Chapter 97: The Man at the Top of the Food Chain

At 10,080 meters, flight path normal...

Within the new transport warplane, apart from the flight captain at the controls, only Kyle remained seated in the rear cabin. The cabin was hushed, the silence broken only by the faint sounds of instruments. Kyle sat with eyes closed, resting, his thoughts turned inward to the card space where nearly a thousand ability cards hovered in the designated area.

It was said that the poor relied on mutation and the rich on technology. Yet now he possessed both, whether through mutation or technological means, and valued most of all the constitution of his own body. Body was true capital.

His consciousness focused on the Super Soldier card suspended at the center of the ability card region. This rare blue physiological ability card, drawn from Steve, stood as the cornerstone that had elevated his physical genes far beyond mortal limits.

Super Soldier. This gene-manipulation technique that comprehensively amplified human physical potential began by pushing strength, speed, physique, and impact resistance to four or five times human norms, even reaching the terrifying critical threshold of ten times at the height of bodily excellence.

Ten times human—what did that mean?

An ordinary adult's punch carried roughly one hundred kilograms of force; tenfold strength meant a ton. A blow of that magnitude would not merely fell a man but send even a charging bull sprawling.

The upper limit of Super Soldier capability was not reached through the passage of years. It demanded sustained, deliberate training to master and excavate one's own latent potential.

Steve had claimed the Super Soldier ability earlier than Kyle, yet even on the day of his fatal crash his physique remained in its earliest stages of development—only five or six times ordinary human levels. After all, he had drilled military hand-to-hand combat without rest or sleep; three days of unbroken practice had forged him into a superhuman of exceptional speed.

Kyle, possessing the card-draw power, needed only three seconds to master any technique from nothing. Long-term conditioning? Impossible.

By continuously drawing others' white-green ability cards, accumulating technique and physiology cards alike, he could transform them into keys to unlock the hidden portals of Super Soldier potential.

In the German campaign, Kyle had drawn over a hundred technique green cards from Logan. After integrating them as his own—equivalent to half a century of rigorous training—his physique had reached the pinnacle of Super Soldier capability.

The Regenerative Factor card, another blue physiology card, had perfected that peak, shielding it from the slow erosion of age or the insidious damage of endless combat.

Of course, this was not yet his absolute optimum. With the Venom symbiote fully overlapping him, his overall physical metrics could still climb one more notch.

Human twelve times.

Kyle now stood with absolute certainty at the apex of Earth's biological pyramid, relying solely on his unmatched physique.

“Kyle, Major.”

The pilot's voice drifted from the adjacent cockpit, pulling Kyle's thoughts back to reality. He opened his eyes, surprised.

“We are directly over Nissan’s homeland. In five minutes we cross Tokyo’s border.” The pilot’s face carried apology. “Because we fly over enemy territory, the transport warplane must remain above ten thousand meters. You’ll need to jump alone at this altitude. The military has issued you protective gear and oxygen bottles—put them on immediately.”

“Tell me when we arrive. Open the rear hatch first.” Kyle answered coldly. He ignored the gear, the oxygen tanks, the parachute pack entirely. Standing, he strode toward the rear compartment.

Under the pilot’s command, the steel deck at the transport warplane’s tail lowered, exposing the night sky and high-altitude void.

The flight from New York to Nissan had already covered half a day, from midday into the dead of night.

Kyle stood tall at the deck’s edge. Icy wind poured inward, lifting the golden strands of hair from his forehead.

“This altitude is below freezing, and the air is thin. Without proper equipment, jumping will be fatal, sir.” The pilot, who had armed himself with an oxygen supply, shouted a warning while turning. The moment he saw Kyle without even a backpack, his mouth fell open in astonishment.

“I never carry a parachute,” Kyle said, shrugging. The Venom combat suit rendered the cold irrelevant. As for oxygen, he could hold his breath for over ten minutes without strain.

The pilot hesitated. The warplane lurched violently, buffeted by shifting air currents.

Turning to his instruments, the pilot’s face drained of color in horror. “It can’t be...”

“What happened?” Kyle asked sharply.

“Seven enemy fighters are closing at high speed from ahead!”

“Just arrived over Nissan’s skies and you want to play host?” Kyle chuckled dismissively. Suspicions of spies in American command circles made the thought of a locator planted on this transport warplane, its position casually relayed to Nissan, entirely unsurprising.

“Pilot, turn back. Good luck to you.” Kyle waved him away, then leaped clear of the warplane and into the void above ten thousand meters.

He hung suspended in the night air, wind and atmosphere rushing past. Scanning left, right, up, and down, his gaze met nothing but impenetrable darkness within a hundred meters.

Less than five seconds after leaving the cabin, a storm of artillery fire erupted. Explosions like thunder cracked overhead.

‘Boom—buzz—’

Kyle twisted in midair, staring back. The transport warplane he had abandoned was under assault. Flames roared along its fuselage as it disintegrated and plunged, engines dead.

Within the black clouds of the hundred-meter zone, the dying craft’s firelight revealed several Japanese single-seat fighters darting through the darkness, weaving and turning.

‘Whoosh—’

Kyle maintained perfect freefall, locking onto the nearest target. A single-seat fighter, its tail propeller glowing with jet wash, sliced past barely twenty meters away.

“That’s you!”

Cold light flashed in Kyle’s eyes. Venom combat suit’s wings unfurled from his back. His body halted in midair, then, detaching from natural descent, he rocketed forward on silent wings.

‘Thud!’

He landed crouched atop the fighter’s cockpit windshield, mere meters above the Japanese pilot’s stunned face.

“Nani?” The pilot’s voice trembled. “This is Purple Lightning-02...” Teeth chattering, he never finished. Three dark, razor claws extended from the cold young man’s clenching fists.

‘Shiii!’

Kyle’s talons punched through the glass, carving a jagged wound. He seized the pilot by the collar and hurled him into the empty sky far below.