Chapter 110: Arrival at R Base

Chapter 110 Arrival at R Base

Kobashi Ichiro naturally saw the message on the terminal as well. The most ridiculous part was that the coordinates marked in the message were the very execution ground where he and his men stood. Kobashi Ichiro found it absurd and laughable—had Commander-in-Chief Gu, under immense pressure, finally been driven mad by him?

Kobashi Ichiro didn’t take the message seriously at all. Staring at the distorted background in Gu Jinsheng’s video feed, he asked, “Commander-in-Chief Gu, have you made up your mind? Will you exchange the technology for these people?”

Gu Jinsheng coldly watched Kobashi Ichiro without responding.

Kobashi Ichiro nodded understandingly. “Commander-in-Chief Gu hasn’t made a decision yet. That’s fine. Let me have you listen to the voices of these hostages.”

Casually, Kobashi Ichiro yanked the gag out of one hostage’s mouth—it happened to be Gao Wanli.

The moment his mouth was freed, Gao Wanli immediately shouted, “Commander-in-Chief Gu, forget about us! Don’t hand over those core technologies! Country R and Country M are wolves with evil designs. Obtaining the technology would bring us nothing but harm! Once they develop and grow stronger, the first target they’ll attack is us!”

“Don’t mind us! For China, we’d die without regret!!!”

Gao Wanli yelled, tears in his eyes, but his expression was filled with unyielding resolve. He was willing to sacrifice everything for his homeland!

This display of patriotism moved everyone. At this moment, all Chinese people were brought to tears by Gao Wanli’s words. This was the spirit of their people—patriotism ran in their blood!

However, this noble sentiment was not what Kobashi Ichiro wanted to see. With a flick of his superpower, he viciously slapped Gao Wanli, sending him flying. Gao Wanli crashed heavily to the ground, spitting out blood mixed with fragments of internal organs, several teeth knocked loose.

Kobashi Ichiro’s face went cold. “This foreigner’s got some spine. Let’s see if all Chinese people are this unyielding by nature.”

He scanned the Chinese hostages and noticed most of them met his gaze without flinching, glaring at him with pure hatred.

Kobashi Ichiro knew the Chinese were stubborn. These people, who despised him, would rather die than submit. But what he wanted wasn’t to showcase the unbreakable spirit of the Chinese—he wanted their fear, their trembling, their tears, them groveling for mercy.

He wanted the world to witness the humiliation of the Chinese.

His eyes soon landed on Matsushita Hon, who was trembling in the crowd. He vaguely remembered this man—he had begged and cried in prison before.

With a nod, Kobashi Ichiro flicked his superpower to yank the gag out of Matsushita Hon’s mouth.

“Do you have anything to say to Commander-in-Chief Gu?” Kobashi Ichiro sneered. “If you don’t want to die, beg Gu Jinsheng properly. Tell him to exchange the technology for your lives—then none of you have to die.”

Just as Kobashi Ichiro predicted, Matsushita Hon’s legs gave out, and he dropped to his knees, kowtowing like a madman to Kobashi Ichiro. “Commander-in-Chief Kobashi Ichiro, I am your most loyal believer! I am Country R’s most loyal son! I deeply love Country R—it is my true homeland!”

With no dignity, Matsushita Hon sobbed, “My entire family immigrated long before the apocalypse. If not for technological limitations, I’d have purged every drop of this filthy Chinese blood in my veins! I am ashamed of the blood flowing within me!”

Though Kobashi Ichiro’s plan was to have the hostages beg Gu Jinsheng to exchange the technology for them, Matsushita Hon’s words deviated from his expectations. Still, having a Chinese person publicly renounce their identity and denounce Chinese blood as filthy in front of the world greatly pleased Kobashi Ichiro.

“You’re not wrong—I agree,” Kobashi Ichiro said mockingly, “you can only blame your bad luck for being born in China, cursed with its filthy bloodline. So now, you can only beg Gu Jinsheng—plead with him to swap those useless tech secrets for your equally worthless lives!”

Matsushita Hon immediately understood. Turning to Gu Jinsheng’s face on the screen, his tone shifted to one of threat. “Gu Jinsheng, we are all Chinese! Are our lives worth less than some soulless tech? Besides, you should have shared that technology openly with the world! Don’t you see the crisis humanity is facing? While you cling to your selfish nationalism, you’re an enemy of mankind!”

“Gu Jinsheng, if you don’t release that data, you’re unfit to be the Commander-in-Chief of the Beijing Base—you’re a traitor to mankind!”

“Shut up, Matsushita Hon, you coward!” Gao Wanli shouted, his words garbled through broken teeth. “You’re not Chinese—you’re Country R’s dog! We Chinese would rather die than surrender! Commander-in-Chief Gu, even if every one of us dies, we refuse to let you trade that technology for us! If you do, we swear—the day you bring us back to China, we’ll string ourselves up at the gates of the Beijing Base’s command center!”

Kobashi Ichiro’s expression darkened. “Such bravery. Let’s see how tough your bones really are. I hope you’ll keep spouting such bold words when I peel the flesh off your bones and shatter every bone in it!”

With a flick of his superpower, Kobashi Ichiro dragged Gao Wanli—who had been thrown to the back of the crowd—right before him.

The whole world watched, breathless. Even foreigners had to respect Gao Wanli’s courage.

Some netizens jumped in to fan the flames: “Is this how China treats its patriots? Aren’t they afraid of making everyone lose faith? In our country, we wouldn’t hesitate to trade even the most precious things to save our people, much less some lousy tech!”

“Is the Beijing Base still playing absurd jokes? Look at those coordinates they sent out on their terminals—this is just a straight-up taunt! Are they just screwing with us?”

