The One Who Ends Wars

Although Blackie was, of course, extremely unwilling to march to her death, under the compulsion of the Command Spell, she ultimately hefted half of the C4 and charged into the base alongside Laura. Of course, Jos never truly intended for her to die; he merely had her allocate a portion of her body for this task. After all, even if only the tiniest fragment remained, as long as Venom had a host, she could quickly regenerate, so there was never any real danger to her life.

Watching the receding figures of Blackie and Laura, Jos turned and fled into the distance. He knew all too well the destructive power of that bundle of explosives—at this range, he would have no hope of surviving the blast.

...

"Who are you!" Jos had barely turned to leave when he was suddenly confronted by a squad of patrolling soldiers. On the way in, three seasoned veterans had led the team, so reconnaissance work naturally hadn’t fallen to Jos. Now, left to his own devices, it became immediately apparent just how inexperienced he truly was.

"Hey, if I were to say your timing is really unfortunate, what would you think of that?" Standing before a dozen rifles aimed squarely at him, Jos's expression didn’t change in the slightest.

"Enough talk. Take him back to base for interrogation—he might be with the Americans. Ha, barging here alone, you really must have a death wish!" The man who seemed to be the squad leader frowned and gestured, clearly uninterested in exchanging any more words with Jos.

"Alone, huh... That actually reminds me—if my teammates were here, maybe a few of you might make it out alive today." Jos shrugged, then let out a long sigh. "But as luck would have it, it’s just me now, so none of you are leaving here."

"Pfft, Captain, maybe this guy’s just a lunatic who ran off the battlefield? He says we’re all going to die?" One of the terrorist soldiers couldn’t help but laugh.

"Alright, maybe I was being too tense. The general’s plan is about to succeed, and we’ve been getting chewed out ten times a day lately." The squad leader laughed as well, clearly not seeing Jos as any kind of threat.

But to everyone’s shock, Jos suddenly bent backward, arching his body so that he faced the sky while his back was to the ground, supporting himself on all fours like a makeshift bench.

The sheer absurdity of the act nearly threw out the backs of the surrounding terrorists; for a moment, no one could fathom what Jos was up to. It didn’t look like an attack posture, but it was clearly not the gesture of a compliant prisoner either.

Then they realized just how wrong they were—profoundly so.

"Eight-foot... no, only half the range—take my Four-foot Yata Beads!"

Suddenly, the center of Jos’s body, sprawled on the ground like a table, shone with a dazzling brilliance. In an instant, a hail of tiny orbs of light erupted with terrifying speed and force, sweeping through a semicircle with Jos at the center.

The assault was as sudden as it was overwhelming. When Jos stopped releasing the orbs, everything—trees, men—within a thirty-meter radius had been riddled like a honeycomb, an utterly gruesome spectacle.

The only flaw in the technique was the awkwardness of the posture; otherwise, its power was truly terrifying. No wonder it was the signature killer move of Kizaru, the original owner of the Glint-Glint Fruit, during the Summit War.

Of course, a technique of such magnitude came at a steep cost. If not for the fact that Jos’s "Four-foot Yata Beads" fell short in area, power, and duration compared to the original, the expenditure would have left him collapsed on the spot.

"Tsk, I really do need to find something to boost my physical strength as soon as possible."

Jos brushed the dirt from his hands and turned his gaze to the squad leader. Unlike the others, who had been turned into human sieves, Jos had intentionally spared him during the attack, leaving him completely unharmed.

But after witnessing such a bizarre and horrifying attack, the squad leader had no fight left in him.

"Damn monster! You won’t be so cocky for long!"

Fearful as he was, he refused to yield, shouting defiantly even as he slumped to the ground.

"The general’s plan is about to succeed! Once it does, all of Egypt will be ours! No—conquering the whole world won’t be a problem!"

Jos’s face showed a look of astonishment, as if he could scarcely believe what he was hearing. "World domination? Out of a little base like this, you’re telling me you’ve got the power to conquer the world?"

At this, the squad leader’s face lit up with delight. He laughed loudly. "Hahaha, is that enough to scare you? Too bad, even if you know now, it won’t matter. The general’s plan is already prepared, and even if you report this to the Americans, you won’t be able to stop—"

"Hold on." Just as the squad leader was about to reveal their world-shattering plot, Jos interrupted. "Let me just check—does your plan happen to be explosion-proof?"

"Explosion-proof...?" The squad leader echoed blankly, apparently not understanding.

Jos nodded with satisfaction. "Judging by your expression, I think I’ve got my answer. You can stop the explanation. Though I’ve said this before, I’ll say it again: I’m not really one for listening."

As he spoke, Jos tightly bound the squad leader, then bolted off into the distance without a backward glance.

"Don’t worry, it’s all over now..." Only when Jos had completely disappeared did his voice float back to the squad leader, light as a feather: "If you’re wondering why, it’s because I’ve already blown everything up."

"Blown... up???"

...

That day, people dozens of kilometers away from the base saw a pillar of fire and a mushroom cloud tower into the sky.

The sheer spectacle of it led many to believe that a madman had actually set off a nuclear bomb.

Such news was shocking even in the midst of war—the fighting between the Americans and the terrorists abruptly paused in mutual astonishment.

Afterward, the Americans swept to a decisive victory.

Of the twenty-one who had accompanied Jos on this suicide mission, seventeen returned alive—an impossible number for a mission of this kind.

Yet every survivor kept silent about the details of the operation, though each credited the victory to a special forces soldier named Jos.

From that day on, legends of Jos began to circulate through the American base, and his exploits were recounted thus:

"Jos, a madman, a complete idiot—if he ever makes it back alive, we’ll kill him ourselves."

—From seventeen special forces soldiers, all gravely injured in a massive explosion.