70. He Comes

70. He Comes
Rose drove her vehicle at a breakneck speed, tearing through city streets that had transformed into a functional hell. Above, the sky that usually offered a peaceful blue was now in turmoil, scorched by the friction of a massive meteor named The Extinction as it began to rip through Earth's exosphere.
"My God, that thing is actually coming here!" Rose muttered, her panic surging.
The streets were swarmed with people; many were frantic, searching for places they believed to be safe. They didn't realize that the meteor about to strike Earth wouldn't even give them a chance to hide anywhere; it was certain that half of the planet would be obliterated.
Telecommunication signals were completely dead; she could no longer hear her aunt's voice. Yet, in her mind, her aunt’s prayers acted as fuel for her nearly extinguished resolve.
She would not die like a coward hiding under an apartment table. If this was to be the end of human history, Rose would ensure she stood at the front lines as a scientist.
When she stepped onto the grounds of Atom Point, the world’s most advanced physics and space research center, the atmosphere had surpassed the limits of hysteria. Hundreds of researchers ran aimlessly, physical documents flew in the wind from evacuation helicopters that failed to take off, and high-frequency warning alarms screeched in everyone's ears. Red emergency lights spun wildly, casting terrifying long shadows against the concrete hallway walls.
However, as Rose opened the automatic sliding doors leading to the main Command Center, her footsteps suddenly froze. Her heart seemed to stop beating, creating a momentary silence amidst the deafening noise.
"Liuz...?" Rose whispered, almost inaudible even to herself.
Surrounded by thousands of monitors and crisscrossing optical cables, Liuz stood tall upon the command podium. He was no longer the mysterious alien man; he looked like a technological god of war. Liuz wore a Neuro-Interface Suite from Orvantis—a silver device wrapped around his temples that pulsed with electric blue light in sync with his heartbeat. His hands did not touch a mechanical keyboard; instead, they moved nimbly through the air, manipulating thousands of lines of complex holographic code floating around him like an angry constellation of stars.
"Which scientific institution are you from?" asked Professor Gama, the project manager in charge.
"Stop asking questions and just do exactly as I ask!" Liuz snapped firmly.
Here is the translation into English with corrected grammar and a high-stakes, cinematic tone:
"Fine! Besides, I have no other way to stop this apocalypse anyway," the man said in resignation.
"Integrate the energy supply from Atom Point’s fusion core into the Gravitational Singularity Cannon!" Liuz commanded. His voice was no longer soft; it thundered with undeniable authority, cutting through the desperation in the room. "Manual synchronization won't be enough! Force the system bandwidth to critical levels! Now!"
"But Mr. Liuz!" cried Dr. Exel, a senior quantum physics researcher who was usually the most composed. "Earth’s circuits won't be able to handle the load of pure energy! Our fusion core could explode before the shot is even fired. We’ll be destroyed before the meteor even touches the ground!"
Liuz turned slightly, his eyes flashing sharply—no longer a simple silver, but an intense neon blue light caused by the neural synchronization.
"It can! I’ve run the calculations; the probability shows this is still feasible!" Liuz declared.
"Fine! I’ll put my trust in you!"
Rose tried to step forward, wanting to scream the man's name, but a line of security guards in full combat gear held her back. She was forced to remain frozen at the edge of the hall, staring at the giant monitor in the center of the room. The blood-red digital numbers displayed the most terrifying countdown in the history of civilization: 00:04:12.
Four minutes until total extinction.
Liuz looked incredibly serious, sweat drenching his furrowed brow. He was doing the impossible: merging Earth’s material physics with Orvantis’s Dark Matter algorithms. Rose realized Liuz’s strategy; he wasn’t just planning to shoot the meteor with a massive laser. Liuz wanted to open a micro-wormhole directly inside the meteor's core, then funnel the destructive energy straight into the heart of the space rock so it would shatter from the inside out.
"Target locked! Coordinates 42-Alpha, inclination 12 degrees!" an operator shouted in a hoarse voice.
"Redirect all backup power to Earth’s main transmitter!" Liuz roared. His hands swept through the air, merging two massive blocks of floating code. "Rose, I’m leaving this to you!" he shouted, throwing his advanced gadget toward her.
Rose gasped in shock. How could Liuz possibly know she was there? He hadn't even looked in her direction.
"Understood!"
Rose violently jerked herself away from the security guards' grip, sprinting through the crowd of researchers who were weeping and praying. She grabbed the gadget and began to manipulate it exactly as Liuz had instructed.
"Activate it on the count of ten!" Liuz commanded, his voice trembling under the sheer weight of the data flooding into his brain.
The countdown on the screen displayed: 00:00:30.
The floor of the Atom Point building began to vibrate violently. Outside, the sky turned from a menacing red to a blinding white as the giant plasma cannon began to charge. The air inside the room felt static, making the hair on Rose’s neck and arms stand on end.
"Ten!" Liuz roared.
Rose pressed the golden button on the screen. "Activated!"
"Fire!"
A massive electromagnetic shockwave radiated outward, blowing out several circuit panels in the ceiling. A pillar of pure bluish-white light shot forth from the Atom Point transmitter, tearing through the atmosphere at a speed that defied the laws of light. On the monitor, Rose watched as the energy pillar didn't simply collide with the meteor's surface, but instead "entered" it through the micro-wormhole Liuz had created.
For the five longest seconds of Rose’s life, the world seemed to stop spinning. There was no sound. There was only a light so bright it pierced through her closed eyelids.
BOOM!
A visual explosion erupted on the screen. The massive meteor, which had looked like an invincible monster moments ago, suddenly buckled. Blue light radiated from its cracks before the mountain-sized rock finally exploded into millions of tiny fragments.
The countdown stopped at 00:00:01.