Chapter 28: Red Skull, If You Have the Guts, Don’t Run

Inside the fortress factory at this very moment—

“Warning! Warning! The prisoners held in the factory’s underground have escaped. All soldiers, proceed immediately to suppress them!”

Red warning lights lit up on the walls throughout the facility as the sharp, urgent voice of the broadcast played repeatedly. The guards stationed inside and outside the factory responded swiftly and in unison.

“So, Steve has already released the captured soldiers.” Kyle was still stealthily making his way through the factory corridors. Hearing the alarm, he instantly realized Steve’s rescue operation had succeeded.

Things were moving even faster than expected! There was no time to hesitate!

Seeing a squad of German soldiers appear ahead, Kyle immediately abandoned stealth mode, pushing off with all his strength to surge forward.

He gripped his military knife in his left hand, clenched his right hand into a fist, and accelerated toward the enemy like a bullet.

“Enemy attack!” The German at the front of the squad shouted in panic, pulling the trigger. A searing blue-white laser burst from the muzzle.

The corridor was a straight, narrow passage—making it easy to hit any target without the need to aim. The laser’s speed was several times that of a bullet; dodging was impossible, even for someone with a super-soldier’s reflexes.

Kyle’s pupils shrank as the laser beam grew rapidly in his field of vision, the hairs on his skin standing on end in warning.

He didn’t try to dodge or defend. Instead, he recklessly accelerated, charging forward headlong. At the instant the laser was about to strike his chest, his right arm swung forward with explosive speed—

A harsh sizzle—

The energy laser, powerful enough to vaporize a human body, was miraculously deflected by Kyle’s right forearm and bounced straight back!

The German at the front never had time to react. The very laser he had fired was reflected back, and in a split second, his entire body—helmet and combat gear included—was vaporized into mist.

“He just casually reflected a laser attack…”

“What kind of monster is this?”

The German soldiers stared in horror as if witnessing the supernatural. The new energy weapons were notorious: to be struck meant certain death. Never before had they seen such an attack rendered useless—let alone reflected by a man’s hand.

“Anyone who stands in my way, die!”

Kyle cared nothing for their terror or crumbling will to fight. Whether the enemy counterattacked, fled, or simply froze in place as they were now—

It made no difference to him!

Like a leopard plunging into a warren of rabbits, Kyle charged into the enemy formation, harvesting lives as he went. The small Nepali blade in his hand became the scythe of death incarnate; each slash and thrust claimed another soldier.

His strength, far beyond the ordinary, paired with the razor-sharp blade, rendered enemy armor and flesh as fragile as paper. Scarlet blood splattered, quickly dyeing the corridor red.

“Out of my way!” Kyle’s voice was cold as ice. He struck the last soldier with his elbow, sending him flying. The bandages and sleeve on his right arm had been vaporized by the earlier laser, revealing the chilling metallic sheen of his vibranium bracer.

Vibranium—also known as sound-absorbing steel. Not only was it one of the hardest substances in the Marvel universe, it could absorb heat, energy, and kinetic force!

With the vibranium bracer, the laser lost all offensive power upon hitting Kyle’s arm, and, with a swing, was reflected back at its source.

Having decisively annihilated a squad of German soldiers, Kyle wasted no time and sprinted toward the factory’s central control room.

He didn’t notice that the entire scene—the massacre of the enemy squad—was being clearly transmitted by a camera installed in a corner of the ceiling.

At that moment, in the factory’s control room—

Red Skull, looking every bit the middle-aged officer, stood before a bank of surveillance screens. Despite the artificial skin covering his face, a hint of fear crept into his expression.

“Two super-soldiers have infiltrated the factory?”

He spoke thus because one of the monitors showed Steve, clad in his blue-and-white uniform, swiftly taking down two guards in the underground area.

On another screen, Kyle was seen tearing through the German squad, leaving behind seven mangled corpses as he approached ever closer.

“The first one is manageable, but the second… why is he so powerful?” Red Skull found it hard to believe. He knew even he couldn’t steamroll through a squad of soldiers armed with new energy weapons as if they were nothing.

A super-soldier’s physique taken to the limit, coupled with flawless close-combat skill and absolute ruthlessness—he was a machine made for war.

They were both super-soldiers, yet the gap between their strengths was vast.

True, the serum he had taken was only an early, incomplete sample, and had left him with the ghastly visage of a red skull, but the disparity in power shouldn’t be this wide.

Red Skull didn’t dwell on it. Forcing himself to calm down, he activated all the self-destruct switches in the factory. The elderly scientist behind him gasped in shock, “What are you doing?!”

Red Skull gestured coldly at one of the monitors, which showed Kyle swiftly passing beneath the camera. “He can’t be stopped—forget the soldiers; even I might not be able to hold him off.”

“We’re evacuating. Now!” With that, Red Skull strode to the wall, opened a hidden compartment, and retrieved a cube glowing with blue light.

The Cosmic Cube!

Compared to this artifact, this factory—even ten such factories—was worthless.

“He must be just ahead!” Rounding the corner at full speed, Kyle saw a straight corridor before him, the control room at its center.

At that very moment, a German officer carrying a bag emerged from the control room, followed by the elderly scientist. They were just about to flee.

“Trying to run? Leave the Cosmic Cube behind!” Kyle spat, charging forward.

“Stop him!” Red Skull had no intention of fighting head-on. Shooting a glare at the scientist, he retreated down the corridor with the bag in hand.

“Damn it!”

The scientist, face ashen with terror, realized he’d been abandoned and collapsed at the doorway, legs giving out beneath him.

“I said, you’re not getting away!” Kyle closed in mercilessly, certain that the bag held the Cosmic Cube.

“Useless fool.” Red Skull glanced back at the scientist, but he’d never expected the old man to delay a super-soldier so ruthless.

“Try this.”

At some point, Red Skull had produced a new energy cube, which he hurled forcefully at Kyle.

“Residual gem energy?” Kyle was surprised to see the projectile—it was the raw material for energy cartridges, a blue-quality item he’d once obtained at a major Hydra base.

Could something so stable be used as a weapon?

His question was answered in the next instant as Red Skull drew a pistol and aimed at the airborne energy cube, pulling the trigger.

“This bastard is out of his mind!” Kyle roared, lunging forward to snatch up the scientist from the floor, using him as a human shield.

At that precise moment, the bullet struck the energy cube.

The world seemed to freeze—

A deafening blast!

The cube exploded in a tidal wave of energy, crashing outward and annihilating everything in its path!