What the Hell Are We Supposed to Fight That With?

The words Chu Hang spoke were not loud, but in the deathly silent snowfield, they rang like a tolling funeral bell.

The expressions on Steve and Logan's faces froze in that instant.

Logan's brows, which had just relaxed at the success of their mission, knotted up again. He first shot Chu Hang an incredulous look, then suddenly turned around. Like a lone wolf trying to catch the scent of prey on the wind, he cocked his head toward the ruins and listened.

Steve reacted even faster. He did not listen, because he knew Chu Hang's hearing far surpassed his own. He merely stared fixedly into Chu Hang's eyes. In those azure eyes, the hope that had just flared to life was being replaced by icy shock.

"Are you sure?" His voice was low, each word seemingly squeezed out through clenched teeth.

Chu Hang did not answer. He only swallowed hard and nodded heavily.

Of course he was sure. That heartbeat sounded like a giant diesel engine running at full power—heavy, powerful, brimming with brute, unreasonable vitality. It echoed through his mind, and every beat made his own heart jerk violently. It was not merely alive. It sounded... stronger than before.

Logan had clearly sensed something too—perhaps not the sound itself, but some beastlike instinct. He slowly straightened up, the feral menace of a predator rising from him once more. He bared his teeth and growled, "Good. Very good! Saves me the trouble of tracking it down later!"

This guy was insane. Shouldn't a normal person's first reaction to news like that be to run? Instead, he was getting excited.

But Steve's reaction was what truly made Chu Hang realize how dire things were. He was neither furious and combative like Logan nor terrified like Chu Hang. He simply took a deep breath. The air, laced with smoke and snow, seemed to turn his gaze cold and sharp as a scalpel in an instant.

"We move!"

Without the slightest hesitation, he spat out those three words, turned, and sprinted toward the planned third extraction point. His decisiveness made it seem as though what was chasing them was not an unkillable monster, but merely an ordinary blizzard. That calm frightened Chu Hang more than Logan's savagery. It meant that, in this battle-hardened Super-Soldier's judgment, the three of them had zero chance against that monster.

Their only choice was to run.

Logan seemed about to say something, but when he saw Steve's unquestionable back, he could only spit bitterly and follow after him. Chu Hang naturally did not dare delay either, and took off after them.

The three of them raced through the snow without another word. Chu Hang focused all his energy on his hearing, tracking the monster's movements.

The heartbeat grew clearer and louder. Thump... thump... thump...

Then a heavy, teeth-grating scraping sound mixed in. It was the sound of countless tons of steel and concrete crushing and grinding against one another.

It was coming out!

The thought had barely flashed through Chu Hang's mind when a deafening boom erupted from the center of the burning ruins behind them!

"BOOM!"

It was completely different from the earlier explosion—duller, more penetrating, as though something unimaginably heavy had smashed through the earth's crust from deep underground!

The three of them turned around in unison.

At the heart of that sea of fire, the mountain of burning steel wreckage bulged upward like an awakened volcano! Countless flaming scraps were shoved aside by an unimaginable force, like waves parted by the hull of a giant ship.

Then a massive black silhouette, beyond description, slowly and irresistibly rose from the destruction and flames.

It was still that body stitched together from pallid flesh and cold machinery, but it was a hundred times more horrifying than when they had seen it in the basement.

The heat of the explosion had charred the fleshy parts of its outer layer black, like chunks of cracked charcoal. Yet beneath those black fissures glowed a magma-like dark red light, as though what flowed through its veins was no longer blood, but scorching lava. The metal braces that had once merely supported its body had now fused completely, in a grotesque and terrifying fashion, with the twisted rebar, armor plates, pipes, and other debris from the factory explosion. It was at least twice as large as before, like a moving hill made of flesh and steel.

What made Chu Hang's scalp crawl most was its "head." The already deformed and horrifying skull had been replaced on one side by a huge, red-hot turbine engine. The turbine was still turning slowly, emitting a low whine. The scorching blast pouring from it warped the air around it.

This was no longer a biological weapon. It was a war colossus that had crawled out of hell, with steel for bones and fire for blood...

"ROAR—!"

It threw back its head, half flesh and half machine, and unleashed a roar no living creature could have made. Filled with endless pain, rage, and brutality, the sound formed a visible shockwave that blew the flames around it flat to either side.

Then its one remaining gigantic eye slowly turned in the firelight, crossed nearly a thousand meters, and locked precisely onto their three antlike figures.

They had been spotted!

In that instant, Chu Hang felt like he had been locked onto by an ancient beast. A primal fear from the depths of his genes seized his heart, making it almost impossible for him to breathe.

"Run! Don't look back!"

Steve's roar struck Chu Hang's mind like a heavy hammer, jolting him awake from that nearly paralyzing terror.

Chu Hang came to his senses, moved his legs again, and followed Steve's pace. He did not dare look back. He was afraid that one more glance would rob him of every shred of courage to flee. They ran even faster, every step through the knee-deep snow taking all their strength. The immense physical power granted by the Super-Soldier Serum was pushed to its limit.

But it was useless.

He could clearly hear the monster move after a brief pause.

Thump... crack... boom...

Its lower body, fused from countless pieces of metal scrap, began moving toward them at a despairing speed like an out-of-control giant battering ram. Every step shook the ground. Its massive body crushed through the burning ruins with thunderous crashes.

