouldn't really be so honest as to hand over all your guns after the collapse, would you?"

Yibu stood there stunned for a long, long time, then suddenly felt very embarrassed.

Because they really don't have nuclear weapons, not even man-portable nuclear warheads launched by rocket artillery.

As Xia Xia said, a nuclear bomb with the equivalent of 800,000 tons of TNT can create a circular crater with a diameter of more than 600 meters, leaving nothing behind. As long as this weapon can be delivered to the face of a giant, the blast radius and shock wave damage will be negligible for RSH. Only a weak tsunami and radiation will remain.

But this kind of thing, Yibu searched through all the information, racked his brains, and went through the material list of every weapons depot—if it wasn't there, it simply wasn't there. They didn't even have the industrial electricity and raw materials needed for the refinery. They couldn't possibly handcraft uranium-235 on the spot, nor did they understand the launch mechanism of nuclear bombs or the methods for preparing and storing warheads.

Yibu was born in 1988, when he was only three years old when the Soviet Union collapsed.

My Master of Ceremonies, was a mechanical and electrical engineer who worked on railways for sixteen years and knew absolutely nothing about thermonuclear physics.

[Part ② - A Major Headache]

Seeing Yibu's embarrassed and shy expression--

Xia Xia finally understood that the BOSS hadn't prepared any off-site assistance for them on this trip.

During the harvest season, most passenger trains have to return to the Nine Realms. Trying to use connections to transport super firepower is probably out of the question; very few people are willing to do something that adds insult to injury.

"This is tricky!" Xia Xia thought for a long time before finally blurting out, "I'm not very bright! Let's wait until A Ling comes back!"

She patted Yibu's shoulder forcefully.

"Even when your expectations are dashed one by one, you must remain steadfast and calm! You can do it! You can do it, baby!"

Yibu stared blankly at the VIP, feeling as if they were on completely different wavelengths.

Jason said to Yibu, "Let's try a different approach, Yibu."

Yibu: "What's the strategy?"

Jason: "The last time I came to this place, I wore my Lapis Lazuli the whole time."

At this point, Jason raised his arm; he was no longer wearing the sapphire crystal.

"The terrifying spiritual pressure in the environment almost made me unable to think, and it also made me miss a lot of things, a lot of things that I should have paid attention to."

Jason pulled out his logbook, tore off four pages, and drew a topographical map of the entire RSH outpost in just a few seconds.

"From the southeast entrance to the coastline, the main road of RSH is almost 20 kilometers long, but there is no trace of natural subsidence. The road is formed in one piece, unlike railway ballast. In theory, RSH should have sunk at least 16 meters in the mudflats on the beach before touching the bedrock. Its buildings and roads do not have gaps caused by differences in elevation due to subsidence, which makes me very curious."

Meteor raised his hand.

"I have something to do."

Jason turned around.

"What's wrong? Are you thinking about these strange things like me?"

Meteor confessed, "Mr. Jason, you're starting to talk about things I don't understand. I need to pee, I need to go to the bathroom."

Jason rolled his eyes in annoyance, wondering to himself how Jiang Xueming could have chosen such an idiot as a brother.

Go ahead.

Yibu and the others gathered around, staring intently at the torn pages of the map.

"You mean to say that the place we live in is illogical?"

Jason changed his approach, using a more vivid and direct metaphor.

"Steel will naturally creep even in a cold environment. From Pavlov to Red Star Hill, the railway ballast we traveled was a foundation road filled with thousands of tons of sand and gravel. But how can a place like Red Star Hill ensure that the foundation is level? Look at this street—"

Jason pointed to RSH's history museum and publicity office, which are buildings from almost seventy years ago.

"--It contains both new and old buildings, constructed more than forty years apart, but their foundations are from the same era. Under such circumstances, this is almost impossible."

Yibu and his brothers couldn't figure out what Jason was trying to say.

These buildings existed before they were born. And no elders have told them about this history since.

Jason Megan retrieved all the remaining map fragments.

