From Titan Corporation to the Empire of Man

Chapter 681 "Release the Strategic-Level Biological Weapon!"

Soon, the fibers of the nanobag trembled slightly in the air, completely engulfing the female scientist's figure like ripples in water.

Two special forces soldiers set up this precious "package." Their nanosuits blended perfectly with the surrounding environment, and even the sound of their footsteps was absorbed by the sound-absorbing layer on the soles of their shoes.

In just three seconds, the stairwell returned to deathly silence.

As Leon pulled the slide of his pulse pistol, the buzzing sound of charging vibrated in his palm, breaking the silence.

He turned to Mike and Chris. The three of them didn't need to say a word; years of fighting side by side had already synchronized their tactical thinking.

Simple gestures —

By tracing his index finger across his throat and lightly tapping his temple with his middle finger, he conveyed the complete action plan: clear obstacles, remain concealed, and prioritize evacuation.

Optical camouflage activated.

Ripples spread across Lyon's casual clothes as a nanoscale array began to distort the surrounding light.

His outline gradually blurred, until only the subtle heat waves in the air remained as he disappeared. The rest of the team members also entered a state of concealment, and the presence of the dozen or so people was compressed into the faint air currents in the corridor.

boom--!
Chris kicked open the iron gate to the fire escape.

Natural light poured in from the outside, accompanied by piercing alarms and the sound of hurried footsteps.

The sight before them made even the most battle-hardened special forces soldiers hold their breath—

The plaza outside the building has been designated a military restricted area.

Numerous armed drones form a honeycomb-like blockade network, their scanning probes constantly emitting deep purple resonant waves—a detection method powerful enough to render conventional optical camouflage ineffective.

The ground forces deployed their elite troops—

A large number of soldiers wearing heavy power armor, three times thicker than the CMC series, were preheating small-caliber cannons mounted on their shoulders, their muzzles gleaming with a dangerous orange light.

“Interesting.” Mike’s voice was transmitted through bone conduction. “It seems even the UED’s orbital assault team has been mobilized.”

Lyon's invisible holographic glasses rapidly analyzed the defense map.

UED has clearly activated its highest level of emergency response plan.

There is a biometric checkpoint every few tens of meters, the automatic turrets on both sides of the street are fully charged, and even more deadly are the reconnaissance planes hovering in the sky. Their special wavelength detectors seem to be able to capture the brainwave activity of humans with psychic abilities.

Chris's holographic map suddenly popped up a red warning: "They've activated an electromagnetic pulse scan. Our camouflage can only hold for another 90 seconds at most."

"Split up." Lyon synchronized the breakout route to all team members' screens. "Group A, create chaos; Group B, establish an EMP barrier; Group C, follow me to break through the eastern checkpoint."

Ten seconds later, a blinding flash suddenly erupted on the east side of the square.

Two special forces soldiers deliberately made themselves visible, and the plasma smoke grenades they threw exploded in the air, creating an electrified fog that covered half the square.

The drone swarm immediately changed direction, but their scanning beams were refracted and fragmented by the metallic particles in the fog.

"Now!"

Lyon led Group C like ghosts, cutting into the gap in the defense.

The special operations team's nanosuits were operating at overclocked, not only distorting light but also lowering their body temperature to match the environment.

When passing a certain biometric checkpoint, Lyon could even see the taut jaw muscles under the guard's helmet; the young man was probably participating in a real combat operation for the first time.

"Abnormal entropy value detected!"

Suddenly, a tech officer's shout pierced the alarm.

The resonator in his hand was flashing wildly, seemingly detecting the energy fluctuations of the nanosuit.

Upon seeing this, the five closest UED heavy infantrymen immediately turned around, their shoulder-mounted cannons' aiming lasers weaving a crimson grid in the air.

Lyon did not hesitate at all.

Ta-ta-ta!
His pulse pistol fired first, hitting the technology officer precisely in the head.

Mike then launched three electromagnetic pulse darts, which spread out in the air to form an electric grid, temporarily disabling the two nearest automated turrets.

"Breakthrough! Breakthrough!"

Chris's voice boomed across the communication channel.

The special operations team commander had somehow advanced to the rear of the checkpoint and easily sliced ​​through the alloy roadblocks with his phase knife.

The special forces soldiers pierced the gap like sharp blades, their shooting incredibly accurate. Every pulse grenade hit the joint gaps in the UED soldiers' power armor, causing those cumbersome guys to fall like broken puppets.

But the UED's response was equally swift.

The reconnaissance plane suddenly swooped down from high in the sky, dropping dozens of metal spheres from its belly.

These spheres unfold in mid-air into spider-like blocking robots, their mechanical legs equipped with powerful electromagnetic chucks that allow them to firmly adhere to any surface.