It was faster than them!

"Captain! It's catching up! Fast!" Chu Hang screamed himself hoarse as he ran, shouting at Steve ahead of him.

"I know!" Steve roared without looking back. "Get over that ridge ahead! Use the terrain to shake it!"

The ridge was at least four hundred meters away. The monster was already less than eight hundred meters behind them, and the distance was shrinking rapidly!

Chu Hang's heart went cold. They could not outrun it. There was no way they could outrun it!

"This won't work!" Logan's voice carried a trace of urgency as well. "It'll catch us like rabbits and stomp us into paste! Someone has to hold it back!"

As he spoke, he actually slowed down, turned around, and prepared to charge the monster.

"Get back!" Steve abruptly stopped and grabbed Logan by the arm, his gaze sharp as a blade. "Your claws can't hurt it! You'll only be throwing your life away! Follow orders!"

"But—"

"No buts!" Steve's tone allowed no argument. "Our mission is to rendezvous with Dugan and the others, then get everyone out of here! If any one of us dies here, it means nothing!"

Logan's chest heaved violently. He glared at the rapidly approaching giant, the unwillingness and fury in his eyes nearly bursting into flames. But in the end, he gritted his teeth, turned around, and continued running after Steve.

Chu Hang knew Steve was right. Against absolute strength, fearless courage was no different from suicide.

But reason was reason, and despair was despair. He could clearly hear that with every "step" the monster took, the tremors coming through the ground grew stronger. He could even feel the searing waves of heat radiating from its body slamming against his back again and again.

Closer. Far too close!

Just as Chu Hang felt he was about to collapse, Steve suddenly spoke again. Even while sprinting, his voice remained astonishingly steady, filled with powerful logic and command.

"Chu! Listen! Don't just listen to its footsteps! Listen to its body structure! Where are its weak points? Joints! Energy core! Anything that sounds different from its main structure!"

Those words jolted Chu Hang awake.

Right! He had been so busy being afraid that he had forgotten his hearing was their greatest advantage right now!

He forced himself to calm down, drove all fear and distracting thoughts from his mind, and like a precision instrument, focused every bit of his perception on the giant behind them.

The heartbeat... that was its biological core, protected by heavy flesh and armor. It sounded incredibly muffled. There was no opening to exploit.

The sound of grinding metal... that came from its movement and was spread throughout its body. It was impossible to distinguish anything.

Wait!

Amid the countless chaotic noises, he caught a different sound. A high-frequency hum, like electrical current flowing. It did not come from the heartlike biological core, nor from that half-turbine-engine head. It came from... its back!

Near the upper part of its back, one area sounded completely different from the rest of its body. The sound there was clearer and sharper, as though immense energy was running at high speed inside a relatively fragile container.

"Its back!" Chu Hang immediately shouted. "Near the top of its back, there's something wrong with the sound! It's like... some kind of energy core! The sound there is much more vulnerable than the heartbeat in its chest!"

Steve's eyes lit up.

"Good work!" he roared, his pace quickening again. "Logan! Did you hear that? Its weakness is on its back!"

"I heard!" Logan's voice brimmed with barely restrained excitement. "But how do we get behind it?"

Yeah, how were they supposed to get behind it? They were already struggling just to escape head-on, let alone circle around it.

Just then, they finally reached the foot of the ridge. It was an almost seventy-degree slope, covered in thick snow and ice.

Without even looking, Steve hurled the Vibranium Shield. With a clang, it embedded itself firmly in a crack in the rock halfway up the slope. He grabbed the strap attached to the shield, let out a roar, and swung himself upward toward the top of the ridge like he was on a pendulum.

"Catch!"

Even in midair, he still had enough strength to fling the other end of the strap toward them.

Logan caught it in one hand. Without another word, his Bone Claws shot out and stabbed deep into the icy wall. Using both hands and feet, he began climbing. Chu Hang copied him, using the entrenching shovel at his waist as an ice axe and scrambling upward for his life. The three of them were like agile lizards, scaling the steep mountain wall as fast as they could.

And the monster reached the base of the ridge as well.

It looked at them and seemed to pause in confusion. Its huge body could not possibly climb such a steep rock face.

A flicker of hope had just risen in Chu Hang's heart when, the next second, it turned into bone-deep ice.

The monster slowly raised its enormous claw, a battering-ram-like limb made from countless metal parts and pipes.

Then it aimed at the mountain wall they were climbing and drove its fist into it with savage force!

"BOOM—!"

The entire ridge shook violently, as though it had taken a direct hit from a heavy aerial bomb.

Chu Hang felt an enormous force surge through the mountain, nearly shaking him off the ice wall. Countless chunks of ice and broken rocks rained down on them like a storm.

"Move! Get up here!" Steve roared from above.

Gritting their teeth, they climbed desperately through the falling rocks.

"BOOM!"

The monster threw another punch!

This time, a massive crack appeared where it struck. Like a bolt of black lightning, it rapidly spread upward. Chu Hang watched helplessly as the crack raced from several meters beneath his feet, all the way upward, extending directly above Steve!

"Captain! Look out!"

Before Chu Hang's warning had even faded, a truck-sized boulder above Steve suddenly came loose as the mountain split apart and came crashing down on him with unstoppable force!