Make Passarella Suffer

It was nothing short of a bolt from the blue. It was like sitting peacefully at home, eating hot pot and singing songs, only for an underling to come screaming inside and report: *Disaster! Outside the cave, a monkey-faced monk with a thunder god's beak is beating his way in!* Wait, did that make any sense? Impossible! Utterly impossible. Because there was no logic to it! Anything in the world could defy reason, but Tianyuan alone could never afford to. Even if you were unreasonable to others, you still had to convince yourself. The carving up of the Mid-Continent had been a settled reality for two hundred years. Everyone was accustomed to living by steady, measured gains. For both the Federation and the Empire, current revenues, projected profits, and the staggering risks of starting a war already dictated reality—at this stage, it was impossible for the two sides to fight! Fan Yun acting on his own initiative? Even more impossible. That old turtle had waited so many years for this day. Could he really be so impatient? Could he bear the consequences of unilaterally provoking a war?! Forget any talk of a cornered dog leaping over a wall; that old bastard was the last person to ever act out of desperation, and he had never once let emotions dictate his actions. Never mind petty misunderstandings—even if Passarella murdered Fan Yun's biological father and hung his corpse on the city wall, Fan Yun wouldn't bat an eyelash. He would never take the fall for an undeclared war. Then it was certain: it wasn't the Federation. Could it be domestic? That made even less sense. His Majesty was currently on his deathbed, and inside Dadu, the new batch of Chosen Candidates were practically tearing one another's throats out. Every single one of them desperately needed to win Passarella over. How could anyone stab him in the back at a critical juncture like this? If it wasn't the Federation, and wasn't the Empire, then where was it coming from? The White Nation Restoration Front? The moment the thought crossed his mind, he was almost amused. That motley rabble had babbled about national restoration for decades, yet they remained nothing more than regional warlords to this day. Where would they find the nerve to court death like this? Or had the Red Nation gone mad? Had the Rock Nation lost control? Regardless, none of it mattered to the big picture. No matter who was pulling the strings behind the scenes, this chaos could not be allowed to continue at such a crucial moment! It had to be suppressed swiftly and severely. He could not afford to throw his own lines into disarray. As long as he showed himself in person... *Wait!* In that single instant, his body froze stiff. At last, a chill of dread crept down his spine. With a sharp crack, his entire figure vanished without a trace. When he reappeared, he was already inside the bunker deep within the heart of the base, shielded beneath layer upon layer of fortifications. Without hesitation, he activated the base's entire control system. The Law of Tianyuan rose abruptly, blanketing the entire installation and seizing total command—vigilant, impenetrable, and fully mobilized. Everything was brought under absolute control! Immediately following that, a tempest surged, expanding outward to shroud thousands of li of wasteland, forcibly dispersing every spiritus phenomenon and clearing the airspace above the plains. Every single missile launch pad powered up, entering a hot standby state. Panicked at the rustle of leaves, jumping at every shadow. Surrounded by dense cordons and heavy security, Passarella was drenched in cold sweat! The moment he realized that his personal appearance was all that was needed to effortlessly quell the current unrest, he finally noticed the glaring flaw. What if, supposing, perhaps, conceivably, by some tiny chance... Even one in a hundred million! —What if the enemy's entire goal was precisely to lure him out? All it took was for him to step outside, face the crowd, and speak a couple of words to suppress all the turmoil and chaos. But at what cost? What would that cost be? A bullet flying ten thousand li to drill straight between his brows?! So familiar. Far too familiar! No matter how he looked at it, the playbook seemed dreadfully familiar—first, lay down misdirection and feint in one direction to make the opponent reposition naturally; then trigger unexpected chaos; and when the authority figure stepped forward from behind his heavy guard to mediate or impose order, blow his head off right in front of everyone! How could he not find it familiar? That was fucking how the last Border Duke had died! And the Emperor was still lying in the ICU staring at them right now! Especially when Passarella used the personal Aether construct he carried with him, exhausting every branch of causality, and still failed to find a single shred of evidence that someone was targeting him. The Stone Heart sensed no malice; on the Book of Destiny, his consciousness appeared perfectly normal; yet the foresight from Ascension spirits was an impenetrable blur. It was like suddenly firing a flare into the dark to illuminate the empty surroundings—only for the blank void to make the undetectable, eerie blind spots stand out with chilling clarity! There was no answer. Yet having no answer was already the most explicit answer of all. Did he even need to think twice? Passarella was sweating buckets. *Take a look at this signature style, people!