give it all to miss machima

The dual-wielder was clearly not in good condition, and appeared to have been subdued after a fierce fight. As for Locke, he was being carried unconscious.

At this point, the blockade of the church had been completely handed over to the Triads and the local police in Roanapur. Because there was no real person in charge on the scene, chaos ensued. Many media reporters and even intelligence personnel from various factions in Roanapur had arrived at the perimeter to observe.

At the behest of the triad leader "Little Ma" and the CIA chief, the local sheriff had no choice but to step forward with a megaphone and demand that they release the hostages.

Kwanghee... or rather, Machima's answer was also very simple.

She blocked the view of countless people and at least several cameras, pulled out a pistol, and shot the NSA soldiers hanging above her one by one in a matter of seconds.

Amidst the gasps, anger, shock, and disbelief of countless onlookers, Machima licked her lips, shoved Levi, who was in her arms, to the ground, drew the long sword from her back, and addressed Yura, Hound Girl, and Tomie:

"Ladies, as always, please dispose of the leftovers."

Yura, Miss Hound, and Tomie have been eagerly anticipating this for a long time:

"Hehe... Okay, okay!"

"The blood of sinners! In the name of the Lord, I will bring punishment and retribution!"

More heads!

"Smash them all to pieces!"

The next second, all the cameras on the scene captured Machima's figure turning into a blur before disappearing completely, followed by a sudden burst of chaotic gunfire and various pitiful screams.

From a distance, Balalaika, seeing the chaotic scene, immediately signaled to his subordinates to drive away from the area without saying a word.

"We are under attack! The attackers are unidentified, but their firepower is heavy! Requesting backup! There are too many wounded here to be evacuated! Repeat—"

In the command center of the USS Stennis, the heart-wrenching cries of the frontline soldiers were constantly being heard. Generals and staff officers, covered in sweat, could only stare intently at the screens, listening to every message on the radio.

Everyone initially thought it would be a very smooth rescue operation—the CIA liaison assured them that although Roanapur was a city full of scum and thugs, the CIA had absolute control there, and both the local police and gangsters were under their control. The attackers of the NSA soldiers were just a small group of terrorists, and they had absolutely no heavy weapons.

But now?

All the Hailong helicopters were shot down and forced to land in the city.

The soldiers who survived the plane crash were attacked by unidentified enemies almost before they could even set up a defensive line or rescue the wounded near the crash site...

The CIA had initially said it would immediately involve the local police in Roanapur in the rescue and protection efforts, but almost at the same time the sea dragon fell, the local police station was almost entirely blown up in an explosion.

Immediately afterwards, armed men dressed as police officers approached the remaining soldiers and launched a sudden attack, which directly resulted in the SEALs at one of the crash sites losing all contact.

Not to mention the news from the church that all the hostages had been executed. All of this clearly proves that this was a premeditated and shameful conspiracy against the United States! The situation is completely out of control!

"Someone will pay for his negligence after all this is over! But right now, the most important thing is to bring our remaining lads back immediately!"

U.S. military commanders immediately reported the matter to the president and the Pentagon, who quickly responded that the Royal Thai Army's 5th Infantry Division and an airmobile company would immediately proceed to Roanapur to participate in the rescue.

However, the Thai army has a long history of being out of the game and moves slowly. Just preparing the necessary logistical support takes a lot of time, and until then, they can only rely on themselves.

As the US military commanders watched as requests for support continued to pour in from the remaining crash sites, they had no choice but to dispatch several more helicopters carrying Marines to Roanapur.

However, this time the helicopter did not enter the city where heaven knows how many Stinger anti-aircraft missiles were still in place. Instead, it dropped off the Marines in the suburbs, and the Marines then walked into the city to carry out the rescue operation at the crash site.

Meanwhile, several amphibious assault ships and destroyers in the fleet changed course and headed to Thai waters at top speed to provide any necessary support for the rescue operation.

