Chapter 116: Chapter 114, Among mortals, there are also heroes.
Tadeusz didn’t know how he had done it.
He had led his platoon, following Yan Fangxu’s orders, to this wind farm to carry out their mission.
After the orbital bombardment, his troops couldn’t even be considered the main force; they were merely supporting teams from the Governor’s Infantry Regiment in executing a blockade.
Late on, the Star Realm warriors and Battle Nuns had arrived, and he didn’t even understand what had to be done at first.
It was not until a Star Realm warrior and a nun had died at the core location after the previous orbital bombardment.
Only when the surviving nun reported the situation to her head nun in somewhat of a panic, using the communication soldier’s channel, did Tadeusz understand what was probably going on.
Then, he strode towards that void.
Everyone watched his actions, confused at first, not knowing what he was up to. But soon, some comrades reacted, coming up to try to stop him.
In the pouring rain, his comrade grabbed Tadeusz’s waist from behind and yelled in his ear, “Have you gone mad? Have you no regard for your life?”
“Let go!” Tadeusz struggled violently.
“Don’t go to your death! It’s something even the Star Realm warriors can’t handle! You’re just throwing your life away for nothing!”
“Who says?” Tadeusz broke free with a twist and, turning to his comrade who had fallen to the ground, said, “What this battle needs most is steadfast will, and I certainly am not lacking that!”
As he said this, he thought of his friend Kodi, remembered his pulling the pin of the grenade and jumping into the enemy, remembered what he himself had not been able to do.
These memories did not strike him down; rather, they reinforced his determination, “This world has nothing to do with those Star Realm warriors or Battle Nuns, and yet they still fought with all they had. To save our own homeland, to fulfill the aspirations of the Governor and all our people, why shouldn’t we dare to sacrifice?”
“I am not afraid to die; I’ve been afraid once, and I’m not afraid this time! I will go and fight! I know I may be going to my death, but when I am dead, I hope more brave warriors will stand up!”
“We will surely prevail!”
He shouted with his arms held high, turned resolutely, and walked toward the void in the storm, adjusting his red cap.
He couldn’t see where the void was, but he could approximate its location based on previous intelligence, and then he could reach out and search with his hands.
A few minutes later, he found it.
A fog passed before his eyes, and when he came to his senses again, he found himself in the Mental Realm.
A roar from the projection of the raging owl marked out the enemy’s location for him.
Tadeusz didn’t hesitate for a second and immediately plunged into the fight.
When he arrived in this Mental Realm as a soul projection, he was unarmed, but when he had a strong desire to attack, a rifle somehow appeared in his hands.
He let out a roar not unlike that of the raging owl projection, and pulled the trigger towards the monster. The bullets swept over the beast, at least twice his size and requiring three or four of him to encircle, causing it to stagger.
Fundamentally, both the rifle and the bullets firing were manifestations of power projected from Tadeusz’s own will to fight. He was battling with his own will, and the specific form it took was of little consequence. The scenario within the Mental Realm only materialized the scenes he was most familiar with and adept at.
The bullets had a significant effect, but it was not realistic to think he could kill the raging owl projection with just those.
Ignoring his gunfire, the raging owl projection let out a furious growl. From its open beak, a white Storm Bullet fired out, hitting him square in the chest.
The Storm Bullet seemed far more terrifying than the spells cast by the blue-robed individuals he and Kodi had faced in battle; by all rights, he should have been undoubtedly dead. But he ignored all that, focusing only on hitting the raging owl as much as possible before the hit.
Then, the Storm Bullet struck him in the chest, blowing him away.
He smashed to the ground a short distance away, his body aching terribly, feeling as though he was falling apart.
But feeling pain was a good thing; if the Storm Bullet had killed him instantly, he would not have felt anything at all.
Unlike now, where he could endure the pain and struggle to his feet.
But in the process, the raging owl projection had already reached his face.
He swung his left arm to defend, and a riot shield appeared on his arm, blocking a heavy strike from the owl.
In fury, the owl lifted a pair of front limbs high into the air, ready to slam down once more.
One blow, two blows, three…
Tadeusz held on with all his might.
His mouth and nose were bleeding.
If there had been an observer, they might have seen that his entire soul’s representation, his spiritual form, was becoming unstable, with signs of disintegration.
In the midst of his mind dissipating, Tadeusz’s thoughts again turned to his friend Kodi.
