PS1: Chapter 200! This story is going to come to an end after 38 chapters, thank you for your reading!
PS2: This is the novel I'm going to devote to after the translation of this novel is completed. Crap, the Villain Is Forced To Play the Role of the Heroine! . This novel is authorized and I can get money from its ebook sales. Wish me the best of luck! Because with more money, I can hire more translators to translate more interesting novels with me!
Chapter 200: The Light in the Storm
The sun had long gone down by the time the plane landed, and the sky was dark and unlit. When the plane had just landed, Amuro couldn't wait to open the hatch and jump out of the plane, rushing all the way from the tarmac to the briefing room. Fortunately, he had been to Lhasa several times before and his body has long been accustomed to the environment here, otherwise, the few steps can make him lie on the bed for several days.
The door to the briefing room was opened by him, and he gave his customary quick military salute, "Commander Bright, Amuro Ray reports to you … uh."
"There you are, sit down first." Standing by the door, Bright patted Amuro's shoulder, not caring about the latter's dazed appearance, "Wait until they come to a conclusion."
The commander was standing, how dare Amuro sit down? He stood upright at Bright's side and took a good look at the briefing room. It didn't take long for him to realize that only Bright and he in the briefing room are from the military, and the rest were all young and beautiful women.
Lacus in the seat was listening intently with her headphones on, while Ange and C.C. were sitting around, whispering something; Momoka was holding Audrey in silence, and the little girl's sobbing look was heartbreaking; Alice, who had somehow lost her left hand, was sitting alone, staring at the ceiling.
Amuro basically knew all the women here, except for the young girl who was standing in the front of the briefing room in the speaker's position. The girl with short blue hair was wearing a clean white coat, her crimson pupils were striking, and her powerful NT sense in his consciousness was dazzling.
"Commander," Amuro gently touched Bright's arm, "Who is she?"
"Who?" Bright followed Amuro's line of sight, "Oh, that is Miss Ayanami Rei, said to be the chief assistant of Lingus' laboratory. She is now acting as a technical advisor."
"Ayanami Rei, Ade's scientific assistant, and student." Almost at the same time, a cold voice rang out inside Amuro's head, "Not his mistress, don't compare me to those women over there."
Amuro was about to explain that he didn't mean that, when a piercing female voice caught everyone's attention, "Lacus, you've been listening to this recording for hours, did you find anything or not?!"
"Ange, calm down." C.C. said in a tired voice, "Let Lacus think."
"Calm down? Obviously he went out with you, and you come back alone as if nothing had happened, and now you're telling me to calm down?" Ange said in a loud voice, "Ten hours have passed! Ten hours!"
C.C. bowed her head in pain, speechless.
"Ange, quiet." Lacus said sternly, "I can understand how you feel, but everyone is anxious. There's no point in taking it out on C.C. The most important thing now is to figure out what's going on."
"I …!" Ange stomped her foot hard, "I'm sorry, C.C., I …"
"No need to be sorry, it's my fault." C.C. hugged her head helplessly, her long emerald green hair blocking her face, "It's all because of me that I got into this."
Audrey gave C.C. an undisguised glare of hatred, showing an expression that was completely incompatible with her age, and the latter buried her head even lower in guilty.
Amuro looked at what was in front of him, not knowing what to say.
"As you can see, that's it." Bright whispered, "It's been ten hours since Lingus disappeared, and you should have seen it on the plane, the thing that swallowed him."
"Yes, I did see it." Amuro nodded, "The whole mountain area disappeared…"
When the plane was approaching the base, Amuro saw a huge black spot from afar, and only when it got closer did he see that it was a black, round shadow, at least 500 meters in diameter. The most bizarre thing was that the black shadow appeared to be on a completely smooth horizontal surface, while Amuro clearly remembered that there were several small hills before.
"At the request of the moon, the disappearance of Lingus is now under secrecy." Bright raised his chin, "Only the people in this room know. No news should get out until it is certain that he is alive or dead."
"…" Amuro had a bad feeling, "But I can't feel Adrien at all anymore, it's almost as if he doesn't exist at all… …"
"Women over there, be quiet." Ayanami Rei, who had been working on the computer on stage, suddenly spoke up, "My research is finished, here's the conclusion."
Lacus quickly took off her headphones and looked focused, while C.C. and Ange, who were talking, also shut their mouths and sat upright.
