Anger surged through him, but he quickly forced himself to calm down. He khis was his one and only ce to eliminate Zack. Failure wasn’t an option—not if he wao stay in the good graces of the anization. "Moon Shadow! Take your team and kill him!" Bck Hand barked, gring at Zack, who stood protected by the two fearless warriors.

  As soon as the words left his mouth, three figures appeared out of nowhere. It was Lillian, the muscur man Verrick, and the Neon Warrior who had previously been injured by Zack’s palm on. "Shadow, take Verrid hahe target," Lillian said coldly, barely sparing a g Za the mountaintop.

  "Uood!" the Neon Warrior replied sharply, grabbing Verrick’s arm. The two vanished again, using their stealth abilities.

  But stealth wasn’t perfect. As they moved, faint footprints appeared in the dirt—a telltale sign of their approach. "Team Two! Team Three!" Bck Hand shouted into his unicator, his meical voice cutting through the tension.

  "Don’t attack their base yet. Redirect to Bear Mountain and elimihe target immediately!" Despite the eleagiterference, Bck Hand’s unicator was still funal.

  On the mountain, Zaoticed the pair disappear and reappear briefly near Bck Hand. He uood their strategy instantly. From the moment Zack was ied with the serum, his strength had been growing steadily. bined with the power of the nanosuit, his overall capabilities had now reached a level about 12 times that of an ordinary person.

  To put it into perspective, even the fearless warriors were only about 8 to 9 times strohan the average human. "Ego, unch the nanosuit here with a missile. I’m going to for this fight," Zack ordered.

  Despite his already impressive abilities, Zack preferred caution. Wearing the nanosuit would ensure he was ready for whatever came .

  NYC. Southwest and south of the city, two voys were moving through the streets. Each was loaded with bck-cd soldiers and super soldiers, heading as poward NYC City’s industrial zone and Zack’s base camp—Tribeca.

  However, their pns ged abruptly when they received orders from Bck Hand. "Team Two! Team Three! Don’t attack the base yet! Get to Mountain and kill the target!" The orders were clear, and the voys didn’t hesitate. Both turned sharply, redireg toward Bear Mountain.

  Back at Tribeca, the industrial zone and Mansion area were already on high alert. Ego’s warning had triggered attack sirens, which bred relentlessly through both locations. The eleagic pulse bomb had only affected a small part of NYC, leaving these areas untouched. "Quick! Get everyoo the defensive line!" "Everyone else, find shelter now!" "Move fast!"

  In the industrial zone, Charles skillfully directed the crowds, anizing thousands of people into a well-ordered defehe "line" he referred to wasn’t a flimsy wall around the steel pnt.

  It was a massive fortress stretg across the entire industrial zohe defense perimeter sisted of hundreds of factory buildings surrounded by reinforced crete walls six meters high. Rows of automatic mae gun turrets dotted the top of the walls, and meical dogs patrolled every kilometer. With the additional personnel Charles was anizing, the defense could now be sidered imperable—without heavy firepower, even dreaming of breaking through was futile.

  In the Mansiohe attack alert was met with swift a. "My brother’s in trouble!" Annie excimed as the sirens bred. She turo the others.

  "Sister Sophia, you stay here! Sister Erza and I will go help!" Without waiting for a response, Annie climbed into Tarantual and activated her spider mecha. Erza, dressed in her red bat uniform, joined her. Together, they sped off toward Bear MOuntain. That left Sophia and Mia in the mansion, apanied by a dozen patrolling meical dogs.

  But Sophia wasn’t the type to sit bad hide while others fought. As soon as Annie and Erza left, she went down to the basement. There, she found a dark green-and-bck steel suit with sleek, feminiures. This was a armor Zack had specifically built for her. "I ’t keep hiding while everyone else fights! I’m a bat unit too. I stand alongside them!"

  Determined, Sophia stepped onto the ptform and began putting on the suit. Meanwhile, at Bear Mountain. Erza and Annie were still on their way when a missile unched from Tribeca streaked across the sky. Its trajectory was clear—it was heading for Zack’s location.

  Uypical missile, this one had its warhead removed. Instead, a bck package was strapped to it. "Sir, the nanosuit is here," Ego informed Zack as the missile approached.

  The missile desded rapidly, trailing a bright fme, and nded just a few meters in front of Zack. Without an explosive warhead, it simply crashed into the ground, kig up a rge cloud of dirt. "Well done," Zack said, nodding as he approached the impact site. He retrieved the package from the missile, unfolding it to reveal the nanosuit.

  Just as Zack prepared to put it on, something caught his attention. To his left, oherwise empty ground, a series of footprints suddenly appeared—o deep and the other shallow. The footprints were moving quickly, heading straight for him. "Sir, there’s an invisible—" Ego began to warn, but Zack was already moving.

  With a skillful turn, he swung his fist toward the approag threat.

  Boom!

  The punch tore through the air with a sharp whistle, nding squarely on the invisible figure. The target—a t man nearly three meters tall and weighing close to 400 pounds—was sent flying back over teers. The impact was so powerful it created a crater where the man nded, scattering dirt everywhere. "The intel was wrong! The target’s a super—"

  "No! Super soldiers aren’t this strong! He might be a mutant!" The sed attacker, the Neon Warrior, panicked. He broke out of invisibility, his fidence clearly shaken.

  "You again," Zack said coldly, his eyes narrowing at the familiar figure. Without wasting a sed, he unched into a roundhouse kick. With strength 12 times that of an ordinary human, Zack’s kick sliced through the air with a crag sound.

  "Idiot!" Sensing the dahe Neon Warrior quickly tried to draw his katana. But before he could uh it—

  Boom!

  The kided with devastating force. The impact shattered the Neon Warrior’s raised arm instantly, the bone splintering uhe pressure. The shockwave tinued into his shoulder, fracturing it as well.

  Crack! Crack!

  The Neon Warrior’s massive frame was hurled backward like a ragdoll, flying farther than the first attacker. He crashed into the ground with bone-g force, bounced multiple times, and finally came to a stop half-buried in the dirt.

  The se was no different from a watermelon being smashed open. Not far away, the burly man Zack had punched was struggling to get up. A fist-shaped dent was clearly visible on his chest.

  "FUCK! I’ll crush you!!" Anger surged through the man as he felt the injuries Zack had inflicted. His massive body, over two meters tall, began to expand rapidly. Thick brown fur sprouted across his skin, fangs jutted from his mouth, and his face pushed forward, morphing grotesquely into that of a bear.

  "ROAR!!!" With a wild, bone-chilling roar, the man pleted his transformation into a monstrous brown bear. His new form stood nearly four meters tall on all fours, a hulking force e barreling toward Zack.