Chapter 954: Redemption! (3/4)

Chapter 954: Redemption! (3/4)

“Heh, you look down on weak opponents, but when you meet someone stronger, you can’t handle losing?”

Wasn’t it you who begged to spar with the experts?

But Maclen didn’t mock him.

To be honest, from a commander’s perspective, he himself was only sixty percent sure of his judgment.

The Southern Legion wasn’t without a chance to win, and the Alliance wasn’t guaranteed victory.

If Gurion had been replaced by Griffin, who had tasted the Alliance’s methods, the Southern Legion’s win rate would have been at least sixty percent.

But how could a dead man crawl out of his coffin?

The deaths of General Kras and General Griffin had finally awakened him—the Legion was doomed never to learn from failure, never to turn one defeat into the next victory.

They would either charge triumphantly to the final victory, or lose everything in a cascade of defeats.

From that perspective, the Legion’s collapse was indeed fated.

They could win many times, but lose once and never get back up…

Watching Maclen’s faint, knowing smile, Olet shook his head.

“I didn’t mean that… I just sometimes wonder if we could have beaten the Alliance by uniting.”

General Maclen said flatly.

“If the sun turned into two, could it save the wasteland? Why bother imagining impossible possibilities?”

Olet the Ten-Thousand Commander froze, then smiled bitterly.

“True enough…”

After a long pause, he couldn’t help asking again.

“By the way, about my matter…”

Maclen knew what he was getting at and said succinctly.

“Don’t worry. Lord Saren is a man of his word. He said he’d spare your life, and he will. That’s one reason he’s the winner.”

Catching the sarcasm in his tone, Olet smiled wryly.

“I see… So we really lost without complaint.”

He fell silent for a moment, then suddenly worried about his old superior and couldn’t help asking.

“…What about Gurion?”

“You’re standing here, and you still ask such a stupid question?” Maclen puffed his cigar, giving him a meaningful grin. “You don’t think everyone can make it ashore, do you?”

“I suppose…” Olet’s Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed.

Maclen patted the officer on the shoulder.

“We gave him a choice. He can sit in his office and think it over slowly, not like someone stuck in a bunker having a stroke… Be grateful.”

…

In the Great Rift, the door to a certain meeting room was tightly shut. Guards from Triumph City and Dawn City stood on either side.

The power armor they wore differed in model and paint, but their solemn authority was nearly identical.

The identities of the two bigwigs sitting inside the meeting room needed no elaboration.

Almost everyone passing by the door could smell the tension seeping through the cracks.

In a nearby corridor, two leaders of survivor settlements from Cloud Province kept casting glances toward the door.

Back in Cloud Province, they were local powers, but here among the gathered elites, they were like ants.

The world was too vast.

Not only was there Ideal City, a waking dragon, but also the Alliance, its dragon rider.

It might sound disrespectful, but that was how exaggerated things were.

Three years ago, the wastelanders of Cloud Province had relied solely on Ideal City’s bowl.

Now, thanks to the Alliance, their business map had expanded across the entire wasteland.

The light of the prairie fire had gradually eclipsed the lighthouse, and the descendants of the Ark colonization ship and Vault 6 had lived up to that great ideal.

Of course, such grand narratives were too distant for the two men standing here.

They just wanted to catch any wind from that door, to analyze which stock—Ideal City Stock Exchange or Dawn City Stock Exchange—would rise.

A shallow thought, wasn’t it?

But utterly practical.

The living standards of Ideal City’s residents were tied to the stock prices of major corporate groups, and most of Cloud Province’s survivors had their fortunes staked on those same stocks.

Unfortunately, the Great Rift was meticulous about protecting meeting privacy; no “known” technical means could penetrate that door to glean information inside.

Coupled with the Shield’s security guarantee, it was the safest place in the entire wasteland.

Safer even than a vault.

The taller man grew impatient, glancing at the bespectacled man beside him.

This man was both his business partner and his strategic ally in regional affairs.

“What do you think they’re talking about?”

The bespectacled man stared intently at the door, unwilling to be distracted.

