Book 4 Chapter 27.1 - Motherhood
Su walked over to Spike's side, and then gave it a kick to confirm his death. Su heard Spike's final words clearly, but this only gave him a feeling of absurdness. Could it be that it was this egotistical and ignorant fella who defeated Li Gaolei and Li?
Many people had wild ambitions, and many times, excessive ambitions would only lead one to destruction.
The battle from just now instantly replayed in Su's mind. The numbers, abilities, and weapons used by the soldiers who died under his hands were totaled up, and then compared with the amount before his departure. Su immediately discovered that there was an extra portion in both soldiers and weapons. They didn't belong to Steel Gate.
Su walked into the messy command division, casually destroying a few activated weapons along the way. Cirvanas followed him into the command division. Without Su's orders, the nucleus didn't allow him to stray too far from Su. Madeline stayed outside the command division, not following him inside.
The purpose of the nucleus' existence, was to fight for the Heart of Darkness.
Soon after, Su found all five people who were hiding in the command division, and under their guidance, he found the confidential room. These were all civilians with no combat abilities, in charge of advising work. Spike was someone who was quite fond of the old-fashioned military ways, so many of the organization's systems used the olden era federation military as a reference. As such, the command division had an advising division, with seven or eight staff officers inside. When the scales of the battles were now only around a thousand individuals, it truly made one wonder what he was doing with so many staff officers.
However, these staff officers still knew quite a bit of intelligence, moreover cooperatively producing the things Su wanted from the confidential room: the combat journal and a thick list of items.
Spike had external help. The power he could amass on his own was too weak, while his own combat strength wasn't anything crazy. If he was able to start up a rebellion with just this much, he would be suppressed again soon after.
The one who secretly provided Spike with assistance was named Ledesma, one of Sinking Blade's five membered committee, as well as the committee member with the most solid personal strength. The assistance he provided Spike with included five hundred veteran soldiers, weapons and ammunition to arm those five hundred individuals, as well as more than ten fourth level ability users. The amount of support he offered was ten times that of Spike's own strength, and after using an absolute superiority in numbers to defeat Su's subordinates, it naturally led to the control of many of Steel Gate's important locations. If it wasn't because the battle hadn't completely ended yet, Spike would have long been eliminated from the commander position.
Su quickly skimmed over the documents in his hands while asking indifferently, "Where are Li Gaolei and the others?"
Su's light blonde hair fluttered with a gentle radiance, and his face was as fine as porcelain, but from his ordinary and gentle voice, those staff officers instead sensed a faint killing intent.
"General Li Gaolei led the remaining soldiers to occupy the steel mill. They are currently still fighting there." A staff officer with a bit more courage immediately replied, not daring to play any tricks. Even though there were still at least several hundred soldiers in the city, he knew that even if those soldiers attacked together, in complex terrain like alleys, they might not even be enough to stall Su for half a day.
Li Gaolei was still alive? This information finally made Su's expression become a bit more optimistic. He immediately said to the staff officers, "Lead the way to the steel mill!"
Several minutes later, a few off-road vehicles departed one after another, rumbling towards the steel mill. There were originally two border sentry posts on the road to the steel mill, but there were now no soldiers left in these sentry posts at all, the soldiers who were originally standing guard here long fled to who knew where.
Su sat upright in the off-road vehicle at the center, seemingly already entering a state of light sleep. Cirvanas sat on the other side, his pair of scarlet eyes staring at Su. If one only looked from the exterior, the somewhat delicate looking young man looked even more like a woman than Madeline. Most of the time, the feeling Madeline gave others was like that of an island in the middle of the sea, beautiful, but cold to a lifeless degree. However, right now, Madeline sat in the last off-road vehicle, so there was no way to compare the two.
Sitting at Cirvanas' side was the staff officer with the most courage. He was currently using the most concise and logical speech to narrate the entire combat process to Su, from the initial rebellion, to the rebel army's defeat, and then the external help, forcing Li Gaolei to withdraw. In the end, Li Gaolei led several dozen soldiers in retreat to the steel mill, using the complex terrain to defend their position. Spike had tried several times to overcome them with force, but each time, he stopped due to the heavy losses. Originally, Ledesma's group of ability users would arrive after just a week, and so he planned to use the ability users to control Li Gaolei, thus completely eradicating Su's subordinates and army.
Even though the staff officer never spoke of it, Su knew that the root of the rebellion was due to Ledesma believing that Su wouldn't return. This way, once they occupied Steel Gate as well, Kelan City would have no way of stopping Ledesma's offense, and Ledesma would become the king of the entire great lakes western region. The one who destroyed the balance of three powers of so many years for him, was precisely Su.
If it was any other eighth level ability user, the snow mountains, clouds full of radiation, or Project Frozen Throne's General and Ruler, any one of these would have been enough to end their lives. It was only in front of Su that they weren't true hindrances.
Ledesma's intelligence and grasp of timing could perhaps be considered at the level of a master, but his luck was truly a bit bad.