After passing through the corridor ravaged by the Whispers, the core area of Mako Reactor 1 finally appeared before them.
The enormous reactor core pulsed slowly in front of them like the heart of some steel beast, letting out a deep, low hum.
Dense mako energy turned into a pale green haze that drifted through the air, stinging their skin.
“This is it.” Barret looked at the scene before him, the flames of vengeance burning in his eyes.
“Jessie, we’re here.
Start the detonation sequence.” “Copy that, boss!
The bomb is active.
You have five minutes to install it and get out!” Jessie’s crisp, decisive voice came through the comms.
Tifa took a heavy bomb from her backpack and walked toward the reactor core’s control panel.
There was hesitation in her movements, and her heart was full of conflict.
She hated Shinra, but this kind of extreme destruction made her uneasy.
Would this really help the planet?
Or would it cause an even worse disaster?
Cain noticed her hesitation.
He walked to her side without saying anything, simply watching her in silence.
“Cain…” Tifa raised her head, her eyes complicated.
“Is what we’re doing… right?” Cain looked at her, then turned his gaze toward the pulsing core.
He could feel it, this “heart” was greedily draining something away, something invisible but truly present, a kind of life force.
He thought of Zack’s words, and of those stories about the planet and the Lifestream.
“I don’t know what’s right,” Cain said slowly, his voice hoarse and sincere.
“But I know that letting something bleed nonstop until it dies is definitely wrong.” His words were simple and direct, yet they were like a key that unlocked the chains around Tifa’s heart.
Yes.
No matter what consequences followed, at the very least, they were trying to stop something wrong from continuing.
Tifa took a deep breath and hesitated no longer.
She skillfully installed the bomb at a critical node of the reactor core.
“It’s set!
Let’s go!” she shouted to the others.
Just as they were about to retreat, a piercing alarm suddenly blared throughout the entire mako reactor.
Red warning lights flashed wildly, and several heavy blast doors dropped from above, sealing off the path they had used to come in.
“Damn it!
We’ve been made!” Barret roared.
A massive figure slowly descended from the platform above the reactor core.
It was a giant scorpion-shaped combat robot, its tail-mounted laser cannon flashing with a dangerous red light, while its enormous mechanical claws gleamed coldly.
“Intruders detected.
Model: Scorpion Sentinel.
Activating extermination program.” The cold mechanical voice echoed through the space.
“It’s Shinra’s latest weapon!” Barret’s expression changed sharply.
“Everyone, get ready to fight!” The Gatling gun on his right arm opened fire first.
The bullets struck the Scorpion Sentinel’s thick armor, only throwing up a series of weak sparks.
“It’s no use!
Its armor is too thick!” Tifa shouted anxiously while dodging a sweep of machine-gun fire.
The Scorpion Sentinel’s firepower was terrifyingly intense.
Machine guns, missiles, lasers, its dense net of attacks forced the three of them to hide behind cover in a sorry state, leaving them with no way to get close.
“Damn it!
At this rate, we’re all going to get blown up in here!” Barret stared at the timer, watching the seconds vanish rapidly, his heart burning with urgency.
“Its weak point… is the core.” Cain’s voice suddenly rang out.
He had been silently observing the Scorpion Sentinel’s attack patterns the whole time.
He had noticed that whenever the robot launched certain attacks, the reactor core on its back would briefly become exposed, giving off a blue glow.
“The core?
That thing’s on its back!
How are we supposed to reach it?” Barret shouted.
“I’ll do it.” After Cain said that, he stopped hiding.
He rushed out from behind cover, the enormous Buster Sword dragging across the ground and throwing up a dazzling trail of sparks.
“Cain!
It’s dangerous!” Tifa cried out in alarm.
The Scorpion Sentinel immediately locked onto him as its primary target, and the laser cannon on its tail began to charge.
Just as the laser was about to fire, Cain’s right arm demonized again.
Blue-green light flared brightly as the demonic arm suddenly stretched out like a venomous snake seeking prey, accurately grabbing a thick nearby pipe.
