Chapter 147: You have become the new protagonist / “Stand up.”
Watching the Zerg swarm draw closer, the Commander’s voice crackled through the communicator.
Du Feng didn’t issue orders directly to the soldiers; sitting in the Empire’s Supreme Command Center, he was the control tower coordinating the overall situation.
The first wave of Zerg numbered fifty thousand.
Nain Tute followed behind Shen Zhuo, looking at that black mecha acting like an unstoppable deity, and suddenly felt a twinge of envy.
If he had been born in the Empire, serving as a pure soldier seemed like it could be a lifelong dream.
“Nain Tute! Evasive maneuvers!”
The youth’s voice rang out through the comms. Nain Tute altered his direction even before he fully registered the warning.
He saw branches violently erupting from the barren, cracked earth right where he had just been standing.
People were already starting to use their abilities.
The Empire is so strong… Nain Tute glanced at the sharply decreasing numbers of Zerg, and a surge of joy, a feeling that ‘perhaps we will win this time,’ rose in his chest.
But soon, he realized that was just a delusion.
When the command center broadcasted that the second wave would consist of two hundred thousand Zerg, and that the interval between the second and third wave was only three hours, a palpable despondency fell over everyone.
Yet…
Nain Tute looked at Wuchang, who still stood steadfastly at the very front.
The mecha’s movements showed no hesitation; every swing of its blade brought death to dozens of Zerg.
Nain Tute could almost see the youth’s resolute and unyielding gaze inside the cockpit, piercing straight through the metal armor.
He couldn’t help but let out a loud roar:
“The bravest warriors of the Nain Kingdom! Trade our blood for the happiness of our loved ones! You will achieve infinite glory!”
A unified roar of agreement echoed back through the comms.
Shen Zhuo glanced sideways at the communicator, the corners of his lips lifting slightly.
Following the rallying cries of the Nain soldiers, he opened the all-hands channel. His calm voice carried comfort and a confident certainty of victory:
“This is Shen Zhuo. All combat ability users, step forward and position yourselves behind me. Execute according to the plan.”
The fact that there were no flying-type Zerg in the sector he was defending was actually good news.
Crawling Zerg relied on numbers and brute strength to attack; their mandibles could effortlessly tear through buildings.
Although the mechas were made of special alloys, they couldn’t withstand the onslaught completely, making strategic formations and the precise use of abilities exceedingly crucial.
The command center provided the general direction and overall battle strategy, but the specifics had to be managed by Shen Zhuo on the fly.
The battlefield situation was volatile, and the insect swarm allowed no time for rest.
The command center’s orders were precise, but the consumption of their physical stamina and gland energy every passing second was immense.
Everyone gritted their teeth and held on for dear life.
One day, two days, three days, five days…
Shen Zhuo watched his forces dwindle from 20,000 to 10,000, then to 5,000, and down to 1,000.
People were dying every single second.
Every second, they had to step over the corpses of their comrades or the Zerg to keep moving forward.
Meanwhile, the enemy swarm seemed completely inexhaustible. No matter how many they killed, more would surge in to replace them.
The gaps carved out by the slaughter would be refilled in less than a minute.
Even Wuchang was beginning to show damage, creaking and smoking. Shen Zhuo raised his hand and brought the blade down, cleaving through dozens of Zerg in front of him, only for even more to swarm up.
“The 50th wave is almost here! Everyone hold on! We must hold the line! We must hold it!!”
After receiving permission, the Commander had also boarded a mecha and joined the front lines. His voice now came through the comms.
But the moment he finished speaking, a scream tore through the command channel.
Shen Zhuo sharply whipped his mecha around to look.
Hundreds of Zerg were swarming the Commander’s mecha, tearing it apart.
“Major General! Don’t worry about me! You must hold the line! You must—”
The transmission abruptly cut out.
When Shen Zhuo looked again, the area where the Zerg had converged was nothing but a bloody pile of wreckage.
“Watch out!” A chasm tens of meters deep suddenly split open right in front of Shen Zhuo. All the bugs attempting to climb onto Wuchang plummeted into the abyss.
The fissure snapped shut immediately after.
Through the comms, Nain Tute said, “My energy is almost completely drained. After this last fissure closes, I won’t be able to do anything else.”
