Riding the momentum of his towering, golden-giant persona—an aura of sheer, overwhelming charisma that felt like a second sun descending upon Terra—the persuasion had been an absolute, unmitigated success.
“Mr.
University Student, are you sure we can find out about my sister’s situation through this?”
Skullshatterer hovered nervously near the console.
He watched with bated breath as the Doctor’s fingers flew across the Reunion Movement’s mainframe terminal in a blur of motion, staring blankly at the beyond understanding red progress bars surging upward across the monitors.
“Don’t worry, don’t worry, it’s fine!”
Taking full advantage of the fact that the kid was entirely technologically illiterate, the Doctor openly used Skullshatterer’s clearance to slice straight into Chernobog’s central system.
With a few rapid keystrokes, he quietly elevated his own administrative privileges, setting himself as the supreme authority over all active Reunion projects.
Now, even if the Black Snake had already secured the core key and initiated Chernobog’s engines, the Doctor could remotely drain half of the mobile city’s fuel reserves before it even left the station.
[PRTS takeover progress loading…
Current progress 46%]
[Hide progress display?]
[Yes / No]
He tapped confirm.
The cascading layers of red progress bars vanished from the screen in an instant, leaving the interface looking as though nothing had ever been breached.
‘The Black Snake really is a ruthless bastard,’the Doctor mused internally.’Possessing people for centuries just to fulfill his grand ideals is one thing.
But teaching himself modern computer science and calculus over hundreds of years without a tutor, and actually remembering to patch his firewalls every few months?
That transcends ruthless.
That is god-tier dedication.”Ah…
speaking of god-tier…
is my Ave Mujica god-tier squad ever going to show up or what…’ His thoughts drifted into strange, meme-addled territory for a brief second.
“Sir?
Sir, did you find it?” Skullshatterer asked in a low, anxious voice, successfully snapping the Doctor’s wandering mind back to reality.
“Wait, wait, I just need to send one last message…”
The Doctor casually opened the encrypted Rhodes Island tactical channel and typed two words: ‘Move out.’
“Alright, Skullshatterer.
You can hate me now.”
Under the masked youth’s incredulous gaze, the reliable big brother who had so effortlessly earned his trust let out a dry chuckle and raised both hands in a lazy gesture of surrender.
The surrounding walls suddenly began to vibrate violently.
Every automated defense turret throughout the base flared to life with a hostile crimson glow.
The heavy barrels slowly lifted, swiveling their muzzles directly toward the scattered Reunion members who hadn’t yet registered the shift in the air.
Three distinct laser sights materialized out of the gloom, painting dead center on Skullshatterer’s chest.
Outside the reinforced walls, the deafening roar of Rhodes Island assault fire shattered the silence.
Downstairs, having received the telepathic go-ahead, Rosmontis unleashed her psychokinesis.
Four massive, heavy greatswords tore through the air, instantly sweeping the entire lower floor of hostiles into the ground with bone-crushing force.
The base changed hands in a fraction of a second.
Skullshatterer gripped his grenade launcher, his knuckles white, suddenly realizing that in the blink of an eye, the entire board had been flipped.
“Doctor, Action Squad A12 has completed the infiltration mission.”
A heavily armored operator breached the reinforced window in a shower of shattered glass, tackling Skullshatterer to the floor and pinning him hard against the steel grating.
“Dr. This story is hosted at g.com.
Kal’tsit asked me to relay a message to you,” the operator reported over the comms.
“She said: ‘If you put yourself in danger again, I will hang you from the bridge.’ Message delivered.”
Under Skullshatterer’s furious, wide-eyed glare, the man who had completely deceived him without a shred of guilt merely sighed.
He curled his knuckles and tapped his temple helplessly.
“Please tell Kal’tsit that I was just acting out of tactical necessity.
She’s committing elder abuse.
Also, I have a little Repba here who wants to have a chat with her, so tell her to prepare an interrogation room.”
The Doctor straightened his coat, his tone shifting.
“And send some more operators to my coordinates.
Lungmen’s Outer Harbor is like a pressurized water pipe on the verge of bursting.
Instead of continuing to paint over the cracks, it is far more efficient to blow the entire thing apart in one go.
