Inside the Command Room at Team Rocket Headquarters.
Through the surveillance screens, Giovanni saw everything that happened deep within the volcano with perfect clarity.
The moment Blaine betrayed them and Ye Li and Apollo fell into the pit.
For the first time, an uncontrollable, towering fury appeared on Giovanni's face.
With a bang, he slammed his fist into the hard alloy command console, leaving a dent in it.
"Blaine..."
He forced the name through gritted teeth, his voice cold enough to freeze a soul.
He had never expected that, after all his careful calculations, this old man who had seemingly left the stage would play him like this.
"Relay my orders!"
Giovanni's voice echoed throughout the Command Room, filled with unquestionable authority.
"Whatever the cost! Activate the highest-level Emergency Protocol! Rescue Ye Li immediately!"
His orders did not even mention Apollo.
At that moment, in his eyes, no one's life could compare to Ye Li's one-of-a-kind mind.
Deep within the pit.
Despair engulfed Ye Li like icy seawater.
Boulders kept falling overhead, the roar of the erupting volcano filled his ears, and the footsteps of death sounded so clear.
At that moment, for the first time, a powerful, genuine urge to withdraw arose within him.
A deep weariness with the organization called Team Rocket.
He no longer wanted to be some Strategist or devise any grand plans.
He only wanted to survive.
Then he would leave this damned place, leave Team Rocket, find a small town where no one knew him, and live out the rest of his life in peace.
He had had enough of dancing on a knife's edge every day, of living with the possibility of dying without even a place to be buried at any moment.
This utterly genuine despair and desire to withdraw, rising from