Knowing they had made a grave mistake, the CIA tried to make amends, but they soon discovered that they had completely lost contact with their station in Roanapur and could no longer command the Triads—the entire Roanapur was now in complete chaos.

Chapter 147 Naga Form

When Locke slowly opened his eyes to the roaring sound, what appeared before him was a scene beyond his comprehension.

—A city burning under the setting sun.

It wasn't until a few seconds later that he could tell from the shape of the city's outline and the appearance of the bay that the city in front of him seemed, possibly, or probably was Roanapura.

On the distant horizon, a faint flash occasionally appeared from several warships, but a few seconds later, an orange-red "flower" would erupt in the city, blasting debris, junk, or other objects into the air.

"What... happened?" He stared blankly at the scene before him.

"Of course it was the United States' shelling."

A voice came from the side. Locke turned his head and saw the woman who called herself Guangxi.

She sat languidly on a chair piled with corpses, like a tourist who had just finished dinner and was admiring the beautiful sunset, smoking and looking at the sea as if it were some breathtaking landscape.

Locke glanced around and found himself still around the church. Apart from them, there were only a few female soldiers laughing and playing with the corpses as puppets. There was no other living person nearby.

Meanwhile, Levi lay on the ground nearby—her body was entangled in a large amount of fine silk, her clothes were mostly torn, and she looked as if she had suffered some kind of abuse. Her gaze toward Guangxi was as fierce and angry as ever, but also contained a kind of fear that Locke had never seen before.

Locke quickly understood why—among the pile of corpses, besides one that could be barely identified as Father Ricard by his clothes, there was another exceptionally robust, dark-skinned body that looked somewhat familiar, perhaps…

For a moment, Locke's thoughts stopped.

“…Dutch?”

"Oh, this old man's name is Dutch? I'd completely forgotten what his name is..."

Machima's calm voice came from the side.

"He seems to be the boss of your Black Lagoon Company? He actually cares about his employees quite a bit. The Triads and the police are all dead, and he still thought of coming to rescue you. I could have spared his life, but unfortunately... my ladies generally hate humanoid species—especially black ones. Before I could even say anything, he was played to death... Perhaps, that's life?"

Locke's paused thoughts began to race. Enraged, he let out a mournful cry, then lunged forward, picked up a scattered pistol, and aimed it at Machima.

The next second, his fingers, along with the gun in his hand, were reduced to fragments.

"Ah ah ah ah ah!"

"Damn it! Don't touch him! Let him go!!"

Locke, who had lost several fingers, fell to the ground and rolled around in pain, while Revy struggled and screamed at her.

Machima didn't even glance at them, coughed slightly, and finally threw away the cigarette in her hand—she really didn't like this stuff.

"Do you know what's happening in town, Mr. Locke?"

She stretched and stood up, loosened her body, and kicked away a few broken fingers on the ground.

"There were only about a dozen Navy SEALs left, plus the original three hundred or so, now less than a hundred Marines, who were divided into several parts and completely trapped in the city."

"They were either trapped in a building near the crash site, unable to move, or they were forced to drive around the city like flies in several stolen cars..."

"They belonged to the most powerful military force on earth, but until more reinforcements arrived, they were like a pack of trapped beasts, surrounded by my men and thousands of angry Roanapur militants, fighting desperately for survival in the streets of the city..."

"The Thai army and rescue forces are on their way, but I had mines laid along their route, so they are destined not to arrive."

She pointed to several destroyers and amphibious assault ships in the distance.

"So the bigwigs have gone mad. This is their deadliest military operation since the Gulf War. If the remaining Marines are not rescued, it will be the deadliest since the Vietnam War. Therefore, they no longer care about international opinion. They are bombarding them with naval guns, bombing them with warplanes, and shooting them with missiles. They are desperate to rescue the remaining Marines. Unfortunately, they do not know that these Marines are also bait."

