Comparison

Above the Underground Research Institute stood a white Laboratory Building that rose from the ground. It was not tall, only three stories, with large expanses of high-strength composite glass laid across its sloping surfaces. The building itself was white and slightly weathered, as though it had accumulated the marks of time before being renovated with composite glass—a blend of old and new.

The experiments conducted here were nothing remarkable. It felt more like a storage site for the Underground Research Institute's supplies and equipment, but because of the Underground Research Institute's existence, access control had become the highest priority.

Entry here was normally tightly controlled. It was the highest-security location in the entire military base.

Now, however, the place bristled with tension. The scorching sun baked the ground, and distorted heat shimmered upward. A sense of impending war radiated from the heavily guarded Laboratory Building.

The Seventh Battalion's vehicle-mounted Vulcan Heavy Machine Guns, mixed with GAU-8A Aircraft Cannons, encircled the white archive building. There were twenty in total. Their rotary barrels fired 5,000 rounds per minute, making them terrifying killing machines capable of easily destroying T-72 Tanks and M48 Tanks with armor-piercing rounds. The thick, dark rotary-barrel machine guns were manned by soldiers waiting with grim expressions.

Thirteen ground vehicles carrying BGM-71 TOW Missile anti-tank missiles had their launch platforms raised. The instant the target appeared, missiles capable of tearing apart tanks would streak out, treating him as though he were a tank.

There were more than a hundred shoulder-fired FGM-143 Javelin Missiles, carried by soldiers stationed around the perimeter and ready to fire at any moment.

In addition, high-yield C4 Explosives had been placed inside the white archive building, right at the Underground Research Institute's only exit.

At close range were soldiers with automatic rifles and grenades.

For medium-range heavy firepower, there were rotary Vulcan cannons. Slightly farther away stood six M1A1 Abrams main battle tanks, their barrels trained deeply on the white archive building.

Farther out, more than twenty soldiers armed with Barrett Light Fifty M82A1 sniper rifles lay in ambush atop buildings. The king of snipers, with its 12.7-millimeter caliber—even though Ba Di could now barely withstand bullets from an M16 Automatic Rifle, there was no way he could block such a massive weapon. One shot would practically blow away half his body. Death would be inevitable.

Altogether, this elite armed force of only two thousand men had sealed off the white archive building so tightly that not even water could get through. If Ba Di appeared, he would be subjected to a frenzied barrage of ammunition, a devastation too horrific even for a beehive comparison.

There were also nearly ten thousand soldiers on emergency standby, ready to provide constant reinforcements to the battlefield.

Every soldier could smell the scent of war brewing in the air.

It was hard to imagine that such elite troops and instruments of war had been assembled merely to eliminate one man.

All the weapons of war here were aimed at a single person. Even someone with more than ten tons of strength and a body impervious to rifle rounds would meet his end.

The power of the equipment here was no longer suited to the alleyway battles inside the Underground Research Institute. This was true annihilation through overwhelming destructive force.

General Vick had not been joking. If Ba Di charged in head-on, there would truly be only one path left for him: death.

This was a genuine hailstorm of bullets, awaiting him in full force.

Ground military base command room.

"The Seventh Battalion's vehicle-mounted Vulcan Heavy Machine Guns have been deployed."

"The vehicle-mounted BGM-71 TOW Missile anti-tank missiles are in position."

"The M1A1 Abrams main battle tanks have completed their adjustments."

"Snipers in position."

"The assault force has encountered poison gas attacks inside the Underground Research Institute. Gas has been released on the Negative First Floor, Negative Second Floor, and Negative Third Floor. Based on surveillance footage and the red patches appearing on soldiers' contaminated skin, it has been preliminarily identified as the Underground Research Institute's improved, highly volatile Dichloroethyl Sulfide—Mustard Gas."

The soldiers' deployment reports came one after another.

Brigadier General Kagel made an immediate decision. "Have the assault force withdraw. Lower the manual isolation barriers. Have the heavy firepower squads put on protective suits and gas masks, then advance step by step. Do not rush."

"According to inventory records, there are one hundred sets of protective suits and gas masks capable of defending against Level Two poison gas. The heavy firepower units have received the order and are expected to enter the Underground Research Institute within three minutes," a soldier reported.

Brigadier General Kagel fell silent for a moment, his eyes flickering with thought.

Brigadier General Kagel was half a head shorter than Slade and somewhat thin and gaunt. Though he was inferior to Slade in every regard, anyone capable of reaching the rank of brigadier general could not be lacking. The most striking thing about him was his eyes. They were always deeply contemplative, revealing considerable wisdom.

Could a force of one hundred men carrying heavy machine guns turn the alien into a sieve in an environment like this, like urban alleyway combat?

No. They could not.

Nearly three hundred people had been wiped out in the Underground Research Institute where Slade had been, including over two hundred elite soldiers. Even Slade had died down there.

He had never accepted Slade, neither in word nor in his heart. Yet he had to acknowledge the truth: Slade was superior to him in every aspect, and not by just a little. It was the kind of excellence that left others helpless and Despair.

It was like being a poor student. Even if you studied hard and earned the same score as the top student, you still could not compare to him.

With the same perfect score of one hundred, that was your limit. He only got one hundred because the score ceiling was one hundred.

Some people were born with talent. They were born to be exceptional, while everyone else could only serve as a backdrop to their brilliance.

Yet Slade, the outstanding man Brigadier General Kagel had never been able to surpass, had died in the Underground Research Institute. The thought made his hair stand on end.

He and Slade had come through the Vietnam War together. They had competed, and he had been dismissed without hesitation.

"If one day I die at someone else's hands, it will not be due to carelessness or an accident. It will be because he is stronger than me!"

Brigadier General Kagel narrowed his intelligent eyes and clenched his teeth. Only now, after Slade's death, did he truly accept defeat.

"Even in death, you had to remind me."

Brigadier General Kagel felt some regret over the death of such an exceptional man. Then his expression hardened, and his eyes shone sharply.

Slade, let me do what you failed to do.

Let me kill this alien!

A blazing fire ignited in his heart, as if he had returned to the Vietnam War, to the days when he and Slade hunted heads to determine who was better.

Only, he had lost back then.

But now...

Brigadier General Kagel's face was cold and fierce, his gaze blazing, his voice icy.

"The heavy firepower squads are to suspend their entry into the Underground Research Institute."

"Seal every ventilation opening of the Underground Research Institute. If any cannot be sealed, block them solid."

"Every two minutes, send one soldier in a protective suit down into the Underground Research Institute to throw incendiary bombs."

Brigadier General Kagel issued his orders. This unequal war would not be fought in the narrow confines of the Underground Research Institute. With the precedent before him—when even Slade, the strongest man in the military, had died in such a place—Brigadier General Kagel did not believe sending troops down there would bring victory.

The massive surface force, missiles, tanks, more than ten thousand soldiers, overwhelming armaments, and incomparable firepower—that was his advantage.

And the Underground Research Institute had only one entrance and exit.

Just after Brigadier General Kagel finished issuing his orders.

A soldier stared at the screen and cried out in disbelief, "Brigadier General Kagel, the missile silo has opened automatically."

"What did you say?"

A chill ran through Brigadier General Kagel's heart.