He pulled hard, and his whole body flew up like he was swinging from a rope.
From an impossible angle, he dodged the deadly laser and used the momentum to swing toward the Scorpion Sentinel’s side.
“What?!” Barret and Tifa were both stunned.
Cain’s movements did not pause in the slightest.
He landed on one of the Scorpion Sentinel’s huge mechanical legs, then climbed rapidly up the robot’s body like an agile rock climber.
“Intruder attached!
Activating electromagnetic barrier!” The surface of the Scorpion Sentinel’s body was instantly covered in high-voltage current.
But Cain merely drove the claws of his demonic arm deep into the gaps in the armor, anchoring himself firmly in place and ignoring the current that would have reduced an ordinary person to charcoal.
At last, he climbed onto the robot’s back.
The core in front of him gave off an eerie blue light, as if mocking him for overestimating himself.
“This is it!” Cain roared and poured all the strength in his body into the Buster Sword in his left hand, then brought it down brutally toward the fragile core.
“Clang!” A thunderous impact rang out as the Buster Sword collided violently with the core’s protective barrier.
Spiderweb-like cracks appeared across the shield, but it did not shatter completely.
“Damn it!
Just a little more!” The Scorpion Sentinel sensed the fatal threat and began twisting its body wildly, trying to throw the “flea” on its back off.
“Cain!
Hold on!” At that moment, Tifa’s voice came from below.
While the Scorpion Sentinel’s attention was drawn to Cain, she and Barret circled around to the other side and unleashed everything they had on the robot’s leg joints.
“Take this!” Barret threw a high-explosive grenade straight into the gap in one of the joints.
“Boom!” With a loud blast, one of the Scorpion Sentinel’s legs was temporarily disabled.
Its massive body suddenly tilted, giving Cain a second chance.
“Thanks!” Cain steadied himself and raised the Buster Sword again.
This time, he pressed his demonic right arm against the blade as well.
Blue-green energy surged madly into the sword, covering the massive edge in an ominous glow.
“Break… for me!” He used every bit of strength he had and struck again.
“Crack!” This time, the protective barrier shattered with a sound.
The Buster Sword drove straight in, stabbing deep into the Scorpion Sentinel’s core.
“Core… damaged… system… collapse…” The Scorpion Sentinel let out its final mechanical wail.
Its huge body crashed down and completely turned into a pile of scrap metal.
“We did it!” Tifa and Barret shouted excitedly.
But the bomb’s timer had less than a minute left.
“Run!” Cain jumped down from the robot’s wreckage, grabbed Tifa’s hand, and the three of them sprinted toward a backup passage the Scorpion Sentinel had just smashed open, not daring to look back.
Behind them, the beeping of the countdown grew faster and faster.
“Five, four, three, two, one…” The instant they had just rushed out through the mako reactor’s main doors, a scorching, destructive blast wave surged toward them from behind.
“Rumble!” An earth-shattering explosion echoed through all of Sector 7.
The upper structure of Mako Reactor 1 broke apart in the flames, and a massive fireball shot into the sky, lighting up Midgar’s night as brightly as day.
Cain held Tifa tightly, using his own back to withstand the force of the explosion head-on.
He felt as if all his organs were churning, yet there was a strange calm in his heart.
He had done it.
He had protected his companions and completed the mission.
The three of them climbed up from the ground in a miserable state, looking at the burning mako reactor in the distance with complicated feelings.
“We… did it,” Barret murmured, his voice filled with excitement and a trace of bewilderment.
“Let’s go.
Before Shinra’s troops arrive, we have to get out of here as fast as possible,” Tifa said.
Supporting one another, the three of them disappeared into the chaotic streets and crowds.
And Cain, in the instant he turned around, seemed to hear the Whispers murmuring in his mind once more.
[Error… everything has already deviated…] He clenched his fist, and his gaze became even more determined.
Whether it was Shinra or this so-called “fate,” if it dared stand in his way, he would crush it completely without hesitation.