No matter what happened along the way, FFP-controlled Emola was indeed destroyed by Sun Jack, which was great news for Metropolis.
With the company declaring a day off for everyone and a 20% discount on all drinks, Metropolis erupted into a revelry, dissipating the oppressive atmosphere left by the previous war.
Sun Jack too was caught up in the intense celebrations, downing one drink after another, his surroundings swiftly becoming blurred.
He slowed his liver's ability to metabolize alcohol, immersing himself as much as possible in the intoxication, even wondering for a moment if he had made a mistake.
He seemed to have found a path, but it wasn't something to be happy about, for this path was filled with thorns, stripping not only flesh from his own body but from others' as well.
"Ahh, Jack! I love you!!" A fragrant, soft body burrowed into his trench coat, offering sweet soft lips to him.
Old Six, who was drinking beside them, got furious at this sight, hastily pulling away the woman daubed in pearl powder. "Don't you know the rules? Pay up first!"
"Ah!! Boss, I love you!!" In the crowd, a topless AA, activating the rocket boots on his legs, drunkenly swung back and forth on his neck.
"Enough, enough. Your boss is tired, come down now," Linda Linda said as she pulled AA down and supported Sun Jack to walk outside.
Sharply sensing that something was off with Sun Jack, Linda Linda helped him into her newly purchased car and left the noisy scene.
In a daze, amid the sound of acid rain outside the car window, Sun Jack fell asleep.
He dreamt, and when he regained clarity, he found himself back in that cozy rat den under the illumination of a bonfire, once again seeing the deceased members of the Rat Alliance Battle Line, all the deceased.
Sun Jack looked up at them, his expression very complex, a belly full of words to say. "Why weren't it you who survived? Why was it me?"
"Couldn't at least one of you have lived? How did all of you die? Don't bring up Anyun! That guy's gone totally insane, without any self-awareness left!"
Facing Hilda who was looking at him, a drunken Sun Jack smiled and said, "I don't mean to give up, I remember our original agreement, but this path is just damn difficult to navigate, as if there's no end to it."
"I'm just a normal person, this pressure is really hard to bear, everyone else has left, leaving me alone, I'm really lonely."
"I really want to spread our beliefs! To bring back the Rat Alliance Battle Line, but it's just not possible, now is not the time, what we need now is centralization."
"Only by figuring out a way to survive first, do we earn the right to think about other things."
Just then, Sun Jack suddenly saw Tapai appear on his left.
Sun Jack looked at him and laughed, "You? You're not capable, you're just a robot, you can't understand what I'm trying to do, you're not even human."
"I can understand," Tapai in the dream suddenly spoke, and then reached out to embrace Sun Jack.
Feeling Tapai's rigid mechanical body, Sun Jack laughed, "No, you can't understand, Tapai, cancel Guard Mode."
After a two-second pause, Sun Jack heard Tapai's response. "I won't."
A jolt woke Sun Jack from his dream unexpectedly, he looked out the window and saw they hadn't arrived, but it was just a traffic light.
Sun Jack yawned and through the glass, he saw a sculpture being built by the roadside, a colossal statue of himself standing thirteen to fourteen meters tall.
Drones engraved with lasers darted up and down, ceaselessly refining the details, with his biography etched beneath it and various artistic modifications made to his life story above.
In the records, Sun Jack was depicted as resolute, acting without an ounce of hesitation, without struggle, nor despair. Surrounded by those words, Sun Jack seemed not merely a man, but a god.
Just then, a child with mechanical tree limbs followed his companion, walking by while boasting, "I'm telling you! Sun Jack is incredible! No one else but him can freely control clones!"
"His body has even undergone the most advanced DNA enhancement modifications!!"
At that moment, the boy noticed Sun Jack inside the car, became thrilled, and hurriedly ran to the side of the car, excitedly tapping on the window. "Sun Jack!! Sun Jack! My goodness! I've seen the real Sun Jack again! Are you the original or a clone?"
A tipsy Sun Jack looked at the boy's pure gaze and gently smiled, explaining softly, "No, I am not Sun Jack."
Then he pointed with his finger toward the majestic sculpture. "Look, he is Sun Jack."
As the car started up, Sun Jack fell asleep again, this time without dreaming, sinking into a deep slumber.
When he woke up again, according to the system prompt, 14 hours had passed.
After venting his emotions and looking at the ceiling, Sun Jack felt much calmer and collected now.
Regardless, the destruction of Emola had become inevitable, and it was pointless for him to ponder it any further.
What he needed to do now was utilize the fall of Emola to buy as much time as possible for the Metropolis.
He wasn't sure how long FFP would take to act, but given that the Emola Resistance Army had been bought over, they didn't have much time left.
When he threw off the blankets, he was shocked to find three naked women lying inside, one of whom he recognized. It was Linda Linda from Utopia Security's Public Relations department.
"Holy crap! Linda Linda? What are you doing in my bed?" Sun Jack exclaimed as he pulled her up.
Linda rubbed her eyes and opened them. "Well, of course I slept with you. You looked pretty tired yesterday, so I thought I'd help you relax."
Sun Jack didn't say anything further, as he saw an even more shocking person on his bed—that was Abu, covered in red fur. "Fuck! Why are you here?!"
"Why can't I be here, huh? After all, you are one of the company's mandatory experiences. Why shouldn't I have a go? Are you discriminating against furries?" Abu said as he picked up his clothes from the floor, stretched, and left.
"Tapai! Where are you? Tapai!!" Sun Jack hadn't yelled for long when Tapai, just recently deactivating his invisibility, walked out from nearby. "Here."
"Why didn't you stop them?" Sun Jack asked exasperatedly.
"I did stop them though. The Poet wanted to climb into your bed, and I held her back."
"What about them? Did they use my body to throw a wild party last night after I fell asleep?"