Chapter 273 Pain

Han Xiao said with a playful tone, "Compared to the pollution you have caused and are about to cause, I think cutting down your tree is more environmentally friendly."

In his past life, no player ever uncovered the leader's origins. In those chaotic years, it was indeed difficult to find the true identity of a missing ordinary person. After listening to the leader's story, Han Xiao had a clearer understanding of him.

The leader was a staunch patriot, one of the few Gorang survivors who had escaped the Ryland invasion. He was patient and resilient, and in order to obtain the power of revenge, he actively sought breakthroughs on the edge of life and death. He grew from an ordinary person to one of the planet's top Supers, a powerful figure akin to a warlord, though with extremist tendencies.

Now that he was at the end of his rope, he chose to break rather than bend, showing how deeply hatred was ingrained in his bones—resolute and fierce.

"The experience of a planetary protagonist is indeed very legendary. Every protagonist-type character has events that can be explored in depth," Han Xiao mused, his mood complex.

When he was still very weak, the leader was like a mountain standing in front of him. Han Xiao had to carefully maneuver and grow stronger, eventually gaining the power to confront him head-on and crush Germination.

Germination was the main villain of Planet Aquamarine in Version 1.0. Han Xiao had participated in this main questline as a player in his past life, but now, with his changed identity, the role he played could be described as turning the world upside down, a completely different experience. Although Han Xiao appeared calm (mainly to prevent getting carried away), it didn't mean he didn't enjoy the fruits of victory; he still felt a sense of accomplishment in his heart.

The leader shook his head and said, "I never expected that an escaped test subject would become my greatest enemy… Actually, after you stole the confidential information and broke through my ambush, I knew that Germination was doomed to fail. I don't have the habit of waiting for death, but I was powerless to turn the tide; it was just a desperate struggle."

Because he had a premonition, the leader wasn't surprised by how the battle situation was deteriorating. Watching the organization he had founded with his own hands slide into the abyss step by step, he felt a mixture of emotions in his calmness.

"For me, defeat means death. The Six Nations want to see me surrender, want to receive all the confidential knowledge that Germination has accumulated over the years… I will make sure they get nothing."

Han Xiao raised an eyebrow. "Speaking of which, I heard you've captured a lot of hostages. If you detonate the bombs, they will die too, and the nuclear explosion will affect the climate, worsen the natural environment of Planet Aquamarine, and be detrimental to the future of all mankind. Are you sure you want to do this?"

The leader fell silent, and only heavy breathing could be heard in the speaker. Han Xiao wasn't in a hurry and stared calmly at the screen.

After a while, the leader spoke in a deep voice.

"Are you trying to persuade me to surrender?"

Han Xiao spread his hands. "I have no intention of doing so, because you don't seem like someone who would listen to persuasion. But the person across from me wants me to do this…"

At this moment, Han the Great Technician was in the conference room of the First Shelter, holding a tablet and sitting on the sofa. Bennett was sitting across from him, listening the whole time, and constantly gesturing for Han Xiao to persuade the leader. Bennett didn't want to see a lose-lose result.

Han Xiao thought Bennett was pushing it. Asking him, his deadly enemy, to persuade the leader? Wasn't that just adding fuel to the fire? If the leader had originally intended to surrender, he might immediately change his mind upon seeing him. Fortunately, the leader was steadfast from beginning to end, otherwise he would have been a little nervous… Wait, this logic feels weird.

Bennett kept gesticulating frantically, so Han Xiao had no choice but to try, to prevent Bennett from nagging him like an old mother afterward.

"I'd rather drag everyone down with me…" the leader said grimly. "I want to make this world feel pain!"

Han Xiao opened his mouth, a mouthful of complaints stuck in his throat.

Damn, is that you, Pain?!

The leader sneered, "I hate this world, why should I care about it? Even if the Six Nations win, don't expect to get away without paying a price! The Six Nations are also executioners at heart, destroying countless countries to finally get to this point, singing praises to themselves on the ruins. The winner is king, the loser is a bandit, those blood debts will be buried by history, becoming unknown and unpunished. No one will seek justice for the old era. These surviving regimes have been carefree for too long; it's time for them to repay some interest!"

The leader didn't care what would happen to the world, didn't care about the deluge after his death, preferring to betray the world rather than let the world betray him. Even ordinary people would think this way, let alone a cunning leader like him.

Han Xiao remained noncommittal. The consequences of nuclear peace would have little impact on him, because he would leave Planet Aquamarine sooner or later, and the next version would be the Disaster of Change, a greater disaster that would eventually descend. Compared to that, this little climate disaster was nothing.

