After a long silence, Edna said stiffly, "Your Majesty, Celia is dead, what do you want his DNA for?"
Heinrich gave her a cold look. His eyes are particularly deep and narrow, and because of his age, there are some slight fine lines at the end of the eyes, and he looks more mature and restrained brought by the years, as well as a powerful power that is hidden but not revealed.
"It's none of your business, Consetlin. The DNA of the Alliance Phoenix or Celia, you must hand over the same."
Caroline and Edna looked at each other, and the eyes of the two women were full of strong resistance, and then Caroline said: "Your Majesty, please forgive me for not being able to do it—the political significance represented by the Alliance Phoenix You don’t need me to tell you. Back then, the 100,000 soldiers of the Glorious Legion surrendered, not to watch you destroy their spiritual totems.”
"I know."
"The alliance collapsed only fifty years ago. The empire was established on the basis of guaranteeing respect for the spirit of the parliament. Countless pairs of eyes are watching every move of the imperial government. Do you know how much distrust they hide in their hearts?"
"I know."
"So you want to tear down the Union Phoenix at such a sensitive time? Do you want to create political turmoil?"
"I just want DNA."
"Then go and explain to them!"
"impossible."
"why?"
"... Celia is a Beta, and his genes can be fused with me." Heinrich stared at her, and finally told the truth after a long silence: "I want a child."
Edna rushed forward, so fast that Caroline almost didn't hold her back: "—Don't even think about it! Heinrich! You don't even think about it—don't even think about it!"
"Stop it, Edna!"
"Shut up! I'm not asking for your opinion!"
"Why didn't Celia let you be beaten to death by Fortson back then?! Why do people like you survive!" Edna almost collapsed, her voice was so sharp that she almost changed her tone: "He saved you! He educated and cultivated you! Step by step Promote you! As a result, you people are so self-righteous to engage in the Chenqiao mutiny, forcing Celia to become a dictator as you want! Don’t you know that the Democratic Alliance is the spiritual belief that Celia has defended for hundreds of years?!”
A rare look of embarrassment appeared in Heinrich's eyes: "Stop talking about such things!"
"Silia was so angry, but he still spared your lives, and only exiled you to a remote galaxy—and how did you repay him?! The battle of the Venus Fortress, the once-in-a-century solar storm, and Celia's desperate efforts to protect the Alliance The armies of both sides of the empire withdrew safely, but you returned to your carbine when he was seriously injured and dying, and wiped out millions of alliance soldiers in World War I!"
"Shut up! That's war!"
"Why didn't you say that it was a war when Celia blocked the storm to buy time for your withdrawal! Heinrich! What were you doing when the solar storm came?! What are you living empire generals doing!"
With a loud bang, Edna grabbed the teacup and smashed it to the ground.
"You don't deserve to be his opponent at all, and you don't deserve to have his child." Pointing at Heinrich, she gritted her teeth and said, "If you dare to think about Celia's body, I will report your behavior to the whole universe. At that time, you can see whether there are more people on your side or more people on Celia's side!"
Her last words echoed in the laboratory for a long time, and every molecule in the air was completely frozen.
No one spoke, no one moved, and the whole scene was like a horrible pantomime.
"...I said," Caroline said with difficulty, "Your Majesty, there are actually many...excellent Omega in the empire, maybe you just have to wait..."
"Everything I do is to end the war as soon as possible." Heinrich interrupted her, and said coldly: "It took me a hundred years to destroy the alliance. If there was no battle for the Venus Fortress, it might take me two hundred years."
Edna sneered: "In order to seize power as soon as possible?"
"In order to stabilize order as soon as possible."
"Whatever you say..."
"The truth is I did it, and I would still choose to do it again."
Heinrich paused, with a cold and resolute expression: "You can criticize whatever you want, but today's empire proves that I have lived up to the marshal's sacrifice. Now I want his DNA, and it doesn't matter if you don't hand it over. The mecha in a month's time The league Phoenix is doomed to change hands."