“No idea, but we’ll know soon.”

The taller man blinked.

“Soon?”

Would they hold a press conference after the talk?

The bespectacled man shot him a look of disdain and chuckled.

“Expressions, gestures, gait, demeanor, even the order they leave… these are all information. People are still people; they can’t be as flawless as androids.”

He had already activated the behavioral analysis system on his AR glasses.

By the way, he had bought both the hardware and software from Ideal City.

The taller man gave an admiring thumbs-up, sighing in self-deprecation.

“You’re way too professional!”

The tightly shut meeting room door held everyone’s heartbeat in suspense—far more gripping than the stale gossip of Dam City.

Whether the two fists from east and west would clash or clasp together would decide the fate of the entire Central Continent.

Just then, the tightly shut door suddenly burst open with a bang.

Seeing the two bigwigs walk out from behind the door, chatting and laughing, almost everyone watching breathed a collective sigh of relief.

Some sighed as well.

But none of that mattered anymore.

The Warlan consul and the Alliance administrator were chatting amiably, and Triumph City and Dawn City had reached an agreement to end the Wasteland Era!

This was an incredibly auspicious sign.

The bespectacled man clenched his fists in excitement, already envisioning the headlines that might appear in tomorrow's newspapers!

Just then, however, he couldn't help but pause as he looked at the two power armors—one blue, one gold.

According to the gait analysis software, the relationship between the two had unexpectedly been tagged as "father and son."

"What the hell..."

He angrily took off his glasses, jabbed at the restart button, but when he tried to turn it on again, it wouldn't boot—as if hit by an electromagnetic pulse.

But regardless, the outcome was good.

This planet, barely clinging to life, could no longer sustain a second great war...

On the other side, right behind Mammoth Nation's charge leader Shava, Mayor Odo of Free State had also concluded his meeting with the Rift Chief and walked out of the room with a complex expression.

His face was unreadable—whether frustration, annoyance, or a hint of relief.

The Chief said he had been watching him all along, even before the Firestone Group was born, observing their joys and worries, or rather, knowing them inside out.

That sounded a bit terrifying.

But on second thought, since the Firestone Group was monitoring them anyway, their privacy had long been a sieve full of holes. Odo suddenly felt it wasn't so scary.

At least the Rift had never harmed them.

Not in the past, and not now.

What's more, the old man had even, for the first time, refrained from counting his sheep and had laid his cards on the table.

"...You all have a bright future—whether you're residents of the southern River Valley Province or the northern River Valley Province."

"The Warlans and the Boros are two sides of the same coin. They are both each other's mortal enemies and each other's redemption. Now that coin is about to land. Once the dust settles, everything will end, whether the final outcome satisfies everyone or not."

"And you are far luckier than them, because the young man holding the coin didn't toss you into the sky. Instead, he gave you enough time to slowly wake from a nightmare that has lasted two hundred years, and gradually realize that the essence of that nightmare is not an old geezer like me, nor money, nor even the power behind money—but yourselves—your own hearts."

"So don't come asking me what to do. Ask yourselves: Did the Sigma you fear fall from the sky? That child inherited nothing from anyone, not even from the slums you well-dressed folks look down on most. Do you think that without him, everyone could live a good life? That everything would be fine? If you truly believe that, no one can save you."

"These words are not a riddle."

"But be grateful—you are unlikely to face a worse fate than Stonewall City. However, how good it can be still depends on your own efforts."

Back in his room, Odo tossed and turned all night, thinking of the previous mayor's fate, and of Condra, who sat in the interrogation room vowing to plant the seed of fear in his heart. Finally, he drifted off to sleep, only to be jolted awake by a nightmare.

Watching the rising sun outside the window, a glimmer of understanding dawned in his heart, and he made up his mind completely.

"...The nightmare has always lived in the heart of every Brugellan. The only way to wake from the nightmare is to lock it in a cage, and no one should try to claim it for themselves."

That being said, as the mayor of Brugge, there was only one thing left for him to do...

Just like Stonewall City.

He would stand with all the people of Brugge who were fed up with the foul atmosphere!