Ace

The moment the massive boulder broke away from the mountainside, it was as if the world had been muted.

Chu Hang's pupils contracted to pinpoints. The Super-Soldier Serum had sharpened his senses to an unprecedented degree. He could hear the teeth-grinding creak of the boulder scraping against the mountain wall, feel the faint groan of the ice beneath his feet under immense pressure, and even smell the biting scent of dust and snow squeezed into the air.

His brain, a reinforced biological computer, raced madly in an instant, yet arrived at only one conclusion: They were finished.

The boulder was too large, like a small truck, crashing down with unstoppable force. And Steve was pinned tightly to the nearly vertical ice wall by that damned belt. Before, behind, left, and right—there was no way out.

He couldn't dodge it or block it.

Even the perfect human being created through Dr. Erskine's life's work would end up as nothing more than an indistinct red-and-white smear on the ice wall if he took that thing head-on.

"Steve!"

A heart-wrenching roar came from the side. Logan's eyes instantly filled with blood. His beast-like instincts had smelled death at once. Without a second thought, his muscles exploded as he tried to pounce forward, but those few meters had become an insurmountable chasm. He was not faster than gravity.

Time stretched infinitely in Chu Hang's perception. He watched helplessly as the enormous shadow completely swallowed Steve.

Yet in that life-or-death instant, lasting less than half a second, Steve at the center of the crisis made a response Chu Hang would never forget for the rest of his life.

He did not panic. He did not fear. There was not a trace of despair in him. He suddenly looked up, and those clear azure eyes erupted with astonishing light. His gaze did not linger on the boulder overhead, but instead swept lightning-fast across the ice wall beneath it. At that moment, his mind surpassed its limits. Countless streams of data flooded in and were processed instantly. He was not waiting to die. He was searching—searching for that one-in-a-billion fulcrum that could pry fate itself loose!

He found it!

"Logan!"

His roar was no longer gentle. It rang like thunder, filled with an iron will that permitted no doubt.

"Upper left, at three o'clock! See that protruding black rock? Hit it! With everything you've got!"

What? Chu Hang's brain completely crashed. At a time like this, Steve wanted Logan to hit some irrelevant rock? Had he been scared stupid?

But Logan did not hesitate for even a tenth of a second.

He did not stop to consider whether the order made sense. The one giving it was Steve Rogers. That was enough.

This was absolute trust. It was unconditional obedience to a commander, engraved into his bones through blood and lives amid the hail of bullets on the European battlefield!

"Roar!"

A suppressed howl burst from deep in Logan's throat. His body had reacted before his mind. He kicked violently off the ice wall, shattering the ice beneath his feet, and shot diagonally upward at an unbelievable angle like an enraged ape.

Clang—!

Three grim white bones sprang fiercely from his knuckles, scraping across the ice wall with an ear-piercing screech and a shower of sparks. He practically slid along the ice, driving his Bone Claws viciously into the black rock Steve had indicated.

That rock was only the size of a basketball, utterly inconspicuous.

But the instant the Bone Claws pierced it, Chu Hang's extraordinary hearing caught an incomparably crisp crack from within the mountain!

As though something crucial had broken.

That black rock had actually been a hidden support point beneath the massive boulder overhead!

The moment the support point shattered, the trajectory of the boulder crashing down like Mount Tai shifted by a tiny amount, so slight it was nearly impossible to see.

That tiny shift divided life from death.

The boulder no longer fell straight toward Steve. Instead, it grazed past the right side of his body and plunged downward in a violent howl that tore through the air!

Rumble—!

The deafening crash finally arrived. The boulder slammed heavily into the mountainside below, erupting with earth-shaking force. Countless chunks of rock and ice were flung high into the air, forming a small avalanche that poured down upon the colossal creature at the foot of the mountain.

Although he had avoided a direct hit, the violent air pressure produced as the boulder swept past struck Steve like an invisible giant hand.

"Ugh!"

Steve grunted, veins bulging in the arm gripping the belt. The immense force blew his body outward, and he nearly lost his hold. Chu Hang's heart leaped into his throat.

Fortunately, Steve was still Steve.

"Ha!"

With an angry roar, terrifying power burst from his waist and abdomen. He forcibly hauled his swinging body back and clung once more to the ice wall like a magnet.

They were saved.

Chu Hang's entire body went limp. He gasped for breath, drenched in cold sweat. He stared blankly at Steve above him, then at Logan adjusting his position on the other side. Only two words echoed wildly through his mind.

Trump cards.

