The final battle had begun.
The Army Without Borders surged forward with unstoppable momentum.
Liberated slaves smashed their shackles, and mutants, yearning to die with their humanity intact, raised their weapons. They all flowed into this great army of liberation.
A faded blue flag was thrust onto a newly captured enemy bunker by a pair of hands covered in old scars.
As a fierce wind swept past, the flag snapped and fluttered. Under that gray, desolate sky, it was a blinding, piercing blue.
For the first time in decades, this color, symbolizing unity and peace, finally flew over the shattered earth once more.
For those who had spent decades struggling to survive in the wasteland, hope had never felt so close.
Meanwhile, in New Germania.
In the planet’s last “Pure Land”—the Blue Zone, an Eden built by the elites and mega-corporations of the old era—extravagant, decadent banquets were in full swing.
Suddenly, a piercing alarm shattered the false tranquility.
Inside the banquet hall, the massive crystal chandelier on the dome shook violently, and fine wine spilled from crystal goblets.
“What’s happening?!”
“An air-raid siren? Where could an enemy possibly come from?”
Before the panicked elites could react, every screen and speaker in the city was forcibly hijacked by the same voice.
That voice was cold and furious, carrying the resentment of tens of billions of lost souls, echoing through every corner of the city.
“Guardians of New Germania, listen!”
“You are not guarding a home; you are guarding a cage! You are not protecting the people; you are protecting a swarm of blood-sucking Corruptors!”
“Your weapons are aimed at your own kin! Your parents, brothers, and sisters are dying like stray dogs in the wasteland outside those walls!”
The broadcast paused for a moment before transforming into a roar like a crashing tsunami.
“Cursed souls, you no longer need to guard your hell!”
In the streets, soldiers in crisp uniforms looked up blankly, their hands trembling as they gripped their weapons.
The broadcast continued, but this time, the target was the sinners hiding in their cozy nests.
“Now, it is your turn—you maggots hiding in the Blue Zone!”
“You started the war, yet you forced the rest of the world to pay the price!”
“Every inch of the land beneath your feet is soaked in the blood and tears of tens of billions! Every breath of clean air you take was built upon their bones!”
“Now, we, the scrap you threw away, have returned.”
“Judgment may be late, but not a single penny of the blood debt will be forgotten!”
A deathly silence fell over the banquet hall.
A man dressed in magnificent clothes dropped his wine glass, shattering it.
He pointed a trembling finger at the emblem of the Army Without Borders on the screen, his face pale as a ghost.
“You damned inferiors! We are God’s chosen! We are the only true humans! You will never win! Never!”
The announcer could not hear the sinners’ curses. He simply delivered the cold sentence:
“Judgment Day… has arrived.”
The moment the words fell, a massive pillar of light descended from the heavens, accurately striking the gates of New Germania—the gates that were said to be impregnable.
The long-overdue Great Judgment had begun.
Above the dome was Livia’s battlefield.
The Third Order’s final trump card, the Werewolf Battalion—a unit of mad dogs composed entirely of brainwashed New Humans—was currently closing in to slaughter her and her comrades.
“Morning Star No. 4 has been shot down!”
“Engine No. 7 is overheating! I need cover!”
Inside the communication channel, the call signs of her comrades blinked out one by one.
These New Human enemies had no fear in their eyes. They possessed only the purest desire for slaughter, fueled by drugs and mental conditioning.
Livia’s Skylark wove through the hail of bullets. Her beam saber drew lethal silver arcs through the air, constantly Downing the frenzied enemies.
Beneath the dome, the roar of artillery from the urban street fighting was deafening.
A steel torrent of RJD-02 Jackal land-type mechs and main battle tanks provided cover for the infantry as they launched the final assault toward the heart of the Third Order—the Parliament Building.
Amidst the chaotic battlefield, The Boss’s commands were precise and ruthless. He manipulated every unit like a heartless machine of war.
“3rd Guards Tank Regiment, push through the left flank and tear their defensive line apart.”
“Squad 343, use the Jackal wreckage as cover and establish crossfire.”
“Artillery clusters, coordinates Gamma-7, three minutes of rapid fire. Plow that entire area for me.”
Just as Livia was about to be caught in the concentrated fire of three enemy aircraft, a black phantom appeared behind the enemy formation like a ghost.
It was Marianne’s Xuanlong!
Her lethal surprise attack instantly detonated two of the enemy planes, creating a perfect opening for Livia to counterattack.
However, she exposed herself to the cannons of the final enemy craft.
“Marianne!”
Fire erupted as the Xuanlong was struck dead center, tumbling toward the ground.
“Ejection successful! I’m fine!” Marianne’s voice rang out just in time, followed by a few coughs.
Livia felt a wave of relief before ending the last enemy with a single, precise shot.
However, before she could catch her breath, the intelligence officer’s voice exploded across all channels, sounding hurried to the extreme:
“Warning! High-intensity energy reaction detected in the center of New Germania! The enemy has activated the Scorched Earth Protocol! That weapon is enough to level the entire Blue Zone and completely destroy the planet’s ecological self-cleansing capacity! We must stop it! Or… take it away!”
Livia’s pupils constricted.
She looked toward the Parliament Building that towered into the clouds in the city center.
A massive opening was splitting apart on the roof, and a giant missile shimmering with an ominous red light was slowly rising.
Without a moment of hesitation.
