Step Forward

Ba Di paused.

The wind carried the scorched stench.

Amid the ruins, he stood alone.

His eyes were no longer cold. A faint light gathered within them, almost warm.

Ba Di reached his left hand slightly behind him. Jenny's Gene Serum was tucked into the belt at his left rear waist. The test tube felt icy to the touch, and beneath the sunlight, the blood-red liquid swayed and gleamed like a ruby.

This was the Gene Serum Jenny had created because she wanted him to stand again.

Calling it Gene Serum was actually something of an exaggeration.

Ba Di had read Jenny's experimental records and understood her intentions.

This tube of Gene Serum would not give someone tremendous power. It stimulated neural action potentials, intending to restore Ba Di's ability to move.

To Ba Di, this tube of Gene Serum was more an offering from a burning heart.

Warm skin amid the cold steel of the White Room.

He looked toward the Medical Building, his gaze distant, as though he were thinking of something.

Few people could understand Ba Di's thoughts.

At that moment.

Boom!

A fierce light suddenly erupted in the distant sky. A huge point of light exploded, followed by a fireball mixed with black smoke.

The violent explosion blasted the white clouds far away, ring after ring, as if a hole had been punched through the sky, revealing the blue beneath.

The sound of the explosion traveled dozens of miles. The earth-shaking blast wave surged wildly, shockwaves descending from the sky in rippling rings that swept across the ground, rolling up sand and dust into waves.

"Ah!"

The deafening roar and blast wave made the already grievously wounded soldiers cry out in even greater agony. Their ears were filled with the explosive thunder. Some of the badly injured were shaken to death by internal bleeding, while others died as their brains rang and they suffocated.

Ba Di stood firm in the gale, the rumbling by his ears like thunder striking down.

The wind and shockwave surged toward him, whipping his clothes until they snapped loudly.

He was like a lone traveler standing atop a mountain peak, unbowed by the raging winds, steadfastly bearing a supreme conviction. Lonely and imposing, he gazed at the Medical Building with indescribable emotions in his heart.

A six-kiloton cruise missile had been detonated.

A military base five hundred kilometers away had detected the threat of the cruise missile. Unable to contact this base, it decisively intercepted and detonated it in the sky.

At the same time, a ten-kiloton cruise missile was approaching from another direction.

There was no surprise.

An even greater explosion sounded. The ten-kiloton cruise missile to the east turned into a blinding white flash in the sky. The temperature within that flash neared six thousand degrees Celsius. An ordinary person would go blind from looking directly at such intense light, while people and objects at the epicenter of the explosion would disintegrate as though their atoms had been torn apart.

Fortunately, the ten-kiloton cruise missile had exploded several thousand meters above the ground.

Even so, an even more powerful blast wave erupted from the sky, stirring up a rolling tsunami of air and dust across the flat earth. Gray dust now surged throughout the heavens.

Yellow sand filled the sky, and miserable cries continued without end.

Amid the explosion, Ba Di stepped forward into the raging sand.

His expression turned resolutely cold. The violent wind pressed his clothes against him, outlining his merciless, imposing frame.

He stepped to the left, advancing into the wild sand that lashed against his face like countless blades.

By the time he reached the helipad, the wind and sand had nearly stopped.

A helicopter still remained here.

When the missiles bombarded the military base, it was not as if no soldiers had tried to seize helicopters and flee swiftly through the air.

But after one helicopter that had just taken off was blown apart by a vehicle-mounted missile, everyone became fearful.

Then another helicopter was shot down and exploded. They realized it was no fluke. Whoever boarded one would die. In the end, they fled on foot in this direction and abandoned the option of using helicopters.

It was the correct choice. Among the soldiers who escaped on foot from the helipad, comparatively more survived.

What remained was a Boeing AH-63 Apache attack helicopter.

He needed to fly this helicopter to the border where Nevada, Utah, and Idaho met.

If all went smoothly, he could fly this Apache attack helicopter away, head to a concealed location, dispose of the helicopter, and begin his journey.

If things did not go smoothly, he had also found himself a route of escape. He could jump into the Snake River. With the Snake River passing through so many regions over such a long distance, no one would be able to find him.

He could then come ashore in Utah, cross Colorado, and reach Kansas.

He just did not know whether Kal-El had been sent here by his father yet. Ba Di had a major score to settle with the El Family.

Ba Di raised his head to look at the helicopter. His body remained upright, yet he seemed somewhat silent.

His body was stiff, unmoving in the breeze, but he gave the impression that he wanted to turn around and leave, as though struggling inwardly.

Yet his movements were swift. Without hesitation, he boarded the helicopter.

Ba Di's limbs moved awkwardly as he opened the cabin door, sat in the right-side pilot's seat, and gripped the collective pitch lever with his left hand. He raised it, increasing the pitch angle of the blades equally to the maximum. Once the rotor's lift reached its strongest—

His right hand gripped the control stick, and he opened the throttle.

The entire sequence was rapid and efficient. His expression was calm, as if someone were urging him onward.

In truth, he was only urging himself.

The rotor blades began to turn slowly, then accelerated. The propellers whipped up the yellow sand on the ground, forming a pillar of sand that rose into the sky.

Accompanied by the immense chopping roar of the rotors.

The heavy Apache attack helicopter swayed lightly before the rotors lifted it directly off the ground. As it rose, it churned the sand below into a sandy tornado.

Ba Di controlled the stick. A trace of tenderness flashed through his cold eyes as he looked toward the Medical Building, then he pushed the helicopter to maximum speed. Like a dragonfly lowering its head slightly, it shot fiercely southward, leaving swirling dust in its wake.

The military base had become ruins. The Medical Building stood amid swaying black smoke and yellow sand, lonely and desolate, as if it had been abandoned in misery.

Nevada was the driest state in America. More than half of its land had a desert climate. Twenty-seven minutes after the helicopter headed south, the ground below remained an unchanging expanse of hills and barren desert. Only far away did a line of green come into view.

Seeing a forest also meant water was not far away.

At that moment, an F-15 Eagle Fighter soared through the sky, screaming through the air as it approached from behind.

Ba Di's gaze sharpened, yet he let out a breath of relief.

"Not bringing her out seems to have been the right choice."