Ethereal Ascendance: A Journey of Transformation

Of course the vampire ancestor gave the nuke launch order to his minions through mind-talk. So all the minions under his control in M-country would follow the order exactly, unless someone stopped them!

"By now, all our teams in M-country must be almost done with their jobs, right? Even if the ancestor gave the launch order, it shouldn't really matter much, right?" Adrian thought about this and quickly used his communicator to check with Luke Channing again. "Have we taken over all the military bases that can launch nukes?"

"Most of the teams have reported 'mission complete'! The only ones left are..." Luke Channing answered while checking the military network.

"Number 12 Feliciana's team was in a tough fight, but there's no sign the nuke launch process started there. And just now, they confirmed the enemy is waking up and choosing to surrender!"

"Great news!" I felt relieved. Of course once Camille died, all the controlled minions would lose their fight and go back to normal. I could finally relax a bit.

"But there's another urgent message from Number 11 Feliciana's team a few minutes ago! It says when Number 11 Feliciana was cleaning up the last target base, she suddenly went crazy, hurt and knocked out the other team members, then flew off alone towards Number 12 Feliciana's mission location!"

"What? Number 11 Feliciana ran off?" I got a bad feeling. Most likely their team's communication officer accidentally let slip Number 12 Feliciana's location, and Number 11 Feliciana finally couldn't hold back and went to get revenge. This must be why their team lost contact before! So I quickly asked, "Did they finish the mission in the end?"

"Unfortunately not!" After a moment of silence, Luke Channing could only sigh and give a negative answer.

Even though progress showed Number 11 Feliciana's team had already reached the last target base, they had too many casualties. The remaining team members couldn't stop the base's missile launch countdown!

The H-country mission command center could easily figure out Number 11 Feliciana's goal, just like I did. But at that time, Number 12 Feliciana's team was in a fierce fight with enemies at another base. The command center couldn't let Number 11 Feliciana mess things up at such a crucial moment, so they had to ask Cyra from the rescue team, who happened to be between the two, to go stop her.

"No way? Cyra volunteered for this job? What about the nukes in the base?" I thought it was weird. Wasn't Cyra badly hurt and couldn't get up? How did she have the energy to volunteer to go so far to stop Number 11 Feliciana? And did she have the confidence and ability to do it?

Also, since the rescue team found the nuke launch countdown in the abandoned base, it means there must be nukes ready to launch there. How could she choose to leave at such a dangerous time?

Unless someone else stayed behind to help deal with these things!

"Though the rescue team found the underground launch control panel, they couldn't find a way to cancel the nuke launch in such short time - canceling needs a password, which was probably changed after the vampires took over! So the command center could only have Raydwin stay behind to work with our military experts on cracking it!"

Luke Channing's answer still had many things that didn't make sense, and even seemed deliberately hidden. For example, Cyrae's existence was never mentioned at all.

So we had to check on the rescue team's situation ourselves! Adrian and I couldn't help looking at each other, both thinking of the real-time monitor in the president's office!

When we fought Camille earlier, most of the president's office roof was blown off, but that monitor was still working.

Later when the fight moved outside, the monitor couldn't have been damaged more. When we got back to the president's office, we weren't surprised to find it still showing images from the abandoned base.

"They're gone?" Adrian asked, a bit lost. Right now, the camera showed the battlefield where they fought Rasambla was empty. Only a loud warning kept playing through the whole base:

"First-level attack status, nuclear launch has entered countdown phase."

...

Clearly after the fight, the rescue team left their original positions because of this warning.

The situation seemed basically the same as what Luke Channing said!

"There are lots of cameras in that base. Looks like there's a remote control for them!" I quickly found what I was looking for in a pile of rubble nearby. So glad it still worked! After pressing a few buttons to switch views, we finally saw two familiar faces in what looked like a control room full of gauges and buttons.

It was Raydwin and Cyra!

In the earlier close-range flash blast, Raydwin awakened his Battle Qi and was prepared, so he couldn't have been badly hurt. But Cyra was still lying on the ground with other dead vampire bodies, looking seriously injured. Her healing magic clearly wasn't working well after using up all her magic power. Someone else must have moved her here.

"So the one who contacted command and flew off to stop Number 11 Feliciana was actually Cyrae?" Adrian and I had the same guess, since Cyrae was the only one missing.

Cyrae had destroyed almost all her communication devices to keep her identity secret. She and Raydwin probably realized something was wrong later, then used the control room's equipment to contact H-country.

But sadly, the control room's comm gear was pretty old and outdated, only good for audio. Even with control of the nuke launch panel, cracking the cancel password still didn't look good!

Raydwin was a total newbie at cracking passwords. He didn't dare touch all those buttons and gauges on the control panel. If H-country command didn't send any instructions, all he could do was wait there.

Other than that, he just chatted a bit with the injured Cyra.

"There's a camera in this room. You think anyone's watching us right now?"

Yep, Raydwin spotted the camera we were using to watch them, but he didn't know who was on the other end. He was just trying to make conversation.

"It's just an abandoned base. Who'd watch the monitors all day? Look at all this dust... Even if vampires started using it again, the guy watching monitors is probably dead by now!" Cyra grumbled. Though she was still badly hurt, she could talk a bit. After staying quiet for a while, she spoke again, this time apologizing.

"I'm sorry. If you weren't here, I wouldn't know what to do! Maybe I was wrong when I said you shouldn't join the army..." She clearly had a change of heart after the brutal fight with Rasambla. But halfway through, she added, "Just to be clear, this doesn't mean I accept your flirting!"

"Um... actually you don't need to take what I said to the camera seriously... Remember when I almost got controlled? So maybe it was actually those vampires messing with me... I couldn't help it!" The nuke launch program was already started, time was running out! Raydwin didn't have the mood to dwell on relationship stuff, but he couldn't think of other topics. He stammered for a while before finally changing the subject. "Hey, don't you have healing magic? Why haven't you fixed yourself after so long? If you could get up, at least I'd have some help. Right now I can't do anything!"

"What can I do? I used up almost all the light element around here with my source magic. Now I can't recharge my magic power properly. Even if I use healing magic, it barely does anything!" Actually, even if she was fine, her skills wouldn't help at all with cracking the nuke password.

But back in the president's office, Adrian and I watching through the camera couldn't be as relaxed as those two. We were super anxious.

How much time was left? Which places had nuke launch programs started? What were the targets? How powerful were the nukes, and how many bombs in total? We knew nothing! We had no clue! Was this the end?