Ethereal Ascendance: A Journey of Transformation

You can imagine the H-country command center must be in total chaos now!

They just got the good news that all the monsters in M-country were wiped out. But the biggest worry- the nuke problem - still ended up starting the launch countdown.

Right now, H-country's top military code experts were all gathered trying to crack M-country's changed nuke cancel codes. But that kind of thing ain't so simple!

"We can rule out the bases that were already cleaned out. That should narrow down the possible targets a lot!" Adrian was staying calmer, trying to comfort me. "If we can find exactly where the missiles are and destroy them before launch, there shouldn't be any problem, right? Maybe things aren't as bad as we think!"

"The problem is we don't know how many nukes are in each base, or where the missile silos are!"

Sadly, Adrian hadn't been on Earth that long, so he was thinking too simply about nuclear deterrence. "If we accidentally miss even one unknown missile, it could lead to the whole Earth being destroyed! Plus we don't know exactly how much time is left before launch!"

At first I couldn't understand what the warning about "Level 1 attack status" meant. But after Luke Channing's explanation, I got the gist of it: This status is designed for when international tensions are super high, and the government believes the enemy is definitely going to launch a nuclear attack. It's basically a preemptive strike, trying to take out the enemy's ability to hit back before they can destroy us - mutual destruction.

Once the countdown ends and the attack order is carried out, all the nukes under M-country's control will fly towards their preset targets at the same time! This was left over from when the two super powers were in a Cold War standoff, and had pretty much been abandoned. But clearly Rasambla and Camille reactivated and changed the whole emergency response system when they took control of M-country. Now the only perfect solution is to input the cancel code!

But only the vampire ancestor would know what that code is, and now the two bosses were gone...

"If missiles carrying nuke warheads land in other countries with nukes - like W-country - the chance of the whole Earth getting hit with nukes is super high. We can't rule out an early start to the end of the world!"

Thinking of this, I could only say helplessly. H-country actually shares some blame for things ending up like this. Because they wanted to hide all info about the space portal to another world so badly, H-country officials still haven't officially told other countries about the invasion M-country suffered, or that they've totally lost control of their nukes.

Based on what General Lee hinted at privately, I personally think H-country's top brass might have had some bold ideas about indirectly controlling M-country through this operation! Even though that'd be really hard to pull off, even if it didn't work in the end, as long as they could wipe out the vampires, they could use that as leverage to threaten and negotiate with M-country's leadership when they woke up. The secondary goal was to get them to agree to keep it all secret.

Of course, worst case scenario - if us angels can't even take out the vampires, then humans themselves are in big trouble! No point worrying about whether the space portal secret gets out then... You can see H-country's top brass thought they had it all figured out at first, but things didn't go quite how they planned.

Right then, I suddenly thought of Number 14 Feliciana again!

With Number 14 Feliciana's abilities, I believe she should be able to solve our current predicament, right? But even at this point she still hasn't stepped in, which clearly shows she's not going to interfere for now!

I remember Number 14 Feliciana promised me several times that all the problems caused by the space portal should eventually be resolved properly. In other words, she thinks there's no need to step in yet? Does that mean we can break through our current difficulties on our own?

After all, I never imagined before that one day I'd be able to successfully use the Water Angel's power to one-shot monsters above level 7! Angels aren't really afraid of nukes, but I don't want Earth to face the threat of nuclear apocalypse. Suddenly my confidence came back a bit.

"Quick! Camille's body!"

The next second, an idea flashed through my mind. Spirit magic can control memories and even souls to some degree. Even though Camille is totally dead, after the dark elements in her body dissipate, a small part of her brain tissue should still be preserved. Maybe we can extract some useful information from it!

"Use magic to read her brain!"

Of course Adrian got it right away when he heard that. But when he brought the body in front of me, seeing the hole in Camille's forehead where the water element needle pierced through earlier, he couldn't help worrying. "Will it affect the reading?"

"We'll try our best!"

Of course it would have some effect. I understood that too, but now we had to try anything we could, no matter how unlikely.

Luckily the full rest earlier let me build up quite a bit of light element again. When I finally managed to inject magical power into the corpse's head, I only felt my vision go black for an instant. It was like my whole self fell into the world of Camille's memory fragments.

"What a weakling! Other succubi her age can already fight human warriors on the battlefield, but Camille can't even fight back. Is she the descendant of some cave dweller?"

What I saw next really shocked me. I found myself on some unknown street, being pushed to the ground by a young minotaur. Clearly this when Camille was bullied as a child. Looking around at the crowd of monsters watching, not one of them stepped up to help. They all had looks of disdain on their faces.

"Didn't I arrange for you to learn fighting skills under Celia at the 'Crimson Garden'? How can you still get bullied like this? You're really hopeless!"

Then the scene suddenly changed. An older succubus appeared in front of me, sounding a lot like Camille's mother. But this mother was really angry at her daughter for being bullied, and she wasn't mad at the bullies.

"I've said it before, I hate fighting! Why do all the creatures on the Dark Continent have to solve everything with fighting? Can't we use slightly more peaceful methods? Everyone knows the stronger your power gets, the shorter your life becomes. But they're not afraid of dying at all, they just keep killing each other to prove who's stronger! Why make things like this?"

After getting lectured, young Camille clearly couldn't take it anymore. She yelled at her mother, then turned and ran out the door. Suddenly I understood a bit why she kept forcibly holding back her own power growth all these years.

"You know what? Last month some powerful guy with red wings on her back suddenly showed up. She looks a lot like an angel, but also not quite the same as angels. You can hardly sense any light element aura from him. This guy took out the top rulers of several cities in a row. She claims she wants to unify the whole Dark Continent, but she's not willing to take the Demon King position."

The next scene that came was from when Camille was an adult. The surroundings suddenly changed to that bar where I first met Camille. The minotaur Kurnel who used to bully her had now become a good friend. He was drinking and complaining: "She calls herself a god who can control fire, and the god of the whole planet! Is she really that amazing... By the way, what's this 'planet' thing she's talking about?"

But Camille's reaction seemed pretty flat. She only absent-mindedly answered:

"I don't know what a 'planet' is! If there really is a god who can unify the whole continent, doesn't that mean there'll be less war and pointless fighting in the future? If that's true, it'd be great..."

Sadly her wish didn't come true. After Michelle unified the Dark Continent, things didn't calm down at all. The internal fighting between monsters basically ended, but what came next was a full-scale invasion war against the human world.

Since way fewer monsters were coming to her bar, the little tavern Camille had worked so hard to run also fell into crisis. On the Dark Continent, if you're not strong enough and don't want to get bullied, you can only rely on following someone powerful to get safety.