Ayanami Rei quickly fiddled with the notebook a few times, and a series of angel's names appeared on the big screen, "Before describing the situation of the Twelfth Angel Leliel, we need to analyze the order of appearance of angels. The first thing that can be confirmed is that the angel's order of appearance is purposeful."
The names of Gagiel, Sahaquiel, Iroul, and Kaworu Nagisa darkened on the screen.
"Leaving aside these few, the remaining angels all made their appearance with the NT as their enemy and appeared according to a progressive intensity." Ayanami Rei said and looked at Amuro and Audrey, "Ade once said that the NT is the direction of evolution that humans naturally choose in order to break free from Lillith's grip, and can pose the greatest threat to angels, so angels' strategy is crude but meaningful. "
The first thing that appeared on the screen was the Fourth Angel Shamshiel that looked like a squid, and Amuro was impressed by it.
"This featureless angel is cannon fodder destined for sacrifice, a castaway of the angel group, used to test the strength of human armament and the NT's capabilities." Ayanami Rei switched out pictures while speaking, "After angels confirmed the substantial threat of NT, Ramiel was used to try the possibility of not being approached by NT, and the Fourteenth Angel Zerel was used to try the possibility of eliminating NT after being approached. Immediately afterward, they found out that they had been deceived and learned through some channel that the person behind it was Ade."
"The Thirteenth Angel Bardiel was used to try to indirectly solve Ade but failed, so after that, the angels tried to directly destroy Ade." On the screen finally appeared today's two protagonists, "We were deceived by angels, thinking that they would only appear one by one. These two actually cooperate with the action. The Fifteenth Angel Arael targets the NT with a precise strike from orbit, blocking Ade's ability to move and think, while the Twelfth Angel Leliel takes this opportunity to smuggle itself into the target location and fundamentally erase Ade's existence."
"I see, that makes sense." Lacus said with a sudden realization, "Ade was NT, so he could spot angel immediately, and when he woke up, DX was probably just captured by the Twelfth Angel Leliel, and at that time, he probably found that DX couldn't escape, that's why he felt hopeless."
"But didn't DX escape …" C.C. suddenly froze, "Ah …"
"Yeah, probably he told the angel 'let DX go, then I will not resist you,' or something like that." Ange said in a sullen voice, "That's the kind of person he is, always has been."
C.C. slumped helplessly on the table. Her pretty face was blocked by her long hair and arms, her shoulders twitched in a slight way, but she didn't make any sound.
Ayanami Rei took a deep breath to continue, "Next, I will talk about the Twelfth Angel Leliel. We observed that its body is a diameter of about six hundred and eighty meters, and the surface is wrapped by a reverse AT field. That ball above is actually a shadow, we don't need to pay attention to it. A-Laws' military drones and probes could enter freely, but what was inside could not come out."
Ange held up her hand, "And where exactly is inside?"
"Inside is a passage that connects the Sea of Dirac, Void Space, the Quantum Realm, call it at you will. Throughout the ages, although it has changed countless names, it all refers to the same place. Some scholars even believe that it is the place where the souls of all intelligent beings return after death, but this claim cannot be proven or disproven." Ayanami Rei pointed to the black circle on the screen, "The body of the Twelfth Angel Leliel should be this passage itself."
"What about Ade?" C.C. raised her head and asked in a trembling voice, "What about Ade?"
"The Twelfth Angel Leliel has not moved so far, so I presume Ade should remain in the passage and not enter the Void Space." Ayanami Rei looked at Alice's disappeared left arm with a complicated expression, "Thank Alice for the experimental materials, you go to Commander Bright later to put the recovered debris on yourself. Based on the corrosion level of the debris, Ade's body can protect the LCL in his body for seventy-two hours at most."
Ange looked at the time quickly, "Only sixty-one hours and twenty-five minutes left, no more nonsense about unintelligible principles, just tell us what we can do to get Ade out?"
"Due to the presence of the reverse AT field, all actions from the outside cannot have an effect on the angel." Ayanami Rei tapped the keyboard and listed a whole screen of dense formulas, "There needs to be enough firepower to destroy it from the inside, when the stability of the AT field is affected, the huge pressure from the Void Space will make the channel collapse by itself, and Ade in it will have a certain chance to be thrown out."
