Lucian grinned.
“One.”
And then
The General, Meleonora, the purple-haired man, and everyone else in the room instinctively looked up.
“What’s this… is this some kind of earthquake?”
Meleonora asked, stopping in her steps. Instinctively, she raised her hands to her head, following her training for earthquake protocol.
Thud.
The General let out a heavy sigh and sank into his chair, his eyes closed, sweat forming on his forehead.
He knew what this was. And there was no going back now. The thing that shouldn’t have happened… had happened.
The stress etched deeper lines into his already aged face, making him look like he’d grown five years older in seconds.
The purple-haired man, startled, crouched down on the ground like a frightened animal, scared the building might collapse at any moment. The vibrations weren’t strong enough to cause serious damage, but his instincts screamed at him to stay low.
“Well… it’s over now,” Lucian said, a crazed grin spreading across his face.
The General’s eyes snapped open, his face filled with tension and dread. “Kid… because of you, the peace we built so painstakingly… might be destroyed.”
His voice carried the weight of years spent trying to maintain that fragile peace.
Lucian said nothing in response, just kept that same grin.
Meleonora finally caught up, her eyes narrowing as she noticed the General’s grim expression. “General, what happened? Why do you look like that?”
She could sense something was very, very wrong. This couldn’t be just because of some minor event… or even the missile incident.
The General ran a hand down his face. “Of course. Prepare yourself, girl… from this point on, we’re all in deep.”
He tapped his forehead, wiping away the sweat that had gathered there. Stay connected via My Virtual Library Empire
“Huh?” Meleonora looked confused. “Deep? Why? We’re just here to arrest Lucian Kane for his crimes last night.”
That was their original mission. Sure, his crimes multiplied after the missile incident, but why would they personally be in trouble?
The General shook his head and didn’t answer. “You’ll know soon enough. Give it a minute or two.”
Meleonora blinked in confusion.
“See that crazy bastard right there?” The General’s voice was filled with frustration as he pointed at Lucian. “That kid… just sent a fucking nuke to destroy the Silvit family’s island.”
“He… did what?”
Meleonora’s pupils dilated, her eyebrows jumping as her breath caught in her throat.
Her jaw nearly hit the floor. When she first thought the Kane family had missiles, it was already hard to believe.
But now?
A nuclear weapon?
Her mind rebelled against the information. “No way… this can’t be real.”
She tried to rationalize the General’s words. But that reaction… his face, his voice… the faint tremor they felt earlier. “No, this can’t be,” she whispered, gulping.
“Weapons of mass destruction?”
The General had said that earlier. She had assumed he meant high-grade missiles. “A nuke?”
No. Impossible.
The difference between a missile and a nuclear weapon was like the gap between a firecracker and a volcano.
Just possessing a nuclear weapon was enough to dominate or destroy small countries if no major power interfered. And not even every country in the world had them—only a handful of the most advanced ones.
“The Kane family has nuclear weapons?” Her voice trembled.
Meleonora’s heart raced. “That can’t be. It’s… it’s illegal. No one no family should have access to that kind of power.”
The General shook his head. “Welcome to our new reality.”
“Nuclear weapons?” she repeated, her voice trembling.
“Is this kid… mentally ill?”
Her thoughts spiraled. Even if Lucian Kane was strong, even if he had the resources… using a nuclear weapon for such a small matter?
Who would do that?
Her mind kept trying to piece it together.
“He actually fired nukes… over a family dispute?”
Her stomach twisted with the absurdity of it all. All this… because of an attack that didn’t even succeed.
If Lucian really had access to such power… well, she knew what nukes cost. They weren’t toys you could buy off the black market.
“A single nuke costs billions maybe 30 to 40 billion dollars per warhead,” she thought, recalling some military reports she’d read.
“If he wanted to kill the Silvit family, he could’ve just handed the military a billion dollars. They would’ve happily done the job for him.”
Instead, he’d chosen this route.
“Such pettiness.”
“Petty,” she whispered to herself. “This is… beyond petty
Meleonora felt herself shudder.
The Silvit family.
Theo Silvit.
He’d provoked Lucian Kane and tried to hurt his sister. And Lucian’s response was… annihilation.
Her mind shuddered to grasp the full weight of the absurdity.
He just burned through billions of dollars in retaliation for an unsuccessful attack.
And that was the least of their worries.
“The international response…” Meleonora whispered. “The world won’t sit back and let this go.”
“Exactly,” the General said, rubbing his temples. “And guess who gets to deal with the fallout?”
Meleonora’s throat dried up. “Us.”
The room fell into a suffocating silence.
The Silvit family would go down in history not for their deeds, but for the absurdity of their death. “What kind of lunatic kills a small family with nukes?”
Even war-hardened generals don’t dare to use nuclear weapons. Entire nations had been devastated by their use in the past, which is why they were strictly forbidden in modern conflicts.
“And this kid used one over an attempted assassination?”
It was absurd. Ridiculous.
She clenched her fists, struggling to suppress her disbelief. “Theo Silvit might go down in history as the most… pathetic person to ever be nuked.”
Her thoughts spiraled further.
“Did the Kane family steal these weapons?” she wondered. “Or did they somehow develop the technology on their own?”
No matter how she twisted it, none of it made sense.
And then her eyes slowly drifted toward Lucian.
He was standing there… smiling.
“Ahhh, well… I think you all are actually mistaken about something,” Lucian said, shaking his head as he listened to the conversation between Meleonora and the General.
“Yes! I knew it! This has to be fake!” Meleonora, who was sweating profusely, suddenly jumped up, pointing at Lucian’s face.
Lucian instantly recognized that familiar expression on her face. “Ahhh… she’s going to spread her stupidity again,” he thought.
Before she could open her mouth, Lucian cut her off.
“It wasn’t just one,” he said with a casual shrug. “It was seven. Seven nukes.”
“Huh?”
Meleonora froze. Her knees gave out, and she almost collapsed to the floor.
“Seven?” she whispered, her voice trembling as though the word itself carried physical weight.
—–