Chapter 84

Although the situation had been dire that day, it was far from the point of pressing the self-destruct button—that was humanity’s final resort against the Aliens.

He could no longer even breathe normally, all color drained from his face, yet he forced himself to speak steadily: “I… I didn’t… didn’t press that button.”

The self-destruct system’s button required Resident Chip confirmation. Even if he had accidentally touched it, the chip would have blocked it. The control tower would have sent signals to other areas directly, and given the gravity of the matter, the people in all of Loch City who could authorize the self-destruct chip could be counted on one hand.

In the control tower, aside from Leon, the highest military district authority belonged to Horne.

It was impossible for him to have triggered it by mistake. After more than ten years in the control tower, he knew every step and every button of the console like the back of his hand.

Horne bit his lip as waves of heat surged in his throat. He clenched his jaw hard to keep them from rising.

“What I pressed was…”

Before he could finish, Horne choked up.

He had seen the signal sent from the main control tower on the military district terminal: Main Control Tower activating self-destruct system. Chip confirmed: Horne.

“I didn’t…” Horne was utterly incredulous. “Impossible, absolutely impossible!”

He shot to his feet with a “whoosh,” only to be pulled back down by the pain from his wounds.

Horne stared wide-eyed, his mind racing through the memories of that day, but every detail confirmed that he had pressed the emergency defense system’s button with perfect clarity.

Absolutely impossible. He had never received any Resident Chip prompt for the self-destruct system, so he couldn’t have triggered it by mistake. He had no authorization to start the self-destruct.

No chance at all.

“Horne, have you always been mixing up the buttons?” You Wangwang asked. Though such a question was a devastating accusation against Horne’s competence, You Wangwang couldn’t think of any other explanation at the moment. After all, the emergency defense system hadn’t been activated in a decade, so it was possible to confuse it with the self-destruct—he told himself that to ease his mind.

“Absolutely impossible!” Horne shouted.

His thoughts were in chaos, gripped by extreme shock. He slammed his hand into his wound, the pain making his vision go white. Once the agony subsided, he forced himself to calm down.

It wasn’t that simple. They would surely investigate further. Every piece of evidence had to prove that he had pressed that button for the charge to stick.

He hadn’t done it, so something must have gone wrong somewhere, or there was a misunderstanding.

He gradually controlled his racing heartbeat and breathing. Moments later, he said calmly, “Let them investigate.”

You Wangwang sighed, looking at Horne with eyes full of heartache and pity.

“Bang!” The door was kicked open, and a figure rushed in, straight to Horne’s side.

Hels pulled Horne into a tight embrace.

“Ah!” Horne cried out in pain.

Hels immediately released him and pulled back, cupping his face. “How are you? Are you okay? Did they give you a hard time?”

The instant he saw Hels, all the burning heat pent up in Horne’s throat came surging out.

“No, I’m fine.” A faint tremor threaded his voice. In Hels’s anxious gaze, Horne saw his own calm yet sorrowful expression reflected back.

“What about you? Did they give you a hard time?” Horne asked.

“I didn’t resist after they took me out.” He had cooperated fully, and the City Defense District hadn’t mistreated him.

“That’s good, as long as you’re not hurt.”

Hels’s heart twisted in pain. He brushed Horne’s hair from his eyes and tucked it behind his ear, saying softly, “Don’t worry about me. As long as you’re okay, I’ll be fine.”

Suddenly remembering someone else was there, Hels turned to You Wangwang, pointed at the door without mercy, and said, “Get out.”

That night, Horne did one thing: verify the control tower’s buttons.

He asked almost everyone who could access the control tower, but received no answers—only curses.

Horne lay on the black sofa, staring at the terminal, his body ice-cold, yet his face remained expressionless as he examined the whole affair.

The control tower had surveillance, though he didn’t know the progress of the analysis. The records showed Horne operating it, but Horne firmly believed he hadn’t made a mistake. They should check the control tower system further.