Even more deadly is the entanglement scanner installed in the head, a device specifically designed to target stealth techniques.

"Damn it!"

Mike dodged the scanning wave with a tactical roll, shouting, "Our camouflage is about to fail!"

Lyon caught a glimpse of the first special forces member being scanned by the wave of light.

The young man immediately retaliated, but was hit by three plasma cannon shots at the same time. The scene of the nanosuit fighting against the high temperature distorted the air.

However, the young man did not die immediately. The nanosuit withstood the fatal damage, and combined with his genetically enhanced body, it only caused him to fall into a coma.

Upon seeing this, nearby special forces soldiers immediately helped him up and provided cover.

Furthermore, except for Leon, all the agents' nanosuits began to "fall off," with the tiny, scale-like armor transforming into tens of thousands of miniature jammers.

These mechanical flying insects, invisible to the naked eye, formed a black fog, temporarily obscuring the scan.

The cost was that the team members were completely exposed, but this also meant that they no longer needed to conserve ammunition, stamina, and energy.

The roar of the pulse weapon reached its peak.

Every shot Leon fired took an enemy away; his firing trajectories were as perfect as if they had been optimized by a supercomputer.

Mike displayed terrifying close-combat skills, his two vibrating daggers transforming into the Grim Reaper's scythe, each swing precisely slicing into the power armor's energy lines.

Chris was like a human artillery platform, and the plasma grenade launcher he stole from a fallen soldier was incredibly effective in his hands.

By the time the last robot was blasted into scrap metal, the breakout team had already reached the street corner.

Three disguised civilian hovercars were waiting there, their engines running at minimum power.

"go!"

Lyon was the last to leap into the carriage.

The hovercraft immediately accelerated to its limit and broke through the blockade in the gap before the automatic turret re-entered the network.

Outside the car window, the outline of the UED headquarters building gradually receded into the distance, but the flashing red alarm lights remained glaringly bright.

Chris checked the female scientist's vital signs: "The cargo is intact, and the memory worm data is 98% complete." Meanwhile, Mike was injecting the injured team member with nanomedicine: "The infiltration team was exposed, but all we got in return was the UED's top warp drive expert. It was a really bad deal."

As he spoke, Mike glanced at Leon, who was sitting in the front passenger seat.

"cough"

Lyon coughed lightly, a little embarrassed.

Indeed, if Leon hadn't fallen from the ventilation duct, the mission wouldn't have gone wrong, and Chris, Mike, and the undercover special forces team wouldn't have been exposed.

At this moment, three modified hovercars were frantically weaving through the canyons between skyscrapers, their engine nozzles turning a sickly orange-red due to overload.

Lyon gripped his gun tightly, his knuckles turning white from the force, and in the rearview mirror he saw a death squadron of twelve UED interceptor boats.

Those streamlined killing machines maintained a precise fifty-meter interval between each other, and the pulse cannons under the wings were always in a charged state, but strangely they did not fire.

"They're playing a cat-and-mouse game."

Chris tapped the hard-light holographic tactical board displayed on his wrist computer. The 3D projection showed that the pursuers' encirclement was tightening. "The seventh and ninth airspaces have been blocked."

Mike secured the female scientist to her seat and glanced out the window: "The value of capturing a human empire spy alive is ten times greater than that of a corpse."

As he spoke, a cold smile appeared on his lips. "Unfortunately, they've mistaken the identities of hunter and prey."

Suddenly, the four interceptor boats accelerated simultaneously, forming a pincer formation as they approached the hovercraft responsible for bringing up the rear.

They release an electromagnetic binding net, a deadly tangled web woven from nanowires, capable of paralyzing the electronic systems of any vehicle upon contact.

The special operations team members pulled the control stick sharply, and the hovercar rushed towards a glass curtain wall building at a near-vertical angle. Just before it was about to hit, it suddenly rolled sideways, and the electromagnetic net whistled past the chassis, cutting two drones behind it into metal fragments.

"Eye of Shadows, this is Vulture Number Three."

Seeing this, Lyon didn't delay any longer and immediately contacted the stealth-class aircraft deployed in near-Earth orbit, "Immediately release the strategic biological weapon, verification code: Wrath of Man."

Upon receiving the message, the weapons officer of the stealth-class warship couldn't wait to press the crimson button.

Immediately afterwards, a pitch-black individual airdrop pod detached from the magnetic guide rail and began its dive.

Without any invisibility field or electronic interference, this three-meter-long "death beacon" brazenly broke through the atmosphere.

Its outer shell turned crimson from friction, leaving a very conspicuous plasma trail against the azure sky, like a flaming spear thrown down upon the earth by a god.

The UED air defense system's response was textbook-perfect.