When the insect swarm first arrived, Nain Tute could virtually dominate the battlefield with his [Earth Fissure].
But after five days and five nights of ceaseless, bloody combat, he had long reached his absolute limit. The gland on the back of his neck swelled with a pain so intense it felt like it was going to explode.
Nain Tute turned his head to look at the newly arriving wave of Zerg. His eyes darkened as if he had made a final decision.
“Shen Zhuo! I leave the rest to you!!”
Guessing what Nain Tute was planning to do, Shen Zhuo didn’t even have time to voice an objection before Nain Tute cut the connection.
The young general’s mecha shot forward, soaring thousands of meters ahead of the defensive line, its wings deploying as it rocketed straight into the sky.
Shen Zhuo’s lips moved, but just as with bidding farewell to Chu Baixian, he couldn’t utter a single word to Nain Tute.
An unprecedentedly massive rift tore open the earth directly in the path of the approaching swarm.
The ground violently split outward, exposing pitch-black rock underneath. Tumbling dirt and debris plunged into the abyss alongside the surging vanguard of Zerg.
Amidst the earth-shattering tremor, all the advancing bugs were swallowed and buried alive.
The colossal fissure remained open for over ten minutes before the airborne mecha lost all power. Its raised arms fell limp, and the entire unit plummeted rapidly.
Shen Zhuo instinctively unleashed a burst of mental energy, forcing Wuchang to charge forward at top speed, but the fissure on the ground was already shrinking rapidly.
At the exact moment Nain Tute plunged into the abyss, he used the absolute last drops of his gland energy to seal the chasm shut.
Given the choice between piloting his mecha out and ensuring the bugs wouldn’t crawl back out of the rift, Nain Tute chose the latter.
Shen Zhuo halted a few hundred meters away from the sealed fissure, his fists clenched so tightly his nails dug fiercely into his palms.
He closed his eyes and snapped them open again: “Everyone! Charge with me!”
Nain Tute’s sacrifice had annihilated two-thirds of this specific wave.
No one over the comms tried to stop this desperate, sacrificial counterattack. The remaining soldiers who could still move followed Shen Zhuo across the fault line.
Stepping over the bodies of their comrades once more, they continued to fight.
……
He didn’t know how much time had passed.
It felt as long as a lifetime.
The sky was as dark as midnight. Torrential rain poured from dense, heavy clouds like a waterfall, soaking the battered mechas and washing the air with a metallic tang.
Shen Zhuo stood atop his mecha. The torrential rain soaked him to the bone, turning his combat uniform a deep crimson that dripped steadily from his lowered fingertips into the smoking cockpit.
He glanced down at the piercing wound just below his right shoulder, and the deep, bone-exposing gash below his sternum.
The blood had mostly been washed pale by the rain, pooling at his feet in a sluggish, crimson stream.
Fortunately, he couldn’t feel the pain.
At first, he had maintained absolute rationality, calculating every move.
By the end, it was purely mechanical slaughter.
Swinging the blade, firing the gun, cleaving everything in his path in two.
He couldn’t even remember how many Zerg he had killed.
Through countless bites and tearing claws, the mecha was progressively destroyed, until finally running out of ammunition and energy, reducing it to a lump of scrap metal.
But this place was humanity’s final line of defense.
They had no reinforcements, no time to retreat and regroup. They could only hold their ground until death.
They had to hold their ground.
“Anyone still alive, sound off…”
Shen Zhuo pressed the communicator on his person.
A minute passed; no one spoke.
“Anyone still alive! Sound off!” Shen Zhuo roared with all his might.
But the only response was a vast, unbroken silence.
Disbelieving, the youth raised his head and looked around.
Every single flag had fallen.
On the battlefield, aside from the corpses of the Zerg, there was nothing but mecha wreckage and blood scattered everywhere.
“The final wave of the insect swarm will arrive in ten minutes!”
The voice of the Eastern Defense Line’s Deputy Commander crackled through the communicator at his waist.
Immediately following, the channel switched, and Du Feng forcibly intercepted the signal:
“Shen Zhuo, come back!!”
It was the first time in all these days that he had heard Du Feng’s voice. Just a few short words, yet the tone was fraught with unprecedented panic. Shen Zhuo could hear the phantom of sheer terror in it.