They had grown up together in the Abandoned Cave Society, shivered together in utter darkness when the ‘Convicts’ had attacked their home, seen the light the Governor brought to them, enlisted together, and become political commissars…
Then unavoidably, he remembered the last moment before Kodi’s death, his friend with the red cap crawling from the half-ruined building, leaping down with two grenades in hand, killing the enemy.
Tadeusz, defending against the owl’s attacks with his riot shield, felt as though the memory overlapped with the current scene. He really saw Kodi jumping down from midair, grenades in hand and waist, smoke billowing around him.
Boom!
The explosion occurred!
The raging owl projection, raising its front limbs to strike him one last time, was blasted to pieces.
In his confusion, Tadeusz was enveloped by a white fog, and then he felt a fierce, cold rain lashing his face.
He fell downward, crashing into a puddle, with a roaring in his ears. He felt the warmth of blood uncontrollably flowing from his nose and mouth, quickly washed away by the rain splashing across his face.
His blurry eyes looked outward, seeing many robed figures rushing towards him.
He struggled to stretch out his hand, gave them a thumbs-up, and then the world turned pitch-black, and he knew no more.
…
Schneider still couldn’t believe what he had just witnessed.
After resolving the trouble at the wind farm he was responsible for, he had been worried about his injured battle brother and rushed over here.
On his way, he received the terrible news.
A brother who had survived the century-long expedition had died here.
His heart was filled with rage, with resentment towards Matins.
He wasn’t incapable of accepting the sacrifice of a battle brother. In fact, in his past experiences, he had grown accustomed to sacrifice.
But he couldn’t accept that his battle brother’s death was in vain.
Yes, in his eyes, this event seemed pointless.
They were supposed to die for the rebuilding of their warband, not on this planet that couldn’t even support the rebuilding of the warband.
He had always felt that Matins and Rizzo were wasting time.
But if it were just a waste of time, then so be it. Perhaps time would enlighten his two brothers that placing hope on that frail Spiritual Energy Governor was a ludicrous idea.
But now, what they had squandered was not only time but the lives of their battle brothers!
This was unacceptable.
He had come here to retrieve his brother’s body, and then to confront Matins and Rizzo, to challenge them whether their decisions were really correct.
If they were truly set on following this Governor down a dark path, would the remaining six of them be even enough to die?
One brother had already been sacrificed, yet there was still no sign of the dawn of the warband’s rebuilding! Conversely, the Mirthless Governor, after much plotting, had acquired a city that was about to be annihilated by a storm.
Enraged, Schneider arrived at this place.
And then he witnessed a mere mortal overcoming the enemy that his battle brother had failed to defeat until his death.
How could this be possible?
A mere mortal, how could he have accomplished this?
He had just experienced a battle against the projection of the fury owl himself, and he had won with ease.
He was a Phoenix Warrior who had fought for three hundred years, his spirit, his will, were much harder than steel.
He agreed with the previous judgments from Georgette and Priest Rizzo that such relentless spirit could only be possessed by them, the Emperor’s Death Angels.
Even the Battle Nuns couldn’t attain such a level.
But now, a mere mortal?
By what right?
He admitted, among the countless battles he had fought in his long career, many of the mortals who fought alongside were indeed commendable even by the standards of the stellar warriors.
But such heroes, even in the most elite Star Realm Armed Forces, were rare. How could this indigenous officer compare?
He instinctively refused to believe this reality.
Yet the last void was indeed rapidly shrinking and finally vanished. The dark clouds that had enshrouded the city sky, turning the entire city pitch-black, were also swiftly dissipating, allowing a ray of sunlight to fall through.
The wind was calming, the rain retracting…
No matter how much Schneider didn’t want to believe, everything before his eyes was indeed real.
…
[Hero Activable: Tadeusz]
Gu Hang, extremely curious about how Tadeusz had achieved this, tried to find the answer from his system interface.
Therefore, he discovered a new message in the hero interface.
Tadeusz could now be activated as a hero.
He tentatively clicked.
The cost for activation was 50 graces.
He didn’t spend the graces, but he could infer something from the cost.
50 points, that was the cost to upgrade from LV2 to LV3 for him.
Did this mean that once Tadeusz was activated, he would be a hero starting at LV3?
A content smile appeared on Gu Hang’s lips, “Among mortals too, there are outstanding heroes!”
————
This part of the story is complete.
I’ve taken a lot of flak lately, and there’s a lesson and an apology from me at the end.
I hope everyone can give me a bit more confidence, I know I was wrong!