The first thing to light up was the laser array of the orbital defense platform, with dozens of dazzling red and white beams piercing through the clouds and hissing around the airdrop pod.

Immediately afterwards, ground-based missiles unleashed a massive barrage of interceptor missiles, these smart munitions weaving a three-dimensional web of death in the air.

The airdrop pod began to move violently.

Its attitude-adjusting nozzles operate at an incredible frequency, causing this metal construct to perform a deadly "ballet."

Three incoming missiles were deflected by decoy flares, and two laser beams canceled each other out due to a calculation error, but more intercepting fire followed immediately—

A missile finally locked onto its target.

Boom! Boom!

A dazzling fireball burst in the air, and the shockwave shattered all the glass within a radius of 300 meters below.

The burning debris rained down on the city center like a meteor shower, igniting the rooftop gardens of three commercial buildings.

Cheers erupted at the UED air defense command center as officers high-fived each other, and the green text "Threat Eliminated" flashed on the holographic screen.

But they celebrated too soon.

The cheers at the air defense command center came to an abrupt halt.

The air seemed to freeze for a moment; the expressions on the faces of all the officers were stiff, and their pupils reflected on the holographic screen a figure that defied the laws of physics—

A human-shaped silhouette suspended in the thick smoke of an explosion.

The operator's fingers trembled as he zoomed in on the image, which gradually became clear:

It was a man about two meters tall, whose black polymer tight-fitting combat suit perfectly outlined his muscle lines, and a bright red cloak on his back moved without wind, with the golden dragon emblem of the human empire embroidered on it.

What was most chilling was "his" face. His pale face, uncovered by a helmet, was covered by short, golden hair that remained motionless in the aftershocks of the explosion. His icy blue pupils were empty and lifeless, like two stagnant pools of water.

"Abnormal biometric readings!" The monitor's voice trembled with fear. "An unknown energy reaction has been detected within the target, exceeding the measurement limit!"

The alarm in the command center suddenly went off, and amidst the piercing shriek, a general shoved the operator aside and personally pulled up the tactical analysis.

On the holographic projection, the space around the target marked as "unknown unit" exhibits an unnatural distortion in curvature.

"All air units, intercept immediately!" the general's roar boomed through the communications channel. "Repeat, this is not a drill! Intercept immediately!"

The twelve interceptors immediately changed course, and their onboard AI locked onto the target in milliseconds.

The missile bays opened simultaneously, and twenty-four air-to-air missiles roared out, trailing plumes of fire.

Boom—Boom—!!

The explosion's flames once again engulfed the figure.

The shockwave shattered the glass curtain walls of nearby buildings, and burning metal fragments rained down.

The officers held their breath, staring at the screen, until the unharmed figure slowly emerged from the thick smoke, not even a scorch mark on the cloak.

"Impossible!" The weapons officer slumped into his chair. "That's the latest type of low-yield warhead."

The "unknown unit" suspended in the air, or rather, the "Homelander" recreated by Atlas, slowly raised its head.

His ice-blue pupils began to glow red, like two death rays gradually charging. Some kind of energy beyond UED's comprehension gathered deep within his irises, causing the surrounding air to distort due to the high temperature.

Ri~嗗————!
Two scarlet beams of light suddenly burst forth, their brightness comparable to that of a small sun.

Wherever the laser beam passed, the interceptor's composite armor was easily torn apart like rice paper, and the fuel tank vaporized in an instant, without even a chance to explode.

A fighter jet attempting to roll and evade was sliced ​​in half, and the pilot's terrified face was instantly carbonized by the intense heat as the cockpit shattered.

Twelve cutting-edge fighter jets, each costing over 100 million credits, were reduced to burning wreckage in just three seconds.

The ground troops' anti-aircraft turrets then reacted, unleashing a dense barrage of bullets like a torrential downpour.

However, the depleted uranium armor-piercing rounds, which were powerful enough to penetrate battleship armor, were completely unable to penetrate the bodies of the Homelanders, which had been reinforced several times by Atlas and the Human Empire.

A soldier hiding behind a bunker saw through binoculars that conventional anti-aircraft fire was completely ineffective against Homelander and was immediately terrified. The existence of Homelander was beyond their comprehension.

"Retreat! Everyone retreat—"

Before an officer could finish speaking, their air defense position was struck by lasers. The entire position was instantly transformed into a hellish inferno. Molten cannon barrels bent and deformed like candles, and the soldiers' screams were swallowed by the boiling metal.

The screens in the command center went out one by one.

On the last remaining main screen, Homelander slowly turned his head, his fully charged crimson eyes facing the surveillance camera, as if piercing through the screen and staring directly at everyone watching this "massacre."
(End of this chapter)