Chapter 68

Almost running with joy, he thudded heavily on the stairs.

Hels always held Horne while sleeping, just like when he was younger and Horne would hold him.

“You’re not mad anymore, right?” Hels leaned close to Horne’s ear.

Horne turned off the light, rolled over, closed his eyes, and said slowly, “Don’t fight with Ben Yian again next time. He gets along well with Woody and me. You keep making him pay too much attention to me, which puts him in a tough spot. Besides, Ben Mu has been lucid only rarely these past two years, and he still has to take care of his sister. Don’t add more trouble for him.”

“Oh.” Hels gave a curt reply, with nothing more to say.

Breathing mingled with silence, gradually warming in the extremely close space between them.

Horne first thought it was his hair brushing his nape, but then realized it was Hels’s breath, so he turned around to face Hels. In the darkness, he couldn’t tell if the other’s eyes were still open.

Horne touched his hair and said mildly, “I’m not speaking up for him, nor am I afraid of you getting me in trouble. I just hope you don’t get yourself into trouble. You can’t completely beat him anyway. Whether you get hurt or get punished, it’ll pain me and make me feel bad. Got it?”

Horne lightly placed one hand on his own chest, while the other hand returned to rest in the narrow gap between them.

Hels took a deep breath, hugged Horne even tighter, completely eliminating that gap. He buried his head in Horne’s neck, breathing slowly, his voice tinged with grievance. “Sorry, I know you’re under a lot of pressure. I thought you felt I was causing you trouble, that you didn’t want to see me, and you were chasing me upstairs to sleep.”

Horne wanted to push him away, but Hels held on tightly. The other’s scorching body heat seeped through his thin layer of sleepwear, and the steady, powerful heartbeat transmitted through their chests.

Resistance proved futile, so Horne gave up and maintained the position, letting him be.

“You’re not mad at me, okay?” Hels said in a low voice.

The whisper-like murmur stirred a gentle breeze by Horne’s ear, making his heart melt like water.

He occasionally saw Hels on the training field—powerful and stern, with sharp, blade-like features, lips slightly pursed downward, his focused expression particularly captivating.

In that moment, he felt relieved and happy. The child who had been on the brink of death in the snowfield finally had the power to protect himself, and that power had finally been passed on between them.

But back home, all pretenses peeled away layer by layer.

Horne could only sigh and say muffledly, “I was a bit mad just now, and my tone wasn’t good. Sorry, I wasn’t chasing you away. Mm… I often feel powerless, but seeing you makes it a lot better. Don’t go upstairs. I need you.”

Hels’s arms tightened even more, as if he wanted to melt Horne into his body. At that moment, only one thought filled his mind: ‘Blow up the government, bomb the Military District—better yet, let the Aliens wipe out Loch City. That so-called “human civilized society” doesn’t need to exist at all.

This world doesn’t deserve him.’

“Sleep. We have to guard outside the city tomorrow,” Horne said softly.

Silence and peace. Countless times embracing in sleep, countless good dreams.

In the dream, Horne heard words Wen Yu had reminded him of multiple times.

‘Hels will be your sharpest blade—he can slay enemies or wound yourself. Use him well.’

Horne’s response was the same as always: “I don’t want him to be my blade. I want him to become himself.”

Deafening explosions rang out, heat waves crashed over him, and the dream scene shattered abruptly.

“Colonel! There are many wounded ahead who can’t be evacuated!”

Horne snapped back to reality, his expression grave as he pulled himself from last night’s dream.

Airborne Aliens were surrounded layer by layer by the Electromagnetic Net. Conductors triggered, and a mass of particle smoke dissipated.

The area of close combat with the Aliens was one kilometer from Loch City’s gates, where many were injured.

This Alien incursion was indeed the largest in recent years.

“Has reinforcement not arrived yet?” Horne’s voice was icy. He glanced at the shrieking flying beasts approaching again, then charged out of the position alone, hopped onto a snowfield armored vehicle, floored the accelerator, and raced toward the Electromagnetic Net deployment area.

He had sent three reinforcement requests, but Ben Yian’s aid hadn’t come. They lacked numbers—if they couldn’t eliminate the vanguard Aliens, the wounded deep in enemy territory couldn’t be safely retrieved.

Another fighter jet crashed.

“Reinforcements are almost here!”

Hels hid behind the armored vehicle, leaned out sideways, and shot an incoming Alien in the head with one bullet, then quickly pulled back. He roared, “This is the third time he’s said ‘almost here’!”

“I’ll go draw them.” Horne’s voice faded with the armored vehicle, leaving only the echo.

“Fuck!” Hels cursed.

Explosions and gunfire rose and fell, mingled with their screams.

Hels raised his gun, swiftly and precisely sweeping at the charging Aliens, but there were too many—some always slipped through.

“Ah!!” A scream came from nearby. Hels instantly swung his gun around. “Bang!”

He quickly reloaded, frowning tightly, and sent another reinforcement signal.

“Colonel!”

A shout came from the side. Hels looked over, his breath catching.

A massive swarm of Aliens flew toward Horne’s position, faster and closer. The snowfield armored vehicle sped along, carving long tracks in the snowfield, but it couldn’t shake the distance.

Horne always led from the front like this, but the more he did, the more Hels hated his own powerlessness.

The Aliens descended like a sky-covering darkness.

Horne gripped the steering wheel tightly, floored the accelerator, and drove toward the Electromagnetic Net setup. Shrill whistles howled from behind.