Edna looked extremely angry and wanted to say something but was stopped by Caroline.
"We'll do our best to win," said the headmistress calmly.
Heinrich looked at them contemptuously, without hiding his thoughts—impossible.
Caroline looked at him without fear, but her hands behind her back trembled slightly from clenching. After a while, the emperor sneered, turned and walked out: "Then I wish you all the best of luck."
His figure in black military uniform seemed to be wrapped in the cold breath of the storm, and Edna used all her strength to barely restrain herself from pulling out the gun and pulling the trigger.
Caroline pressed her shoulders, signaled her to calm down with her eyes, and then hurriedly followed.
When the emperor walked out of the research institute building, the attendant guarding outside immediately bowed and strode to follow. Caroline knew that as the principal she didn't have to send it off, she stopped immediately.
However, at this moment, a student came to the end of the corridor with the help of another student, and saluted from afar: "Principal Caroline! Is Principal Edna there?"
Caroline turned around and recognized the elite student of the mech team: "Dean? You—"
Her voice stopped abruptly.
The student who was carried on his shoulders, pale and dripping with cold sweat, was Gavin!
Caroline opened her mouth, but before she could say anything, Heinrich turned around casually.
That was perhaps the weirdest scene in Caroline's life, and she couldn't forget all the details of that moment until many years later: the Galactic Emperor Heinrich and the military student Gavin stood at the two ends of the corridor, the former was in his prime , majestic, with a look of astonishment on his sharp-edged face; the latter was just young, with a strange expression, and he only glanced at the emperor before turning his eyes away.
It seems like a huge joke of time and space, and it seems that fate is full of malicious teasing.
This glance of wars and grievances spanning two hundred years completely turned history upside down before Caroline's eyes.
"You are… "
Heinrich hesitated to take a step, then stopped abruptly.
There was an eerie silence in the corridor. Dean was about to say something when Caroline suddenly interrupted him: "He is Edna's student."
At this time, no one paid attention to whether she was impolite, and the headmistress added calmly: "He is dumb and can't speak."
The emperor seemed to hear it, but he didn't seem to hear anything. He walked a few steps as if possessed, and looked at Gavin's face from a distance, his expression was full of shock, doubt and uncertainty.
"This—" Dean asked in confusion. Before he could speak, Gavin pressed him secretly and stopped immediately.
"... What's your name?" The emperor finally walked in front of them, lowered his head slightly and asked him.
Gavin said nothing.
Caroline had to remind again: "He can't talk."
The emperor didn't mean to be angry, he just looked Gavin up and down motionlessly, his eyes moved from the boy's face to his neck, and stayed for a long time on the bright fingerprints on his throat.
The silence was suffocating, and Dean couldn't help explaining: "Mecha mental pollution is just an accident..."
The emperor nodded, but didn't look at him, only looked up into Gavin's eyes.
"I'm sorry...you kind of look like someone I used to know."
Gavin lowered his gaze politely.
Seeing from this angle, the young man was very different from the impression in his memory. The emperor frowned slightly, and the nightmarish sense of confusion in his heart was almost hard to suppress.
No one spoke in the corridor, and everyone watched cautiously.
After a long while, the emperor finally nodded and said, "I was wrong, sorry."
He took a deep breath, turned and walked towards his attendant, his footsteps were a little messy, as if he was running away.
No one said goodbye, and Caroline also omitted the courtesy of sending the emperor off. Heinrich left very quickly, until the airship lifted off and disappeared, Dean didn't realize who he was facing just now: "—Principal? Who is that?"
Caroline's face was ashen, and she said in a deep voice for a long time: "You can't afford to offend someone."
Heinrich sat in the airship in a trance.
