Choice

Smoke had already risen over the ground military base, yet there was no war.

The scorching sun, the distorted air above the ground, wisps of rising black smoke, wrecked vehicles, scattered charred limbs, and ceaseless cries of pain rose and fell together.

After the final missile landed here—a 300-ton-yield missile—the wails became the loudest sound in the area.

The military base had become ruins. The stench of burning black smoke was the apocalyptic scenery of this place.

At the exit of the Underground Research Institute beside the white Laboratory Building was a massive crater. A 70-ton-yield missile had exploded nearby, blasting the white Laboratory Building to pieces and leaving a scorched crater in the ground. Inside it, the collapsed pit and chaotic rubble blocked the exit.

The rubble rumbled faintly and shook. After the third tremor—

Bang!

Rubble exploded outward and dirt sprayed through the air. A tall black figure leaped out, rising more than ten meters above the ground. The sun shone on his back, casting his imposing figure tall and slender.

Ba Di landed heavily on the scorched ground, his shoes sinking several inches into the earth. His knees bent slightly to absorb the impact, then his spine straightened like a pillar holding up the sky. His indifferent gaze swept over this apocalyptic scene, over the ruins where pained wails rose and fell. Like a passerby who had wandered into the wreckage, his cold eyes passed over it all without concern.

Sunlight once again shone upon him.

The awakened Kryptonian genes within Ba Di were like an empty jar with its lid removed, into which endless solar water was poured.

He raised his head slightly toward the sun. Warmth flooded his entire body, as though he were soaking in a hot spring. It was also like eating soft, filling food while starving, gradually making his body stronger and more powerful.

He seemed able to feel every ray of sunlight entering his skin, his pores, and his deepest cells. His cells greedily absorbed the sunlight, their cytoplasm strengthening his body. Every strand brought him a comfortable yet powerful change.

Ba Di narrowed his eyes slightly. Staring directly at the sunlight made them sting and tingle a little. He could tell that, as long as he basked under the sun for a while, he would easily gain Microscopic Vision and X-Ray Vision. Once his body stored enough energy, he could finally awaken Heat Vision. It would not be difficult; he only needed to accumulate energy.

A faint radiance began to emerge from Ba Di's face again. Amid the blazing sunlight, the ruins, the smoke, the severed limbs, and the hazily distorted air, he seemed to possess a sacred air.

He smiled faintly, calm and detached, like a god or saint, as though he did not belong to the mortal world. Yet his crisp, upright military uniform pulled him back into it.

He had only paused to enjoy the sunlight for two seconds before the surrounding wails pulled him from that comfortable state of mind.

He began walking toward the helipad, ignoring every groan and scream at the roadside.

"Help me! My legs were crushed by a vehicle..."

"My hand is broken! Save me!"

"Sa... save me..."

"No... don't go! Come back! I order you to come back in my capacity as your superior! Come back and carry me away!"

The soldiers still calling out here were all crippled, missing hands or legs, pinned beneath vehicles and unable to rise, or buried beneath piles of rubble, wailing in agony.

Those who could still move had long since driven away or fled this military base desperately on their own two legs.

One or two minutes were enough for soldiers who wanted to survive to run from this place with everything they had, panting madly with their tongues hanging out.

But more than seven thousand soldiers had died here.

Suddenly.

In Ba Di's path, a bloody, filthy, blackened, skeletal hand stretched out from an overturned vehicle. Its fingers were clenched so hard that the bones turned white, as though boundless resentment and fury had forced it out. It grabbed Ba Di's boot.

He was not trying to grab the toe of the boot. He simply lacked the strength to raise his hand any higher and seize Ba Di's ankle.

The hand gripped Ba Di's boot with tremendous force. The veins on its back bulged clearly, even beneath the blood, grime, and black mud.

Yet Ba Di did not even spare it a glance. He continued walking in his intended direction. Those forceful fingers could not hinder his stride in the slightest and were kicked aside as he moved on.

The hand fell onto the scorched ground. Its furious five fingers dug deeply into the earth before clenching into a fist.

Brigadier General Kagel raised his head from the dirt. Thick blood and mud blackened his face. Fury threatened to burst from his eyes, bloodshot veins bulging across the whites. His features twisted into a savage, furious grimace.

"You!!"

"It was you...!!!"

Brigadier General Kagel gritted his teeth. His face, lit by a final flash of life, was covered in grotesque blood and black mud. A jeep had crushed his lower body, blood flowing freely while white bones showed through.

Brigadier General Kagel had come here after the 70-ton-yield missile struck the white Laboratory Building, blowing it apart, creating chaos and a huge crater, and sealing the exit of the Underground Research Institute with rubble.

Consumed by hatred, his face flushed red with rage, he had come here to mount a heavy rotary machine gun and aim it at the exit, intending to fire the instant Ba Di appeared.

But unfortunately, things did not always go as one wished.

A vehicle-mounted ground-attack missile from Artificial Intelligence Hera had unexpectedly exploded beside his vehicle, flipping it over. The vehicle took the full force of the blast, sending both it and him flying. He hit the ground, and the vehicle body crashed down onto his lower half, crushing half his body to pulp and exposing even his stark white spine.

He had not actually been wrong. After the 70-ton-yield missile destroyed the white Laboratory Building, and after the vehicle-mounted missiles had fired for a while longer, he came here to ambush Ba Di.

Because he could tell that the missiles were being controlled. Once their flight programs had been rewritten and they began turning midair, the missiles in the silos would not strike the white Laboratory Building again. Ba Di had to emerge from here; one missile was enough. There was no need to keep bombing the place.

That was why he had come here to set an ambush. But unfortunately, Hera needed to clear the field for her master in two waves. He arrived after the first wave and encountered the second wave of vehicle-mounted missiles.

Or perhaps the missiles were simply too abundant, too numerous.

One vehicle-mounted ground-attack missile flipped his vehicle and crushed him to the brink of death.

By the time Ba Di emerged from the Underground Research Institute, he was already dying. The sight of Ba Di suddenly leaping out gave him one final burst of life, but Ba Di had no idea who he was. He merely took him for a soldier crying out for rescue, kicked his hand away, and walked past without a second thought.

The world was that cruel.

Brigadier General Kagel was like a small stone in Ba Di's path, casually kicked aside with one foot. No matter how immense his fury and unwillingness, he could not stop Ba Di's advance.

Ba Di did not even know who he was. With a twisted face, Kagel used his last breath to confirm that this was the man who had destroyed the military base. His blurred vision gradually darkened. The scorching air warped before him, black smoke danced like dragons and serpents, and Ba Di's back slowly receded into the distance.

No matter how unwilling or furious he was, it was all useless.

In the end, his twisted, savage expression froze in place, his eyes bulging wide as he died.

At this moment.

Ba Di stopped walking.

To his left was the helipad.

To his right was the Medical Building.