Hels fired rapidly toward that side, doing his utmost to ease Horne’s pressure.

In the second before complete encirclement, a massive explosion erupted overhead—Ben Yian’s reinforcements had arrived.

—

“Boom—”

Almost everything in the Command Room was overturned.

The two men grappled fiercely. After slamming Hels away, Ben Yian roared, “Enough!”

Hels climbed up from the floor and charged again, tackling Ben Yian to the ground. He punched him in the face, hands clamping his neck tightly, and snarled viciously, “You did it on purpose today, didn’t you? Deliberately late? Three messages, and you fucking did it on purpose, didn’t you?!”

Ben Yian was pinned down, face purpling, blood from his forehead trickling to his eye corner. He gritted his teeth and said, “Aren’t you supposed to protect Horne? If I didn’t come, how would you hold out?”

Another fierce punch swung down. Hels just wanted to kill this man.

“For that? You delayed just to prove that to me?! Do you know Horne got hurt? Huh?!” Hels couldn’t hold back. He rained endless fists on Ben Yian’s face, hands covered in blood.

Their plan had divisions from the start—the first wave was to lure, and Ben Yian’s reinforcements were for annihilation. But his delay caused many casualties, including Horne’s injury.

“What do you take Horne’s orders for?!” Another punch.

After Ben Yian’s reinforcements arrived, the Aliens surrounding Horne were hammered by laser cannons, but his snowfield vehicle was too close to the blast.

In Hels’s eyes, there was only that vehicle flipping in midair, crashing down hard, dragging a trail in the snowfield.

He ran over like a madman, heart pounding faster than ever. As he ran, everything around blurred and crumbled—meaningless.

Before he reached it, the door burst open. Horne, face full of blood, jumped from the driver’s seat, expressionless, without a hint of panic. He leaped out, rolled forward several times in the snowfield, and rushed back swiftly.

Three seconds later, the vehicle exploded, the shockwave hurling him over ten meters into the snowfield.

Ben Yian seized Hels’s wrist, twisted hard with full force to throw him off, then kicked fiercely at Hels’s abdomen, cursing, “Prove what, you fuck?! Woody wouldn’t release the manpower. What could I do?!”

Hels’s back smashed into the wall with a dull thud. He charged back immediately to counter.

“Bang!”

The door was kicked open.

Horne stood in the doorway, breathing lightly, face ashen.

Some bandages wrapped his body—these injuries weren’t severe for him, so he hadn’t taken long to treat them, just a mild concussion that needed a short rest. He had planned to lie down more, but hearing from the Military District that someone was fighting in the Command Room, he rushed back regardless.

Woody behind him glanced inside, his surprised expression freezing on his face before a faint smile flickered, gone in an instant.

The two inside were utterly disheveled, clothes torn and gray with dust, faces bloodied and dirt-streaked. They glared at each other, chests heaving. As the door opened, they both turned toward it simultaneously, holding their breath.

Horne looked at them coldly, eyes quickly scanning the Command Room’s mess. Almost grinding his teeth, he snapped harshly, “Hels, over here!”

His wounds throbbed with pain again.

Hels rolled up from the floor, wiped the blood from his face with his sleeve—smearing it worse—and clenched his fists. He walked steadily to Horne’s side.

“Ben Yian.” Horne’s tone was the same. Before he could say more, Ben Yian cut in.

“Sorry, I didn’t coordinate with Woody beforehand. My mistake.” He kept his head down, each word squeezed through clenched teeth.

Horne eased his tone a bit. “I already know the details. You…” He pointed at Ben Yian’s face. “Go handle that yourself.”

“You,” the gun barrel swung toward Hels, his voice tightening again as he frowned. “Out!”

The door closed, separating the two sources of chaos.

In the heavily silent Command Room, Ben Yian casually grabbed tissue to wipe the blood from his face, crumpled it into a ball, and threw it furiously into the trash. He stayed silent, slowly putting everything back in place one by one, then swept the floor and cleaned the bloodstains.

Woody sat in his spot, legs propped on the desk—one over the other—arms crossed over his chest, leaning back comfortably in the chair, watching Ben Yian quietly clean from start to finish.

A light chuckle broke the dead silence. Woody toyed with a teaching aid on the desk and said idly, “He’s too lazy even to reprimand you. Pathetic.”

Ben Yian’s hand paused, but he pretended nothing happened and kept cleaning.

“Sigh.” Woody sighed. “I told you years ago—the person he spends day and night with will inevitably grow closer than you. He won’t understand your hardships or your feelings.”

A dark cloud drifted by, blocking some of the sunlight outside the window.

Ben Yian finished tidying the Command Room and sat on the sofa to treat his wounds.

“How long since your sister last woke up?”

Woody’s question finally got a reaction. Ben Yian stopped what he was doing, looked up warily, and asked, “What exactly are you trying to say?”

Woody set down the teaching aid, drew back his legs, stood from the chair, and walked casually to sit beside Ben Yian. Like long ago, he draped an arm over Ben Yian’s shoulder, but Ben Yian dodged it.

Woody found it pointless but shrugged indifferently. “About two months without waking, right? From now on, the intervals will only grow longer until she never wakes again…”

Ben Yian clenched his fists, avoiding Woody’s gaze, and continued wiping the blood, pressing so hard his wounds hurt.

Woody sighed and went on, “Actually, I know a way to wake her—even cure her illness.”