Chapter 15 Fifteen Minutes

It was precisely three quarters past noon, Sloe Star time, and only fifteen minutes remained until the deadline General Quick had announced.

At this moment, in the hangar of General Quick's underground base, thousands of Quick Army soldiers in khaki uniforms were lined up neatly, ready to depart.

However, before they set off, General Quick would personally take the stage to give a speech, to boost everyone's morale.

[Squeak—Deng deng deng deng—]

Before Quick appeared, upbeat music began playing on a giant screen on one side of the hangar.

Two seconds after the music started, Quick, in full military attire and with an ambiguous smile on his face, appeared on the screen.

[Work hard, no problem.] He said to the camera with a smile.

[You also need hobbies.] The scene changed, and Quick tore a police officer in half with his bare hands, splattering blood everywhere.

[A happy family, no problem.] The scene changed again to show him sitting on a sofa with several beautiful women and adorable children.

[Leave some space for yourself.] The scene flashed, and Quick was the only living person left on the sofa, laughing maniacally amidst a pile of corpses of women and children.

[Join the Quick Army, no problem.]

[And there's an annual salary, and benefits.]

Here, many of the Quick Army's equipment, resources, lined-up soldiers, and several close-ups of Quick himself were shown.

[Sloe Star's strongest illegal armed force—the Quick Army.]

Quick tilted his face, holding a military emblem printed with his own face, and said to the camera, [I am Quick, this is my army.]

[To learn more, please visit the following website.]

[And there's a Quick commemorative badge you can get~]

The above…was the Quick Army's recruitment video. In this base, this video was played every now and then.

The moment the video ended, Quick himself strode onto the high platform in the hangar. The big screen switched to live broadcast mode, with the camera focused on the general's face.

"Ahem…soldiers." Quick cleared his throat and spoke directly into the microphone in front of him, "The moment of决战 (jue zhan, final battle) has arrived!"

"Yeah! Long live the General!"

"Long live Quick!"

"Quick, I love you!"

"Please try going out with me!"

The soldiers below (all of whom were male) were in an uproar, their morale extremely high. But for some reason, there were some strange shouts mixed in…

A few seconds later, Quick waved his hand, signaling the people below to be quiet.

After the entire venue returned to silence, Quick continued, "This operation will be the beginning of our Quick Army unifying the galaxy." He clenched his fist and said loudly, "First, we will dominate Sloe Star, and then…" He hesitated for a moment, "That is…uh…the next planet."

Obviously, the general's strategy only went this far. Before this goal was achieved, it was difficult for him to plan the next one…

However, his subordinates did not care about these things, and they still responded to the general's declaration with great enthusiasm.

Just at this moment, suddenly…

Boom—a loud noise suddenly erupted.

In an instant, the earth shook and the mountains swayed.

Almost everyone in the entire underground base staggered and fell to the ground, with only Quick himself remaining standing.

"What's going on!" Quick's reaction was quite extraordinary. After a moment of panic, he shouted sternly into the communicator he was carrying, "Command, respond quickly! Report the current situation!"

After a moment of silence, accompanied by a cacophony of interference, a response came from the communicator, "Re…reporting, General, we have just been attacked by missiles!" The voice paused, and then added, "Currently, the camouflage on the surface has been completely destroyed, and the power supply facilities have entered a semi-paralyzed state, but the emergency power supply should be able to last for about a quarter of a cosmic week."

"Damn it!" Quick cursed, "How could we be hit by missiles? Didn't the base's missile defense system activate?"

"General…our system seems to…seems to have a little problem…" the other party replied.

"What?" Quick said, "Especially at this time?" He paused for half a second, "Wait…are you saying that the system has been malfunctioning all along?"

"Not so~ not so~" At this moment, the interference in the communicator disappeared, and the person speaking changed to another, who recited in a lazy tone, "Your ground defense and camouflage systems were still operating normally until two cosmic days ago, what a pity…"

"Who are you?" Quick's expression changed, "Who is talking to me?"

"Hehe…" the person on the other end of the communicator chuckled evilly.

The next second, a human face appeared on the large screen behind Quick.

"Hello, everyone." Feng Bujue spoke to everyone in the Quick Army base through the big screen and the broadcasting system, "I am…the city-level hero from the Cosmic Super Hero Alliance—Poker Face."

"You…" Quick turned around and looked at the screen, "How did you…"

“…How did I hack your system?” Feng Bujue interrupted, “Heh…much simpler than I thought.” He said with a smile, “Like all computer users who still get viruses even with anti-virus software running, your problem isn’t that your firewall isn’t advanced enough, but that you’re too stupid.”

As he said this, a photo of a seductive woman appeared on the big screen, looking as if she were stark naked, but with mosaics covering several key areas, and the words "Click here to watch the uncensored version for free" were displayed at the bottom of the screen.

