The Worst Start

General Vick emerged from the darkness, stepping out from among the shadows surrounding the alien spacecraft in Sequoia Forest beneath the bright moonlight.

His eyes beneath his hawkish nose gleamed with ambitious desire, and his lean frame carried the bearing of someone long accustomed to power.

The spacecraft's black smoke was gradually thinning. Scattered sparks bounced onto lush, moisture-filled emerald leaves, causing neither further explosions nor a forest fire.

His trusted subordinate, Colonel Slade, stood guard for him. Having eliminated the threat, he gave a slight nod to indicate that it was safe.

His ambitious eyes widened in the darkness as General Vick swept his gaze over the half-destroyed spacecraft, finally stopping on Ba Di's face. He subtly gestured for Slade to inspect him.

Having received the order, Colonel Slade approached Ba Di. By the wavering firelight that was slowly dying out, he saw Ba Di's face.

A faint chill rose in his heart. He felt that this alien, with his high-bridged nose and broad forehead, was not as sunny as he appeared. The scar slashing across his sharply defined cheek gave off a fierce, cold feeling, as though he were one of Slade's own kind—a battle-hardened elite soldier.

Or perhaps he's an elite warrior too.

Colonel Slade made his guess as he approached Ba Di. His large hand clamped around Ba Di's arm, intending to pull him out of the wrecked half of the spacecraft. Ba Di's solid arm was as hard as steel, startling him.

He exerted force with both arms, veins bulging as he gave Ba Di's arm a tug. Yet he only managed to move him slightly, and his expression immediately changed.

"He's heavy!"

Mike, whom he had knocked unconscious, had not exaggerated. This alien was practically humanoid steel—far too heavy.

He weighed at least four hundred kilograms. Slade considered his strength second to none among humans, yet even as one of the military's most elite soldiers, with his body trained to the limit, dragging four hundred kilograms was difficult.

The human limit was roughly lifting four hundred and fifty kilograms. He was already nearing his limit.

"Hah!"

He shouted heavily, driving force through his legs, waist, and arms at once. He hauled Ba Di out of the half-ruined spacecraft in a bridal carry, but he could not sustain it. Before long, his arms trembled and shook, and a thin sheen of sweat appeared on his face.

Staggering, he dropped to one knee and laid Ba Di on the ground. He exhaled heavily through his nose and reported, "General, he truly is an alien. He weighs four hundred kilograms."

The surrounding soldiers could not help staring in amazement. He looked tall, roughly the same size as Colonel Slade, yet he weighed four hundred kilograms. Were his muscles and organs made of steel? Did molten iron flow through his veins? Delight flashed in General Vick's eyes, but an even stronger ambition shone there. The more extraordinary the alien was, the better. He could barely be bothered to conceal the wildness in his gaze.

"Good."

General Vick praised him, then beckoned behind him with his right hand.

"Take him."

Another female colonel who had been following behind him answered emotionlessly and stepped forward. She was blonde and blue-eyed, with a beauty like a porcelain doll.

She came before Colonel Slade, crouched down, slid her arms beneath Ba Di's neck and knees, and prepared to lift the nearly four-hundred-kilogram alien in a bridal carry.

Colonel Slade glanced sideways, about to speak and stop Colonel Violet.

Four hundred kilograms was absolutely not a weight a woman could lift easily.

Even a strong man like him had found it strenuous to carry this four-hundred-kilogram alien, his arms trembling from the strain. Violet was only a woman—was she really planning to carry him?

It was difficult to believe, but although Colonel Violet was also General Vick's trusted subordinate, Slade knew little about her. He only knew that after one war ended, she had suddenly appeared one day and become General Vick's confidante.

Slade had never exchanged even a single word with her. Beyond the fact that she had first appeared beside General Vick with her blonde hair, blue eyes, and porcelain-doll beauty, becoming his trusted subordinate, Slade knew nothing else.

He had once tried speaking to Violet, but aside from General Vick's orders, she never responded to anyone. She simply ignored them.

Over time, Slade stopped paying attention to the lifeless Colonel Violet.

But what happened next shattered Slade's understanding of humanity.

Violet's military boots sank into the soft earth up to their tops. She straightened her waist and, still utterly expressionless, lifted Ba Di in a rigid bridal carry. Then she turned and walked toward General Vick, every step sinking into the soft soil.

