γ

At last, the rampage of light gradually subsided.

Yet the emptiness left behind after the light faded was still too much for anyone to process.

The lunar surface, once covered in silver-white, now bore only a massive scarlet scar—a magma-like substance boiling and churning from the beam's heat.

Daidalus Base, along with the main body of Requiem, vanished at that moment.

Before the Genesis platform remained a few half-destroyed warships, MS wreckage that had not melted away, and countless scorching fragments.

Many of the ZAFT ships that had survived were nearly incapable of moving.

The clamor of the battlefield fell silent at that moment.

"Th-This... was there really any need to go this far...?"

Arthur slumped limply in his seat as if all strength had left him.

His blank eyes stared at the battlefield ahead.

Everyone said the Yachin Due Campaign had been insane, but they had never known just how insane it had been.

But now—

"Y-You're kidding me!"

Inside Messiah Base.

After a brief silence, a ZAFT commander's roar rang through the command center.

"How did Genesis end up in their hands?!"

"What the hell has the intelligence department been doing?!"

"Why hadn't Genesis been discovered until now?!"

"Damn Naturals!"

At that moment, everyone watching the battlefield was plunged completely into panic.

Genesis—the first strategic weapon of mass destruction developed by ZAFT during the Yachin Due Campaign.

It was something capable of destroying half of Earth.

In the aftermath of the Yachin Due Campaign, people had come to understand Genesis's terror all too well.

They had thought it had become a relic of a bygone era, nothing more than a symbol.

But now, that symbol had awakened once more.

The PLANT colonies were the most panicked of all.

Already wounded by Requiem, they nearly suffered a mental breakdown