My 100th Rebirth a day before the Apocalypse novel Chapter 878

Chapter 878: Chapter 878 The Plan

He had no idea who Kisha truly was, whether she belonged to some shadow unit of the intelligence division or an unknown government agency capable of pulling off the impossible, but the certainty in her smirk made him believe she could back up every word.

And then it hit him. She hadn’t answered his question about how long it would take to dismantle the microchips. Instead, she’d simply implied it was already done. ’When did she even discover the existence of the chips? How long had she been working on disabling them?’ His mind scrambled for answers, but he couldn’t be sure of anything anymore.

Despite his hesitation, there was something in her eyes, calm, unreadable, and unwavering, that told him she wasn’t bluffing.

"The President ordered the soldiers to rescue the researchers and professors from City D... to begin human experimentation."

The Commander spoke the words slowly, then closed his eyes, bracing for the explosion. He waited for the telltale sting in his spine or the searing pain at the base of his skull. Any second now, the implanted microchip should’ve reacted to the trigger phrases.

Seconds ticked by.

Nothing happened.

Not even a tingling in his lips or a pop in his shoulder, nothing exploded.

He let out a shaky breath, almost disbelieving. Those words, "human experimentation" and "rescue the researchers and professors from City D", were hard-coded kill triggers. Saying them aloud used to mean instant death. He hadn’t said them out of recklessness. He just desperately wanted to believe what Kisha told him, that she had successfully dismantled the control chip inside his body.

And this was the only way to be sure.

In the past, even thinking those phrases would trigger the chip. A splitting migraine would follow, like a blade raking across his brain. The device had been designed to detect neural activity tied to forbidden thoughts. But speaking them out loud? That would have activated the fail-safe: immediate and fatal detonation.

Unless he could somehow bypass thinking altogether and transmit information without cognition, which was impossible, there was no way to share what he knew. Even writing was dangerous. The moment he tried to form the words in his head, the chip would pick up on the neural patterns and respond with punishing frequency waves, gradually liquefying his brain with vibration.

In theory, he might be able to scribble a few sentences before passing out... or dropping dead.

But now, he’d spoken the worst of the trigger words, and nothing happened.

For the first time in a while, he felt the weight of the invisible leash around his mind loosen. And for the first time, he allowed himself to believe, he might finally be free.

"Go on..." Kisha urged, a deep, knowing smile tugging at her lips, as if to say, ’I’ve already done my part.’

And just like that, the Commander General broke into sobs.

"Can you really save my family?" he asked, his voice cracking with desperation.

Kisha’s brow arched. This was the first time she’d seen this man, usually so arrogant, so cold, cry. The same man she remembered hating in her past life. He had always struck her as nothing more than a cowardly puppet of the President: selfish, spineless, and complicit in countless atrocities.

But then, an unwelcome thought crept into her mind.

’What if...’

What if his cowardice was a survival tactic? What if, in the face of a monstrous regime, the only thing he knew how to do was to submit and obey, not out of loyalty, but out of fear?

Not for himself... but for them.

’What if’ he became the President’s pawn willingly, swallowing his pride and turning a blind eye to the cruelty, just to keep his family safe? Maybe that was his only way to protect them, to shield them from becoming collateral damage like so many others.

It was selfish... but also human.

Because if she let herself see him as someone worth saving... as someone ’redeemable’... then what about the ones who died because he followed orders? What about those who were tortured, lost, or discarded, all to keep his conscience clean and his family safe?

Didn’t their suffering matter too?

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