In his previous life, Germination had survived with lingering threats of a comeback, but now it was being completely wiped out in one go, though it brought adverse consequences. He didn't know which outcome was better, but the latter would obviously allow his Grade A main quest, [Seeds Sleep in the Dust], to be completed in one step.

As for the other uninformed people of Planet Aquamarine, the latter outcome was the most terrifying. The climate environment was closely related to their lives, and no one wanted the environment to deteriorate. Bennett, sitting across from him, looked anxious, wishing he could immediately fly to Germination's headquarters and beat the leader to death before he triggered the button.

Han Xiao looked at the clock and said slowly, "There's still quite a while before the Six Nations' deadline, right? Why don't you stay a little longer?"

"I prefer to decide my own death date," the leader said firmly, reaching out and pinching the nuclear launch key, starting to slowly twist it.

A suffocating feeling of oppression emanated from the screen. The leader's actions seemed to be infinitely stretched, and Bennett gripped the sofa armrest tightly, tearing the leather.

With each degree of rotation, one second of the countdown to countless lives passed.

The second hand gradually pointed to the final result.

Han Xiao quietly looked at the leader's face and suddenly asked, "I never knew your name."

"My name?"

The leader pulled up the corners of his mouth, revealing a hideous smile, and said faintly, "It's not important."

"... I guess so. Well… goodbye then." Han Xiao sighed and waved his hand.

The key rotated to one hundred and eighty degrees.

A faint vibration came from the screen, the sound of missiles taking off.

The leader withdrew his hand and sat motionless in the chair like a statue. At this moment, his tone had no hatred, no regrets or heroism of imminent death, no intense emotions. It was as calm as old neighbors saying goodbye at dusk and going home for dinner, nodding to Han Xiao.

"Goodbye."

...

"Alert, alert, high-speed moving objects have taken off from Germination headquarters!"

All the waiting officers in the Six Nations' war room stood up in shock and anger. This was the worst possible outcome they had anticipated. Although everyone present was mentally prepared, they found it difficult to accept when this moment arrived.

The nuclear explosion would kill the hostages, cause pollution, and Germination's headquarters would be razed to the ground. Countless confidential technologies would be lost forever, a lose-lose situation.

"Should we launch anti-missiles?" the adjutant asked, his voice trembling.

All the officers had no choice, without hesitation, their opinions were unified, "Execute immediately!"

At Germination headquarters, the ground and buildings were shaking slightly. The hidden Germination soldiers looked up at the sky through the windows, their eyes reflecting one missile after another taking off with trailing flames.

A deadly atmosphere spread through the crowd. Everyone understood the leader's decision and knew what would happen next.

Crying, despair, madness, convulsions, trembling, wailing, roaring, numbness…

The myriad forms of living beings before destruction.

In the distant sky, dense black objects rapidly approached, some colliding with the ascending missiles halfway, and others landing on the headquarters base cluster.

Buzz——

The first sound was a high-frequency explosion that human ears couldn't identify. Most people in the distant Six Nations' positions suddenly covered their ears, and blood trickled down from their ear canals.

A pillar of fire dozens of kilometers in diameter soared into the sky, the base cluster instantly disintegrated in the firelight. Black smoke spewed out from the dazzling firelight, slowly condensing and rising, gradually turning into a thick black mushroom, incredibly spectacular.

In the distant Six Nations' positions, the sight of the people watching could no longer accommodate anything else, only a white expanse. The strong light temporarily blinded most people, and even the Supers couldn't help but close their eyes. No one could maintain their composure in this world-destroying momentum. Everyone felt small, as if they had become grains of sand about to be swept away by the wind, unable to control their own destiny, their bodies trembling uncontrollably.

Even in more distant places, they could see at the end of the horizon, a spear-like fire pierced through the thick cloud mountains that had been accumulating over Germination's headquarters for many years, the clouds turning into hollow rings, the sea of clouds dispersing.

Immediately afterward, the firelight expanded a second time, and a yellow circular shock wave mixed with countless dust and soil erupted. Wherever it passed, the ground cracked, and countless densely packed buildings and metal fragments were scattered in the sky. Countless twisted steel pieces, some as small as a few meters and as large as a dozen meters, seemed lighter than baseballs, like feathers, easily thrown more than ten miles by the explosion, falling all over the wilderness like rain.

The shock wave finally swept across the positions, and an overwhelming force surged, like the breath of the wind god exerting all his strength. Tents flew up in a swirling motion like dandelion seeds, and heavy vehicles rolled and tumbled like balls. Not to mention people, broken bones were minor injuries. The onlookers, the players, looked terrified and excited, rushing to record this scene, afraid of missing any footage.

