Chapter 15
With a thunderous kick, the colossal and meticulously crafted wooden doors of the GAM conference chamber burst open. Blinding streaks of crimson laser light flooded into the room as soldiers in blue-white ocean-patterned camouflage stormed in. Each of them wore a beret adorned with the emblem of GAM, and their AK-74M rifles swept left and right, aiming at the heads, chests, and backs of every single national representative seated inside.
The tension was suffocating, almost supernatural in its intensity.
At the front of the squad stepped a man whose entire body was concealed beneath layers of tactical fabric—no skin exposed, no features visible, except for a pair of cold, unwavering black eyes. The eyes of an Asian man. When he spoke, his voice boomed through the chamber with the authority of a military officer delivering a sentence.
???
> "Hands in the air! From this moment forward, the entire organization falls under our jurisdiction—
by the supreme authority of the Great Motherland of the Soviet Union."
The soldiers advanced down the length of the massive chamber, their boots striking the marble floor in synchronized rhythm. One by one, rifle muzzles locked onto the representatives of each nation. Fear rippled across their faces; not one of them dared resist. They raised their trembling hands in silence.
Even those who had previously criticized the CEO of GAM now sat frozen, choking on their own fear. The CEO himself remained still, staring calmly at the rifles leveled toward him. His deep blue eyes reflected a maze of calculations.
Under the table, his fingers slowly pressed a hidden button.
Click.
The tiny sound seemed to echo through a suddenly motionless world.
Far away, in the Arctic Ocean, beneath blankets of white snow and enormous sheets of ancient ice, something vast stirred.
Cracks split through the black abyss below, releasing pillars of steam and streaks of unnatural red light.
Titanic shapes began to move.
A colossal Nimitz-class carrier, coated in matte black armor and emblazoned with bold white letters—SS Noah—pushed upward through the broken ice. Sleek YF-23 aircraft, painted jet black and marked 14th Fleet – Noah, soared outward like predatory shadows.
Beside it emerged another behemoth, the SS Okinawa, its obsidian hull bristling with monstrous cannons—barrels as large as cranes, arranged in dense rows like the fangs of a metal wolf. Missile tubes lined its sides in a web of overwhelming firepower.
Screens aboard every vessel flickered from blue to a brutal red.
A single message appeared:
"HQ ATTACKED. MISSION ABORTED. RETURN TO BASE."
Warning lights strobed across the snow in a pulse of crimson. The engines roared—deep, animalistic, furious—shattering the ice around them and grinding glaciers into water as the fleet turned sharply toward one direction:
London.
Like vengeful sea monsters, the black warships carved through the frozen ocean, leaving behind trails of broken ice and boiling water.
---
At the same moment…
Within the crimson sky of the Anti-World, a blinding white streak carved across the heavens like a blade slicing reality itself. It contrasted violently with the world's naturally pitch-black clouds.
The streaks grew brighter—falling stars burning through endless darkness—tearing across the sky toward LUX.
In mere instants, the space around him thrashed and folded, forming what looked like a massive wall of distorted reality. A thunderous detonation followed. A scorching wave of heat blasted across the obsidian wasteland, vaporizing everything in its path.
Dark eternal smoke exploded outward as a gigantic shockwave surged through the Anti-World. Fire erupted skyward in a pillar of energy, expanding, swirling, and blossoming into a monstrous nuclear mushroom cloud forged not from uranium—but from fire and eternal energy itself.
Everything near it was reduced to ash.
Then the shockwaves faded, the fire dimmed, and the smoke slowly dispersed…
Revealing a perfectly spherical void of pitch-black nothingness—so dark no eye could pierce it.
Inside that devastated space, LUX and Ayu remained almost entirely unharmed.
LUX knelt in the center, holding Ayu tightly, shielding her and the unborn child with his own body. When the last remnants of destructive energy vanished, he gently released her—calm, composed, as if the world had not just been annihilated around them.
Black smoke twisted from his body, cloaking the area in a living shroud of shadow.
But then—white streaks appeared again in the sky.