"Check Gu Jinsheng’s IP—it’s still jumping all over the place. On such an important occasion, even the network is unstable. That just proves how little he cares about these people!"

Kobashi Ichiro lifted his hand, his tone dripping with menace. "Now, let me see you... Ah!"

Just as Gu Jinsheng's coordinates finally stabilized, locking onto R Base without any further jumps—and just as Kobashi Ichiro was about to strike Gao Wanli—everyone watching the live feed saw Gu Jinsheng raise his hand. His trademark Thunder Dragon materialized, and with a flick of its jaws, it spat out a fireball. In an instant, Kobashi Ichiro was swallowed by flames, his entire arm burning as his agonized screams filled the broadcast.

For a heartbeat, every viewer sat frozen, staring in disbelief at what had just unfolded in Kobashi Ichiro's live stream.

One viewer commented, "What just happened? Am I hallucinating? How can Gu Jinsheng control Thunder Dragon through the screen to attack someone?"

"You're not the only one—I saw it too!"

"No way this is real!"

"Wait, look at Gu Jinsheng's IP address—it's locked onto R Base's execution grounds now!"

"How is that possible? Just three minutes ago, his location was still at the Capital Base. How did he get to R Base so quickly?"

"Even if Gu Jinsheng hauled ass overnight, he couldn’t have breached R Base’s protective shield. And even if he did, the disturbance would’ve been massive. There’s no way Kobashi Ichiro wouldn’t have noticed."

A few even speculated wildly, "Maybe Kobashi Ichiro and Gu Jinsheng are staging this together."

But those dumb theories got ignored.

At R Base’s execution grounds, Kobashi Ichiro, now under sudden attack, stared in shock at the Thunder Dragon that seemed to have materialized out of nowhere. "Gu Jinsheng?! How are you here?!"

Gu Jinsheng stood at the door of a hovercar, the wind whipping at his clothes, his presence as awe-inspiring as a goddamn avenging angel. "I said I would come for every citizen of China, and I never break my word."

Zhou Qin and the other supers unleashed their abilities, severing the ropes binding the Chinese hostages in one swift motion. "Get on the vehicle!" he shouted.

Before the Chinese supers could process the chaos, they all sprinted toward the hovercar. The supers on board activated their abilities to cover their comrades’ retreat. The R supers, scrambling to fight back, engaged in battle with the Capital Base’s forces—but they were no match. Thunder Dragon hurled lightning orbs, while Ji An summoned his unicorn. The unicorn might’ve looked harmless, but wherever it passed, R supers turned their attacks against their own allies.

"A psychic?!" Kobashi Ichiro gaped in horror at Ji An and his unicorn, momentarily forgetting the flames on his arm. "That’s impossible! How can a psychic manifest their ability like this?!"

Ji An smiled sweetly at the disheveled Kobashi Ichiro. "Oh, it’s totally possible. Our Capital Base is light-years ahead of your wildest dreams. What seems impossible to other bases is just another day for us."

"Take, for example, meal pills that keep you full for a day—hell, a whole month. Storage gear that outclasses even spatial supers, usable even by ordinary people. Or treatments that can heal injuries even healing supers can’t fix, scanners that detect mental implants even high-level psychic supers can’t perceive, the holographic tech many are using now, and—oh yes—this hovercar you’ve never even seen before."

Ji An tossed in, smirking, "Ah, right. You probably don’t know what a hovercar is. It’s a flying car that can reach speeds of 1,000 kilometers per minute!"

The moment he said this, the chat lagged for a second—then blew up with WTF’s.

Ji An ignored them, his gaze fixed on Kobashi Ichiro. When Kobashi Ichiro inadvertently met his eyes, Ji An’s eyes went snake-like, pupils thinning to razor slits.

"Kobashi Ichiro, I order you to gather all the high-level supers from your command center here—and then self-destruct."

Like a damn marionette, Kobashi Ichiro robotically barked orders, immediately summoning R Base’s top-tier supers to a suicide meetup in full view of the live audience, without even token resistance.

Ji An slid back into the hovercar. Gu Jinsheng asked, "Did we get everyone?"

Someone replied, "There are still people in the dungeons."

"Do you know the coordinates?" Ji An asked.

"Nah, but I can lead us. Good enough?"

"Yes," Ji An nodded.

The people inside the hovercar finally let out the breath they had been holding, and as they began to look around at those beside them, ready to share their joy, Gao Wanli spotted Matsushita Hon hiding in the crowd.

Gao Wanli glanced at Gu Jinsheng and the others, noticing no one was paying attention to this side. He grabbed Matsushita Hon and, catching everyone off guard, suddenly flung open the car door and hurled Matsushita Hon out.

"Gao Wanli, what are you doing?!" Matsushita Hon's relatives roared in anger.

Matsushita Hon's father spoke in broken Xia language, with the same awkward accent as an R-person speaking Xia language, "Stop! Stop! Damn it, he pushed my son out!"

Then, someone (no one knew who) reopened the door, and several feet lashed out, kicking Matsushita Hon's family and friends out one after another.

Once they were all shoved out, Zhou Qin forcefully shut the hovercar door and said with grave seriousness, "Hovercars aren’t like other vehicles. They move at extremely high speeds, and opening the door while in motion could suck people right out. This is just a short-distance trip without direct coordinate positioning, so the speed is low. But when we engage in spatial transfer, absolutely no reckless behavior like this, understand?"

Gao Wanli shouted, "Understood!"

Everyone in the car nodded obediently, and Zhou Qin was satisfied with their compliance. Meanwhile, Ji An, who was driving, acted as if he hadn’t even noticed people falling out of the car.