Margit may have disliked Alex from the very moment he met him, and the feeling was mutual, but that didn't mean he wanted to see him die.
Alex had already proved himself to be the most valuable asset they had on the battlefield over the last week, even more so now that he had discovered and eliminated this secret base all on his own.
If it weren't for Alex, the war in the Shen Wu system would have been lost the moment that Planet Buster went off...
'Shit, I only have 30 seconds!'
Alex didn't need to be told twice.
He didn't have nearly enough time to escape from the base entirely, which left him with very few options.
He scanned the room with his eyes and Spatial Perception, with his senses locking in on a maintenance hatch in the corner of the room.
Alex forced the thing open with his strength alone, rendering any locks on it useless, and dove down it into the tunnels below.
He made it just in the nick of time, as the implosion sequence had just initiated.
The base shook violently, a wave of energy pulsed through the structure, but Alex kept moving.
His instincts told him that this base wouldn't last much longer after that explosion had taken place.
It was over 12 kilometres under sea level, and with the amount of pressure bearing down on it, Alex doubted it wouldn't be long before that pressure crushed it completely.
Alex sprinted through the narrow maintenance tunnels, his every sense heightened to the max.
The walls around him trembled and cracked as the implosion sequence progressed, sending reverberations echoing through the structure.
It wasn't just Alex that was feeling this though.
He had barely even covered 10% of the base with his spatial perception, as most of it was outside of his range.
With him killing all of the Red Demons that were in the range of his perception, the other sectors of the base had absolutely no idea what was going on.
Alex groaned, his muscles straining against the overwhelming force.
He gritted his teeth, pushing through the pain, and will his ship King out of his storage.
It appeared right in front of him, forcing the water in the area to spread out and make room for it, despite the intense pressure.
It was clear whatever materials were used to construct the base were far inferior to that of King, Alex's ship, as his ship remained spotless and intact despite causing such a ruckus with its appearance.
With just a few seconds to spare before the entire base imploded and all of the air came rushing out, forced out of the confines of the base by the pressure, Alex fought through the rushing water and boarded his ship.
The moment he was inside, the ship's automatic systems activated, sealing the hatch and stabilising the pressure.
Alex quickly moved to the cockpit and initiated the launch sequence.
His ship surged upward, cutting through the water with ease.
Alex watched in the rear cameras as the base collapsed behind him, the pressure finally overwhelming the weakened structure.
It was quite the spectacle to witness, as the whole thing literally imploded in an instant, like crushing a can of soda until all of the air inside of it was forced out, and all that was left was a ball of aluminium.
Alex pushed his ship's engines to their limits, racing upwards through the abyssal trench.
He didn't want to spend any more time in this area, as the Red Demons in the surrounding area, and on their main space base were surely alerted to the problems of their secret Planet Buster base.
Alex didn't want to be around when all of them came converging on this area to investigate what had happened.
Soon enough, King broke through the surface of the ocean, the night sky a welcome sight after the claustrophobic darkness of the underwater base.
Alex allowed himself a moment of relief, but it only lasted that moment as he climbed even higher, until he was eventually out of the planet's atmosphere, and made his way over to the Federal Military's main base.
'I actually did it...'
It was only now that Alex realised what he had done, completely solo.