Accompanying the spread of the shock wave was a second explosion, the frequency of which could be captured by the human ear, almost shattering eardrums.

Rumbling——

The sound was like the sky falling and the earth cracking!

Deafening!

The positions behind gradually stabilized and dispatched troops to quickly retreat and move away.

Only the rising fire remained in the wilderness, the scene like a divine punishment descending, the tumbling mushroom cloud like the grin of a demon, constantly changing into distorted shapes.

The leader, along with his unfinished ideals and the organization he created with his own hands, turned into a brilliant firework that illuminated the world.

Germination has typed gg.

The nuclear explosion that razed the headquarters to the ground became the final note of the Planet Aquamarine war.

...

The highest levels of the Six Nations held an emergency meeting. The great enemy was gone, but the subsequent impact was not optimistic.

"According to the scale of the explosion, the Meteorological Bureau constructed a calculation model. The first batch of radioactive dust will enter the atmospheric cycle within the next three to six hours. In the next month, the Andea Continent will enter a nuclear winter state, lasting at least half a year, unsuitable for any living things to survive. A large number of plants and animals on land will die, completely turning into a dead zone. The radiation range will affect the coastal areas of Andea, which may cause the collapse of the marine food chain, and some marine organisms may undergo unknown mutations.

High concentrations of radiation and pollutants entering the ocean cycle will spread to the world through rainfall. This process will take about 300 to 500 days to complete, and then the global climate will begin to deteriorate. Because the range is wide, the degree of deterioration is not as severe as in Andea, but it will still cause serious damage to the atmosphere, affecting the whole body with one move, producing all-round negative effects. The duration of this impact can last for more than ten years. During this period, it is estimated that the level of global civilization will be difficult to improve, and may even regress…"

The faces of the Six Nations' high-level officials were serious. This was not just a matter for one country, but a major event for the whole world, for the entire race.

An anti-war high-level official slammed the table and roared, "Look, look! What have you done! Our troops have suffered heavy losses, we won't get any benefits after the victory, and we've caused such a result. We shouldn't have launched the expedition, we shouldn't have started the war! It would have been better to let Germination huddle in Andea. We should have stopped after removing their branch bases!"

When the decision to launch the expedition was made, some politicians held an anti-war stance, because once the war started, resources and power would be shifted toward the military, and some high-level officials were naturally unhappy. However, the minority obeyed the majority, their voices were ignored, and now they had a legitimate reason to jump out and grandiosely offer hindsight.

"What's done is done, don't say those useless words. A long pain is worse than a short one."

The bitter fruit of war had to be borne by the whole world, affecting many innocent people. To get rid of this confidant, was it really worth paying such a big price?

The final answer was yes.

At least in the eyes of the high-level officials, an antagonistic behemoth was more threatening than a so-called global climate disaster. Only by eliminating the hidden danger beside them could they feel at ease and have the conditions for stable development. The high-level officials of various countries believed that everyone had to face the threat of climate disasters, and it would still cost national strength to deal with them, remaining on the same starting line, which was fair to everyone.

Fortunately, the result wasn't beyond remedy. If it was polluted, then they could just treat it. That's life.

"Should we block the news from the public?"

"There are too many people in the know, there's no need for that. Let our officials release it."

"The public will definitely launch protests, accusing us of causing this result."

"It doesn't matter, the war is over anyway. Now we're facing the subsequent disasters. Let everyone know that we're all in the same situation, we should put aside the past, not dwell on who's right and who's wrong, and overcome the difficulties together."

"Then should we…"

The high-level officials of various countries discussed one proposal after another.

...

Bennett's face was livid. He paced back and forth in the room, constantly muttering self-talk like "excessive" and "madman." Han Xiao sat on the sofa with his legs crossed, turning his head to stare at the blue sky outside the window, shaking his head secretly.

The leader pressed the note of the end, turning into ashes together with the headquarters.

Germination could be said to be the first big Boss he faced, and it was destroyed in his hands. A major main questline of Planet Aquamarine was destroyed by him. Han Xiao was beginning to like this feeling a little.

No matter how legendary the leader's deeds were, he was his enemy. Han Xiao rarely felt soft-hearted toward enemies. Winning was winning; the winner didn't need to hypocritically regret it.

Breathing out the frustration in his chest, Han Xiao cheered up and opened the panel, browsing the information that began to appear on the screen.

[You have gained the Planet Legendary Title - 'Germination Burier'!]

[Grade A Main Quest [Seeds Sleep in the Dust], completed!]

[Evaluation: Incredible]

[You have received an [Incredible] level quest reward]

[Starting to calculate rewards…]

[There are many rewards, being tallied. Please wait patiently…]