Chapter 150 The Meaning of Saving and Not Saving

"They are not foolish enough to use a nuclear bomb on New York. Where are you right now?"

"Wang Lei and I are with the resistance forces, but we are no longer at our previous location. The former safehouse was discovered by CELL, so we had to evacuate with them. I'll send you my coordinates right now."

"I'll come right over and bring you back." With that, Wang Jing flew toward the coordinates sent by Li Yiyi.

Boosted by the formidable mobility of his nanosuit, Wang Jing quickly arrived at the resistance's newly established temporary base.

The moment he landed, Claire and Psycho rushed over. "Is Prophet alright? Did you find the Ceph mastermind?" Psycho asked anxiously.

"Prophet is fine; he is currently in our world. We found the Ceph mastermind, but before we could take it out, we were subjected to a bombardment by CELL."

"You mean you let the Ceph mastermind get away?" Claire asked in disbelief.

"Yes. The bombing destroyed the power grid, and without any restraints, the Ceph mastermind quickly fled."

"Then what do you plan to do next?" Claire asked.

"I've decided to wipe out CELL first. They are simply too much of a nuisance with them around." At the mention of CELL, Wang Jing's expression darkened involuntarily.

"How do you plan to do that? CELL's forces are deployed globally. Can you possibly kill them all?" Claire questioned skeptically.

"There's no need to kill every last member of CELL. We just need to take down their headquarters. Without command, they'll become a disorganized mob—even better if they end up fighting among themselves," Wang Jing said confidently.

"How do you plan to breach their headquarters? Their defenses aren't as lax as the ones here. Calling it a fortress would be an understatement," Psycho chimed in from the side.

"Naturally, by rolling right through them with overwhelming force. Do you really expect me to use stealth against them?" Wang Jing said dismissively.

"I have to warn you in advance, their firepower is extremely well-equipped. They have massive amounts of surface-to-surface and anti-air missiles. Relying solely on the suit you're wearing won't be enough!"

"I am well aware of that. We have weapons powerful enough to pierce through their defenses."

Seeing that he could not dissuade Wang Jing, Psycho gave up and asked instead, "What about the Ceph mastermind?"

"The Ceph mastermind will be handled by Prophet and the others. Once I overthrow CELL's headquarters, I will return to support them."

"I hope everything goes according to your plan!" Just as Wang Jing finished speaking, a bolt of lightning surged straight into the sky, followed instantly by an energy beam piercing the dark clouds above.

The powerful beam caused the clouds in the sky to swirl around it, a scene strikingly reminiscent of the Norse god Thor summoning lightning.

"Oh shit! What is that?" Staring at the beam piercing the heavens, Psycho's mouth hung open as he muttered in disbelief.

"That's the Ceph charging up to open a wormhole. Once the wormhole opens, the Ceph army will invade Earth through it."

"By then, all of you will become their nourishment, just like the Manhattan virus 24 years ago—painfully melting into a pool of mush, only to be re-engineered into Ceph and become a part of them," Wang Jing stated calmly.

"Shit, we have to stop it!" Claire cursed.

"Yes, and we need to speed up. We don't have much time left!" With that, Wang Jing bypassed Psycho and Claire, walking over to Li Yiyi and Wang Lei, who were heading outward.

After sending the two of them back to the primary plane, Wang Jing originally intended to find Song Guohua to discuss coordinating the dimensional expeditionary forces with Prophet to eliminate the Ceph mastermind.

Before Wang Jing could seek him out, however, Song Guohua found him. "Wang Jing, get to the conference room immediately. There is an emergency meeting requiring your attendance!"

"Alright, I'll be right there!" Though unaware of the specific agenda, Wang Jing guessed it concerned the Crysis universe.

Stepping into the conference room, Wang Jing met the highest-ranking military marshals from various planes, as well as the councilors of the United Government.

"Councilor Wang Jing, we are already aware of what you just reported. The Ceph mastermind is opening a wormhole to teleport the Ceph army through, is that correct?"

"Yes. Our time is running out. If the wormhole opens, we will lose that dimension."

"Once the Ceph army lands, reclaiming Earth will not be nearly as easy," Wang Jing warned.

At this point, the supreme military marshal of the Global Storm plane raised his hand and asked, "Based on current data, the technology in that world is roughly on par with ours. The only superior asset, the bio-nanocombat suit, still utilizes alien technology, and there remains a risk of alien genetic contamination."

"What I want to ask is, do we really need to take such a massive risk to save that world?"

"Marshal Clot, if we give up the moment we encounter a little difficulty, our future path will only become harder and harder until it stagnates completely. Moreover, what we are doing is not meaningless."

"At the very least, we are saving billions of human lives. Marshal Clot, do you feel that those billions of human lives are meaningless?" Song Guohua's earth-shattering rhetorical question caused Marshal Clot to flush red and fall silent.

"Now is the best time to counterattack. As long as our soldiers are properly protected, we can keep the casualty rate down to a very low level," Wang Jing said.

"Could Councilor Wang Jing elaborate on that?" The United Government councilor looked at Wang Jing and asked.

"Certainly. The top priority right now is to locate the Ceph mastermind and destroy it. To find it, the quickest method currently is to have Prophet interface with the Ceph to pinpoint its location."

"However, this method carries a high risk of Prophet's consciousness being controlled by the Ceph mastermind. We cannot put all our eggs in one basket," the United Government councilor said with a furrowed brow and a solemn expression.

"The backup plan is to utilize the Archangel satellite in orbit to obliterate all of New York, though that still does not guarantee the destruction of the Ceph mastermind."

"Furthermore, the laser cannon on the Archangel satellite is our only means of dealing with the Ceph landing mothership—it is our final trump card and cannot be used unless absolutely necessary."

"Then we can simply use nuclear weapons to wipe New York off the map. If one isn't enough, use two; if two aren't enough, use three," the supreme military marshal of Russia proposed boldly.

"That won't work. The radiation and energy generated by a nuclear detonation act as prime nourishment for the Ceph. There is a high probability that instead of destroying it, we would merely be providing it with energy," Wang Jing intercepted, halting the suggestion.

"Then we could launch a laser satellite to replace that Archangel satellite!" the supreme military marshal of the United States suggested.

"It's not the same. The Archangel satellite possesses such formidable power because its energy source is drawn directly from the body of the Ceph mastermind. Lasers powered by ordinary energy lack the capability to destroy a mothership in a single shot!" Wang Jing explained.

"Does that mean we have no foolproof certainty of preventing the Ceph mastermind from opening the wormhole?" the Marshal of the British Royal Army asked with a frown.

"Not everything in life has a 100% success rate. We still have at least two viable plans, which is already quite good!" Wang Jing said.