Steve's beyond-the-limit judgment in the face of death, Logan's absolute execution without thought—the understanding between the two had surpassed words. Compared to them, all he had done just now was scream "Watch out!" at the top of his lungs. He was practically useless.

"Don't just stand there! Get up here!"

Steve's roar struck Chu Hang like a blow to the head, dragging him out of his self-doubt.

At the foot of the mountain, the monster had taken the avalanche full-on. Tons of ice, snow, and shattered rock cascaded over it, producing only a chaotic series of crackles, as if it had merely been caught in a hailstorm.

It angrily shook off the snow. Its one eye, burning with rage, locked onto the three tiny insects on the mountainside again, and it let out a thunderous roar.

Boom!

Another punch! The entire ridge shook violently, and more cracks spread frantically across the mountain like black lightning. If they did not leave now, it would tear the mountain apart with its bare hands!

The three of them did not dare delay any longer. Using both hands and feet, they scrambled madly upward as fast as they had ever moved in their lives.

Finally, just as it felt like their lungs were about to burst, Steve was the first to pull himself over the ridge. He immediately turned around and hauled Logan up. Then the two of them worked together to drag the exhausted Chu Hang up as well.

The three sprawled across the snow like dead dogs, greedily sucking in the frigid air.

They had survived. Chu Hang turned his head and looked at the two beside him. Steve was inspecting his shield, whose edge bore a shallow scrape left by the boulder. Logan, meanwhile, casually shook his hand. The blood seeping from his knuckles instantly froze into dark red ice crystals, but his face held nothing but the exhilaration and satisfaction of battle.

Being teammates with these two monsters seemed... not so bad.

"Are we... safe?" Chu Hang asked between gasps.

Steve walked to the edge of the cliff and looked down. The colossal creature had stopped beneath the ridge, pacing about anxiously as its claws occasionally raked the ground. With that bulky body, it could not possibly climb this nearly ninety-degree cliff.

It seemed they had shaken it off for the moment.

Chu Hang let out a long breath of relief, but Steve's expression remained grave.

"Something's wrong," he suddenly said in a low voice.

"What's wrong?" Logan moved closer. His beastly instincts had also left him uneasy.

"It's too calm." Steve's voice carried a chill. "With how violent it was before, after losing its target, it should be tearing apart everything around it. Not standing there like this... as if it's waiting for something."

Waiting?

Chu Hang's heart skipped a beat, and a sense of dread instantly surged up within him. He quickly shut his eyes and stretched his hearing to its limit.

Its heartbeat was steady, and its footsteps had stopped. But an entirely new sound entered his ears.

A high-pitched, sharp hum, like countless bees beating their wings beside his ears at once. It grew louder and more piercing, nearly puncturing his eardrums! The source... was its head! That crazily spinning turbine engine!

"Not good!" Chu Hang's face went pale as he screamed, "That turbine is accelerating! It's building up energy!"

At the foot of the mountain, the monster slowly raised its head. The half of its head that was a turbine engine spun wildly at a terrifying speed, unleashing a shriek that ripped through the air. Vast amounts of air were forcibly sucked in and condensed at its front into a blinding red light, impossible to look at directly, like the core of the sun!

The temperature around them instantly soared. Snow atop the mountain began melting at a visible rate, giving off waves of white steam!

It had never intended to climb up! It was going to... erase them and the entire mountaintop from this world!

"Scatter!"

Steve only had time to roar those two words before he sprang sideways like a cheetah!

At almost the same time, Chu Hang and Logan scrambled and rolled in opposite directions.

The instant they left where they had been standing.

A thick dark-red beam of energy, as though capable of melting everything, shot violently from the monster's mouth with a terrifying shriek that seemed to tear apart the soul!

The beam outran sound and struck the mountaintop where they had just stood with perfect accuracy!

There was no earth-shattering explosion, only a teeth-grinding hiss—.

Then Chu Hang watched with his own eyes as the mountaintop, made of hard rock and ten-thousand-year ice, melted, vaporized, and was directly... erased from three-dimensional space the instant it touched the beam, like a lump of butter tossed into a steel furnace.

A gigantic circular gap more than ten meters across appeared at the summit, its edges smooth as a mirror and still billowing with heat.

Chu Hang lay dozens of meters away, feeling the scorching heat beneath him, smelling the thick stench of sulfur in the air, and staring at that terrifying gap, as though a god had erased part of the mountain with an eraser. An icy chill shot from the soles of his feet to the crown of his head, nearly freezing all the blood in his body.

How the fuck were they supposed to fight that?