Earth's Most Powerful Being

Coast City, by the shore.

Aside from anglers, people down on their luck often came here.

They liked to drink themselves stupid in front of the sea, pour out all the emotions they had bottled up for the day, then drive home and go right back to their miserable lives. Of course, every now and then, someone would drink and drink, then plunge headfirst into the waves to challenge the world breath-holding record, after which no one ever saw them again. Tonight, Hal Jordan was one of those people down on his luck.

He parked his car by the road and walked toward the beach with an opened beer in hand. The sea breeze hit him in the face, carrying a salty, fishy tang.

Hal had originally been a test pilot at Ferris Aircraft.

Not long ago, the company had poured its heart and soul into developing a new AI fighter jet, codename Sabre III, which it planned to pitch to the American military.

Because the cost of training a top-tier pilot was absurdly high, and because major incidents had been happening one after another lately, keeping personnel casualty rates high and budgets increasingly tight, the military had started turning its attention to AI fighter jets, considering replacing human pilots with AI.

Ferris Aircraft naturally would not let that opportunity slip by, and immediately arranged a demonstration.

But who knew what the military had been thinking? They actually had the company send its own people as opponents, making test pilot Hal fly an F-35 in a simulated dogfight against two Sabre IIIs.

When the company executives heard about that arrangement, they nearly laughed out loud on the spot.

Their own man fighting their own product—how was that any different from the left hand fighting the right?

They had even privately