"We successfully bypassed your firewall using such an ad pop-up." A few seconds later, the screen switched back to a close-up of Feng Bujue's face, "By the way…at two quarters past noon, at least forty devices of various models in your base were connected to the external network, doing some recreational things. Among them, more than half of the people clicked on this virus-laden pop-up that we made in just five minutes after seeing this picture."

"Damn it…" Veins popped out on Quick's forehead, and he gritted his teeth and said, "To actually use such a despicable means…"

"Is this a question of despicableness? You can only blame yourselves for being too naive, right?" Feng Bujue said, "On Earth, even elementary school students wouldn't click on this kind of pop-up."

"No matter who you are, if you think that a few missiles can defeat me, you are greatly mistaken!" Quick did not continue to argue with Feng Bujue on this topic, he turned around and said, "Destroying one or two of these bases is nothing, I have fourteen more like it…"

"Alright, alright, alright…" Feng Bujue interrupted the other party's self-exposure with an extremely fast, compassionate tone, "Please don't actively reveal intelligence to me anymore…" Competing strategically with aliens with such poor EQ, Jue Ge couldn't help but feel a sense of guilt, "You even reported the exact number…looking at it this way…you built one in each country of the Sloe Star Federation, right…"

"Wh…what…" Quick was shocked, and took half a step back, "Just who are you…to even deduce such a thing…"

Feng Bujue slapped his own face: "Deducing such a thing isn't much of an ability, right…besides, I was just guessing, but your reaction directly confirmed my guess."

"Ah!" Quick acted as if he had suddenly realized something, and then became angry, "You dared to trick me!"

"I trick you? I'll be damned if I need to trick you? I…" Feng Bujue seemed to want to respond with something, but the feeling of a splitting headache (I think this word can well describe the degree of pain in the balls) stopped him from this impulse, "Okay, okay…I was wrong." He returned to the main topic, "Anyway…I still have a more important thing to tell you, that is…"

Jue Ge raised one hand and pointed upwards with his finger: "The shock you just felt was just a positioning test shot, the real strike will arrive in…" He turned his head and looked out of the camera, "Uh…three seconds."

"Ah—" Quick immediately screamed.

And those Quick Army soldiers who heard the broadcast or were watching the screen with him also screamed in unison.

But as things stood, it was too late for them to do anything.

Before the screams of this group of people subsided, the second…and also the official…round of missile bombardment had already arrived.

The Quick Army's underground base was reduced to ruins and scorched earth from the inside out within a minute, and the fuel, mechs, weapons, ammunition, etc. stored in the base all became amplifiers of the explosion.

…………

"It's like snatching a lollipop from a child." When the attack ended, Feng Bujue stood up from the console in the Sloe Alliance Command Center, muttering this sentence.

At this moment, behind Jue Ge were six heroes with complicated expressions.

They were all looking at this Poker Face with strange eyes, and the same question arose in their hearts—is this guy really a hero? Are you sure he's not a super villain infiltrating our side as an undercover agent?

"What's wrong?" Jue Ge asked, looking at them.

"Uh…" Dr. BiuBiu replied, "I really didn't expect…that General Quick, who has been confronting us for many years, would actually…be so easily…"

"Yes, when you look back after doing many things…you will find that it is not difficult." Feng Bujue continued.

In fact, Jue Ge's strategy was not complicated. He contacted the government of the Sloe Lei Kingdom and informed them of the missile strike's coordinates, time, and method. Then he asked Dr. BiuBiu to write an implant program that could shut down the opponent's defense system (for the doctor, this was a piece of cake, it could be done in a few minutes). And then, he asked the Seductive Woman for a photo and asked the doctor to use the photo to make an ad pop-up virus program.

The problem is…even the Sloe Star people can't think of this level of plan. Because their general logic is like this…Although we know the location of the Quick Army's base, they have a missile defense system, so we don't need to think about missile attacks; although we can write a program to shut down the opponent's defense system, they have a firewall, so we don't need to think about cracking and intrusion. And so on…

As for ad pop-ups, phishing software, bundled programs, etc., even though they are things that can be easily completed technically, they just can't think of such ideas.

As a well-informed Earthling (objectively speaking, Earthlings have indeed seen a lot of terrible things that people on other planets can't even imagine), Feng Bujue had already read some information about the Sloe Star people on the spaceship; after arriving at the Sloe Alliance, he listened to the story of General Quick, and through communication with the heroes, he roughly grasped the personality and behavior patterns of the Sloe Star people. Therefore, he planned such an operation.

"Oh, that's right." At this moment, Feng Bujue remembered something again and continued, "Do you have any other difficult super villains on your planet? Since I'm already here, I might as well clean them all up."

The tone and expression he used when he said this were very similar to that of the "older cousin or older brother from a distant relative's family who we didn't know well and didn't even know their full name, but was very good at playing games" that we had encountered when we were kids.