Livia slammed the stick, pulling the engine power to its absolute limit.
The silver Skylark charged toward the doomsday weapon with absolute determination, like a moth diving into a flame, braving the frantic interception of the remaining anti-aircraft fire on the ground.
Inside the command center, everyone watched the light representing the Skylark on the radar dash toward the red signal that represented total destruction.
The Boss remained expressionless, but everyone felt a volcanic pressure radiating from him, as if he were about to explode.
“All mech squadrons, cover her.”
His voice held no ripples, as cold as a block of steel.
The channel filled with the roars of every surviving team member.
“Clear the path for our hero!”
“For victory!”
“Ura!”
The enemy mechs poured out in force, attempting to block this desperate suicide run.
However, the mech squadrons of the Army Without Borders arrived just in time, using their own bodies to build a wall, turning the enemies into brilliant fireworks in the sky.
Amidst the piercing scream of the frame nearing its breaking point from overload, the Skylark finally broke through the last line of fire. Its massive mechanical arms gripped the accelerating missile tightly.
Inside the cockpit, a crimson countdown was blindingly bright—
[Countdown: 3:30]
A deathly silence fell over the command center.
Everyone stood witness to the departure of a hero.
The Boss remained expressionless, simply reaching out to press a button on the console.
A second later, an ancient song—”Blood Type”—echoed through every communication channel of the Army Without Borders.
It was a gentle male voice, piercing through the deafening artillery and the screams of the battlefield.
“What a warm room, but I have to hit the road. There is stardust on my boots, a comfortable sofa, checkered patterns, and a trigger that hasn’t been pulled.”
Accompanied by the song, the Skylark held the “sun” that was capable of destroying the world.
The machine’s hull glowed a piercing red from atmospheric friction as it pulled into a vertical climb, charging madly into the sky!
It was a high-mobility specialized type. Only it had the singular possibility of carrying this doomsday weapon away from the planet.
“Don’t wake me up, okay? From now on, sunny days only exist in beautiful dreams. Although there is a way to gain victory, I don’t want it.”
The charging soldiers stopped in their tracks. The pilots of the mechs ceased their attacks.
As if by unspoken agreement, they all looked up toward the silver trail that was growing smaller and smaller in the sky.
One soldier lowered his rifle and solemnly raised his right fist toward the heavens.
Then came a second, and a third.
The steel torrent stopped its advance. Every mech, every tank, and every warrior offered their highest respect to that vanishing streak of light.
In the command center, every officer spontaneously stood straight and raised their hand in a salute.
“I don’t want a righteous blade carved into someone’s broken chest; I just want to be with you.”
In the ruins, Marianne crawled out of the Xuanlong’s cockpit, her face covered in soot and tears.
She gazed at the sky, listening to the sorrowful song in the channel, and let out a heart-wrenching cry: “Livia—!”
The song continued.
“But the lonely star in the dark night hangs ten thousand fathoms high, still pointing the way…”
The Skylark’s thrust was at maximum. The alarms shrieked miserably, the power furnace had exceeded its limit, and the outer hull began to melt and peel away under the high temperatures.
Soon, it would disintegrate in mid-air.
However, at that moment, an inexplicable, warm force enveloped the entire machine.
It was as if an invisible, giant hand was gently pushing it from behind.
The piercing overload alarms vanished instantly.
The Skylark accelerated abruptly, defying the laws of physics—faster and faster!
It reached the Third Cosmic Velocity and plunged headfirst into that thick, hopeless, and terrifying Radiation Dust Haze Cloud filled with charged particles.
The young girl had never seen the blue of the sky.
But passing through the endless darkness and danger, she saw it for the first time—
The brilliant, never-before-seen galaxy of stars, sparkling like diamonds.
“So beautiful…” she murmured to herself.
The song in the channel had cut out the moment she pierced the radiation cloud.
But then, a gentle and calm voice sounded directly in the depths of her heart. It was a farewell.
‘Livia, do not be sad. After those long years of ten thousand upon ten thousand years, we will meet again in a place where there is no darkness.’
It was the voice of The Boss.
‘Goodnight, my star.’
‘So… you are too…’
A tranquil, relieved smile appeared on Livia’s face.
She closed her eyes.
‘Yes.’
The next second, a brand-new sun, brighter than the actual sun, bloomed ten thousand meters in the air.
Silent destruction, intense light.
A massive shockwave poured down from outer space, piercing through the radiation cloud that had covered the globe for decades.
It tore open a hole large enough to cover all of New Germania.
On the ground, everyone who was fighting, fleeing, or praying instinctively looked up.
They saw it.
Through that hole, they saw a clear, gentle, dreamlike…
Blue.
That was the color of the sky.
Gray-black snowflakes fell gently and softly through the hole from beyond that blue sky, from the depths of the infinite universe.
They landed on this earth, covering the living and the dead alike.
……
When she woke up in the morning, Livia had a strange dream.
She dreamed she had become a hero. In a world full of steel giants, she had sacrificed herself in a final battle for a blue sky she had never seen.
In the dream, there seemed to be two very, very important people.
A man as dazzling as the sun.
And a black-haired girl who protected her like a shadow.
That night, the galaxy outside the village was as brilliant as a dream.
The lonely Livia gazed at the night sky, which was as eternally desolate as the stars. She pressed her hands together and made a small wish.
She said—
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