The airship was driving at high speed on the aviation road, and there was no one else in the cabin. Bi An turned into an optical brain and floated in the air. After observing the emperor's face for a long time, he suddenly asked, "Are you searching for someone in your memory that matches the characteristics of the military student just now?"
"...he's like Celia."
"This is wrong, Your Majesty," Bi An mechanically said, "According to the system comparison, the facial features of the military cadet and Marshal Celia match less than 15%—of course, the image of the Marshal's youth has been completely lost, and the age gap It may also cause certain comparison errors.”
"I understand, but it's just that kind of feeling..." Heinrich paused, and said in a low voice, "I was dazed."
"The courage to admit mistakes is a rare and excellent quality." Qu An said impartially.
However, these words evoked a dull pain in the emperor's heart, and the wound that Edna ignored to untie felt a little aching. He was silent for a while, then slowly asked: "Qi An..."
"yes."
"From the perspective of artificial intelligence, did I do something wrong in the battle of Venus Fortress?"
The emperor has experienced countless battles in his life, and many comrades-in-arms who were regarded as brothers died in front of his eyes, and some of them didn't even have time to leave a word. At the beginning, he also had a lot of strong self-doubt: Is this sacrifice worth it? Am I doing something wrong? But as the war raged and the Alliance became increasingly corrupt, he realized that many things had no choice.
It is not that he started this era, but that the era chose him in the transition.
All his hesitation and weakness will lead to more sacrifices, and the bloodshed will never end.
The war between the Alliance and the Empire lasted for nearly a hundred years. The Alliance chased the Empire for the first 80 years, until the Battle of Venus Fortress completely overturned the situation of the war, which became the inflection point of the Alliance's complete decline.
In that battle, the armies of both sides encountered a solar storm that was rare in a hundred years at the same time, and there was no time to get out of the situation. Seeing that millions of troops were about to be swallowed by the torrent, Celia stood in front of the storm alone. The anti-energy of the 4S universe-level weapon Nirvana Gun was stimulated to the extreme, and at the very moment, it opened the neutralization layer that penetrated time and space, and retreated for the troops of both sides. Entering the five-dimensional space won precious 12 seconds.
Those 12 seconds saved the lives of millions of people, and Heinrich will never forget that moment: a torrent of destructive particles rushed towards his face, as if the doomsday was approaching the judgment of the gods, and in the infinite sea of light, the mech phoenix Inch by inch, it burned and melted until it became a bright fireball.
It was undoubtedly the most beautiful and spectacular fireworks in the history of the league.
At that moment Heinrich knew that Celia would die, but what he did was lead the army to retreat at full speed.
No one knows that the emperor left all his tears and bitter cries in the fifth-dimensional space. People only know that when he came out, he announced to the whole army: "Turn around and fight back, and wipe out the alliance army that has lost its commander."
"There is nothing wrong with your decision, Your Majesty." Qu An said calmly: "First of all, you were driving me, who was an A-level mech at the time, even if you really rushed up, it would not have any effect; secondly, if you did not lead the army to withdraw If you enter the fifth-dimensional space, everyone's life will be filled there."
Heinrich was silent.
That battle completely rewrote the history of imperial warfare: the well-organized imperial army intercepted the demoralized alliance army halfway, like a divine soldier descending from heaven, outflanked and wiped out hundreds of thousands of alliance ships, and even penetrated deep into the command ship.
If the command ship is really destroyed, then this battle will be a complete victory, and the alliance will be slaughtered to the point where no one will be left alive; however, at that time, no imperial ship fired at the alliance command ship.
— because it was dragging the wreckage of the Mechaphoenix.
That was probably one of the rare times in Heinrich's life when emotion overcame reason. After the battle situation was completely determined, he ordered the entire army to cease fire, and watched the command ship dragging the charred and shattered phoenix wreckage slowly disappear into the depths of the universe.