During festivals, this kind of person would appear in your home, using either domineering, disdainful, or narcissistic eyes, ostensibly to play games with you, but easily clearing all kinds of action games that you couldn't clear, and pointing out all kinds of mistakes and shortcomings when you played. Then, he would check the progress of all the RPG games you were playing, comment on your team, spoil the plot and ending of the game, and explain hidden props, gameplay, or bugs.

In that simple, happy, and pure childhood when the internet was not yet popular…we were robbed of our awe by this kind of person time and time again.

Even today, in this era where you can see complete game guides by opening a web page and typing on a keyboard, the tall image of these guys has not changed in the slightest, because after I have read the guide, I feel even more that…it was really amazing for people to be able to explore or remember this information on their own back then.

"Um…there are some." Dr. BiuBiu hesitated and continued, "But are you sure you want to…"

"Let me see their information first." Feng Bujue interrupted the other party, but his tone was still quite polite.

The heroes of the Sloe Alliance were all a little at a loss when they heard this. After a few seconds, they all turned to look at Hardman Hero… This planet-level hero had been left aside for a long time. Originally, he should have been the real protagonist of this operation, but he didn't expect that Jue Ge, strategizing in the tent, would nip a C-level crisis in the bud, which made Hardman Hero lose the opportunity to perform.

"Uh…since Poker Face said so…" Hardman Hero knew that the five people were looking over, wanting him to make the decision, after all, he was the highest-level hero here, "I don't think there's anything wrong with it." He paused, "In this cosmic year, I haven't booked any other missions, so I'll stay here and sit in town, so that I can deal with any emergencies in a timely manner."

With Hardman Hero's words, the five members of the Sloe Alliance no longer had any concerns.

Dr. BiuBiu immediately said, "Okay, Poker Face, wait a moment, I'll transfer the data to you."

"Thank you." Feng Bujue responded, and then turned to Hardman Hero and said, "Hardman Hero Senior, could you please go back to the spaceship and report the mission results to the alliance? It would be more convenient to report the information directly from us than to send it back from here."

"Uh…okay." Hardman Hero hesitated for half a second, and then continued, "Speaking of which…we might be able to break the record for C-level crisis handling time this time…" As he spoke, he had already turned and walked out.

"Wait." At this time, Police Hero stepped forward and said to Hardman Hero, "I think…it's better to be cautious."

"You mean…" Hardman Hero said in a deep voice.

"It's better to go to the scene and check it out first, see the specific situation with your own eyes, and then report back." Police Hero said.

"That's right." Somersault Hero also followed up, "I'll go with you."

"I'll come too." The disfigured voice of Disfigured Hero then followed.

So, they and Hardman Hero boarded the spaceship and went to the scene to confirm the results. Feng Bujue stayed in the command center of the Sloe Alliance to check the data that Dr. BiuBiu had transferred. Seductive Woman went to be responsible for communicating and negotiating with the governments of the Federal countries to stabilize the global situation after the incident.

It seemed that everything was proceeding in an orderly manner, however…

…………

At the same time, in the Eastern Twentieth District.

On the scorched earth, a big hand broke out of the ground, followed by an arm, a shoulder, a head, and a torso…

Thirty seconds later, General Quick, covered in scars and in a state of utter disarray, climbed out of the soil.

As mentioned earlier, Quick had a body that was more powerful than that of ordinary people (Sloe Star people), and he also had superpowers. Therefore, even though he was buried alive in the ruins of the underground base, he was still not dead.

With amazing strength and a will to survive, and protected by his superpowers, Quick drilled upwards all the way, and finally returned to the ground after a few minutes.

"Haa…haa…bastard…" The first two things Quick did when he saw the light of day again were to pant heavily and curse, "One day…I will make you pay the price."

"Heh…the cry of a loser." Suddenly, a voice came from not far behind Quick.

Quick was shocked when he heard the sound, because part of his superpower was the ability to sense things. If someone approached within a radius of ten meters of him, he would definitely be able to feel it. But at this moment, he was completely unable to sense the owner of this voice.

"Who is it?" Quick endured the pain in his body, stood up quickly, and turned his head sharply.

However, he saw a humanoid creature emitting a golden-red glow all over its body, with a face resembling a dried corpse, standing in front of him.

"You went to great lengths to dig me out of the ground, but you don't know who I am?" the creature asked rhetorically.

"You…you are…" Quick realized something, and then trembled involuntarily.

"That's right." The creature took over his words, "It's me." It paused, "Although I have been imprisoned in 'that' all along, I am very clear about what happened outside." It shook its head, "I have to say, you are very stupid…"

Hearing these words, a trace of anger flashed in Quick's eyes, but he did not interrupt, because an indescribable sense of fear made him unable to open his mouth.

"I am not some animal that has been frozen, the equipment you prepared, and the so-called 'awakening program,' were completely unnecessary." The creature opened its arms, "As you can see, you just need to use weapons to forcibly destroy 'that' and let me out. Anyway…I am immortal…"