Everyone couldn't help but look pleased, and the emotion called hope brewed in the briefing room. Only Amuro calmly noticed the word "a certain chance". Since this Miss Ayanami Rei was not willing to say the exact number … the chance was probably so low that it was equivalent to a miracle.
"But." Ayanami Rei paused slightly, sadly watching the joy on everyone's face slowly dissipate, "Angels have been adapting to particle beam weapons by changing the force structure of the AT field, we can't break through its defense. As for detonating plural nukes inside it… I thought about it, but Ade would also die, so it can only be the last resort."
The room was quiet for a moment, and then a neutral voice suddenly rang out from the corner, "How do you know if you don't try?"
Amuro looked at the voice and was surprised, "Your Highness Loran, are you there?"
"How do you know if you don't try?" Loran, who was hiding in the shadow of the corner all the time, stood up and stared firmly at Ayanami Rei, "Just because TurnA didn't work on the Fifteenth Angel Arael doesn't necessarily mean it won't work on the Twelfth Angel Leliel. How do you know if you don't try?"
"Loran, don't deceive yourself." Ayanami Rei said softly, "Moonlight Butterfly is positioned as an environmental cleanup function, it doesn't have that strong power. All of which Ade told me when he was alive —"
"What do you mean when he was alive?!" Loran growled, interrupting her, "How do you know if you don't try?!"
"The structure of space inside is extremely special, and boson jumps are likely to fail, which means that if you go in, you'll never get out. The moon cannot accept the loss of TurnA itself. I don't want to lose him either, but …" Ayanami Rei sighed and shook her head, "That's all I can help, make up your own minds."
No matter how willing Loran is to save Ade, Diana is unlikely to agree to use TurnA to take the risk. Loran leaned down and hammered the table hard, and the tiny drops of water that had just fallen on it were shattered by the force of the recoil.
The bean-sized teardrops clattered out of Audrey's eyes, but the little girl didn't make any sound. Lacus frowned as she stared at the screen, trying to come up with a solution that didn't exist. C.C. stared blankly at the ground, overwhelmed by self-recrimination and guilt. Alice was as quiet as a dead computer, not moving at all.
"You guys continue to grieve, I'll go first. Momoka, you stay and take care of Audrey." Ange said, then stood up and walked straight to the door without looking at anyone. Only Amuro and Bright gave her a surprised look, but none of them had any intention of making a comment.
"I'm not an expert on this, but anyway, let's start by trying. Time is short, and sitting here won't help anything." Amuro was the first to break the silence and said in as calm a voice as possible, "Commander Bright, I'm asking for orders to go in with the Unicorn Gundam."
"Amuro?" Bright was startled, "But …"
"Isn't the point of calling me back? Besides, I'm an NT, it's easier for me to find Adrien there." Amuro pretended to smile lightheartedly, "After going in, there will always be a way."
"But …" Bright frowned nervously, "It's no different from letting you die … "
"The duty of a warrior is to die, what really important is to die in the right place, in the right place. You are the best commander I have ever seen, surely you don't need me to tell you this simple truth." Amuro said with a serious look, "Even if the Unicorn Gundam won't work, I still want to give it a try. Your Highness Loran is right, how do you know if you don't try?"
"Amuro…" Bright said with a nostalgic and emotional look in a daze, "Then give it a try."
…
Ade had been floating in this hellish place for an unknown amount of time. The concept of time and space seemed to have disappeared. No light, no sound, he can only feel that his body is being eroded little by little. When my human part is exposed, it will be the end, right? He silently thought so.
His NT intuition made him instinctively feel that this was not the so-called quantum field, but just a channel connecting there. Using the analogy of known knowledge, it was like the border of hell, the outer edge of purgatory. Although the Twelfth Angel Leliel pushed him countless times to the real quantum field, somehow, there was always an invisible repulsive force to keep him back.
Right now, the Twelfth Angel Leliel pushed him again and he had been bounced back again as usual. He could imagine that the Twelfth Angel Leliel was cursing unhappily with its pitiful vocabulary, but it had long been kicked out of the mind space chat room by Ade.
"Sure enough, you can't get through either. I knew it." A voice that was too familiar to be heard rang out abruptly in Ade's consciousness, "But how did you die so early? Were you stabbed to death by C.C. or were you beheaded by Lacus?"
