NIKKE: The Apocalypse Arrives, But the System is 100 Years Late

In the power plant's monitoring room, Rapi suddenly turned away from the screen and addressed Mo Chen with her usual calm expression.

"Commander, I've changed my mind."

"Uh?" Mo Chen was baffled.

Changed her mind about what?

"To prevent any leaks of classified information and to ensure the safety of the commander, if necessary, Anis and Neon should be terminated to eliminate any future risks."

"What?!"

Meanwhile, in the depths of the sewer:

"But you and Rapi are so close..." Neon sounded puzzled.

How could the ship of friendship sink so suddenly?

Anis snorted.

"So what if we're close? Some things just can't be shared. Opportunities don't come to those who wait—they're seized by those who act first. That goes for even the closest of teammates."

"Protective?"

For some reason, the word suddenly popped into Neon's head.

"Exactly—protective."

Anis placed one hand on her hip and responded with undeniable conviction.

"And that applies to you too. Don't think being on the same team will make me go easy on you."

Even Neon, as understanding as she was, couldn't help but feel that this logic was impossible to reason with.

"You're just assuming the worst. While the commander is amazing, I've never even considered him as—"

"Hold it."

Anis's eyes lit up with delight. That was precisely what she'd been waiting for.

Without missing a beat, she decisively interrupted Neon before she could finish her sentence.

"That's what you said, right?"

"Huh?"

Neon froze, completely confused.

What had she just said? She hadn't meant anything significant, right?

"Since you've said that..."

Anis gave Neon a pat on the backside. Neon glanced back, confused, only to see Anis extending her hand.

After a moment's hesitation, Neon reached out and shook it.

"Now—we're good sisters, right?"

Anis smiled brightly, and even Neon couldn't help but pause for a moment.

"Huh?"

That was too fast of a development.

In that instant, Neon even thought to herself that maybe Anis wasn't so bad after all.

"Since we're good sisters now, I can't bully you anymore."

Anis generously patted Neon's backside, again. "Let me go ahead."

"Huh? Why?"

Neon was confused, completely puzzled by Anis's words, but she kindly explained.

"Because... where you're crawling, there might be bodies around."

It turned out, Neon had been stepping on "mines" all along.

Neon froze, staring blankly at the black mud covering her hands.

"Ahhhhhh—!"

A piercing scream echoed through the sewers.

Meanwhile, in the power plant, Mo Chen heard the strange sound and was quite surprised.

A ghostly scream?

He quickly checked the monitors—only Raptures who were scattered throughout the power plant.

He then noticed two figures crawling in the sewers.

Upon closer inspection...they were Anis and Neon.

They finally arrived.

Mo Chen breathed a sigh of relief: he'd been waiting for a while and thought they might have failed.

After a while...

"Clang."

The sewer lid was lifted.

"Welcome back... cough cough cough!"

When Anis and Neon poked their heads out, they heard a familiar voice.

And when they saw the even more familiar figure, the two girls instantly froze in surprise.

Their guns paused mid-air.

There sat Mo Chen on a chair, leisurely, like an evil old landlord from the feudal era, with two girls standing on either side of him—Rapi and Rose.

As for Marianne, she was nestled in his lap, like a favored concubine.

"Commander...?"

This wasn't what they had imagined at all.

They had been crawling through the sewers for days, hurrying as fast as they could, yet Mo Chen, who had been fighting Raptures on the surface, had somehow arrived before them.

Yes, it was indeed Mo Chen.

He had seen Anis and Neon on the monitor, so he came to the exit to meet them.

But he hadn't expected that not only would they arrive, but so would a biochemical weapon.

When the lid was lifted, it felt like releasing demons from hell.

The stench that hit Mo Chen was so intense that he almost passed out.

He quickly covered his nose. It really was unbearable!

It was like some unscrupulous manufacturers' stinky snail powder—without a single drop of the smell enhancer, it couldn't have had this effect.

"You all... cough cough!"

Marianne, awakened by the stench, immediately buried her face in Mo Chen's chest.

"So stinky…"

Rapi couldn't hold it in anymore and covered her mouth and nose.

"Anis, you two go wash up first."

The two girls couldn't bear to look.

Their beautiful, fair faces were smeared with black and white, looking like they had painted themselves to look like a clown, and their skin was barely visible beneath all the grime. As for their hair, it was even worse—clumped together in greasy strands, messy and filthy.

And as for their clothes—forget about it.

The once battle-worn outfits were now completely unrecognizable, blackened beyond recognition.

Anyone who knew they had been in the sewers would understand, but anyone who didn't would think they'd been down in a coal mine.

The ragged, disheveled appearance was so bad, if they were dragged out and said to have escaped from a psychiatric hospital, or if they were a beggar with broken legs, no one would doubt it.

The two stunned girls looked at each other, and only then did they realize how filthy they were. Immediately, they let out two earth-shattering screams.

The two girls rushed to take a bath as fast as they could. Luckily, the power plant had plenty of hot water.

There were even showers.

Anis and Neon scrubbed for two hours, finally washing off the nauseating smell.

If they hadn't spent so little time in the showers, they probably would've started to smell themselves.

Plus, Neon's body had a built-in cleaning function, so it didn't take long to get rid of the odor.

Thankfully, it was just mud and there weren't any strange or disturbing things mixed in.

As soon as Anis came out, she kept complaining about wanting to return to the Ark to get a new body.

Neon came out of the shower with her face still flushed, and when no one was paying attention, she kept sniffing herself.

How embarrassing!

When Anis and the others finally got dressed, they took their time to come out.

Their journey had been tough. Though they hadn't encountered enemies, they had crawled through the stinking sewers for days, and just thinking about it made their backs shiver.

Mo Chen had already prepared an explanation for what to say when they returned.

"Commander, you're saying you wiped out all the Raptures here?"

Anis asked in disbelief.

Neon, who was standing beside her, was even more stunned.

From the earlier scouting report, there were at least a thousand Raptures here.

That number was enough to form at least three fully-equipped elite squads.

"Otherwise?" Mo Chen pinched his nose, feigning disgust. "It stinks."

Anis widened her eyes and purposefully leaned toward Mo Chen.

"You stink!"

"How could that be, so many Raptures…"

Neon, still on the other side, asked with a dazed expression.

She had seen what the power station area looked like before.

The mountains of Raptures, their countless scarlet eyes stretching as far as the eye could see, made her skin crawl just remembering the sight.

"How could it not be possible? It's just that your firepower wasn't enough to kill all the Raptures," Mo Chen replied with a serious expression.

"But this…" Neon still found it hard to believe.

"You're just being narrow-minded. There's nothing that can't be solved with one nuclear bomb. If something can't be solved with one, then use two."

Mo Chen spoke sternly.

"Under overwhelming firepower, any reactionary—no, any vicious enemy is nothing but a paper tiger!"

"Overwhelming firepower…"

Neon muttered to herself, her sea-blue eyes slightly dazed.

No one had ever spoken to her like that before.

But the way he said it sounded so passionate, so stirring.

An uncontrollable feeling surged inside her, and her body seemed to heat up with excitement.