Ihe Caribbean base aer, chaned. Desperate voices filled the s. “Leader, we’ve failed to intercept—” “Mayday! Ejeg now—!” “Save us—!”Some pilots mao pull their eje handles just before their pnes exploded. Their parachutes unfurled like white umbrels, but their relief was short-lived. Zack’s particle beams sliced through them mid-dest, leaving lifeless bodies floatily toward the earth.

  “In my skies, there’s no such thing as a ‘no-kill’ rule for parachuters,” Zack muttered coldly, watg the se unfold below. He have no pn leaving behind uain factor, for him it’s kill or be killed the moment they e to his doorstep. From start to finish, the battle sted only one minute and twenty seds. een fighter pnes reduced t wreckage. een pilots dead. From the ground, the falling debris resembled a fiery metal rain.

  Zack’s voice cut through the s again, this time directed at Caribbean base. “What’s your move?” His tone was icy, uing as he accelerated toward the base.

  Inside Caribbean base, the and room was dead silent as Zack’s taunting voice echoed through the speakers. Dozens of red blips on their radar had vanished ihan two mihe three base leaders—Jock, Kshatti, and Navas—stared at the s, their faces pale and drenched in cold sweat.

  Jock smmed his fist on the sole, his frustration boiling over. “What the hell is he even flying?! Not even an F-35 could take down een fighters that quickly! een!” He seethed, gring at the room of engineers and techs. “And you useless monkeys ’t eve a clear satellite image of him!” He paced angrily, his voice rising with every word. “eehese weren’t some toy drohey were state-of-the-art fighters! Aill have no idea what we’re dealing with!”

  Kshatti raised a hand, trying to calm him down. “The priority now is stopping him,” he said firmly, pointing at the radar. Zack’s red dot roag the base at an arming speed.Jock took a deep breath, grabbed the microphone, and switched to the public el. His voiow forced into a mock-calm tone, echoed across the battlefield.

  “I am Joan, leader of Caribbean base.” He paused briefly before hurriedly adding, “One of the leaders.” He tinued, his tone shifting to one of strained diplomacy. “We didn’t mean to provoke you. The two pnes we sent earlier were only delivering a message, not attag. Yet you’ve destroyed more thay of hters.” He sighed, as if trying to appear magnanimous.

  “Even so, we’re willing to overlook this. Turn around now, and we won’t pursue this matter further. Better yet…” He g his fellow leaders, who nodded in silent agreement. “Join us. With your strength, you could bee the fourth leader of Caribbean base. You must know—we’re the most powerful base left in the world. Together, we achieve eveer things.”

  Jock forced a smile, though it looked more like a grimace. “What do you say?”

  About two or three seds passed before Zack's joking voice echoed through the el."I'll be flying over your base soon~" he teased. "You’d better start pnning a grand ceremony to wele your new leader. Otherwise, if the new leader gets upset, well…" He paused for dramatic effect. "The sequences might be… difficult to handle!"He chuckled lightly, clearly enjoying his own performance.

  Hearing that Jod his group were sidering recruiting him, Zaearly burst out ughing. "Seriously? Looks like you guys haven’t learned your lesso," he muttered with a smirk. Jock, oher hand, wasn’t amused. He uood Zack’s mockery all too well. The polite, fake smile on his face vanished in an instant, repced by a grim look."Fine. If that’s how you want to py it, let me spell it out for you!" Joapped. "Our base has missile silos. Do you know what that means?" His voice was heavy with warning.

  "Nuclear bombs, right?" Zack replied nontly, his tone as calm as if they were discussing the weather. "Go ahead, fire away if you feel like it. I’ll be there soon anyway, and no matter what you do, I’ll still be faster." With that, Zack cut the unication abruptly.

  "…What?" Jod his group were stunned into silence. Who acts like that? Is he not afraid of a nuclear bomb? "It has to be a bluff!" Jock growled, trying to shake off his unease. "Nobody’s crazy enough to not fear a nuclear bomb. Open the missile silo and target NYC City!"

  "Sir, they’ve opehe missile silo," Ego informed calmly.

  Through the LSI satellite’s surveilnce, every movement at the Caribbean base was being tracked. Nothing could escape their watchful eyes. "Let them do whatever they want," Zack replied, his aart burning even further.

  He cast a quice at the alert on his HUD but didn’t bother reag further. Whether or not they mao unch missiles didn’t matter. Even if they did, the state-of-the-art air defense system proteg NYC City could intercept them effortlessly. The tech was so advanced, it was like something out of a sci-fi movie.

  "Where’s the Avalon?" Zack asked, shifting focus to the positions of Ava and the others.

  "They’ve crossed the border and are expected to reach the Caribbean base in about twenty minutes," Ego reported.

  "Twenty minutes, huh?" Zack mused. "Looks like I’ll be making the first move."

  Engaging his thrusters to full power, Zack accelerated rapidly. His speed climbed steadily, reag a jaw-dropping Mach 4.8. At such velocity, it wasn’t long before the sprawling Caribbean base came into view on the horizon—a pound the size of a small town, stretg over several kilometers.

  "Sir, anti-aircraft ons have been deployed. Evasive maneuvers are reended," Ego warned. At the edge of the base, anti-aircraft missiles roared to life, trailing long, fiery streaks as they locked onto Zack. Simultaneously, rge-caliber anti-aircraft ons began firing from armored vehicles stationed along the base’s perimeter. The ons thundered loudly, their shells exploding in the sky, scattering deadly shrapnel across Zack’s flight path.

  If Zack maintained his current speed, he would plow straight into the shrapnel field. Slowing down, however, would make him an easy target for the dozens of missiles chasing him. "Not bad. Old-school but effective," Zack remarked casually, as if critiquing a museum exhibit.

  Instead of slowing down, he pushed his thrusters harder, barreling straight into the firestorm at nearly Mach 5. The result was a deafening cacophony of metal oal as tless shards of shrapnel collided with his armor. However, the Apex suit, crafted from Ultralium alloy, barely took a scratch. The paintwork suffered a few scuffs at most, but the suit itself remained pletely intact, shrugging off the impact like it was nothing.

  The ground shook as anti-aircraft vehicles and she rotary ons unleashed a relentless barrage. Streams of tracer rounds lit up the sky, f fiery arcs that tracked Zack’s movements. "Time to thread the needle," Zack muttered, activating his fps. With precision only achievable by cutting-edge teology and immense skill, he wove through the hail of bullets and explosions, narrowly avoiding every deadly obstacle.