Locke convulsed on the ground in pain for several seconds before finally clutching his right hand, missing several fingers, and glaring at Machima with trembling eyes.

"What...what do you want?! So many people have died, isn't that enough?"

"So much? Is that enough?"

Machima came up to Locke and looked at him strangely, as if Locke had asked a very strange question.

"What are you talking about? This is far from enough! I want to see rivers of blood!"

Machima opened her arms as if to embrace the purgatory before her.

"Just a few deaths? That's not enough! This is nothing! Do you know about the Amiria air-raid shelter from the Gulf War a few years ago, Locke?"

"The US military targeted the civilian air-raid shelter that was packed with people and dropped two bunker buster bombs. The power of the bunker buster bombs was maximized within the confined space. The high temperature generated by the explosions melted the more than 1,000 civilians inside. The only trace left was the charred black figures on the walls. Most of these people were women and children..."

“Roanapura also has women and children!” Locke roared.

"No, no, you misunderstood me."

Machima shook her head.

"What I want to say is, what a tragic and shocking scene that would be—people pasted on the wall like paintings... In thousands of years of struggle for interests, when humanity cannot solve a problem, it always resorts to violent war, and the technological prowess displayed during this process is astonishing... I want to see more of these scenes."

She pointed to the burning city in the distance.

"Roanapura is such a great city. It has given me an opportunity. This city is full of scum and trash, which is perfect for making use of. As long as I send people to attack the American troops, and then impersonate American soldiers to wreak havoc in the city, and stir things up a little, they will be fighting fiercely..."

“You… madman!” Locke cursed.

“That’s strange. I thought you would understand me, Mr. Locke.”

Machima looked down at him.

"You did the same thing as me in Japan more than a year ago, didn't you? Have you forgotten? The Kasunakai and the Washi-Umine Group? And that girl who ultimately committed suicide?"

Locke paused for a moment, while Machima continued.

"You know yourself. You were invited by Balalaika to come to Japan to serve as her translator. By chance, you met Washimine Yukio, the daughter of the Washimine gang leader, who was just an ordinary high school student at the time..."

"The Eagle Peak Group is leaderless. That naive child, for the sake of so-called benevolence and duty, wants to abandon his peaceful life in the bright world and step into this darkness himself..."

Machima kicked Locke over and stomped on his chest, almost suffocating him.

"And you, upon learning of this, wanted to stop it, but the child exposed your hypocrisy—your so-called salvation was merely wandering in the twilight, neither daring to return to the light nor willing to merge into the darkness..."

"After that, you commissioned Balalaika to completely crush the Washi-mine Group, break the agreement, and eliminate the Xiangsha Society, trying to forcibly separate that child from the world of gangsters, hahaha! What a great idea! Kill all those who can and are willing to be loyal to her, and she won't have to step into the underworld anymore!? And then what? What did you get?"

Machima asked with a smile.

“Look at you! Locke, look at you! We’re all the same – you want to use evil means to save what you want to save… What? That girl is a living, breathing person in your eyes, someone worth saving, but those gangsters who died because of your ideas aren’t human?”

She scoffed, ignoring Levi's screams, and kicked Locke in the chin, sending him flying.

"So in the end, aren't we all villains—acting according to our own whims, thinking we're right, and caring nothing for the lives of others except those we care about..."

Locke fell to the ground, struggling to get up, and gritted his teeth, saying:

"I'm not like a madman like you!"

"Yes, you still have some self-righteous conscience, and you stubbornly do things with this last bit of conscience and obsession, so that you won't hate yourself so much, so that you can have a tiny bit of moral superiority when facing real villains!"

Machima stomped on his severed hand and ground it hard, which triggered another scream from the man.

"I know you. Your painstaking involvement in the NSA and Miss Hound's arrival this time was for the same reason, wasn't it? The United States' intervention gave you a glimmer of hope for changing this shithole of Roanapur, so you used your own life and the lives of those around you as chips, meticulously setting up a scheme to participate in the gamble. But you didn't expect that the church was actually a CIA mole, that the NSA was powerless to resist the CIA, and that the US government wasn't monolithic... So in the end, everything you pursued was just an empty promise..."

