Chapter 91 The US's "Prometheus"

The other side of the Earth.

The Pentagon, that pentagonal building symbolizing the highest military power in the world.

On the giant screens of the intelligence center, countless red dots flashed as data streams washed down like waterfalls. Satellite imagery, infrared thermal imaging, radio monitoring frequencies... every intelligence tentacle was reaching toward that ancient Eastern nation.

The result was zero.

For three whole months.

Ever since that TR-3B evaporated into thin air over the Northwest Gobi Desert, Great Xia had been like a bottomless ancient well. Throw a stone in, and you wouldn't even hear a splash. No protests, no troop movements, not even a single extra word spent in the international arena.

This deathly silence made the high-ranking officials of the Eagle Nation, who were used to controlling everything, feel suffocated.

If Great Xia had jumped up and cursed or mobilized troops, they would have felt more at ease. Because that was a human reaction.

But now, their opponent acted like a deity sitting above the clouds, coldly looking down at a swarm of ants busying themselves at its feet.

"Have you found it yet?"

In the highest-level secret meeting room, the air was so heavy it made one's lungs ache.

Four-star General MacArthur Miller stared intently at the intelligence director before him. His eyes were bloodshot, a red hue burned from long-term insomnia and extreme anxiety.

"Reporting, General... our 'Keyhole' satellites have changed orbits thirteen times, covering the entire Northwest region of Great Xia. But aside from those two unanalyzable gravitational wave anomalies, we can't find anything... any weapon signatures that fit physical logic."

The intelligence director's voice grew smaller and smaller, ending in a near-mumble.

"Physical logic?"

General Miller suddenly grabbed the crystal ashtray off the table and smashed it violently onto the floor.

Crash!

Shards flew everywhere, just like the shattered confidence of the Eagle Nation.

"They've already made our plane disappear! Not even a scrap of debris is left! And you're talking to me about physical logic?"

Miller leaned against the table, like a bull driven into a corner, snorting heavily through his nostrils.

"They have something in their hands that could kill us. It's invisible, intangible, requires no trajectory, no target lock, and might even be hanging right over our heads this very second!"

The meeting room fell into a deathly silence.

The generals lowered their heads; no one dared to speak. It was an unprecedented feeling of powerlessness. Previously, they used aircraft carriers, stealth fighters, and nuclear deterrence to intimidate the world. Now, that fear had hit them back like a boomerang.

A technological generation gap.

This term used to be their capital for boasting; now it was a noose tightening around their necks.

"We can't wait any longer."

Miller stood up straight and straightened his collar, a madness in his eyes like a gambler pushing all his chips onto the table.

"The people of Great Xia are hiding like turtles in a shell, preparing a big move. Every second this silence continues, our noose tightens. We must force them to act, force them to reveal their trump card!"

"But General," the Chief of Staff said with a furrowed brow, "we've played all our cards. Those three carrier strike groups have been wandering around their doorstep for a month; besides wasting fuel, they have no tactical value. As for the technical blockade, their industrial system is already fully formed; the blockade isn't doing much."

"Then we change the way we play."

Miller turned around and looked at the giant world map on the wall, his gaze fixing on the edge of that red territory in the East.

"Since 'civilized' methods have failed, we'll use some 'barbaric' ones."

He turned his head and squeezed out a word through his teeth: "Activate 'Prometheus'."

Hiss—

A collective intake of breath.

The faces of several older generals instantly turned pale, as if they had heard a summons from hell.

The "Prometheus" Project.

That taboo project sealed in the lowest level of The Pentagon's archives, marked as "Absolute Black."

"General, this violates human ethical conventions!" The Chief of Staff stood up abruptly, his chair scraping harshly against the floor. "That is an uncontrollable biochemical weapon! It's a monster! After the Roswell Incident forty years ago, we swore to seal it away forever!"

"To hell with conventions!"

Miller roared, spittle flying onto the Chief of Staff's face.

"Those are rules set for the weak during peacetime! This is a war for survival! The Great Xia people have secret weapons in their hands, and you want me to use what to reason with them?"

He pointed out the window, in the direction of Washington.

"If we don't figure out exactly what they have, tomorrow, or the day after, the power that erased the TR-3B will fall on the White House! When that happens, will you go talk to the President about ethics?"

The Chief of Staff opened his mouth, then sat down dejectedly.

Fear overrode everything.

In the face of an absolute crisis of survival, moral bottom lines were like sandcastles on a beach; one wave, and nothing remains.

In the corner, the Secretary of Defense, who had been silent, slowly raised his head. He was as old as a piece of dried bark, and a flash of decisiveness crossed his cloudy eyes.

"Approved."

His voice was raspy, but it was final.

"This devil was raised by us. Now, let it go and bite."

...

Nevada.

Deep within Death Valley.

The scorching sun baked this barren salt flat, distorting the air. This was a blind spot on the map, the legendary Area 51.

Three hundred meters underground.

The temperature here was a constant minus ten degrees Celsius.

