In the desert directly above Area 13, a figure slowly emerged from a huge, still-smoking impact crater, wearing a black trench coat and a mask.
Before long, an opening suddenly appeared in a sand dune several hundred meters away, and three desert-camouflage off-road vehicles drove out.
The impact crater was impossible to miss. The vehicles quickly located their target and roared toward it, kicking up clouds of sand.
The vehicles soon stopped in front of the figure. The secretary of defense and his two companions climbed out of the first vehicle, then looked in surprise at the observer sent by the Ghost Captain.
They were astonished that he was standing there completely unscathed after such a high-speed impact, but there was something else...
What the hell was with that Shiba Inu Doge meme mask?
Still, they needed his help, so they pretended not to notice that little detail. Perhaps it was simply a personal preference?
"Hello, I'm America's secretary of defense. Thank you for offering your assistance!"
"You're welcome. We're very interested in the extraterrestrials' super-bomb, too!" Nie Yun's avatar said, shaking his hand.
Very interested? This concerned the survival of all humanity! Was it really all right to sound so casual?
"Ahem! Speaking of which, the Ghost Captain's drop technology truly exceeded our expectations. To think a drop at such extreme speeds could leave its passenger completely unaffected by the impact!" the secretary of defense remarked admiringly. Then he looked toward the bottom of the crater, hoping to see what a drop pod beyond anything he could imagine actually looked like.
Only then did the three men realize... the crater was completely empty. Forget a drop pod-there wasn't even a scrap of wreckage!
"Huh? Where's the drop pod?" the secretary of defense asked in shock.
"Alas... it gave its