Hope

"What?" When James Jerome heard the order from headquarters, he could hardly believe his ears and instinctively blurted out the question.

The communications channel repeated it, every word cold and clear: "Target description: blue bodysuit, red cape. Target confirmed to be highly dangerous. Destructive weapons are authorized. Over."

James froze. Only now did he learn what his actual target was. He was a soldier; obeying orders was his duty. He was like a sharp sword belonging to the government—wherever his superiors pointed, he had to strike, no matter how unwilling he was.

The blue figure designated as the target was currently facing off against the hulking alien across from him, standing motionless amid the chaotic ruins. That made him an easy target. But when James placed his thumb over the missile launch button, that tiny button felt as heavy as if it were jammed. No matter what, he could not bring himself to press it.

The other two fighter jets in his formation swept over the battlefield beside him. He was in charge of the on-site operation, and both of his comrades were waiting for his command.

He stared intently at the two figures confronting each other below. After hesitating for a long while, he finally made up his mind. He disengaged the air-to-ground missile safeties and gritted out, "All units, listen to my command."

As the three fighter jets skimmed low over the two men, Mongor looked up at them with a strange smile, then said to Jay, "Do you know what the most ironic thing is, kid? You fight for the humans on this planet, but they don't appreciate it at all. Believe it or not, those three fighters will strike you within a minute."

Jay looked up at the jets passing overhead and clenched his teeth. Mongor now wielded unimaginable power, so it seemed he could not count on those fighters to help him.

After passing over them, the jets turned around just as Mongor had said, like three nimble swallows. They dipped their noses to aim downward like hunting eagles. Two missiles detached from beneath each aircraft, streaking down in dazzling trails of fire with piercing shrieks. The three planes that launched them climbed in perfect formation, pulling back up into the sky.

Mongor watched the six missiles screaming toward him in three pairs, a smug grin spread across his face. He cast Jay a mocking glance, as though showing off his victory.

Then all six missiles blossomed across his smiling face at once.

A violent burst of fire erupted in an instant. Caught off guard, Mongor's massive body shot out of the flames, trailing a long plume of fiery smoke as he smashed through layer after layer of buildings and walls. His bedraggled state was a stark contrast to his earlier arrogance.

James pulled his beloved fighter into a steep climb and cursed to himself with a grin. "Fuck, now that's more like it."

Headquarters immediately demanded to know what he was doing through the comm channel, but James simply cut the transmission. As the fighter banked, he tore off his breathing mask and gave the cape-fluttering figure a thumbs-up. Over the roar of the engines, he shouted, "Kick his ass, Superman!"

The sound was nearly swallowed by the engine's rumble, but Jay heard it. He nodded gratefully to the pilot, then turned his gaze back to Mongor, who was climbing out of the rubble in a sorry state.

Mongor glared through clenched teeth at the three fighter jets circling overhead, his eyes seeming ready to spit fire. Apparently, he was not used to the embarrassment of getting slapped in the face at light speed. Before he could retaliate against the fighters, Jay lunged at him and sent him flying more than ten meters with another punch.

"You're wrong, Mongor." Jay strode toward Mongor, who had been knocked to the ground, and shouted, "You said humanity longs to be ruled by you, but these people are living proof otherwise. Between your rule and hope, they chose the latter. And there are even more people on this planet who believe in hope. All they need is someone to remind them that hope has always been there."

Before Mongor could regain his footing, he roared and swung another punch at him. Jay blocked it with one hand, then drove his free right elbow into Mongor's face with all his strength. Mongor was launched into the air again, his body gouging a long crack across the outer wall of a building as bricks and rubble burst outward like waves.

"Get off our planet," Jay said coldly.

"Enough!" Mongor climbed to his feet furiously and wiped a trace of blood from the corner of his mouth. He glared viciously at the figure floating before him. That glaring "S" seemed to merge with the Superman from before, and all the hatred and resentment he had once held for that Superman surged into his heart at that moment.

"You have tested the limits of my anger, Kryptonian brat. And you will regret it!"

He was not joking. When Jay saw Mongor somehow produce an exquisitely crafted, glowing green dagger, he almost started swearing.

A kryptonite dagger. This guy had really come prepared.

The particles fired from the World Federation Government Building had condensed to a level visible to the naked eye. The entire iron-black building had transformed into a transmission tower, a cyan beam shooting into the sky, piercing the clouds and tearing open a rift beyond the atmosphere.

People on Earth in favorable viewing locations could already see the anomaly in the sky. An incomparably massive black shadow was gradually approaching Earth through the rift. It was Warworld, the space fortress loaded with destructive weapons. Once it reached Earth's outer orbit, Mongor would possess the military power to erase any city on Earth—or even Earth itself—at any time. Then he would no longer need to hide in the shadows. He could openly conquer this world through sheer force.

Meanwhile, Huntress, the government agent who had defected, was inside the World Federation Government Building, desperately trying to stop it all.

Helena felt this was definitely the most difficult infiltration mission she had ever undertaken. The aliens in the government building were not only incredibly tough and physically stronger than humans, but worst of all, they had exceptionally sharp hearing. Even when Helena crawled through ventilation ducts, they could hear her cape scraping against the metal panels.

As she wound through the complex corridors with the aliens in pursuit, she sent a communication request to Oracle. Thank God, Barbara did not take long to answer.

"Helena?"

"Ah! Thank God you picked up!" Helena said as she kicked a suited alien into an elevator shaft. "Listen, I really, really need your help right now—the world-ending kind!"

Barbara sounded bewildered. "Slow down, Helena. What exactly is going on? Are those gunshots over there?"

"Uh, I'm dealing with a bunch of alien agents." Helena slammed another alien's head into the wall and added, "That's not important. What's important is that an extremely dangerous program has been activated here, and I may be the only one who has a chance of shutting it down. Can you help me?"

"Help you? How?" Barbara asked. "If you want me to hack into the World Federation's system, I don't think that's very likely."

"What if I can manually connect to their main server? Can you handle it through my terminal?"

"Um, maybe. I've never tried that before." Barbara asked, "But what are you planning to do? You know that server is housed in a building with the world's best security measures, right?"

"I know. I'm inside it right now." As Helena said this, she was already standing at the edge of a platform. Twenty meters directly below her, a massive fan spun at high speed—the main server's cooling exhaust fan.

"And I'm about to jump into the mainframe."