The person closest to the control tower’s designer he could reach was Ben Yian, who replied with great difficulty: [Little Horne, the third button is the self-destruct system.]

Horne: [I pressed the middle one, the emergency defense system.]

Ben Yian: [The control tower records show you pressed the third one. Were you too tired? Did your eyes play tricks that day? Want me to come keep you company? I’m handling the wounded for you; it’ll be late.]

Enduring the pain, Horne searched the house and found the control tower operation manual, thick with dust. He read it carefully from start to finish, confirming that the three central buttons on the console were, in order: laser, emergency defense, self-destruct.

It matched his memory perfectly. His operation had been correct.

The overpowering, stifling scent of cheese wafted from the kitchen. Horne didn’t know what Hels was cooking. He set the manual on the coffee table and shuffled painfully and slowly toward the kitchen, coming up behind Hels and saying softly, “The middle one is the defense button. That’s the one I pressed.” Horne spoke with eerie calm, his whole body trembling with the effort.

Hels hadn’t noticed Horne approach. Hearing the voice, he stopped what he was doing, anxiety flashing across his face. “Why are you up?”

“I was looking for something,” Horne said earnestly. “The middle one is defense. My memory is correct.”

Hels closed his eyes and took a deep breath, then pulled Horne into his arms. In that instant, Horne slid downward, so Hels sank to the floor with him.

The wooden floor was cold as ice, the woody incense unable to cling even to it.

[Loch City: Death toll exceeds forty thousand.]

More and more death reports poured in. Each official update pushed Horne’s spirit closer to the brink.

The control tower’s explosion had taken a massive horde of Aliens with it, and the Electromagnetic Net was gone. No Aliens had come since, but if they did again, what then?

Horne’s mind was filled with such questions.

“I know.” Hels held him, one hand patting his back rhythmically while the other clenched into a tight fist.

That day, the three control towers had exploded. Hels had been in a snowmobile at the time; man and vehicle flipped, burying him in snow for a full day. When he woke, the first thing he did was check Horne’s location on his Resident Chip. Together with Ben Yian, he had called for a rescue from the main control tower.

The City Defense District had come but reported no findings. Their resources were needed for the Warfallen Asylum rescues, so they left. Ben Yian raged at them, but it was a high-level City Defense District order. The rescuers looked reluctant as they departed.

Hels hadn’t wanted to rage then. He just thought that if others couldn’t save Horne, he would. He could see Horne’s position and info on his chip—Horne was in the main control tower ruins.

While the City Defense District handled the wounded, with the upper control tower collapsed, Hels climbed the outer perimeter thirty meters up without safety gear, found Horne, and carried him back down.

Hels was used to the weight of Horne on his back, the feel of climbing with him—those days, he often carried Horne up to the roof and back down.

The path was covered in blood and ashes.

The day after returning home, Hels learned the official report’s results, while Horne was still unconscious.

He had blocked those people from their home, so they dragged him away and imprisoned him.

“I didn’t press the wrong one,” Horne said, still unable to believe it. Sitting on the floor, he lifted his head from Hels’s shoulder, grabbed him, and looked earnestly into his eyes. “Do you believe me?”

“I do.” Hels gripped Horne’s wrist firmly. “Horne, you don’t need to test me. I will always, always believe you.”

In truth, he didn’t know what the reality was. He only knew the tearing pain in his heart, that whatever Horne said, he believed.

Horne leaned against the counter, staring at the ceiling, scrolling through the terminal records from start to finish—even the report of his own death in between.

Remembering that report, Hels released Horne and slammed his fist into the counter with a thud. Then he stood, walked to the window, and peeked through a corner of the curtain.

“They had no intention of saving you because resources were short,” Hels said lowly, his voice sinking even deeper. “But now they have resources to guard you?”

In the night, figures from the City Defense District stood at every corner. Streetlights stretched their shadows, encircling the building where Horne was.

