Chapter Ninety-Four: The Nine Provinces! Thank you so much!

He wanted to watch the United States be annihilated by his own hand before he could ever be freed from the hatred burning in his heart.

Why did he hate America? He did not know. Even though Mucos, the nation’s supreme leader, had showered him with honor and untold riches, he still hated Mucos, hated Auden, hated the United States.

That was what Louis felt in his heart.

"Hello there, Mucos! Do you remember me?" Louis lifted a loudspeaker and slowly called toward the fortress.

At once, Mucos recognized the familiar voice.

The earlier barrage of gas shells had already left his troops dazed, and Mucos would never allow those gas rounds to bring his army to its knees.

"Of course I remember! Louis! The disgrace of the United States! A lapdog!" Mucos seized a megaphone and roared back.

The crowd broke into applause.

"Well said, Mr. President!"

"Exactly! Just a traitor, and he still dares come back!"

Everyone echoed Mucos with one voice.

No one wanted to see the leader of their country bow his head to a spy.

And of course, Mucos would never do such a thing.

His life’s greatest hatred was reserved for those who betrayed their country.

"You’ve gone mad! How dare you speak to me like that?" Louis’s face turned livid with rage. He had never imagined that Mucos would not kneel and beg for mercy, but would actually dare to hurl insults at him.

He was simply tired of living.

"What do you think you are, Louis? Let me tell you this: sooner or later, you will die at the hands of humanity!" Mucos shouted. Beside him, someone had already raised a first-generation Sunlight weapon. With a warhead mounted on it, the beam it fired cut through the air like a straight line and could easily be used as a laser cannon.

Louis trembled with fury. "A mere human dares to shout at me! All of you, attack! Kill them!"

At his command, the machines surged forward once more. This time Louis had deliberately shown a little favoritism, moving even more machines near the United States in order to wipe it out completely.

But he had barely finished speaking when a beam pierced straight through the region of his heart.

Of course, Louis did not fall.

He already possessed a mechanical body now, and there was no chip within it at all. What remained of his appearance was only a shell of his own skin.

Mucos stared in astonishment at Louis, who sat unharmed atop the machine. So Louis had already ceased to be human.

"Don’t panic! Keep fighting!" Mucos calmed the others with a few words, then turned fully to deal with the machines charging straight at them.

The others, too, gradually threw themselves into the war.

This was war, not a joke; there was no room for even the slightest mistake. A mistake meant paying with one’s life.

Louis, however, had miscalculated one thing.

In the last war, the United States had indeed suffered grave injuries, but with the joint efforts of the other three nations, its recovery afterward had been excellent, almost indistinguishable from the way it had been before the war.

This time, even though Louis had transferred more machines near the United States, he still held no real advantage. The main reason was that recent production had been focused on gas shells, while the recovery of the other machines had been only mediocre.

Louis naturally had not considered all this. Although he was a scientist, his military talent was average at best. In just three hours, the machine army had already lost nearly half its strength.

Louis completely lost his composure.

Pluto was also watching the battlefield at all times. Seeing how Louis was commanding things, he was so enraged that he cursed him out on the spot.

"Fool! Is that how you lead troops? Blind as I was to trust you! Stay by the side and watch carefully!"

With a cold snort, Pluto seized control of the army.

Mucos had originally felt he was fighting as freely as a fish in water, but the battle suddenly grew difficult.

"Everyone, stay sharp! Forget about that traitor Louis! Focus only on the battle before us! Pluto has regained command of the army. We must meet this with our full strength!" Mucos’s voice rang out loud and clear, carrying to every ear.

Everyone tightened their guard. Louis might be weak, but that did not mean Pluto was weak. Pluto had his own very effective way of waging war.

The crowd was already exhausted. Though they had recovered well before, such dense and high-intensity combat was still enough to wear them down.

Of course, when disaster strikes, human potential can be driven to the limit.

"Hold the line! Pluto has few troops left! If we can endure today, we can protect the land behind us! Protect our families behind us!"

"Have you forgotten our slogan?"

"We are the men of the United States, sworn to defend our homeland to the death! Everyone must remember that! Do not fail! If we fail, the fate of the entire nation will be lost with us!" The icy look on Mucos’s face had vanished. In its place was grief, fury, and a love so deep for the land behind him that it filled every word.

Tears welled in the eyes of those still fighting, yet their hands did not dare slacken for even a moment.

"Defend our homeland to the death!"

"Defend our homeland to the death!"

The crowd shouted in unison, their voices shaking the heavens.

Pluto’s attempt to wipe out the United States in one stroke was no longer possible. Even so, he kept launching gas shells into its interior.

The gas seeped through every crack.

A gas mask was only a temporary measure. People still had to eat and sleep; they could not possibly wear one forever.

The most urgent task now was to develop an antidote.

Mucos knew this well and quickly sent people to work on a cure.

North Sand and Euro Strong did the same.

Inside Euro Strong, the cure was already nearly complete.

After all, they were all top-tier virology doctors. Researching this sort of thing was easy enough; what remained was simply the time needed for mass production.

Euris let out a long, relieved breath.

"Thanks to Chu Xiao’s prophecy, we were able to get through this crisis safely. Otherwise, we would have been finished!" Euris sighed deeply.

There were always people in the world who refused to follow organization and insisted on doing things their own way.

Naturally, their endings were never good.

Once infected, the virus spread through the body in just a few minutes, leaving no chance for treatment.

What came after was even more horrific.

Euris had the infected bodies cremated.

In North Sand, Church was likewise grateful to Chu Xiao, grateful to Nine Provinces.

"Thank goodness for Chu Xiao’s advice, or we would have died without even leaving a corpse this time," Church said slowly, his eyes filled with gratitude.

"Yes! I was shocked too! Chu Xiao really was a prophet! Didn’t he say before that he was a time traveler? What exactly is he?" someone nearby asked.

Church thought for a moment.

"What he said was not exact. He only spoke of several wars and did not predict any specific one correctly. That means his prophetic power has a time limit."