At that time, he was very fortunate that the acting commander of the Alliance and Lieutenant General Kaleyan of the Glorious Legion was a person with more reason than emotion. Otherwise, if he ordered the command ship to ram the enemy, the bones of Marshal Silia would be wiped out, and he would be sent back to his hometown for burial. There is no chance.
Heinrich hardly remembers how he got through the days that followed. He locked himself in the room, couldn't sleep all night, and could pass the day just staring at the ceiling, even forgetting the passage of time. At that time, if someone killed him with a knife, he might just sit there numbly and hang his neck to kill him.
Until a week later, Aaron kicked open the door. He was so excited that he even talked incoherently: "Hurry up and watch the news! Heinrich! The Marshal is still alive, he is not dead!"
— Marshal Celia is not dead.
Although the entire empire was shocked, and countless people even suspected that the alliance was making fake news, the subsequent facts proved that he was not dead.
"The alliance will always remember those fighters who died for her. And we, all those who survived, will continue to move forward towards freedom and ideals with nostalgia."
On TV, Celia was dressed in black, with a pale face and a ruthless expression. She passed through the reporters' long guns and short cannons, and walked steadily into the martyrs' cemetery with a white chrysanthemum in her arms.
And Heinrich was stunned. He stood in front of the screen in a daze, with great joy and sorrow surging up from the bottom of his heart at the same time, converging into a dark tide, completely submerging him.
The Battle of Venus Fortress was a turning point in the overturning of the overall war situation: because of defeat in one battle, Celia was questioned by the parliament and deprived of military power in disguise for twelve years. The Empire seized the opportunity to capture the Gemini Egret, and used it as a base to recuperate, grow rapidly, and soon gathered all the forces in the surrounding galaxies under its command.
The Union Parliament, which finally found a reason to expel Silia from the power center, accelerated its decline during this period, and the local officials were in chaos. Every day, news of the ruling provinces declaring independence came from various places. The parliament is torn apart, and there is nothing to do externally. The repeated attacks are in vain, and in the end it only ends up in a situation where people waste money and complain.
— Fortunately, this situation did not last long.
In the winter of the ninety-second year of the Galaxy War, the Empire annexed Gemini, and military affairs, people's livelihood, and interstellar public opinion all reached historical peaks.
In the same year, Heinrich, the commander-in-chief of the Empire, personally conquered and confronted the Alliance Legion in the M12 star cluster of the Ophiuchus constellation.
All stories will end here, including the distant and tiny hope in Heinrich's heart, and Celia, who regained military power after a long wait; the finale.
"Your Majesty," Bi An said in a calm voice, "With all due respect, you are different from Marshal Celia."
The carriage was extremely quiet, and Heinrich turned to look at it.
"Marshal is a real strong man, but you are also a great statesman. You bear different historical responsibilities, so there is only a difference in position, there is no difference between right and wrong."
Heinrich shook his head and smiled, and did not comment on the artificial intelligence's words.
"But based on the data analysis," Bi An said, "I think it is very appropriate for you to choose Marshal as the other half of the gene provider of the offspring: firstly, Marshal's genetic quality is unquestionable, and secondly, even if Miss Edna made this matter public , there must be more people who support you than those who oppose you."
"...Well, I know." Heinrich said a little distracted, "I'm afraid they might just destroy the body."
He thought of the Mecha League a month later, if the Royal Military Academy handed over the Phoenix after losing the battle, no one would be able to say a word; but if the Royal Military Academy won, things would be much more troublesome.
He didn't want to wait any longer, he wanted a child—a child of his and Celia's blood.
This thought was like a fire, making Heinrich's heart very hot.
"How can we make them lose..." Heinrich rubbed his brows with his knuckles, suddenly remembered the boy he saw at the Royal Military Academy, and subconsciously overlapped his face with Celia again.
The strength of the armor will not be the same.
...but how is that possible
The emperor laughed at himself and shook his head, thinking that this was too crazy. He leaned against the car window, watched the traffic outside quickly receding, and sighed almost silently.