Farther out, rescue operations bustled with red and blue lights. For days, Loch City was destined for sleepless nights.

“Maybe they’re afraid I’ll run. I won’t. I didn’t make a mistake.” Horne wanted to move but it hurt too much, so he frowned and reached out. “Help me up.”

Hels carried Horne back to the bedroom.

Unable to sleep, Hels tossed and turned, eventually dragging over a chair to lie on.

“Why not the bed?” Horne asked.

“Can’t sleep. Don’t want to disturb you.”

Hels wondered why the military district hadn’t mounted a rescue then.

No.

“When I came to the control tower for you, you’d just woken up?”

“Yeah.”

After learning the details, Hels furrowed his brow deeply. He sat up slowly, suppressing his rage. “You were injured but climbed out of the rubble yourself, yet they searched and said you were buried too deep to find temporarily.”

In the darkness, Horne opened his eyes but said nothing.

He could only hear his own heartbeat.

At least when his life hung in the balance, the military had abandoned him. They weren’t wrong—if saving him cost too many resources and left others to die, he would have blamed himself. But that wasn’t the issue.

The issue was their abandonment made no sense. If they had truly come to rescue, how could they miss him? Horne had been under a small stone in the control room—even he had lifted it barehanded.

A thought surfaced in Horne’s mind, but it was too shocking. The moment it appeared, he crushed it.

“The military? Idiots,” Hels growled, thinking of the same possibility and stating it bluntly. “They blew up their own control tower just to let you die on the battlefield?”

“Hels!” Horne stopped him. “Don’t say reckless things.”

Horne still believed that even with the irreconcilable rift between him and Ganal’s government, they wouldn’t destroy Loch City just to spite him. He wasn’t that important.

The military had simply abandoned him—that much was true. Whether Ganal’s government had a hand in that abandonment was for them to speculate.

“Either way, they lied. They didn’t try to save you.”

The news spread quickly from the military district throughout surviving Loch City. At first, no one paid much attention to the colonel’s death amid the overwhelming toll, just one among many high-level casualties.

Later, the report was retracted and turned into an announcement about Horne. People began to notice, interpreting it as: better off dead.

[Loch City: Death toll exceeds fifty thousand.]

The numbers climbed relentlessly. Without the Electromagnetic Net, Loch City teetered on the brink amid storms.

Humanity could be wiped out any second.

It all stemmed from—Horne.

Rescues continued, but the investigation into the control tower explosion dragged on unusually slowly. Every extra second was agony for Horne; he was fully confined to the house.

For the first two days, Hels could still go out, but soon they were both locked in together. Only Ben Yian came every other day with essentials.

Horne received many messages from Han Ya asking how he was. Horne said he didn’t know, then explained everything from that day—and even before—from start to finish.

He explained to everyone who asked, but aside from Han Ya and Wen Yu’s reserved stance, no one believed him.

“You’ve got it wrong. I didn’t press the wrong button.”

At first, Horne stayed calm, waiting for the court’s investigation results while monitoring Loch City’s rescues—and the survivors’ condemnations of him in real time.

“It’s fine. I didn’t press the wrong one. Just wait a bit more.”

No verdict came, but residents who had lost homes and loved ones didn’t care.

After nearly a month confined, Loch City’s situation stabilized somewhat. The explosion had claimed over a hundred thousand lives—one third of the city. The toll still rose daily but slowed. Most homeless survivors were settled in temporary shelters on the north side, while the south was almost entirely lost.

At the same time, the new base fought against the aliens returning from the north and stopped them from continuing south to Loch City. They suffered heavy losses and were overwhelmed, stretched thin.

During this period, Horne always suppressed his emotions. He lived normally each day, constantly checked the terminal nonstop, and nonstop accepted inquiries from the investigators. He spent all his other time with Hels, listening to music or reading books. Apart from not being allowed to go out, it was no different from usual.

His breakdown started with a stone.