Gate of Apocalypse

In the conference room, Tomoyo sits in a swivel chair, half-lidded, with a cup of coffee in his hand.

In front of him is a heavy-looking military laptop.

The screen showed a picture that was divided into two parts. On the left was an enlarged three-dimensional map of southern California, with countless arcs stretching slowly.

On the right half was a countdown of numbers that did not stop beating.

The fastest countdown was just under five minutes. The longest one is only seven minutes.

The indiscriminate marking with a marker had been faithfully conveyed by the staff, without missing a single one.

This is not only out of obedience to this president, but also because - everyone shares the same fear of what is happening in Los Angeles.

For those at the top of the country, the information they had learned was enough to make them realize the seriousness of the situation.

The total number of H-bombing combat units is 121, ranging from 400,000 to 1,000,000 tons equivalent. Half were set for air blasts at 500 meters, and half were set for ground explosions.

This terrifying amount was enough to wipe out all the surface within the blast radius, and there was no sign that any life had ever existed.

"Deacon, if you open a bottle of champagne now, it won't seem too strange, will it?"

As the numbers jumped bit by bit, Tomoyo turned his head and looked at the stiff dragon beside him, his face full of pride.

"Those Americans have been thrown out by you, who would know?"

Even the stiff dragon could not suppress his pleasure, and snapped his fingers at the Tong You: "Open the bar."

The champagne was taken out of the storage equipment, and the cool, golden liquor rippled and bubbled in the glass.

The smallest of the countdowns had jumped to just thirty seconds left.

"Then - may all our future copies be as smooth as this one."

When the countdown reached zero, both the Stiff Dragon and the Tongshou laughed at the same time, gently clinked their glasses, and drank all the champagne in the glass.

......

The black fog enveloped Adric.

In a scream, the black mist was torn apart, and JoJo was thrown to the ground, rolled over twice, and could not move again.

The suit of armor on Adric's body had been completely shredded to pieces, and half of his body had disappeared.

However, in the wound, countless tiny tentacles were moving rapidly, mending his body.

Unlike Xia Xiaolei, up until now, Adric had been mortally wounded several times, but had never replenished himself with energy.

--The genes received from the Parasite Armor had been strengthened by the combination of alien genes, and had surpassed his original level.

Tire still held onto the shield, but the absolute defense skill Immunity Boundary had long since expired.

He fell to the ground, still without any wounds on his body, but his whole body was shaking from the pain.

Xiu Xiu, the spare tire, Nicole, everyone was so exhausted that they could barely stand up. Or they had fallen unconscious, or were attacked by the darkness attribute attached to Adric's attack.

Even though she knew that the attack was dark, JoJo gritted her teeth and used her anti-materialization skill at the last minute in an attempt to die with Adric.

She did succeed in shattering half of Adric's body, but she also experienced a powerful backlash from the darkness, and was knocked out of her skill state, falling back to her human form on the ground.

Now the only ones who still had the last bit of fighting power left were Tian Lie and Luo Di.

Tian Lie was panting and half kneeling on the ground, his body surface still couldn't see any wounds, but his expression was in extreme pain.

The two Mega Particle Cannons on Gundam's shoulders had been destroyed, and one left leg and one right arm had been broken, so he could only manage to stand with the assistance of his thrusters.

"If I could have had this kind of power at that time in Zero City ......"

Adric didn't immediately mend his wounds, but lowered his head and looked at his own wounds.

The flesh buds were still growing bit by bit, and soon the wound was as good as new, no longer showing any sign of having been wounded, not even leaving a scar.

"Zero City ...... might not have fallen."

"You think too highly of yourself."

Tian Lie squeezed a scoff out of his voice and pressed his fist with a gasp.

"Do you think ...... yourself are really that strong? I'm laughing to death. If that guy Chen wants to kill you, one finger is enough!"

"You actually have the strength to move?" Adric looked at Tian Lie with a relaxed expression: "Even if the recovery ability of the body can't be used under my attack, your soul can be considered quite durable. It is worthy of being a strong ......S class, one of the inspectors of the Thorn Flower Troupe. If it was in the past, I might not have been able to kill you."

