Durin's Diary

Chapter 1021 Gu Fangling

Dulin found himself in a dream once again.

He knew perfectly well that it was a dream, but he hadn't dreamt in a long time, especially not during his childhood.

In those dreams, friends are usually filled with expectations for the future; or they walk out of the movie theater together and discuss the plot of the movie that just played; or they sit on both sides of a long table during dinner in a high tower and discuss how to spend their holiday.

Aside from accepting the mission, at the moment they faced the sea of ​​blood, the children in the tower were no different from children in ordinary schools.

But this time it's completely different.

When the alarm rang, the students sitting in the cafeteria stared blankly at the noisy loudspeaker.

However, led by the senior students, students from one grade to another stood up and silently walked onto the playground. They received the equipment—an improved military-grade laser gun, high-energy grenades, and an exoskeleton support armor second only to power armor, which was something even the Alliance's mortal support troops had never been issued.

They were going to carry out a decapitation strike; their target was a surviving member.

Some of my former classmates are no longer here.

Dulin remembered it very clearly because he couldn't find her, no matter what.

All the students were loaded onto transport planes and headed north. Battles raged everywhere, the sky was stained red with flames, and the fighters, loyal to the Omnic Sages and the northern fighters, even chose to ram each other after running out of machine guns.

News of transport planes being shot down came from the wrist terminal every now and then.

As a senior student, Dulin's transport plane was positioned at the front—in the most dangerous area of ​​the head-on attack. More than once, he watched as fighter jets sacrificed themselves to block incoming missiles, and the young man did not understand why all this was happening.

Until he saw the earth rise, saw the battlefield illuminating the night sky, and saw that enormous city.

We're here for revenge, children. We're sorry to have led you to your deaths, but as someone once said, only by saving yourselves can you save others. Kill all targets. If you fail...

If I fail in seventh grade, will orbital bombardment be unlocked?

One of the young people asked this question.

Then he got an answer.

meeting.

It was a long night, a very long night. Gunfire rang out everywhere in the city, and enemies were everywhere. Every step forward required sacrifice.

The junior student who had fought off the last man pleaded in the channel to drop Molotov cocktails because there were mobs everywhere.

So the incendiary bomb covered the entire block.

The next second, red signal flares, representing despair and defiance, continued to rise into the sky throughout the northern part of the city.

The young Tower apprentices did not understand what had happened that night. They ran out of ammunition, and almost every squad was left with only one or two survivors, while the streets were filled with all sorts of thugs.

The entire northern district was almost completely burned out. After the local tower squad, who had fought to the death, razed the center of the planetary artillery shield with implosion bombs, the orbital artillery began to take over the work in place of the nearly exhausted incendiary bombs.

Dulin recalled that at 3:45 a.m., the sages had begun their first discussion about the possibility of an extermination order.

Because all the lower grades in the tower had been wiped out, the kids couldn't bring themselves to fight back, and their exoskeleton armor couldn't withstand anti-armor fire and psionic energy.

The upperclassmen were different. They had killed people and knew that on the battlefield, if you didn't kill, you would be killed. So the thugs in the southern part of the city were quickly driven to terror—they fled in tears, leaving only rebels who were determined to resist the so-called cyborg tyranny on the streets.

Dulin followed his younger self, watching those unfamiliar yet familiar figures die one by one before his eyes.

The upperclassman's torso, which had perished alongside the armored vehicle, lay half-submerged in a puddle. On the water's surface, advertisements on tall buildings depicted a wonderful new life, a new city on rails, and humanity writing its own beautiful future.

The pale face of the classmate who collapsed while helping Dulin was restored to color by the neon lights, but unfortunately the color changed, and the underlying paleness remained unchanged. His lifeless eyes looked at his friend beside him, who had long since died.

The local citizens who joined the Tower perished in the fighting; their bodies were hung on streetlights, swaying hastily in the night wind. Correspondingly, the Tower's students took no prisoners; the executed corpses were haphazardly piled up by the roadside and set ablaze with flamethrowers.

In the Western Continent, in Middle-earth, and in the New World, the senior students of the Tower were already used to all of this.

Since no one thinks they've done anything wrong, then since we can't be friends... let's settle this with a fight to the death.

Until the first light of dawn appeared on the horizon, until Dulin saw the last name on the list, until she stood there, her face streaked with tears, begging Dulin to follow her.

At this moment, the drones belonging to the Southern Cluster have shattered the starry sky. All aerial units that do not belong to our side have been shot down. Five divisions of orbital paratroopers who came from the North have been buried in the nearby mountains with their honor and future.

The Northern Commander's seven sons were all in these five divisions, and news later came that he had shot himself after surrendering to the tower.

That night, those loyal to themselves bled profusely.

Some might ask, why has humanity come to this point? Why can't we all take a step back?

No, because desires never cease, and so does the struggle.

This is the most despicable aspect of humankind, and the most indelible sin.

You cannot expect your opponents to engage in a rational and open dialogue with you, who has vowed to treat them as opponents, nor can you naively expect them to swallow their pride and accept insults.

The enemy is one you created yourself.

Destruction is something you personally delivered.

The death they bring is the best gift they can give you.

Dulin, under the cold command of the tower, reunited with her at that crossroads.

It is a gift, a reward, and a punishment.

Dulin remembered clearly that he finally removed her head because every target needed to be confirmed after the battle. She was the daughter of the chief villain, who had killed at least five different groups of Tower apprentices. Her identity had to be verified, and at the same time, the genetic material she left in the Tower would be removed from the gene pool.

Because traitors are not entitled to leave behind loyal offspring, they will be thrown into the incinerator.

Some might wonder why it was Dulin who ended up seeing her that night.

Because all eleven sixth-grade classes in the vicinity had been wiped out, and all their members had died in that long night, they tracked down and executed three times their number of targets and eliminated nearly seventeen times the number of insurgents.

They have done their best. If Dulin fails, the next executioner... will be a group of fourth-grade students.

Because they are the closest to here.

But those young kids couldn't beat her, their senior.

They were lucky; in the night's fighting, none of the eleven men died.

So Dulin had to help them, and help more young people who shouldn't have died that night.

He killed the woman who loved him.

Dulin stood beside the transport plane cabin, watching his younger self, like a walking corpse, carrying a bag containing something, board the transport plane.

He raised his hand and waved goodbye to himself.

We also bid farewell to the past.

(End of this chapter)