Ahead, the first wave of anti-aircraft missiles approached. "Old rules," Zack said with a smirk. His thrusters fred as he executed a sudden, sharp maneuver, baiting the missiles into following his feint. At the st sed, he veered off sharply, leaving the missiles to detonate harmlessly in his wake.

  As Zack broke through the outer defework, his HUD lit up with dozens of log indicators. Every anti-aircraft vehicle, on, and missile uncher within range was marked as a target—seventy-one in total.

  "Fire!" Zaanded. Missile pods on his shoulders opened, unleashing a storm of micro-guided missiles. Each missile, no bigger than a pencil, had a desigarget. They streaked through the air like a deadly swarm, leaving bright, curved trails in their wake.

  "Intercept them, quickly!" someone shouted desperately from within the Caribbean base. Soldiers scrambled to respond, but their efforts were futile. The miissiles were too small and too fast to intercept effectively.

  Explosioed across the base as the missiles found their marks, obliterating anti-aircraft vehicles, gun empts, and missile unchers. Sedary detonations followed as stored ammunition ignited, amplifying the destru. "Still got tanks, huh?" Zack muttered, notig several armored vehicles stationed he base’s high walls.

  "His speed is slowing down!" a tank gunner shouted nervously. "We might be able to hit him!" The tank's gun barrel began to rise, and soldiers in the armored vehicle scrambled to open the protective cover, swiveling the vehicle-mounted Vul mae gun toward the sky. But before they could act, they saw eight spiraling missiles hurtling toward them with terrifying momentum.

  "Move! Hurry!" "Get out of here now!" The mae gunner on the armored vehicle and the tank observer shouted in panic.

  It was already too te. BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

  Eight spiraling ground-attack missiles smmed into their targets, triggering a devastating wave of explosions. The fiery bst engulfed the tanks and armored vehicles in an instant. When the fmes finally subsided, nothing remained but twisted, burning husks of steel.In a sirike, Zack had obliterated the most critical outer defense line of Caribbean base. The soldiers manning it suffered massive casualties, aire ses of the high wall y in ruins.

  "This is what happens when you don’t have air superiority..." Zack muttered coldly as he lowered his altitude to about a thousaers, flying over the shattered defense line of Caribbean base without a hint of caution. Outside the base, there was no heavy onry left to pose a threat to him. The ordinary soldiers clutg rifles on the ground barely registered in his eyes.

  "He’s actually daring enough to e here himself? Launch a nuke! Now!" Ihe underground and room at the ter of the base, Jock’s enraged roar echoed off the walls.

  "If he gets any lower, I’ll handle him myself!" Navas, standing nearby and watg Zack’s carefree flight on the s, ched his fists. A cruel glint fshed in his eyes. No oruly knew what his mutant ability was—not even his half-brother, t. All anyone uood was that it was tied to his deadly boxing skills.

  "I’ve sent reinforts," Kshatti said with grim determination, turning the s to a moving tru the survivor’s living area.

  Ihe truck sat hundred of people—all mutants. In a base housing tens of thousands of people, it wasn’t unusual for some to be mutants, but these group were Caribbean base’s trump cards. “They are Navas’s chosen warriors. They’ll crush him,” Kshatti decred firmly.

  But before his words could settle, the s showed eight missiles spiraling toward the truck. "No!" "Is he insane?!" Kshatti’s eyes widened in despair as the missiles desded. Despite his words, his real was for the mutants iruck.

  BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

  A string of explosions tore through the area. Dirt roads littered with trash, clusters of makeshift tents, and fragile wooden building were ed in a massive inferno.The tru the dirt road? Obliterated.

  The mutants army ihey didn’t even have time to make their move. Erased in an instant by Zack’s overwhelming teological advantage. Without air defenses or anti-aircraft onry, Zack was untouchable. Flying freely over the base, he unched missiles at anything he deemed a threat. The air filled with cries—some desperate to put out fires, others scrambling to escape. A pair of caged Muta screeched incessantly as they g to the bars of their enclosure, their shrill cries mingling with the chaos of human despair.

  "Only two anti-armor missiles left..." Zaced at the dwindling missile t on his HUD, his expression devoid of emotion. The sheer loss of life below didn’t bother him in the slightest.

  "Sir, new missiles unched," Ego’s calm voice reported.

  Zack looked ahead sharply. Sure enough, two massive intertial missiles were slowly rising from their silos, leaving trails of fire and smoke in their wake.

  "They’re ung them right in front of me? That’s practically giving them away." Zack frowned. Intertial missiles ime to accelerate to their ultimate speeds, often reag Mach 20 or more. At unch, however, they were sluggish, barely reag Mach 1. To Zack, they were nothing but slow-moving targets.

  BOOM!

  He broke through the sound barrier instantly, the shockwave of his flight eg across the sky. In a fsh, Zack positioned himself above the two rising missiles. "What is he pnning?" Ba the and room, Jock’s unease deepened. He ched his fists tightly, watg Zack’s every move on the s.

  His question was answered moments ter. H above the missiles, Zack’s forearm armor shifted, revealing the st two anti-armor peing missiles in his Armory.

  "Target locked," Ego firmed.

  "Fire." With Zack’s and, the two missiles unched from their partments. Though smaller thaertial missiles, they quickly accelerated to supersonic speeds, rag toward their massive targets.

  Intertial missiles had limited maneuverability during their unch phase, locked into a preset trajectory until they reached altitude. In seds, the miissiles struck their targets.

  Two fiery explosions lit up the sky, thousands of meters above the ground. The intertial missiles, destroyed mid-ast, disied into massive fireballs. The dazzling light in the sky burned like two extra suns had risen, illuminating the world below with an almost otherworldly glow. Everyone in Caribbean base—whether they were fighting the fires, esg for their lives, or frozen in shock—looked up instinctively. The eerie silence of the light sted for several seds before it happened.

  BOOM!

  A deafening explosion ripped through the air, sending shockwaves across the ground. The earth trembled violently as if struck by an invisible hammer, and a gale that felt like a raging storm blew through the base, carrying chaos in its wake. The still-burning fires fred up as the wihem, spreading fmes to areas that had previously been untouched. What had been isoted bzes merged into an unstoppable sea of fire, ing everything in its path.

  This wasn’t even the full power of the missile—it was just the explosion of its fuel. The nuclear warheads it carried had either beeroyed i or dropped harmlessly from the sky. Unlike ventional bombs, nuclear ons have yers of safeguards, making actal detonation nearly impossible.