The heavy lead-lined door slowly slid open, and white cold air rolled across the floor.

Three scientists wearing full-containment biochemical suits walked in, pushing a levitating cart. A liquid nitrogen cryogenic tank was secured on the cart.

"Steady, don't let your hands shake."

The supervisor's voice came through the bone-conduction headset, laced with obvious tension.

The young assistant swallowed, and a robotic arm reached into the cryogenic tank, extracting three finger-thick metal tubes.

The tube walls were made of a special high-strength transparent alloy.

Inside was a black liquid.

It wasn't an ordinary fluid. It was viscous and deep, swallowing any light that entered. Even more bizarrely, even in a perfectly still test tube, it was slowly writhing.

It was alive.

It was even trying to find atomic gaps in the glass tube wall, wanting to drill its way out.

"This is the 'black liquid'?" The assistant felt cold sweat sliding down inside his suit. "The original fluid... from that ship forty years ago?"

"Don't stare at it," the supervisor warned. "This stuff has some kind of weak psychic radiation; looking at it for too long will give you nightmares."

He quickly loaded the test tube into a specialized injection gun.

"This thing is Pandora's tears. For forty years, we've conducted two thousand experiments on death row inmates. One thousand nine hundred and eighty people exploded on the spot, becoming nourishment for this stuff. The remaining twenty who survived..."

The supervisor paused, his gaze shifting to the massive isolation zone ahead.

It didn't look like a laboratory; it looked more like a cage for giant beasts.

Behind a dozen high-intensity laser fences, a group of... creatures was imprisoned.

They wore oversized black prison uniforms, which still couldn't hide their unnaturally bulging muscles. Their skin was a sickly grayish-white, and veins like black earthworms bulged on their bodies.

They crouched in corners, tearing at raw meat, low whimpers coming from their throats.

Those weren't human voices.

They were the low growls of beasts guarding their food.

"Reaper Squad," the supervisor said coldly. "Pain nerves severed, adrenaline secretion levels fifty times that of a normal person, bone density comparable to titanium alloy. They have no fear, no mercy; their brains contain only one command—kill."

"But... how do you control such things?" The assistant looked at the monsters, his legs feeling like jelly. "Releasing them would be a disaster."

"Through him."

The supervisor pressed a button.

In the center of the isolation zone, the floor split open, and an independent transparent cage rose up.

Unlike the restless beasts around him, this cage was exceptionally quiet.

A man sat inside.

He looked far too 'normal'.

A lean build, a clean old military uniform, and even a pair of gold-rimmed glasses on the bridge of his nose. He was holding a yellowed copy of the 'Divine Comedy,' his slender fingers gently turning the pages.

If not for the thick shackle on his ankle connected to a high-voltage cable, he would have looked like a young lecturer in a university library.

But when the assistant saw the man's eyes, his heart skipped a beat.

Behind those eyes, there were no emotions belonging to a 'human'.

Even those beasts had bloodthirsty madness in their eyes. But in these eyes, there was nothing. Only absolute logic and a cruelty colder than a scalpel.

He was empty.

Like a black hole wearing human skin.

"Code name: 'Butcher'," the supervisor's voice was very low. "The only specimen to perfectly fuse with the 'black liquid'. The liquid didn't destroy his brain; instead, it made him evolve. A former Delta Force Colonel, he was sentenced to eight life terms for flaying an entire village of civilians alive on the battlefield for 'art'."

The supervisor took a deep breath and turned on the cage's intercom.

"Butcher."

The man in the cage didn't stop his movements, continuing to read his book.

"The country needs you," the supervisor said.

The man turned a page, the corners of his mouth curling up slightly. That smile was very standard, very polite, yet it was spine-chilling.

"The country?"

His voice was as warm as jade, without a hint of resentment from being imprisoned.

"I imagine you must be in big trouble. Otherwise, you wouldn't release a mad dog from hell."

The supervisor ignored his mockery and said solemnly, "Great Xia. We need you to go to their border and create chaos."

"Just chaos?" Butcher closed the book and pushed up his glasses.

"At any cost," the supervisor stared at him. "Kill, destroy, be as cruel as you can. You must be like a knife, stabbing deep into their flesh, forcing them to scream, forcing them to strike back."

The beasts in the surrounding cages seemed to sense some signal and began to restlessly ram the fences, letting out deafening roars.

Butcher slowly stood up.

He wasn't particularly strong, but the moment he stood straight, the violent beasts around him instantly fell silent.

It was suppression from a higher level of the food chain.

He walked to the transparent wall and looked at the supervisor through the bulletproof glass.

For the first time, there was a spark in those eyes.

That spark was like a long-starved gourmet suddenly smelling the aroma of a top-tier steak.

"Great Xia..."

He murmured softly, his tongue licking his pale lips.

"I heard the bones there are very hard. When they break, the sound must be very crisp."

He spread his arms as if to embrace the coming bloody feast.

"Open the door."

Butcher smiled, revealing neat, white teeth.

"My scalpel... has been thirsty for a long time."