In the wake of the explosion, NYotoriety spread like wildfire across the globe. First came Zack’s destru of the Caribbean base—a dispy that had already drawention of major fas. But this? The debut of a space-based on system was on airely different level.

  In a distant survivor base known as Edeled in Europe, a group of high-ranking officials stared at the satellite images in stunned silehe footage of the tungsten rod’s devastating impact pyed on a rge s before them. “The think tank has pleted their analysis,” someone announced, breaking the silence. “It’s firmed—a space-based on. Impact speed reached Mach 31.5.”

  “Intercepting something like that would be impossible,” muttered a man in a military uniform. His gray beard twitched as he spoke, his voice tinged with unease. A el’s insignia gleamed on his shoulder as he tossed a report onto the table.

  “What about the nuclear bunkers?” In the feren, the first thing on the minds of several senior executives was whether hiding in a nuclear bunker could save them. The tension alpable, but the blonde woman sitting at the head of the table remained silent.

  “Useless!” A middle-aged man in a military uniform, bearing the rank of el, broke the silence. His voice was grim and unyielding. “If a on like that hits us, the Garden of Eden will be wiped out instantly! It doesn’t matter how deep you hide in a buhat tungsten rod pee hundreds of meters into the ground!”

  The room buzzed with uneasy murmurs. “This base is too big a threat to ignore,” decred an older, slightly ht man, his face set with determination.

  “I propose we strike first! Launtertial nuclear missiles at them!” The man’s voice carried a sense ency. Living uhe shadow of such a o unbearable—who could sleep peacefully knowing that, at any moment, a tungsten rod could rain down from the sky and obliterate them?

  “I sed the motion!”

  “If we still io save the world, we ’t ighis threat!”

  Another voice quickly chimed in. Though they cimed to want to “save the world,” their true motive was thinly veiled—they sought to unify it uheir trol. Even in the apocalypse, these hawks g to their ambitions of domination.

  “Seded!” “I agree!” “I object!” “Abstain!” The room desded into chaos as voices overpped. In the end, more than half the attendees supported the proposal to unch a nuclear strike on NYC.

  As the arguments died down, all eyes turo the blonde woman at the head of the table. Her sileil now had been unnerving, as her status clearly carried weight. “No bombs will be dropped,” she finally said, it wasn’t a suggestion or a vote—it was a decision. The final word oter. “Meeting dismissed.”

  “But—” the older man began, his frustration boiling over. The woman’s gaze silenced him. Around the room, the others were already standing, colleg their things, and leaving in quiet respect. Realizing he was alone in his protest, the man sighed heavily, grabbed his coat, a with the others.

  Now alone in the room, the blonde woman stared at the satellite images of NYC still dispyed on the rge s. Her expression was unreadable. “I hope you survive this time,” she murmured softly, reag into her pocket to retrieve a small -sized device. Pg it oable, she pressed it.

  A beam of light shot out, f a holographic image of a figure. “Bd, where are you?” she asked, her voice synthesized by the devito a ral, uifiable tone.

  Not far from NYC , a voy of vehicles came to a stop. “We’ve arrived at the target area,” someoed, their voice cutting through the radio static.

  At the top of what was once Bear Mountain, Zack desded slowly. His thrusters powered down, and his boots touched the ground. What y before him was no longer a mountain but a massive crater. The entire peak had been obliterated, leaving behind a cave ring-like formation. The once-proud summit was now a bottomless pit.

  “So this is the power of a space-based on...” Zack muttered as he stood on the edge of the crater, staring down at the abyss. His heart was heavy with a mix of awe and realization.

  “Sir, the LSI satellite has sustained severe damage. It may no longer fun as a space-based ptform,” Ego, his AI assistant, reported.

  The reminder snapped Zack out of his thoughts. He frowned but remained calm. “That’s fine,” he said with a shrug. “If worse es to worst, I’ll just build another satellite and send it up myself.”

  The LSI satellite, he reflected, had been far from perfect. It had been only half-modified when he forced it into service, and now it was damaged, even knocked off course. “Besides,” Zack added, his tohoughtful, “it’s just a reaissaellite. The ptform’s altitude is too low anyway. At just over a thousand kilometers, it ’t unleash the full potential of the on.”

  He gnced back at the massive crater, his mind rag with possibilities. “This power is nothing pared to what the system could do from a geostationary orbit—35,000 kilometers above Earth. If we dropped a tungsten rod from there...” He didn’t finish the thought, but the implications were clear. A strike from that height could rival a nuclear on iructive force. Fttening mountains would be the least of its capabilities.

  “Let’s move,” Zack said, refog. “We o up the radioactive ination at the port and move on to the phase.”

  Just as he prepared to activate his thrusters, a warning fshed across the HUD of his Apex suit. “Ining missiles detected!”

  Zack’s eyes narrowed. “Intercept them. Now.”

  Red beams nced out from the city’s air defense system, streaking across the sky in brilliant lines. Explosions followed as the sers tore through the ining missiles, oer ahunderous booms echoed in the distance as the threats vanished from his radar. “It seems someohought I’d taken heavy losses and wao kick me while I was down,” Zack said coldly.

  But they had miscalcuted. Zack hadn’t suffered any signifit damage. His meical dogs and spiders were mass-produced, with supplies stockpiled in overwhelming quantities. His arsenal of ons was vast, his resources seemingly endless. “Ego, locate the missile unch site, let’s see who’s so generous, sending all those big rockets at once!" Zack grinned as he prepared to fire up the propeller and take off.

  Just then— "Sir! Stealth unit detected!" Ego’s alert broke the silence.

  Its life detector had picked up a fast-moving signal in the open field ahead. The signal was faint but unmistakable—someone was using stealth teology. "Invisible?" Zack muttered, his instincts kig in. Without hesitation, he raised his hand and unleashed a full-power palm on bst toward the empty space.

  Boom!

  A particle beam shot through the air, illuminating the darkness for a moment. Suddenly, the "empty" space wasy anymore—a man in bck materialized mid-stride, struck directly in the shoulder by the bst.