Chapter 155 Explanation

"Sir, we've lost contact with Squad 37!"

Sitting inside the tactical command vehicle, the commander—who had originally been sent as reinforcement, but was now forced into a panicked retreat under the terrifying threat of the Hulk—listened as his adjutant rattled off real-time reports that sounded like death knells.

This sent the lean-cheeked commander into a deep silence.

He rubbed his aching eyes and mentally calculated the extent of the losses this time...

As he calculated and re-calculated.

Even for a commander with such a wealth of operational experience, someone who had tasted the sweet joy of countless victories and the bitter shame of defeat, the sheer scale of these losses was almost too much to bear.

Scarcely a dozen minutes had passed since he ordered the retreat, yet nearly half of their combat trucks were already gone!

Some had willingly sacrificed themselves to act as decoys, others had been overloaded with heavy weaponry and could not travel fast enough, allowing the Green Giant to run them down, while a few had plunged into bottomless abysses due to panicked drivers making fatal steering errors.

And the ultimate culprit behind all of this was that raving madman of a Green Giant trailing behind them.

Through the real-time feeds on the screen, the commander glanced at the green monster leaping wildly through the air. He was utterly baffled: how could legs that short jump that high? Move that fast?

Every single step left a crater behind.

Connecting those steps together made him look almost as if he were flying.

This was precisely why these specially modified trucks could never outrun the green monster, forcing them to continuously sacrifice their comrades just to barely match its terrifying speed.

It wasn't that they were weak; it was simply that the monster was too freakishly overpowered!

Seeing that his entire elite force was on the verge of being toyed to death, the commander immediately issued an order:

"All units, head straight for the base!"

He could no longer afford to hesitate. Initially, he had chosen not to return directly to the base partly out of fear that it would be exposed prematurely, and partly because he had foolishly thought, "Surely a monster of that size can't possibly move very fast?"

Yet now, the monster's speed far exceeded the commander's worst expectations, and the team's casualties were likewise mounting far beyond his projections.

Therefore.

They could delay no longer.

They needed that heavy firepower support to turn this godforsaken freak into a sieve right on the spot, to avenge his fallen comrades!

The moment the commander gave the order, every truck driver felt as though they had caught sight of the dawn's first light. In an instant, they mustered twelve-tenths of their focus, driving with desperate intensity in a frantic bid to save their own fragile lives—lives that felt as precarious as a lonely boat amidst surging waves or duckweed battered by a rainstorm.

Yet even so.

Even with their accelerators pressed all the way to the floorboards, even with their hands gripping the steering wheels so tightly that their muscles were strained nearly to stone.

Trucks were still being relentlessly destroyed.

That green monster was like a living green mortar shell, transforming mid-air into a hard, high-velocity sphere of flesh that slammed directly through the trucks with a deafening crash.

Yellow-and-red flames instantly erupted, yet the green monster emerged from the sea of fire completely unfazed. It crouched down immediately, its legs coiling like springs to charge up kinetic energy.

Biu~

Another projectile launched.

And before long, yet another truck was reduced to ruins.

With a strength that defied human imagination, this monster was continuously venting its boundless fury.

The commander pulled his gaze back once more and lapsed into silence.

He had stopped asking the adjutant to give real-time casualty reports... To put it simply, his mind was completely numb.

After pondering for a long time, the commander finally dialed a number he had memorized and kept ready for a very long time.

After just a single ring, the call was answered.

The person on the other end did not speak first, nor did they make a single sound.

Yet this alone was enough to make every hair on the commander's body stand on end. He wiped away the non-existent sweat from his forehead—a habitual gesture whenever he was nervous—and stammered:

"Hello... Boss..."

His tone was brimming with guilt. At this moment, he bore no resemblance whatsoever to the authoritative commander of an elite combat unit.

Yet the boss on the other end of the line showed no shift in demeanor whatsoever. With a slightly low and calm voice, he said:

"I need an explanation."

An explanation... Hearing those words, the commander wasn't entirely sure which matter the boss was referring to.

Was it about him bringing a monster of this caliber—along with so much unwanted attention—directly toward the secret base?

Or was it about his previous launch of the H718 missile, which had caused such a massive commotion in his futile attempt to destroy the green monster?

Or perhaps both?

The commander couldn't quite guess what kind of emotions lay hidden beneath the boss's calm words and that simple, ambiguous phrase.

Hesitating for a moment, and fearing that the boss might grow impatient, he braced himself and blindly picked one to answer:

"I didn't mean to deliberately launch the H718, at the time it was really because..."

"The other one," the boss suddenly interrupted, his tone remaining even, his voice still low.

Yet these few simple words sent a sudden surge of chilling terror through the commander's body—a coldness that started right at his tailbone and shot straight up to his crown!

The commander instantly felt as though he were sitting on pins and needles, sensing that every single thought in his mind had been laid bare by the boss.

There was probably nothing more terrifying in this world than having one's innermost thoughts accurately exposed by someone else...

The commander raised his free left hand to wipe away the cold sweat that had finally broken out on his forehead, swallowed hard, and forced himself to address the other possibility:

"Because I felt that if we dragged it out any longer, the casualties would become far too severe. I couldn't bear to watch the elite troops you poured so much effort into cultivating get wiped out entirely, which is why I rushed back to the base..."

However, the boss on the other end of the line did not seem satisfied with this answer.

He let out a cold snort.

That cold snort seemed to pierce through the endless distance, striking the commander's heart with pinpoint precision.

The commander hastily explained, "Boss, I really did think that way. I was only looking out for your interests..."

Yet the boss calmly and ruthlessly stripped away the commander's facade, saying:

"Stop putting on an act. I know what kind of person you are. You have never been someone capable of feeling genuine gratitude in the face of another's sacrifice; you only laugh inwardly at their stupidity.

"Besides, the heaviest casualties right now are not even among your own direct subordinates. With your rivals' men dying one by one, what could you possibly find unbearable? I daresay you've been secretly overjoyed this entire time, haven't you?"

These words sent a shiver straight down the commander's spine, and cold sweat poured down his forehead like rain.

The boss's calm words felt as though they were dragging the commander's dirtiest, darkest thoughts out into the open, exposing them directly under the blazing sun.

Just as the commander opened his mouth to offer another excuse, the boss spoke first:

"However, none of that matters. I've never been someone who cares about the moral character of his subordinates, nor am I a lover of misplaced sanctity. In my eyes, the filthy rats scrambling for survival in the sewers are far more likable than any so-called God who preaches selfless devotion.

"Therefore, all I want from you is a single thing: the truth.

"Can you understand what I mean?"