"You think you can now?" Tian Lie laughed wildly, and his body swelled up rapidly. A pair of black wings unfurled behind him, fluttering in the wind: "Let me show you, the full force of Laozi's strike!"

"I've heard of your angel killer form, but-"

Adric's body instantly rushed forward, and his longsword stabbed straight at Tian Lie.

The two men's longswords pierced each other's bodies at the same time.

"My immortal body looks a little tougher than yours!"

Both of them went still at the same time.

Tian Lie's teeth chattered. Although Adric's Soul Devouring Sword had only nudged him in the heart and did not pierce at all, a dark power once again penetrated his entire body.

Even though Metal Data Flow's body had a strong recovery ability, it was still not immune to this kind of direct attack on the soul.

The black sword stretched out in Tian Lie's right hand, despite piercing Adric's heart, Adric's expression remained unchanged.

"Having tried so many times, don't you understand? You are - you can't kill me!"

"Rowdy!!!"

Tian Lie ignored Adric's mockery, but opened his mouth fiercely and roared.

At the same time, the black sword that he held in his right hand suddenly began to change.

The sword, which he had originally changed out of his metal data stream body, could morph at will with his mind.

Now, countless long, slender spikes suddenly grew on the blade of the sword, as if it were a thorn, firmly locking Adric's body.

At the same instant Tian Lie roared out, the armor that Roddy was operating suddenly lifted the armor plate under the cockpit, revealing a square cannon mouth.

"Recursive light energy main cannon, 100% power!"

Along with Roddy's hoarse roar, a beam of light energy shot out of the armor's chest, straight at Adric.

The entire body of the Gundam armor had already been torn to pieces, and the time for use was almost at its limit.

For the last time, Roddy channeled all the energy in the main reactor into the main cannon on his chest.

A compound light energy main cannon that was more powerful than the mega particle cannon!

Adric turned pale and tried to leave, but the spikes on the Black Sword of Heavenly Flame locked him in and he couldn't move.

This time, the beam of light was much larger in diameter than Adric's body, enveloping his entire body. Tian Lie, on the other hand, had most of his body caught up in the beam of light.

The beam of light lasted for three seconds before fading away. The huge mechanical body of Gundam also disappeared at the same moment.

Roddy fell heavily to the ground, struggled to raise his head, and saw a deep ravine that led straight to the horizon.

Everything in the ravine was burned away and consumed by the powerful energy of the redirectional light energy main gun.

"Shit ...... should ...... be killed this time!"

Roddy coughed heavily twice and smiled proudly from the corner of his mouth one last time.

As strong as Tian Lie, he hadn't been able to withstand such a full-powered main gun blast in his Tokyo copy. Adric ...... could not have survived it.

Tian Lie was left half-dead, gasping for breath on the ground.

He struggled to take out an ingot from his storage device and pressed it with his only left hand. Although far more slowly than before, the ingot slowly began to digitize and flow into his body.

"You're pretty ...... smart."

Tian Lie finally incorporated all of the steel ingots into his body and stood up.

Roddy's reaction was quick, and he seized the opening to fire the first time he saw that he had Adric locked up.

But despite the physical damage he had recovered from, he still looked terrible.

"You're supposed to be the smart one," Roddy grunted and climbed up from the ground as well. He had been maneuvering the Gundam before, staying in the cockpit. Adric's attack had only damaged the Gundam's parts, but hadn't been able to damage his soul. Of all the people present, he was the only one who was still intact.

It was just that Roddy's heart was constantly wailing.

Gundam!

It's a Gundam!

The quest rewards that you got from fighting to the death in the Tokyo copy, and spending so much star sand to strengthen and transform it, you almost can't even spare it on a normal day.

And now, not only did I lose a leg and an arm, but even the core reactor was severely damaged due to overload.

To repair it to its original state, there's no telling how many time points and star sand it will take.

"Don't cry your eyes out. It's not easy enough for this copy ...... to pick up its life." Tire gasped and stood up, "All ...... are still alive, right."

Almost half of the other teams were also killed, leaving only a few of the senior team leaders still alive.

Fortunately, not a single one of the Meteorite Battle Team's everyone was killed in action, though.

"No!"

