The soldier held the cigarette pack, smiled and cursed at his comrade's corpse, then plopped down onto the ground, leaning his back against an overturned transport vehicle.
He opened the pack. Half the cigarettes remained, and most importantly, there was still a lighter inside.
With a cigarette between his lips, the soldier tilted his neck slightly forward and pressed the lighter with his one remaining hand.
"Click."
The flame he had imagined did not appear.
"Click... click... click..."
Refusing to believe it, the soldier pressed it several more times in a row, but no flame appeared.
He gripped the lighter and vigorously shook his arm. After that, he tried to light it again.
He pressed it another dozen times, but fire still refused to appear.
The soldier let out a sigh, tilted his head back, and let the drizzle fall across his face as he closed his eyes with a complicated expression.
He had already accepted his fate of dying. He just had not expected even a lighter to bully him.
Sigh, why was it so hard to smoke one cigarette before dying?
After a long while, the expected pain and death never came. The soldier opened his eyes again.
Sparta, who had originally stood before him, had vanished, while he was still alive.
Elsewhere, Sparta encountered the 100,000 reinforcements while flying.
A new round of slaughter began.
Inside the Imperial Palace.
"How could this happen! How could this happen?!"
"Fake! It must be fake! I refuse to believe it!!"
Looking at the footage sent back by the satellites, the Big-Mouth Emperor was so furious that he smashed a priceless vase to pieces.
The screen was divided into a nine-panel grid, representing Sparta and the nine others, including the recruits.
Yet no matter which one he looked at, every screen showed Big Mouth's troops being slaughtered by Viltrumites.
Every Viltrumite was being surrounded and attacked by hundreds of thousands of soldiers.
No matter what, hundreds of thousands of troops should have been able to hold out for a while, right?
But the footage showed that hundreds of thousands of troops were no more than roadside trash before a single Viltrumite. They were wiped out in no time.
Were the Viltrumites too strong, or were they too weak?
"What do we do?! What the hell do we do?!"
The Big-Mouth Emperor furiously questioned his ministers.
The ministers lowered their heads and secretly exchanged glances, but no one spoke.
What else could they do? Wait to die.
Of course, by now, the ministers were already filled with grievances.
If the Big-Mouth Emperor had not refused to surrender, how could this have happened? Were the soldiers' lives not lives too?
The most crucial thing was, fine, if he did not want to surrender—but he still had to send troops to fight them.
Wasn't that insane?
"A bunch of useless trash. I can't count on any of you."
"With foolish ministers like you around, my Big Mouth Empire will perish sooner or later."
The Big-Mouth Emperor's gaze shifted back and forth between the two screens.
Only Jayce appeared on the second screen.
The footage showed Jayce standing atop a mountain with his eyes closed and his arms folded over his chest, never having moved.
He seemed to have been resting with his eyes closed all along, utterly uninterested in the slaughter.
"No, didn't I grant authorization to launch nuclear missiles? Why is no one using them?"
"Are you just going to let the Viltrumites massacre us?"
The Big-Mouth Emperor seemed to be talking to himself, yet also seemed to be asking his ministers why they were not launching nuclear missiles.
As expected, none of the ministers paid him any attention.
The Big-Mouth Emperor's expression stiffened, though only for an instant.
"General, what do we do? The army simply can't stop him."
"Fuel-air explosives, high-explosive shells, cluster missiles—we've used every weapon available except nuclear weapons."
The lieutenant general looked sorrowfully at the general seated at the head of the table.
The general's expression was no better. He truly had no idea how to resist such a powerful Viltrumite.
Earlier, he had said they would strip a layer of skin off their opponent. Now, never mind stripping skin—the man had not even lost a single hair.
The general rubbed his throbbing brow, then looked toward the second lieutenant general. "When will the reinforcements outside the city arrive?"
The lieutenant general reported truthfully, "General, it will take approximately twenty minutes."
"Twenty minutes?! Of the 300,000 troops, less than half remain! Can half of them hold him for twenty minutes?!"
"Where are the fighter jets?! Where are the armed helicopters?! Where are the rapid response forces?!"
The general was so furious that his eyebrows stood on end, spittle spraying from his mouth.
If they had to wait another twenty minutes for reinforcements, the whole city would be finished by then.
What were twenty minutes for? Collecting everyone's corpses?
"They were all deployed elsewhere. The only reinforcements available right now are ground forces." The lieutenant general shook his head as he answered.
"There are thousands of fighter jets worldwide, and now you're telling me they've all been sent elsewhere?!"
"Even if the jets were divided up to deal with the Viltrumites, we should still have command over several hundred of them!"
"I've only commanded twenty fighter jets from start to finish! Who deployed the rest? Whose order was this?!"
The general abruptly rose from his seat and slammed his hand on the table.
Everyone was doing their utmost to fight the Viltrumites, so why did someone get to deploy the fighter jets elsewhere?
What about them? What were they supposed to do?
Without fighter jet support and harassment, how was he supposed to hold the enemy back for twenty minutes?
"This... this was an order from the capital."
The lieutenant general opened his mouth and spoke the intelligence he knew.
"I... I..."
The general's face turned red as blood rushed to his head, and his vision went black.
He gripped the armrest, his chest heaving violently. At that moment, he no longer wanted to say anything. After all, the lords in the capital were lords.
Suppressing his anger, the general sat back down.
But before his backside was even settled, a guard suddenly burst in.
"Generals! Th-the enemy has discovered the command center!"
The moment those words were spoken, every general in the room sprang to his feet. "What?!"
Astonishment appeared on every general's face.
Where was the command center? This was the command center. In other words, they had been discovered.
"Quick! Evacuate!"
The general was the first to react and immediately roared.
But it was already too late. The sound of gunfire came from outside the command room.
Everyone knew he had arrived.
Sparta landed in the center of the command base and began indiscriminately slaughtering the guards and combat personnel around him.
To capture bandits, capture their leader first. In a team battle, strike the backline.
He understood that principle well, so he had come.
For a time, the field command base descended into chaos, gunfire and screams ringing out without end.
Sparta strolled leisurely through the center of the battlefield, enduring artillery fire.
Whenever he reached a guard, he would kindly offer him a slap.
The force of that slap was light to him, but to the guards of Big Mouth Star, it was like a mountain crashing into them.
Whenever a slap landed, a guard's head exploded on the spot.
A tank got a kick.
An armored vehicle got a punch.
A guard got a slap.
Before long, the entire command base fell silent. There were no screams, no gunshots—only a nauseating stench of blood.
Sparta entered the command room and saw the generals of Big Mouth Star.
He gave the generals the same sunny smile as Homelander.
Of course, if one ignored the blood covering his body, it really was quite sunny.
"Good afternoon, everyone."
Before you continue