"Brother Yibu, I am a Lapis Lazuli Guards, and I am very sensitive to this kind of information. Whenever there is something that does not make sense, I will try my best to find out why it exists."

He bent down and massaged Yibu's temples, urging Yibu to think back carefully.

"The foundation of this city certainly wasn't built by burying sand and filling soil like a railway, otherwise the factory workshops you see wouldn't be so orderly, and wouldn't be divided into five nuclear power plants according to the city's designers' wishes—we're standing on mud, and there might even be giant skeletons in there. This uneven soil structure, with its soft and hard sections, will cause these heavy industrial buildings to collapse and topple over time due to the irregular settlement of the foundation."

There is only one reason why RSH's factory has stood the test of time for so many years.

Jason Megan gently rubbed Yibu's gloomy face.

"It was built on top of an underground city."

"The steel framework of the underground city was already completed when the blueprints for this outpost were first drawn up."

"We need to dig out the mud beneath our feet and build a foundation at least sixty meters high to ensure that industrial buildings exposed to the air can operate stably for so many years."

Jason pleaded with Yibu to think it over carefully.

"Did any elders tell you from a young age which places you absolutely must not go to, absolutely must not desecrate, and absolutely must not easily enter? These places may be the entrances to underground cities."

Ibrahimovic was still in shock; all he knew was that his country had built an outpost in such a godforsaken place, which was already a remarkable industrial miracle.

If Jason's judgment is correct, nuclear weapons might indeed be found underground.

According to historical records, under Ming De's strong demands, except for the unfinished weapon platform of [Materialism] which was not taken by the CIS and the Philosopher Foundation —these ungrateful wretches practically emptied RSH, but they never went underground.

Without hesitation, Yibu replied, "The Monument to the People's Heroes! There's a shrine beneath the sculpture on the monument!"

Jason didn't say much, "Let's go."

3301 stood up and shouted loudly.

"Hey, hey, hey! Have you seen my employer?"

Leaving the armory and walking about two hundred meters towards the street corner, you'll find a bathhouse. Forty years ago, it was bustling with activity, more prosperous than any of the shops at Albert Research Station.

At that time, tens of thousands of people from the entire village would come here to bathe and eat, to varying degrees.

Here you can see RSH's governors sharing a room naked with people, exchanging work points for gleaming stones at the small commodity market on the street, and cooking monster dishes together at food stalls.

But now it has been turned into a public toilet.

It became a huge, foul-smelling septic tank that provided heat for the last fifty-odd people at RSH.

A Xing pushed open the door and went to the toilet stall. He unfastened his blouse and pulled up his zipper. Standing beside the spacious bathhouse, he marveled at how grand and beautiful the Soviets toilets were.

At that moment, he finally noticed the other person in the restroom next to him.

He was a burly man who was over three meters tall.

A Xing raised his head and looked at the big guy's head.

Wow! Bro! How did you train to grow so big?

He looked down again at the tall man's other head.

Wow... Oh... So talented!

William turned his head away, feeling embarrassed. He had been extremely awkward when he heard the two of them urinating.

"Naturally, naturally."

After a while, perhaps because the giant's bladder had an astonishing capacity for water, Meteor finished cleaning up, but William remained frozen in place, not moving.

The meteor said, "You're not one of our people, you're probably an enemy? Are you from the Heaven's Ladder?"

William's pupils contracted slightly, his tension rising.

The meteor continued, "I didn't see any of your companions outside. You and I are both wolves separated from our pack, rejected by our own kind. You possess a lonely radiance."

The cool, elegant light from the plaza's main lights shines through the openwork decorations of the Orthodox murals and reliefs in the Great Bathhouse.

William was inexplicably moved.

Meteor and William said earnestly and firmly.

"I can wait for you. Fighting in this environment is like the Cold War turning into a hot war. Once the nuclear missile is launched, there will be no winners. I am also unwilling to risk my life against you with your fly undone. If either of us falls into a cesspool or gets splashed with excrement from bullets or bombs, even if we survive, we will lose our right to be human."

William was deeply moved.

"Brother, you're such a kind person, I don't know what to say."