Five minutes to evacuate the hostages was an extremely tight window.
That timing had been calculated. It was the best possible rescue window.
There was a highway near this base, which meant the country's military forces could assemble here very quickly. So after the transport plane came to a stop, they had only five minutes, and with less than twenty seconds left, they finally managed to load everyone from the airliner aboard.
Under normal circumstances, a transport plane's standard configuration could not carry that many people. But this was an emergency evacuation. No one had the luxury of worrying about comfort.
"Sergeant Mao, retreat immediately!"
Melissa Mao, piloting a third-generation M9 Arm Slave, received the executive officer's order to withdraw without a moment's hesitation.
"Tessa and the others are just a little short. Give them one more minute!"
They could have made it in time, but during the firefight, the route Tessa and the other girl were taking had been cut off by a wall of fire, forcing them to go around.
"Not even one second. Enemy reinforcements have already arrived."
The instant those words fell, shrieking sounds tore through the air, followed by countless artillery shells crashing down onto three corners of the base.
This was clearly not warning fire. The moment the enemy realized their guns had come within range of the base, they had opened fire without hesitation.
That meant in less than ten seconds, the bombardment zone would expand further and spread here.
And the enemy's air power would definitely be arriving soon as well.
At that point, escape would become impossible.
Then, at that very moment...
Boom!
A world-shaking explosion went off, and in an instant, the fighting there came to a halt.
Whether it was Mithril, the forces stationed at the base, or even the Amalgam mercenaries, everyone stared in a daze as an enormous fireball rose into the sky, almost taking on the shape of a mushroom cloud.
"W-What happened?"
"A nuclear strike?"
A horrifying explosion had erupted on a mountain nearby. The sight was almost like a volcanic eruption, with countless shattered rocks blasting out in every direction.
But there was no volcano there. And when confronted with an explosion that terrifying, the first thing anyone thought of was naturally the most savage weapon of all.
"No, it was pure explosives!"
Here, Tessa explained to Kaname Chidori, who had thought it was a nuclear strike.
Even so, both girls had gone deathly pale as they stared at the horrifying blast. Nearly the entire mountaintop had been destroyed.
Worse still, that was the very hill Mr. Kain had charged onto to attack the enemy.
With an explosion like that, the enemy had clearly intended mutual destruction.
Thinking of something, Tessa immediately checked through Hyperdimension Channel.
He was still online.
Boom!!!
The sudden thunderous noise made Tessa jump, and Kaname cried out beside her.
"Are you okay?"
Tessa hurriedly asked, because Kaname had instantly stepped in front of her, blocking the debris flying their way.
"I-I'm fine."
She said that, but her face still twitched a little. One hand clutched the other arm, where she had been hit by a piece of flying rock or something else, and it hurt badly.
Still, it probably was not broken. It was just flesh wound pain.
Looking closely at what had fallen nearby, it was a thick metal slab. No, it was a metal shield, though now it was somewhat warped.
The shield looked almost two meters tall. Was it something used by an Arm Slave?
"That shield..."
Tessa murmured in shock, because she saw a familiar engraving on the shield, one that had to weigh over a ton. It was carved with three double-headed eagles.
At that moment, movement came from a collapsed house nearby. Something was pushing through the rubble, and she turned toward it with both tension and hope in her eyes.
Part of what had come crashing down had smashed into that building.
As a slab of stone was shoved aside and a metal arm emerged, Tessa let out a slight sigh of relief.
"A-Are you okay, Mr. Kain?"
"Nothing too serious."
It definitely did not sound like nothing too serious. His voice was different from his usual strong, full tone. It sounded weak.
"Sergeant Mao, listen to the executive officer and retreat immediately. Mr. Kain has already linked up with us here, and he'll get us out!"
Tessa immediately gave that order through the communicator in her hand.
She had heard the conversation on the other end too.
"Tessa, are you sure Sergeant Kain is right there beside you?"
"I'm right next to Tessa!"
Before Tessa could answer, Kain, who had been blasted away by the explosion, answered for her.
He had figured that giant shield would come in handy, and it really had. He had pulled it out from his storage space to block the force of the explosives buried underground.
He had also adjusted the angle so that the shockwave would throw him back toward the base, dropping him right near the two girls.
Besides that, in order to finish off the enemy, he had also burned through one power sword.
