A thunderous roar filled the air as debris exploded outward.
Gravel blasted through the corridor while a figure crashed violently into the base, tearing through reinforced structures with unstoppable momentum. The violent arrival echoed like a storm rolling through the underground facility.
Clark's ears rang from the impact. Through the chaos, he heard a voice he knew all too well.
"Had enough?"
Victor Kent stood there, staring at his brother.
The moment he saw Clark strapped to the interrogation chair, drenched in sweat and barely conscious, a murderous glint ignited in Victor's eyes. The sight made his blood run cold with rage.
He had already suspected the truth.
To Victor, the entire situation looked like a carefully planned trap.
Clark had merely passed out after stopping the train. Yet the military had arrived almost instantly and sealed the entire area with uncanny precision, as if they had predicted exactly when and where he would collapse.
"Clark just fainted," Victor thought grimly. "And the military appeared immediately and locked down the scene. That doesn't happen by coincidence."
"I'm… fine."
Clark shook his head hard, trying to clear the fog clouding his mind. He forced a smile toward Victor in an attempt to reassure him, but the expression only made his pale face look more fragile.
The smile held none of its usual warmth.
Tear!
The sharp, metallic scream of twisting steel echoed through the room.
Victor grabbed the restraints surrounding Clark and ripped them apart as if they were made of paper. The shackles had been forged from nearly solid steel and weighed over ten tons together, but he tore them free effortlessly.
He tossed the shattered metal aside like useless scrap.
Watching through the surveillance monitors, Sam Lane and Lex Luthor stared in stunned silence.
Another monster.
Another being possessing strength far beyond anything humanity could comprehend.
And that speed when he had arrived—tearing through reinforced walls like they were cardboard.
"Are they… related?" Lane murmured in disbelief.
One abnormal individual could be explained away as some kind of mutation or accident. But two beings with power this far beyond human limits forced an entirely different conclusion.
Were they members of the same race?
Was Superman truly an alien after all?
Even Sam Lane could no longer dismiss the possibility.
"Can you walk?" Victor asked calmly.
His tone made it sound as if they were standing in an ordinary backyard rather than the center of a heavily fortified military installation.
"Barely."
With Victor supporting one arm, Clark struggled to his feet. His body was still terribly weak from whatever drugs the military had used on him, but he could manage to stand.
"I'll get you out of here."
Victor turned immediately toward the exit.
Clark hesitated for a moment before speaking again.
"If possible… brother… try not to kill anyone."
Victor raised an eyebrow slightly.
"So kind," he said flatly. "No wonder the citizens of Metropolis see you as a hero."
Clark gave a bitter smile.
Being captured by the military like this was humiliating enough. If Victor hadn't come to rescue him, Clark doubted he could have escaped the base alone, especially while weakened by the sonic weapons and whatever drugs they had injected.
Still, he didn't want Victor to turn the place into a slaughterhouse.
If Victor truly unleashed his power, the result would be a one-sided massacre. Clark couldn't even imagine how many people might die.
"Don't worry," Victor replied calmly. "No corpses will appear in this base today."
Under different circumstances, he would never restrain himself. But the kind elderly couple who had raised them both knew Victor was here tonight.
It was better not to make the situation impossible to explain.
As he spoke, Victor raised his hand and unleashed a blast of energy.
A violent wave of cosmic power erupted from his palm. The shockwave tore through the walls ahead, carving a tunnel nearly half a mile long through the base's structure.
Everything in its path was obliterated.
Several personnel standing behind the walls vanished instantly as the energy passed through them, their bodies erased so completely that not even bones remained.
Victor considered that outcome acceptable.
Without physical evidence, it would be difficult to accuse him of murder.
If too many people simply "disappeared," the military would likely try to shift the blame anyway. Victor believed the parents who loved their sons would still trust him more than a government that had tried to capture Clark for experiments.
Clark's brief smile froze on his face.
Within the range of his super hearing, more than a dozen heartbeats had suddenly vanished.
"Victor?"
"They were just teleported somewhere else," Victor replied casually.
The explanation sounded calm and effortless.
At that moment, soldiers finally reacted. Armed troops rushed toward them, unleashing a storm of gunfire.
Victor lifted his hand again.
Purple energy beams swept forward, erasing one soldier after another from existence.
Clark's frustration surged.
Did Victor seriously think he would believe that ridiculous excuse?
"Victor, we need to get out of here now!" Clark urged urgently.
Clang! Clang! Clang!
At the far end of the corridor, an armored vehicle rolled into position. Its mounted machine gun roared to life, spraying bullets toward the two brothers.
