Another Attack

Another Attack

"Put the call through." The moment Colonel Hark heard there was news from the search team, he impatiently demanded to speak with them.

After tapping on the keyboard a few times, the operator reported, "Sir, the signal has been connected. You may speak with them directly."

"Report the current situation, soldier." As soon as the call connected, Colonel Hark immediately asked Kobe about their circumstances.

On the other end, Kobe let out a long breath when he heard Hark's voice. Being able to contact the base was truly a relief. "Sir, Kobe Bryant reporting. We came under attack. At present, the only known survivors of the Third Search Team are my squad." Kobe paused, then said heavily, "Only five people."

"Only your squad?" Hark hesitated. The search team he had sent out this time had all been elite soldiers, well supplied with weapons. Yet a twenty-man search team had been reduced to a quarter of its strength. He was greatly shocked. "How many enemies did you encounter?"

"There were only five of them, sir," Kobe answered.

"Five people? Was it an ambush?" Hark believed that the only way just five people could nearly wipe out an elite US Army search team was through an ambush—perhaps by planting anti-tank mines in advance, or suddenly bursting out of the sand and firing RPGs at the search team.

But Kobe denied his guess. "It wasn't an ambush. We spotted them first. They attacked us head-on."

"A head-on attack? Did all of you have diarrhea so bad you couldn't stand, or were you too stupid to open the ammunition crates?" Hark roared. They had discovered the enemy beforehand, and the enemy numbered only a quarter of the search team, yet they had still suffered such a disastrous defeat. Hark was furious.

"They weren't human at all, sir. They were monsters." Kobe was clearly becoming agitated as well.

"Monsters? Did you run into the Terminator? Or giant lizards that shoot lasers?" Hark did not believe Kobe at all, thinking this was just an excuse for their defeat. "Listen. If you don't tell the truth, I'll personally send you to a military tribunal."

"Soldier, I'm S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Phil Coulson. Could you describe in detail the monsters you encountered?" Coulson suddenly cut in. He believed the ones who had attacked the search team were very likely Mutants, so he wanted to know the details.

"Oh, listen, buddy, I've never seen anything like those things in my life." At the mention of the Felified Humans, Kobe still felt lingering fear. "They walked upright, but they were absolutely not human."

"Tell me. How exactly did they attack you?" Coulson asked.

"Heh, you might find what I'm about to say unbelievable, but I swear every word is true," Kobe said. "They had no weapons and no protection. They were almost naked. But our automatic rifles, machine guns, and grenades couldn't hurt them at all. They used their flesh-and-blood bodies to withstand all our attacks."

Exceptional defensive power. Coulson summarized this in his mind. "Anything else?"

"They were incredibly strong. They could tear a person in half with their bare hands," Kobe said. "Oh, poor Messi. That was how he died. They could also rip a machine gun off a vehicle with one hand and shove it into someone's mouth. They could punch straight through a person's stomach."

Their strength was immense as well. A purely physical-type Mutant? Coulson thought, then asked, "How did you escape?"

"A soldier used plastic explosives to kill one of them just before he died. The blast also set off a Hummer. We escaped in the chaos," Kobe said in a low voice, sounding deeply dejected.

"Alright, soldier. Stay where you are. We'll come pick you up soon." The fact that they could be killed by plastic explosives counted as good news, at least. They were not like Hulk, where even a rocket launcher felt like a scratch. Suddenly, Coulson seemed to recall something. "Did all five Mutants have the same abilities?"

"Mu... what? What did you say, Agent?" Kobe did not understand the term "Mutant" at first.

"The monsters that attacked you. Did they all have the same abilities?" Coulson explained.

"Of course, Agent," Kobe answered firmly. "They even looked almost identical."

In truth, if Kobe had looked carefully, the Felified Humans were not all identical. At the very least, their faces differed. But at the time, whether they could even survive was uncertain. Who would carefully study their faces? Besides, Felified Humans were no longer even the same species as humans. Recognizing faces across species was difficult. If you don't believe it, bring over two Huskies of the same size and coat color. Could you tell which was which just by looking at their faces?

"Alright. Hold your position, soldier," Coulson said distractedly. He was considering how likely it was for five Mutants with exactly the same abilities to naturally emerge and gather together.

Seeing that Coulson had finished questioning him, Colonel Hark intended to ask a few more questions. After all, these were his soldiers, and judging from Coulson's words, their claims of encountering monsters were not excuses after all. S.H.I.E.L.D. clearly knew something but had not explained it to him. Forget it. He was only a colonel. If he wanted to pry into S.H.I.E.L.D.'s affairs, he could wait until he became a general. But at that moment, a sudden change occurred.

"Rat-a-tat-tat." The sound of an M2 machine gun firing suddenly came through the radio from Kobe's end, followed by someone shouting, "Captain, they caught up with us!"

"Hold them off!" Kobe shouted. They had no choice but to hold on now. Then he yelled anxiously into the radio, "Sir, they've caught up with us! We need support, quickly!"

After thinking for a moment, Hark ordered, "Deploy a drone immediately."

"Predator will arrive in one minute," a civilian staff member replied. The Predator was a US Army reconnaissance drone. Besides reconnaissance, it could carry Alpha missiles, though the drone Hark dispatched this time carried no missiles.

As one of the US Army's most advanced drones, the Predator quickly arrived at the designated location on schedule. But the footage it captured made everyone in the command center rise to their feet in shock.