bookmarkrole Chapter 247 New Mission
Chapter 247 New Mission
Song Chen nodded; he agreed with this logic.
His battlefield was the Beast King and Beast Emperor. To him, low-level alien beasts were just a pile of carbonized material crushed by his lightning domain. Letting three million troops deal with them was indeed a more efficient choice.
He stood up: "Nanjiang doesn't need me for the time being. I'm going to other provinces to help with the cleanup."
Lu Zhengbei was about to say, "Why don't you rest for a couple of days first?" but he swallowed the words back.
He already said yesterday that the answer will not change.
Just then, Song Chen's phone rang; it was Zhou Wangyue calling again.
Song Chen answered, "Teacher."
"You've emerged from quarantine?"
"Just emerged from seclusion, with a slight breakthrough."
After hesitating for a moment, Zhou Wangyue spoke again: "There's a mission, extremely dangerous, even more dangerous than the one to hunt down the Sirius King in the Arctic. Are you willing to go?"
Song Chen held his phone, his expression unchanged.
"Can it kill alien beasts?"
Zhou Wangyue paused for a moment before replying, "We can kill a lot."
"Then I'll go."
There was a two-second pause on the other end of the phone.
Then came Zhou Wangyue's loud laughter; Song Chen could even picture him leaning back in his chair, laughing heartily.
Before the laughter had even stopped, another voice came from the phone. It wasn't Zhou Wangyue's; it was older, deeper, and carried a sense of authority.
"Zhou Wangyue, you're right, this kid is indeed interesting."
Song Chen's eyes flickered slightly: "Teacher, who's next to you?"
Zhou Wangyue stopped laughing, but a hint of amusement lingered in his voice: "You'll see when you get there. Come to the capital first."
Song Chen roughly guessed who it was, but didn't ask any further questions.
He turned and walked out of the command center, picked up his phone and summoned the spacecraft.
As the spaceship took off, Song Chen stood by the porthole and looked down.
The city walls of Nanjiang Base City slowly shrank in the field of vision, turning into a gray outline, followed by checkerboard-like farmland, winding rivers, and undulating hills.
Further afield, large swathes of wilderness once occupied by monstrous beasts now show signs of human activity. Bulldozers are leveling the land ravaged by the beasts, and construction teams are repairing abandoned roads.
Several armored convoys were advancing along the valley toward the border, their vehicles kicking up long plumes of dust.
Han Duo stood beside him, following his gaze, and suddenly spoke up: "Councilor, why don't you go home? Anning City is right on the flight path, it's not far to go around."
Song Chen didn't turn around, looking out the window: "There'll be plenty of time after we kill all the alien beasts."
Han Duo didn't say anything more.
The spacecraft continued to climb, passing through the clouds.
Above the clouds, the sunlight dyed the sea of clouds a dazzling gold.
Song Chen saw another military transport ship flying in from the east. The deck was filled with new recruits who had just put on their uniforms. They stood up straight and their faces still had a hint of naivety.
They had probably just finished basic training and were assigned to field units, and were currently being transported to some assembly point.
The moment the transport ship passed Song Chen's private spaceship, a new recruit on the deck recognized the spaceship and tugged at the sleeve of his comrade next to him.
Several people looked over at the same time, their eyes shining, but they were too far away to hear what they were shouting.
Someone raised their hand in salute, the movement wasn't quite standard, but they swung their arm with extreme force.
Song Chen nodded through the porthole, and the new recruits on the transport ship immediately erupted in excitement. Some were so excited that they almost jumped off the deck, only to be slapped on the back of the head by the sergeant next to them.
Once the spacecraft reaches cruising altitude, the view of the ground transforms into a macroscopic map.
Song Chen saw a military train loaded with armored vehicles rumbling northwest along a railway line.
A long convoy of civilian trucks lined the highway, their cargo beds filled with grain, building materials, and medical supplies, heading towards the newly recaptured towns on the Nanjiang border.
Further away, on the walls of several coastal base cities, the barrels of psionic cannons were being slowly lifted and installed by cranes.
The Great Xia war machine is now fully operational.
From south to north, from east to west, every base city is recruiting soldiers, expanding production, and repairing defenses. Everyone is busy with the same thing: to reclaim lost territory.
This pent-up energy has been building up for fifty years, and now it's finally bursting forth.
Three hours later, the spacecraft began to descend.
The outline of the capital city emerged from the clouds.
The spacecraft landed directly on the rooftop helipad of the parliament headquarters.
When Song Chen stepped off the gangway, Zhou Wangyue was already waiting there.
"teacher."
"Come with me." Zhou Wangyue didn't exchange pleasantries and turned to leave.
The two walked through a long corridor, at the end of which was a heavy alloy door.
Zhou Wangyue pushed open the door, and inside was a small conference room with no windows. The walls were inlaid with psionic isolation alloy plates, and a long table was placed in the center, on which a huge holographic projection map was spread out.
There was only one person in the meeting room.
The man stood at the other end of the long table, his back to the door, looking down at the map on the table.
He was dressed in civilian clothes, without any military rank insignia, and unlike Zhou Wangyue, he did not maintain the tension characteristic of a martial artist at all times.
He just stood there casually, his hands behind his back.
But the moment Song Chen saw him, his pupils contracted sharply. Within this man's body, his blood and qi were like a sealed volcano, with energy surging beneath the calm surface, enough to overturn an entire city.
Li Qingcang.
The Speaker of the Great Xia Council possesses over 700,000 units of Qi and Blood, and is the only sixth-tier high-level martial artist among humans. He has been in seclusion for many years and has never made a public appearance.
He's standing here now, hands behind his back, looking at a map.
"Here you are." Li Qingcang turned around and looked at Song Chen.
His appearance was quite different from what Song Chen had imagined; he had a very ordinary face and looked to be around fifty years old.
Li Qingcang pointed to the chairs opposite the long table: "Sit down. Everyone else is here; they've all gone to the front lines. It's just the three of us today."
"I didn't call you here for pleasantries; let's get straight to business."
Song Chen sat down, placing the Tianjun Blade on the armrest of the chair. The sound of the scabbard touching the ground was particularly crisp in the quiet conference room.
"What mission?"
"Take a guess first." Zhou Wangyue stood next to the holographic projection, reached out and swiped on the table to bring up a map showing the progress of the nationwide crackdown.
Song Chen lowered his head and thought for a moment before saying, "Do you want me to raid the hideout of some beast king?"
Zhou Wangyue shook his head: "That's not right."
With a flick of his finger, the nationwide crackdown progress map on the holographic projection disappeared, replaced by a nautical chart.
In the center of the nautical chart is a long, narrow string of islands, surrounded by the sea, isolated overseas, and separated from the mainland by a wide strait.
Song Chen recognized the place: the Japanese islands.
Fifty years ago, that place was a country, an island nation.
It was known for whaling in the old days, accounting for more than one-third of the world's annual whale catch.
After the arrival of the psionic era, the whale race rose to power, becoming royalty and gaining the power of revenge.
That island nation, isolated overseas and surrounded by the sea, had no neighboring countries that could provide timely assistance in the face of the whale tribe's all-out attack.
It was erased from the map. From the first coastal city being swallowed by the tsunami to the last base city being flattened by the Beast King, it only took a few years.