[Mercer: Then let's go according to the plan, deliver a heavenly justice to Arasaka Saburo's substitute in Tokyo, tell the world that Arasaka Saburo is already dead, and by the way, send a message to Yoshinobu.
Tell him that I'll meet him once I return, we have a lot to discuss.]
[Venus: Hmm... are you sure you want to meet him immediately after returning?]
[Mercer: ...Why not take a couple of days to rest?]
[Venus: Understood, I'll arrange your schedule accordingly, and besides, Miss Rebecca and Miss Lucy have sent you new messages, remember to reply when you have a moment.]
[Mercer: Whatever I say now doesn't matter, just tell them I'll be back soon with V—how's the situation with Miles?]
[Venus: The other party is returning to New America, nothing alarming has been noticed yet, and their reaction aligns with our plan, they're still watching the situation. ]
[Mercer: Then show her the power of the trajectory weapon, tell her not to do anything stupid, prepare to launch, and make sure to record it for me, I want to watch it live with V.]
[Venus: Received.]
After Mercer turned off the communication with Venus, V sent a squad voice chat to him—while digging, she made sure to stay on the call, seemingly worried that he might be uncomfortable in the dark underground.
But in fact, Mercer was perfectly at ease. The power outage and darkness were just lies he told V to stop her from nagging him.
Such a large server must have backup emergency generators and anti-blackout systems. At this moment, Mercer was in a brightly lit room; everything was normal except for the dead Agent Arasaka on the side.
In fact, V had helped him a lot with Arasaka Saburo's tablet.
Even though the information inside couldn't immediately stop all the explosives at the base, it did contain the exact locations of all the explosives.
So, all Mercer needed to do was analyze which explosives were dangerous to him, then let Black Light control unmanned equipment to hack in and stop the detonation program of those explosives.
This is why half of the Arasaka Base remained unscathed—in fact, that lunatic Arasaka Saburo did bury a nuclear bomb on the Moon Base, or more precisely, a missile silo with a nuclear warhead.
But fortunately, the detonation program for this particular nuclear bomb could be remotely stopped by Arasaka Saburo's tablet.
V played a huge role; otherwise, even if Mercer could stop the smaller explosions, he truly wouldn't have any way to stop this particular nuclear explosion buried in an underground launch silo.
That thing is not connected to any network at the Moon Base; instead, it links to Arasaka Saburo's tablet via a separate network satellite.
This made Mercer more wary of these big corporations—although today's Sky Net System is everywhere, these secret satellite devices that are rigorously confidential and not widely known are still beyond Mercer's control.
And this nuclear bomb was Arasaka Saburo's preparation for a world war; if a new world war were to be rekindled, Arasaka would directly use this special nuclear missile on the Moon, aiming directly at the European Space Agency's orbital weapon.
After disabling the enemy's orbital weapons, Arasaka would unveil its Moon Material Pusher, and monopolize space orbital weapons, intimidating enemies to form a new strategic advantage, aiding Arasaka's resurgence.
Gotta say, that old man was really thinking ahead, but now, none of this is Arasaka's concern anymore.
Because whether it's the orbital weapon secretly built by Arasaka on the Moon or the nuclear weapon that could strike the European Space Agency's orbital weapon, they've all fallen into Mercer's hands.
Underground, Mercer chatted casually with V as he waited for rescue. When V had dug almost enough, Mercer leisurely stood up, laid down in the cooling duct, and crawled toward the predetermined digging point.
When V, along with the equipment controlled by Black Light, dug a breach from the shattered edge of the cooling duct, Mercer used his Octopus Arm to dig a few more times until half of his body was exposed from the duct.
"Mercer!" V quickly reached out, grabbing his hand, and pulled him out of the broken cooling duct.
"It's quite hot... don't worry, I'm fine." Mercer smiled at V, who was busy checking him over, but hadn't been happy for long before V fiercely wrapped her arms around his neck, not even waiting for the two of them to climb out of the pit they'd dug.
She banged her helmet against Mercer's: "Didn't you say the underground was power off? Pitch black?"
"Uh?" Mercer played dumb.
"Then why is it so hot in the cooling tunnel! The server didn't lose power at all, did it! You bastard, you dare lie to me!"
V wasn't easy to fool, she hugged Mercer so tightly his armor creaked: "Now you're tired of me nagging you? Is that it?"
Mercer quickly said: "Ow ow ow... I'm telling the truth, it was really uncomfortable alone in there, it had nothing to do with the darkness, I just wanted to see you quickly... V, it's really nice to see you again."
Even knowing this bastard was intentionally sweet-talking her, V couldn't resist.
She removed her helmet, and then Mercer's. After studying his face for a moment, she leaned in for a strong kiss.
After a while, she smacked her lips, still savoring, then put her helmet back on: "Where'd the mint taste come from?"
"Ran into an Agent Arasaka underground, handed me a cigarette—alright, let's get out, still got things to do."
After Mercer spoke, V frowned: "More to do?!"
"Don't worry, now we don't have to do anything, just watch as I set off a big firework for you."
Mercer smiled and, with her, lightly jumped out of the pit onto the ground.
At this moment, the half-base that was still intact had functional power and oxygen circulation facilities, so Mercer wasn't in a hurry to leave. He pulled V, found a place resembling a break room, and sat down, turning on the TV.
V focused and then frowned: "Where is this?"
"Tokyo."
Mercer showed a faint smile: "Though it looks just like an ordinary factory, it's actually Arasaka's largest secret underground base in Tokyo."
"So... where's the firework?" V asked curiously.
Mercer leaned back on the couch, hugging her shoulders. Although she felt a bit awkward about being in this position—there was no one else around—she turned slightly to lean against him, feeling somewhat like being at home, cuddling and watching TV, giving her an inexplicable joy.
"On its way."
As his words ended, the TV screen shifted.
It was footage captured by a surveillance satellite.
On the screen, a not-so-large meteor was 'floating' towards Earth at a very fast but steady speed.
Under V's stunned gaze.
This meteor, ablaze from atmospheric friction as it entered Earth's atmosphere, turned into a fireball from the sky, precisely falling towards the location of the factory in Tokyo.
In the sky, it seemed like a bright pillar of light had appeared—the kind of pillar that brings only destruction upon impact.