Seeing that Locke didn't even have the strength to shout, Machima let go of his foot with a sense of dejection.

"So you should thank me, I've fulfilled your dream—I've changed Roanapur, this city of sin, oh... only the direction of the change is a little different, hehehehe~"

She abandoned Locke and turned back to look at the warships in the bay.

"What a pity. After waiting for so long, it seems the American aircraft carrier and other ships aren't coming. There are only a few... Oh well!"

Machima closed her eyes and transferred her consciousness into another body.

This is a specialized body located in the bay—possessing biological features suitable for amphibious operations, including fins, gills, tentacles, and suckers. It was transported to the target area by several frogmen from the Tomie Legion.

She looked up and realized that looking up at the sea from the ocean floor was so similar to looking up at the sky from the ground, only more tranquil and bluer...

In the "sky," several huge, spindle-shaped black spots floated—those were the bottom plates of the US warships.

Machima smiled slightly, patted the Tomie members beside her, then flicked her tentacles and swam quickly upwards.

Let me... give you a real surprise!

Chapter 148 The Tragedy of the United States (Black Lagoon storyline ends)

Arleigh Burke-class destroyers.

In this era, which is still several years away from the millennium, this is the world's newest, most advanced, and most comprehensively capable destroyer.

From its initial design, this type of destroyer was intended to be used as a multi-purpose destroyer. To adapt to air defense operations, it is equipped with a powerful Aegis combat system. For anti-submarine warfare, it has towed sonar, torpedoes, ASROC anti-submarine rockets, and anti-submarine helicopters. For surface warfare, it has Harpoon missiles and SM-6 missiles. It can even use naval guns and equipped Tomahawk cruise missiles to carry out land attacks.

Using two of the world's top warships to deal with an undefended port city of a small third-world country is like using a cannon to kill a mosquito.

In fact, these two warships were only there to provide support for their own dock landing ships—even though the Marines were being beaten and screaming by local armed thugs on the shore, the fleet itself did not feel any tension whatsoever.

Although the United States Navy possesses excellent combat skills, subconsciously, no one would have considered the possibility of them being attacked—satellite maps and aerial photography had already scouted the land surrounding Roanapur, making it impossible for any land-based weapons to pose a threat to the warships.

As for attacks from the sea?

This is the territorial waters of our ally Thailand, the backyard of the United States Pacific Navy. Who would dare to sneak in here and provoke us?

Therefore, when several tentacles with suction cups dragged Machima from the ship's side to the stern and into the cabin, no one realized what was about to happen.

A few minutes later, the captain of another Arleigh Burke-class destroyer discovered that the friendly ship, which was providing artillery support to the Marines along with them, had suddenly stopped. As usual, the captain sent an inquiry, only to receive a completely silent radio channel.

A few dozen seconds later, before the captain could send another inquiry, the attack came without warning.

The Mk45 127mm naval guns, firing an average of one round every three seconds, rained down on the destroyer's hull, deck, and bow. The beautiful and neat superstructure and the columnar mainmast were instantly smashed to pieces. Before the officers on the bridge could figure out what had happened or where the enemy attack came from, they were reduced to charcoal and debris in the explosion.

Following closely behind were several anti-ship missiles launched from two quadruple Harpoon missile launchers. They hit the Arleigh Burke-class hull with near-simultaneous precision, effectively sealing the fate of the commandless warship.

Meanwhile, in the bay, the remaining Whidbey Island-class amphibious transport dock of the United States realized that the attack was not from some hidden third party, but an unprecedented act of fratricide—the United States' own warships were attacking their own allies!

However, they soon had no time to be surprised—because the destroyer turned its guns around and aimed them at them.