Nicole had just stood up through gritted teeth when she suddenly turned pale: "Where's the copy completion tip?!"

Everyone was stunned.

Now that Adric had devoured the alien embryo and become the boss of the copy, killing him should mean the end of the copy.

That can only mean...

"Watch out--"

The tire had just screamed when Adric's black figure suddenly emerged from the ground and stabbed Tian Lie in the back of the heart.

Tian Lie's expression suddenly froze, and his entire body went still.

"As I said, my recovery ability is stronger than you think!"

Adric was naked, not only without a single piece of clothing, but even his epidermis was not fully grown, and his red muscle fibers were exposed to the air.

In the moment before the redirectional light cannon hit him, he stretched out a tentacle as far as he could and plunged it deep into the ground.

Although most of the flesh left on the ground was destroyed by the main light cannon, the end of the tentacle remained in the ground, quickly splitting and growing to regain its full flesh.

The Soul Eater Sword had been smashed to pieces by the redirectional light cannon, and now in Adric's hand was a long black sword that had been retrieved.

The tip of the sword still did not penetrate Tian Lie's body, but his throat was gurgling.

And then - it collapsed with a crash.

Is Tian Lie ...... dead?

Everyone was stunned on the spot.

Although they were not unprepared for someone to die in battle, no one thought that the first to die would be Tian Lie.

His body was still intact, but he had lost his vitality and fell stiffly to the ground like a heavy piece of iron.

"Ah--！！！！！"

Nicole let out a miserable roar and rushed toward Adric like a madwoman.

The floating thrusters had been damaged, and Nicole could only run at full speed, while her arms were lit up with two ion shock swords.

Even though she knew that such damage would not kill Adric, Nicole could do nothing about it.

The moment she saw Tian Lie die, she felt the hot blood in her body rush to her head, as if it would burn her brain.

This man was obviously cheap, violent, and even had such a deep hatred for herself. But for some reason, Nicole suddenly realized that she couldn't leave him anymore.

"You're a - an angel, aren't you?"

Adric shook his head gently and looked at Nicole who was rushing towards him, "An angel, actually going crazy over the death of an angel killer, really, tsk tsk ......"

His epidermis had finished growing, and his longsword was once again raised.

The victory of this copy was no longer in doubt.

Next, smoothly kill everyone in this copy, and then ......

Adric looked at Nicole, who was already in front of him, and was about to stab his sword again when out of the corner of his eye he suddenly saw a little flash in the sky.

Then, a little more.

Another little bit. ......

Within seconds of the first flash, the number of flashes began to increase, arcing across the sky and falling downward, like a meteor shower in the middle of summer.

"This is ......"

Adric's expression changed instantly, and even Nicole's Ion Shock Sword pierced his chest without him noticing.

It was as if his whole body had fallen into an ice cellar.

It wasn't a meteor shower in the sky, it was a warhead!

Trident Missile's Separate Combat Section!

"Why!!!"

For the first time until now, Adric showed a panicked expression, raised his head to the sky, and hissed at Nicole, who was stabbing at him repeatedly.

The east wind let a thousand trees bloom in the night, and even more blew down, stars like rain.

Numerous fireballs rose up almost simultaneously.

The blinding glare of light covered the entire Southern California, and the heat and shock waves of thermonuclear fusion turned the entire surface of the earth into a purgatory.

When Robert Oppenheimer, the father of the American atomic bomb, saw the explosion of the first atomic bomb born in his own hands, he once said: "If a thousand suns shine together in the sky, mankind will perish, and at this moment I become the god of death, the destroyer of all things in the world.

Little did Oppenheimer know that decades later there would be thermonuclear weapons exploding on our soil in quantities and power far beyond what he had ever seen.

Compared to the explosion in Southern California, the mushroom cloud he saw was a small firecracker.

When the heat and glare finally dissipated several minutes later, the sky was full of mushroom clouds.

In such a purgatory, no life form could survive.

The surrounding area was silent. There was only the sound of the gravel fragments swept up by the explosion and falling to the ground.

Under such a dense explosion of nuclear flame, the surface of the ground had become a lava.

After a long time, a hand suddenly emerged from the lava.

The figure of Adric slowly crawled out.