He pressed the communicator, lifting his face to meet the pelting raindrops. Some droplets fell into his eyes, then slid down the corners to mingle in his hairline.
Shen Zhuo replied with a single word: “Copy.”
But even he couldn’t hear the sound of his own voice.
From the distance came the noise of crawling Zerg—countless segmented legs trampling the earth, creating a deafening roar.
The numbers were staggering, seemingly even more massive than anything they had faced in the past seven days.
Shen Zhuo tried to take a step forward.
But only as he attempted to move did he realize his body could no longer endure even the slightest motion.
He swayed and collapsed straight down.
Tumbling from the top of the mecha to the ground, he was lucky to land in a spot free of jagged metal fragments.
Thus, aside from scraped skin, he didn’t suffer any further severe injuries.
But from this single fall, Shen Zhuo couldn’t even muster the strength to get back up.
The thunderous approach of the Zerg grew louder and nearer. In fifteen minutes at most, they would breach this location.
Yet Shen Zhuo could only lie in the muddy, blood-soaked ruins, his hair plastered with grime.
His fingers constantly stretched forward, desperately trying to reach the communicator lying a short distance away.
This was a war they couldn’t possibly win.
But he had to win.
He had to go back. He must go back.
He had to break that nightmare of hundreds of cycles!
He had to defy this destiny of guaranteed death!
He needed to be stronger—stronger still—until he could protect everything standing behind him!
His vision went completely dark, and Shen Zhuo’s reaching hand fell limply into the muddy water.
Only the freezing wind howled mournfully, weeping for the souls that had already passed.
“It can’t just end…” The youth’s lips moved a few times, but ultimately, he couldn’t produce even a whisper.
But just as his vision plunged entirely into the abyss, a sudden warmth flared from his lower abdomen, rushing into his glands with a single breath.
Within his blood, a vastly superior power seemed to be pulsating.
Shen Zhuo closed his eyes. The raindrops suspended in the air around him abruptly froze in place.
In an instant, the air stopped, and time halted.
In this gray, deathly still world, the gears of fate violently ground to a halt.
The long-lost voice of the system echoed in his mind.
[Mind Control has leveled up]
[Mind Control has reached max level]
[Ability changed to: Manipulator]
[Ability has reached max level]
[Gland tier has upgraded]
[Ability details…]
[Tier details…]
[…]
[Viewership ratings increased]
[Script character roster adjusted]
[The protagonist of the “Top-Tier Omega” script has been changed]
A few seconds later, the system delivered one final sentence:
[Congratulations to Shen Zhuo for becoming the new protagonist]
Immediately after, a barrage of electronic notifications exploded in Shen Zhuo’s ears, growing increasingly chaotic and noisy.
The youth furrowed his brows and opened his eyes.
Those once pitch-black pupils had completely changed.
A blood-red, sinister glow flowed within them like lightning.
The cycle of the four seasons, the progression of history, the rise and fall of life, the succession of all things…
The laws of heaven and earth were all infinitely clear within those crimson eyes.
Shen Zhuo gripped the soaked Imperial flag lying next to him. Using the flagpole for support, he slowly forced his body to stand.
The torrential rain had plastered his hair against his face. He raised a hand and slicked it all back, revealing a visage covered in blood and grime.
Exquisitely beautiful, yet unnervingly calm.
He gazed distantly at the black tide rushing towards him, his eyes utterly devoid of emotion.
An aura of terrifying, razor-sharp malevolence began to seep from the youth’s body.
On the sunless battlefield, the roar of the torrential rain gradually drowned out the footsteps of the Zerg.
Before him was an insect swarm millions strong; behind him lay ten thousand miles of homeland.
To flee or to hold the line—it never required hesitation.
Just as his choice had always been from the very start.
Shen Zhuo lowered his eyes, offering a momentary tribute and a silent promise to the fallen warriors.
Let me fight for humanity one last time. We will win. A raindrop slid down his eyelashes, splashing faintly against the mecha armor.
Overhead, black clouds blotted out the sky as vultures circled and screeched.
The black-haired youth stood solitary amidst the ruins.
Enduring the torrential downpour, his sharp, dark eyes met the enemy head-on.
The next second, he raised his blood-soaked hand toward the scattered corpses and bones all around him:
“Stand up.”
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