"Understood! Tessa's in your hands."
Across a massive belt of fire, they could see the transport plane already accelerating down the runway, while the Arm Slaves were being lifted away by helicopters and evacuated.
At that moment, even more shrieking sounds rose through the air.
Another artillery barrage.
Kain immediately tucked one girl under each arm and started running.
Boom!
Boom boom boom...!
The unending explosions made Kaname, who had been screaming at first, glare furiously at the shells raining down and destroying the base.
"Have they gone insane? This is indiscriminate bombardment!"
"That big explosion probably pushed them over the edge."
That was the only explanation Tessa could come up with.
They might have concluded that the base had already fallen, and so simply decided to carpet-bomb everything.
There was another possibility too.
They were silencing witnesses.
After all, if word got out that they had ties to terrorists, it would be disastrous.
Very quickly, Mr. Kain carried Tessa and Kaname into a stretch of forest. Beyond it, not too far away, was the coastline.
Suddenly, a powerful searchlight stabbed down through the forest canopy, trying to illuminate the interior. The enemy's air units had arrived.
As for the light sweeping down from above, Mr. Kain did not slow down at all. He kept sprinting.
It was not that he was unafraid of being spotted. He was simply moving with extraordinary agility from one patch of shadow to another, never stopping where the light actually hit.
On top of that, the weather had grown even darker, and heavy rain was beginning to fall. Since their clothes were not especially easy to spot, it felt like even if the beam swept over them directly, the enemy still might not be able to see them clearly.
About fifteen minutes later, they reached their destination.
Tessa then used the three-step satellite communicator to report their exact position to the TDD-1.
The TDD-1 would launch the ARX-7 Arbalest, the prototype machine equipped with the Lambda Driver system, the same type of system as the one used by the machine piloted by Gauron.
It had originally been planned for launch already. However, since Gauron had never shown himself, they had not dared deploy it casually, fearing the enemy might seize or destroy it.
Then, when Gauron did appear, they still could not launch it, because Mr. Kain had gone off alone to intercept him. Combined with the kind of threat Gauron posed, launching it then might have been interpreted as firing a ballistic missile at him, which could have made him shoot down the passenger jet on the spot. They had no choice but to cancel the launch.
Now, it had finally been launched, specifically to pick up the three of them.
"It's here. The reinforcement is here!"
They could already see it. After the rocket carrying the Arbalest reached a certain altitude over a point not far from the three of them, something was dropped. Then, at about a hundred meters above the ground, a parachute opened, and a white Arm Slave descended, its speed slowed as it drifted downward.
In the end, it landed just a few meters in front of them.
...
In the public-sea exercise zone between North America and South H.
"Have you lost your mind?"
"I haven't. If we don't destroy it here, our country's advantage will soon vanish completely. If the enemy gets hold of that technology, we'll be the first target to be wiped out. We'll become lambs waiting to be butchered!"
The joint fleet commander coldly gave that reply as he inserted a special key into an extremely dangerous keyhole.
This would launch humanity's most vicious and most evil weapon.
The reason he had chosen such an extreme course was because he had received two terrifying pieces of information.
The first was footage of combat machines being destroyed.
The second was footage of a silver metal demon slaughtering Arm Slaves. In the end, that demonic machine had been lured onto a mountaintop and apparently blown up together with the enemy.
But if even fragments of it remained and that country managed to recover and analyze them, then develop the technology from them, it would be a nightmare.
Because of that, it had to be destroyed even more thoroughly.
"Y-You're launching two of them?"
One of the aides was panicking. Had things really reached the point of using weapons like these just to preserve their technological edge?
Even if they were only tactical-class weapons, this was still opening Pandora's box.
What if this launch triggered the destruction of the entire world? What technological advantage would matter then? Nothing would be left.
"That's right. Mithril's damned submarine is also nearby. To avoid any accidents, the first one will take it out."
As for the person who had passed along the intelligence and revealed the coordinates of Mithril's ghost submarine, they could go down with it.
Anyone who could be bought for a mere few million dollars could just as easily become a threat to his country later.
(End of Chapter)
[Get +30 Extra Chapters On — P@tr3on "Zaelum"]
[Every 300 Power Stones = 1 Bonus Chapter Drop]
[Thanks for Reading!]