If you cannot solve the problem, solve the people causing it.”
Out in the main hall, the half-drunk Reunion grunts were now entirely sober, staring down the barrels of a dozen assault rifles.
A Wraith instinctively twitched, preparing to activate his stealth, but was immediately kicked back into the dirt by a terrified companion.
“Don’t move, you idiot!
The scary hooded man we were just talking about is right there!”
Listening through the headset, the young man stretched his neck, let out a long breath, and finally locked back into his cold, calculating Commander persona.
“The people in this base are not truly evil; take them into custody for now.
Prepare to welcome the real war.
Something massive is approaching…
Lungmen is about to change.”
“Mr.
Wei, I apologize, but Lungmen is about to change.”
Kal’tsit did not even blink as she pushed a thick stack of classified documents back across the mahogany desk toward Wei Yenwu.
“Everything we discussed previously can now be considered null and void.”
“A variable has emerged regarding that incident from back then.
One that I was entirely unaware of.”
“The Babel incident?” Wei Yenwu’s expression hardened instantly.
As an ancient dragon who had ruled and observed for countless years, he knew the bloody secrets surrounding the assassination that had permanently altered the trajectory of the Sarkaz race.
Compared to the sheer gravity of that historical pivot, the current localized crisis in Lungmen suddenly felt like a minor street brawl.
“If it were only ‘him’ who woke up, we could continue to haggle over the exact extent of Rhodes Island’s military assistance until we reached a political compromise that satisfied you,” Kal’tsit said, a rare trace of genuine unease flashing in her cold eyes.
“But the one who has woken up now…
is the entity from even earlier.”
She paused, letting the silence stretch.
“You no longer need to worry about Lungmen.”
Wei Yenwu understood the implication immediately.
If that were true, they would have to worry about the entirety of Terra.
The Doctor’s intention was already glaringly obvious: he was accelerating the timeline.
He was frantically pushing the impending conflict toward an explosive climax.
But the terrifying question remained: what exactly did he want to extract from this war?
Wei Yenwu tapped his smoking pipe against the desk, his eyes dark with heavy, paranoid calculation.
The Ghost of Babel had dispatched letters to several key figures right before that infamous coup.
One of those recipients had been the True Dragon of Yan.
“I will authorize Rhodes Island to join the city defenses immediately.” Wei Yenwu did not dare to gamble against that phantom.
If his political testing of Lungmen’s borders accidentally interfered with the Doctor’s overarching scheme, the blowback could be catastrophic.
The more one knew about the history of the shadow war, the more one feared the Ghost of Babel.
“Ch’en has been kept entirely in the dark regarding these matters,” Wei Yenwu added.
“I will deploy her to join your front line.”
The more ignorant a piece was upon the board, the safer they were within the Doctor’s grand design.
It was a brutal rule, summarized by the blood of countless fallen operators.
Kal’tsit nodded slowly.
“Acceptable.”
After all, no one in this room knew exactly how fast the Doctor intended to accelerate his plan.
Next month?
Next week?
Tomorrow?
Or…
The heavy office doors suddenly swung open.
A Shadow Guard rushed in, his usual stoic composure fractured, and leaned down to whisper frantically into Wei Yenwu’s ear.
The old dragon gripping the pipe froze.
The color drained from his face.
At that exact second, Kal’tsit’s encrypted terminal chimed.
She glanced down at the screen.
It was a text message.
The sender’s avatar was a cartoon image of a boiling kettle.
‘Kal’tsit, you there?
Black Snake is about to play bumper cars with Chernobog and Lungmen.”Do you want to play?
If you do, come quickly.
I have almost finished clearing out the irrelevant personnel.’
Kal’tsit slowly raised her head.
Across the desk, Wei Yenwu’s hand was visibly shaking.
What did he mean by ‘the final battle is almost over, and Talulah is trying to take everyone down with her because she is at a dead end’?
And what in the world did he mean by ‘the Doctor is currently fighting Talulah for control of the bumper car’?
Wei Yenwu stared blankly at the wall.
Was he even the Chief Executive of this city anymore?
[Rhodes’s Note:
Enjoying the operation so far, Doctor?
(This daily grind literally pays the landship’s rent!
to use the links!)