Colonel Slade was speechless. He stared in shock as Violet carried the alien away without the slightest change in expression.

Slade did not know how strong Violet was, but to carry a four-hundred-kilogram alien in a bridal carry and walk so calmly, she had to possess at least nearly a thousand kilograms of strength.

Slade felt as though his entire worldview had been smashed to pieces. His silent, expressionless colleague possessed nearly a thousand kilograms of strength. She was even stronger than him, a man forged in the fires of war.

Colonel Slade was so dazed that he began to wonder what kind of world this was. An alien had arrived by spacecraft, and his colleague was a monster with nearly a thousand kilograms of strength, beyond the limits of humanity.

Only when General Vick ordered him to transport the half of the alien spacecraft back to the Underground Base, clean up the area, and report afterward did Colonel Slade regain his senses and begin dealing with the scene. Even then, countless doubts remained in his heart.

As for Ba Di, Violet carried him away with General Vick, returning to the Underground Base ahead of the others.

After Colonel Slade finished handling the scene, he crushed Mike's camera. He did not know what to think. After pondering briefly, he removed the film from the camera and kept it for himself.

That half of the alien spacecraft was transported back to the Underground Base.

Once everything had been dealt with, Colonel Slade descended to the deepest level of the Underground Base, a top-secret underground facility accessible to only a handful of people.

It was a laboratory built from poured steel, its metal walls ice-cold.

Behind high-strength tempered one-way glass was a forty-square-meter white room. The alien was spread against the steel wall, bound in an X-shape by steel handcuffs and shackles.

Just like the scientific research facilities in so many movies.

General Vick raised a hand to stop Slade's report, wanting to listen carefully to the small elderly man before him. Wearing glasses, over sixty years old, his eyes gleamed and his face was flushed with excitement. He was Dean Bo Li, the head of this laboratory.

Slade nodded, his eyes flicking toward Violet, who stood as usual behind and to the left of General Vick. A trace of wariness flashed through his gaze.

He returned to his position on General Vick's right.

"It's simply unbelievable. Our staff tried to draw some blood with a needle, but the needle bent and could not pierce his skin. In the end, we had to use a steel needle to extract just a little blood for testing."

"We conducted preliminary tests on his physical strength—his muscle contraction, fiber and cell activity, bone density, and heartbeat."

"We reached one conclusion: the gravity on his home planet is ten times that of Earth!"

Dean Bo Li spoke excitedly.

General Vick looked sharply through the one-way glass at Ba Di, who was restrained against the wall in handcuffs and shackles.

"So that means he has at least four or five thousand kilograms of strength? Ten times stronger than an Earthling?"

General Vick asked simply. Colonel Slade could not help feeling secretly alarmed as he turned his gaze toward the alien as well.

The elderly Dean Bo Li pushed up the glasses slipping down his nose and replied, "It cannot be calculated that way. Earth's gravity, gravitational pull, muscle extension, bone strength—all of that affects his strength."

"His strength starts at at least ten thousand kilograms, roughly ten times greater than Violet's."

General Vick and Colonel Slade both sucked in a breath.

Ten thousand kilograms of strength—ten tons. This was practically a humanoid tyrannosaur. Could that even be called human?

Even as General Vick was shocked, he could not help feeling excited that he had found such a treasure.

With nuclear threats restraining nations from one another, large-scale wars would become increasingly rare, perhaps even vanish entirely. Having come through war himself, he had become ever more certain of this.

In the future, combat would inevitably center on small-scale engagements by individual soldiers or squads. When that time came, the combat ability of each person would become indispensable.

Who could stop something with ten thousand kilograms of strength, a being like a humanoid tyrannosaur? Unless a sufficiently large military force was deployed, it would fear nothing.

If they could create serum and mass-produce human soldiers with ten thousand kilograms of strength, they would be invincible.

Seventeen hours later.

Ba Di felt as if he had a raging fever. His whole body was weak, and his eyelids were as heavy as if filled with metal. He struggled to open them, and the white surroundings before him made him feel as though he had arrived in heaven.

Then he saw his reflection in the one-way glass.

His mood plunged to the bottom.

He had gotten the worst possible start.

He had been captured by humans and turned into a research subject!