This time, they were Tomahawk missiles.
Dozens.
Hundreds.
A storm of steel wings and unpredictable trajectories filling the heavens.
Black tendrils burst from the ground, rising like colossal pillars to intercept them. Explosions multiplied in the blood-red sky, thousands of fiery blossoms igniting at once.
Yet one missile broke through the chaos—soaring directly toward LUX.
It struck.
A violent blast engulfed him, hurling his body upward.
But as he fell, his flesh knit back together—white skin regenerating instantly as though the attack were nothing more than a passing breeze.
The damage was meaningless.
Illusory.
Empty.
Somewhere else…
From a great distance, armored vehicles crawled across the cracked, pitch-black soil of the Anti-World. Their caterpillar tracks ground mercilessly through everything—stone, dust, the withered remains of vegetation—nothing could withstand their weight beneath the blood-red sky.
Above them, streaks of white light tore violently across the heavens, slicing through the thick layers of black clouds. Each flare was followed by the thunder of explosions and shockwaves ripping the landscape apart, scattering debris like paper in a storm.
Inside one of the armored carriers, beneath its cold steel roof and vibrating metal benches, Sora and Alice were fast asleep—peaceful, oblivious, almost comedic. Alice rested her head against Sora's shoulder, while Sora leaned back against Alice's head, both of them snoring quietly like a pair of exhausted little pigs.
Across from them, Elena peeked over her tablet, watching her two teammates sleep with a soft, helpless smile. Then, silently, she slipped a small handheld communicator from her pocket. Pressing the button, she spoke in a gentle, almost childish tone to someone apparently very important.
Elena
> "Hey… Onee-san, are you seriously trying to blow us up with missiles…?"
On the other end, a teasing female voice echoed through static, dripping with mischief and a faint hint of theatrical menace. It sounded like the speaker was in a sealed room—closed, cold, metallic.
13_13 [Haruko]
> "Oh… come on, little one.
I know you can escape, right?
My clever little mouse…"
Elena chuckled softly, replying with playful innocence, her voice turning bright and cheerful—it almost made her sound younger than she was.
Elena
> "Yeah yeah~ But Onee-san! You're only a few years older than us!
So why do you always act like you're ten years my senior, huh…?"
Haruko's reply came back immediately, dripping with amused mock-scolding.
Haruko
> "Oh, my sweet child… listen here…
If you don't act superior… the world won't respect you."
Suddenly the communicator clicked off—cut short—just as Elena let out a long, sleepy yawn. She slumped sideways and rested her head against Sora's free shoulder. Now all three of them were huddled together like a trio of drowsy bears, breathing softly in unison as the carrier rumbled forward.
---
Meanwhile, at the interception gate between two worlds, dozens of temporary field tents stood in tight formation. Each tent was painted in blue-toned camouflage, blending with the steel behemoths parked around them.
Armored vehicles were arranged like a pack of metallic beasts, their cannons lined up shoulder-to-shoulder. Trucks roared by under the supervision of scientists, while cranes swung overhead, lifting and positioning heavy containers with screeching metallic whines.
One by one, Tomahawk missiles were assembled into dense firing arrays. Radar dishes spun at maximum speed, scanning the Anti-World's unstable atmosphere.
Inside the command tents, soldiers operated automated launch systems, continuously firing wave after wave of missiles toward LUX. On the screens, white missile trails arced upward like rising comets, while tactical overlays updated in real-time—attempting desperately to find any trajectory that LUX couldn't intercept.
And in a sealed room far away from the launch site—
A room swallowed in darkness—
Someone sat alone.
Not a single detail of their face could be seen. Shadows concealed everything except the faint glimmer of movement. It was Haruko.
Her voice floated through the dark, soft yet intoxicating, filled with a longing that cut through the silence.
Haruko
> "The day we meet again…
is getting so close, little one…"
---
[To Be Continued]
The secret revealed by the author: 13_13 is the only member of the Council of 13 to hold a seat from the second to the third generation but not the only member from the first generation to hold a seat for three generations