Victor's eyes flashed.
A concentrated energy beam shot forward, melting straight through the vehicle. The armored hull evaporated along with the soldier operating the gun.
"Don't worry about me," Victor said calmly.
Clark wasn't worried about Victor's safety. A missile barrage wouldn't even scratch him.
The problem was everything else.
Victor clearly had the ability to escape instantly. Instead, he was deliberately walking through the base step by step like an ordinary person.
He was venting his anger.
If the slaughter continued like this, Clark didn't know how many people would be left alive by the time they reached the surface.
Clark gritted his teeth.
He wanted to leave immediately, but his body was still weak from the anesthetic drugs. It was nighttime, and without sunlight his strength had not recovered.
Right now, he could only rely on Victor.
Bang!
On the base surveillance screens, soldiers watched in horror as bullets struck Victor and Clark only to bounce harmlessly away.
Victor continued walking forward.
From time to time, purple beams flashed from his eyes. Wherever the beams passed, soldiers vanished instantly, leaving nothing behind.
"If this continues," Sam Lane shouted furiously, "every soldier in this base will be killed!"
His fist slammed into the control console.
"Dr. Irons," he barked into the communication channel.
Before he could continue, the screen flickered and revealed a middle-aged scientist in a white lab coat.
"General, what's happening?" the doctor asked anxiously. "Was there an earthquake? I heard gunfire inside the base!"
Dust had fallen from the ceiling beams in the underground laboratory where he stood.
This installation wasn't an ordinary military base.
Sam Lane had chosen it specifically because it housed one of the military's most important classified research facilities. The base was filled with elite scientists and incredibly expensive experimental equipment.
Superman had been intended as the newest top-secret research subject.
But now everything had changed.
A new threat had appeared—one that might be even more dangerous than Superman himself.
"The base is under attack by a hostile life-form," Sam Lane said sharply. "Most likely an alien terrorist."
He didn't hesitate.
"Activate the Prometheus Program immediately. Prepare John to connect with the Zero Armor and enter combat. Subdue the target and recover the experimental subject."
"An alien terrorist race?"
Dr. Irons stared at him, stunned.
"General, according to the schedule, the Iron Warrior system still requires at least six more months of calibration," he said hurriedly. "If you activate the armor now, Sergeant Coburn could die from neural overload during the synchronization process."
"He's trained for five years to prepare for this program," Lane replied coldly. "A qualified soldier is never afraid of battle or death."
He had already summoned the soldier.
On the surveillance screen, a heavy tank rolled into position and fired.
The massive shell roared through the air toward the brothers.
Victor's eyes glowed.
A laser shot forward and detonated the missile midair. The explosion filled the corridor with smoke, but the two brothers remained completely unharmed.
Unfortunately for the soldiers nearby, the blast tore through their ranks.
Bodies were thrown across the floor. Some soldiers lay motionless while others screamed in agony, their uniforms soaked in blood.
As the smoke slowly cleared, the surviving soldiers saw Victor step calmly out from the ruined corridor.
Their hands trembled.
Fear spread through them like a disease.
"Monster… please…"
One wounded soldier cried out desperately.
"Help me! I don't want to die yet!"
Several soldiers panicked and turned to run, wishing they had been born with more legs to escape faster.
"This isn't something humans can defeat!"
Victor moved forward like death itself walking across the battlefield.
In only a short time, nearly a hundred soldiers had died under his hands. Guns, cannons, and armored vehicles had all failed to slow his advance even slightly.
Fear and despair filled every heart.
Inside the control room, Lex Luthor raised an eyebrow thoughtfully after hearing the earlier conversation.
"Iron Warrior?"
Sam Lane glanced at him coldly.
"What you just heard is classified military information. You will sign a non-disclosure agreement shortly."
His voice hardened.
"If anything that happened today leaks outside this base, you will be arrested for treason and the disclosure of state secrets."
"General, I understand the seriousness of the situation," Luthor replied calmly, raising his hands in a gesture of compliance.
"But judging from the data on the screen, this man's physical durability is comparable to Superman's—and his energy output appears significantly stronger."
He smiled faintly.
"Can your Iron Soldier match the combat strength of a heavy tank?"
On the monitor, a massive tank weighing more than a hundred tons suddenly split apart as Victor's energy beam tore through its 200-millimeter armor like it was soft butter.
Molten metal flowed from the wreckage.
"We'll find out soon enough," Sam Lane said coldly.
His gaze burned with fury as he watched the purple figure on the screen.
"Neither he nor Superman is leaving this base."
....
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