"Off the trucks, off the trucks!" The shouts jolted the sleeping soldiers awake and shattered Hanxing's last line of defense. Sour liquid surged into his mouth. Without a moment's hesitation, he jumped out of the truck and threw up.
"I didn't expect you to get carsick," Firefly teased as she jumped down and patted Hanxing on the back. "What, you've never thrown up before?" No sooner had Hanxing retorted than another wave of nausea hit him. He turned his head and threw up another mouthful.
"All right, all right." Firefly patted Hanxing on the back and helped him up. "It's fine. I'm all right." Hanxing got up on his own, and his eyes turned blue for just an instant before returning to normal.
"Isn't using it like that a bit of a waste?" Naturally, he had just activated Star Eyes. Using something that could save a life like that was indeed strange.
"The amount of energy Star Eyes uses to repair damage depends on how serious it is. Fixing things after throwing up a couple of times barely uses any energy." Hanxing gave a brief explanation, then headed toward the assembly point.
Dawn
Three signal flares whistled across the night sky, and the horn sounded for the all-out assault. The two armies that had already assembled launched their grandest counterattack here!
The ruined city bore witness to the devastating bombardment, its walls blasted to pieces by artillery shells. The defending troops had either died or fled, leaving no trace of themselves. It was hard to imagine that this place had once been a planet's capital.
"They will ultimately be swallowed by the vast ocean of people's war." Yan Bai, who had appeared beside them at some unknown point, suddenly came out with that line.
"Commissar, you're as literary as ever." Hanxing glanced at Yan Bai with a smile. The attack had gone so smoothly that it seemed most of the troops wouldn't need to lift a finger.
"Don't you want to know what it feels like to capture the flag?" Yan Bai pointed at the flag flying over the presidential palace. "That's an honor countless people dream of day and night!" Hanxing simply shook his head. "We're only passing through in the end. That honor shouldn't be ours."
"Finally, it's all over."
Hanxing let out a long sigh and looked up. The fluttering flag had already been lowered, and a red flag was slowly rising in its place.
"Beep beep-beep beep beep-" The phone, which had never made a sound before, rang. Yan Bai picked it up, and an urgent voice came through. "Reporting, Commissar, we didn't find the president in the presidential palace. Instead, we found a note that said, 'I'm right among you!'"
This is bad! Yan Bai thought. Then the phone rang again. "Enemy aircraft, twelve o'clock! There's only one bomber. We suspect it's carrying a nuclear weapon!"
The moment the voice fell silent, a massive iron curtain covered the sky, followed by several walls of anti-aircraft fire that lit up the night. Several planes caught fire and crashed one after another, but they still failed to stop the lone bomber. A huge white oval object fell from the plane.
"This is bad! Retreat, now!" Lie Feng's voice came through the phone, followed by a chaos of voices. But a great new sun was already rising.
"Take cover from the blast wave!" The voices on the phone merged into one. Beside Hanxing, Firefly summoned Sam and pinned him beneath her. "Watch out!"
The blast wave swept through, followed by deadly radiation. The soldiers in the city were vaporized almost instantly, and an army and a half were all but wiped out. The radiation that followed would stay with them for the rest of their lives, until their deaths.
Hanxing, however, knew nothing of what happened next. The tremendous sound and blast wave had knocked him unconscious, leaving him on the cold ground.
At that moment, a soldier watched the rising sun, a smile in his eyes. "Underestimating your enemy is a grave mistake in war! And as for you, Hanxing, blame yourself for coming to the wrong place!"