* Who else possessed the resources, the sheer audacity, and the craft to sever every lead and cause-and-effect link just to take a shot at him? Motherfuckers, Nirvana has struck! In a fleeting breath of silence, Passarella turned his gaze back to the confidential personnel positioned within the bunker and barked orders: "Issue a command to the entire base: everyone, return to your posts immediately. No disorder will be tolerated. "Issue live ammunition to all military police. Authorized to shoot violators on sight. Effective immediately, the entire base enters a wartime footing—sound a Level-7 Alarm!" Amid brief bewilderment, everyone instinctively snapped to attention, saluting to acknowledge the order. An aide whose reaction was a fraction of a second too sluggish found himself locked in Passarella's piercing gaze. Sweating in terror, the man couldn't utter a word until Passarella finally verified his identity and looked away. At this point, their only course was total vigilance; they could not afford to throw themselves into disarray. Once a Level-7 Alarm was broadcast and reached the Imperial Privy Council, Celestial-Humans would arrive to reinforce them within half an hour. By then, the crisis would resolve itself naturally. Since the mastermind had yet to show their face, why panic? Whether Nirvana was behind this or not, remaining motionless was the best response to endless change. Under the blanket of the Order of Tianyuan, there was no room for error! Restraint, patience, holding the line! As long as he did not move, he could not lose! Meanwhile, just along the outer perimeter of the base's core, beneath Tianyuan's lockdown, a shadow that did not belong here slipped quietly past the heavily armed sentries, drifting along with the crowd toward its destination. Under such iron-fisted suppression, the base would predictably regain order in short order. Regrettably, just before that could happen, every phone whose external communications had yet to be severed began flashing violently, buzzing without pause. Push notifications from the Mid-Continent news app. The soldiers who checked their phones froze, their expressions instantly contorting. "His Majesty has passed away?!" "Bullshit! What the hell are you talking about?!" "It's real! Look for yourself if you don't believe me... I just got the alert." "Disaster! The Federation has declared war!" "An unknown contamination leak has occurred in the White Nation..." "The natural disasters are back!" "Are you out of your minds?! Put down those phones—" Amid the clamor and panic, an avalanche of sensational news erupted from servers across the continent, descending in a relentless downpour. Beneath the strict military discipline, everyone looked at each other, words catching in their throats. They were rendered speechless, yet none dared voice a thought. Even now, ten minutes after the explosion, no one could explain what had actually happened. Everyone instinctively searched for a cause, yet found nothing. Beneath the outward facade of rigorous obedience, their minds and awareness were spiraling into numbness, threatening to crash entirely under the barrage of relentless shocks. Farther out, gunshots rang out! Upon receiving their orders, perimeter sentries fired into the empty ground without hesitation, driving back the crowds gathered outside the base. In the distance, thick smoke billowed from the ruptured oil pipeline as massive amounts of phlogiston evaporated into the air, triggering a chain of secondary detonations. Amid the piercing shriek of alarms, swarms of drones were deployed, their crimson optical sensors looking down at any figure daring to approach. Under Tianyuan's dominion, the entire base had turned into an iron fortress. High in the sky, massive airships cast menacing shadows, while reconnaissance craft and fighter jets took off from the runways in continuous waves. The rapid response force stood fully assembled; ninety-one suits of power armor had completed their preheating cycles, ready to deploy at a moment's notice. Up to this point, the enemy had still not appeared. The entire base resembled an overstimulated titan jolted awake from a dream, weapon drawn, primed for a fight to the death. Yet where was the enemy? Where were they hiding? More importantly, who even was the enemy? Across Tacheng, at Offshore Port, the Federation garrison base was utterly bewildered: *Huh? Me? No, buddy, are you out of your mind?!* Less than three minutes later, Fan Yun's call came through, shouting accusations right out of the gate: "You old dog, what the hell are you stirring up? "Midtown's call is about to hit my desk any second now. You'd better be straight with me—if you want a war, fire a missile right now, and I'll send you to see your late emperor today!" "It's merely a routine drill. An internal matter of the Empire that requires no explanation to you," Passarella replied evenly, keeping his emotions under control. "I hope the Federation exercises restraint and avoids sparking friction." "Restraint? You're going to teach me about restraint?" Fan Yun flew into a rage. "You sounded a Level-7 Alarm and spun up the deterrence mechanism, and you have the nerve to tell me it's a drill?!" The deterrence mechanism? Passarella froze for a beat, instinctively wanting to deny it. But then, he finally realized something was dreadfully wrong. He had only triggered a Level-7 Alarm. Where had a deterrence mechanism come from? Wait... an old rule from the Cold War over a century ago—why was that suddenly being dragged back onto the table? Back when the Federation and the Empire had been at each other's throats, open war had hung by a hair. Both sides had massed armies and prepared for a cataclysmic clash that would shake the world. During those perilous times, the moment a Level-7 Alarm was raised anywhere, every military base was required to have a fully loaded bomber on standby, ready to launch immediately to rush the front lines or strike critical enemy targets. At the height of the crisis, certain vital bombers had even been designated under the codename "Vengeance," meant to retaliate against the enemy with weapons of mass destruction at the first sign of aggression. Even now, the protocol persisted. But after more than a century of peaceful coexistence, it had devolved into pure bureaucratic ritual—merely keeping an aircraft on standby in a hangar. Besides, even if it were the deterrence mechanism, how could it possibly launch without his explicit orders? In that instant, Passarella felt as if struck by lightning. He slammed down the phone, whipped around, and roared: "Who authorized the deterrence mechanism to activate? WHO?!"