"Which base are you from?"
Victor Kent's voice was cold and emotionless as he lifted the soldier by the collar like he weighed nothing. His eyes were dark and gloomy, and the aura pouring from his body crushed the air around them. It felt less like a man standing there and more like an ancient apex predator looming over helpless prey.
The soldier in his grip felt the pressure instantly. His body trembled uncontrollably, as if an insignificant ant had stumbled into the territory of a prehistoric beast that could end its life with a casual flick.
"Who… who are you?! Put him down!"
The surrounding soldiers were stunned, their faces pale with shock. None of them had seen how this man appeared inside a heavily blocked military perimeter.
"Raise your hands and kneel down immediately!"
Dozens of rifles snapped upward in perfect coordination. Black muzzles pointed straight at Victor as the elite soldiers shouted their warnings with tense, aggressive voices.
Victor didn't even glance at them.
To him, the weapons might as well have been sticks pulled from a campfire.
"Don't make me repeat myself."
His tone carried no emotion whatsoever. At the same time, his eyes began to glow with blazing purple light as he stared down at the trembling soldier in his grasp.
The man felt it instantly.
A terrifying aura crashed down on him like a tidal wave. Every hair on his body stood upright, and a bone-deep instinct screamed in his mind.
I'm going to die. I'm definitely going to die!
Fear flooded his entire body. His face turned deathly pale as the primitive survival instinct of a human being went into overdrive. Even when a gun had once been pointed at his head, he had never felt such an overwhelming certainty of death.
"Fourteen miles north of Metropolis," the soldier blurted out in panic. "Base code-named 604!"
Victor watched him silently for a moment.
"Very good," he said flatly. "Congratulations. You just saved your life."
With that, he released his grip.
The soldier collapsed to the ground and scrambled backward in terror. He looked at Victor like he was staring at a nightmare that had stepped out of the dark.
"Monsters… There are monsters!"
"Fire!"
The sergeant major in charge of the checkpoint roared the order. Someone daring to break into a military blockade and threaten soldiers on duty was an unforgivable provocation.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Deafening gunfire erupted instantly. The explosions echoed through the station platform corridor and bounced off the walls, filling the air with thunderous noise.
Within seconds, a pile of smoking brass casings scattered across the ground.
Victor stood exactly where he had been, unmoving. The bullets struck his body and bounced off as if they had hit reinforced steel, leaving even his clothes untouched.
He frowned slightly.
To him, the barrage of gunfire felt no more threatening than a swarm of irritating mosquitoes buzzing around his ears.
Purple light gathered in his eyes, growing brighter and brighter as if it might burst outward at any moment.
Buzz.
An indescribable pressure suddenly filled the area.
Every soldier present felt their hearts clench violently, as if an invisible hand had grabbed them. Their legs weakened uncontrollably. Their breathing became shallow. Their eyes widened with raw terror.
It was like being stared at by a prehistoric beast.
At that moment, every instinct in their bodies told them the same thing.
Death was coming.
Victor was about to unleash a beam and erase the soldiers who had dared fire at him when something suddenly occurred to him.
His gaze shifted briefly.
Not far away, several fearless reporters were rushing forward with cameras, broadcasting the entire scene live. Their excited expressions made it obvious they believed they had just captured the biggest story of their careers.
Victor frowned.
In the next instant, purple lightning flashed.
The terrifying figure whose mere presence had suffocated everyone vanished from the spot.
One second passed.
Two seconds.
Several seconds later, the entire platform remained silent.
"Did… did he leave?"
Only after a trembling man in the crowd collapsed to the ground in exhaustion did everyone begin to regain their senses.
"Where did he go?"
The soldiers raised their rifles again, scanning frantically left and right. But the terrifying figure had disappeared completely.
The tension slowly drained from their bodies.
Many of them exchanged uneasy glances. For a brief moment, each of them had felt as though they had walked straight past the gates of death.
"Okay… it looks like he's gone."
"Damn it!" the sergeant shouted, grabbing the radio on his shoulder. "Report to the base immediately. An unknown organism may be heading toward the base!"
After shouting the warning, he glared fiercely at the soldier who had revealed the classified location.
"Prepare yourself for a court-martial."
Normally, those words would make every soldier in the unit stiffen with fear.
But this time, they had no effect.
The man who had spoken the base code could only stare blankly in the direction Victor had vanished. The joy of surviving such a close brush with death filled his face.
No one knew the terror he had felt when those glowing purple eyes had been only inches away from his own.
If surviving meant facing a military court, he would gladly stand trial a hundred times.
…
"It didn't bend? What material is that syringe made from?"
Lex Luthor raised an eyebrow slightly in surprise.
On the large monitoring screen, a researcher dressed in protective clothing held a metallic syringe. The needle gleamed with a cold light as he repeatedly pressed it against Superman's skin.
But the result was the same every time.
The needle simply wouldn't pierce.
It was like trying to stab a piece of high-density rubber.
"How can that be possible?"
General Sam Lane's face darkened with embarrassment. He had expected this process to be straightforward.
This creature's skin was apparently harder than Promethium alloy, a material banned from civilian circulation and classified as top secret by the military.
Clark slowly opened his eyes.
He remembered stopping the train. At that moment he had somehow pushed his strange protective force field further than ever before.
But the instant the train had come to a halt, darkness swallowed his vision.
Then everything went black.
"Where am I?"
The room was silent and cold.
Heavy restraints locked his limbs in place. A man stood nearby whose heartbeat had suddenly begun racing nervously. Something sharp seemed to be pressing against the vein in Clark's arm.
"Whoever caught me, let me go!"
Clark struggled violently, but his limbs felt strangely weak. Even in this condition he should have been able to tear through the restraints easily.
Something was wrong.
Someone had injected him with something.
"That's already quite impressive," Lex Luthor said calmly while observing the screen. His tone was analytical, as though he were watching a laboratory animal rather than a person. "Human strength is the limiting factor here."
The syringe was made of a metal stronger than any alloy he had encountered on the market. But the researcher holding it simply didn't have the strength necessary to drive the needle through Superman's skin.
Even iron tools could fail to penetrate ordinary wood if the user lacked sufficient force.
"General Lane," Luthor added casually, "is that metal available for purchase?"
His thoughts drifted toward the combat armor he had been developing.
If the entire suit were constructed from that material, he might actually consider wearing it and confronting this so-called Superman head-on.
Combined with his other preparations…
"Use a hydraulic press with the syringe," Sam Lane snapped angrily into the microphone. "I refuse to believe we can't break his skin!"
"Let me go!" Clark shouted again. "General Lane? Are you with the national military?"
Their conversation carried clearly through the dozens of walls separating them. Clark struggled in panic and anger, causing the heavy steel electric chair bolted to the floor to shake violently.
The researchers nearby instinctively backed away in fear.
"Why are you arresting me?!"
Remembering how this being had physically stopped a speeding train, the staff hurriedly pressed a control button.
A powerful electric current surged through Clark's body.
His muscles convulsed violently. Steam began rising from his clothes as the electricity coursed through him, yet he continued struggling.
The voltage climbed higher and higher.
Clark groaned several times as steam began rising from his hair. But despite the tremendous current, his body remained completely intact.
"General," the soldier at the console said in horror, "the voltage has reached maximum!"
"Electricity isn't working," Luthor remarked calmly. "Try sonic weapons."
Buzz.
Two sonic emitters activated simultaneously. A low mechanical hum filled the room as focused sound beams shot directly into Clark's ear canals.
Compared to his nearly indestructible skin, his eardrums were far more fragile.
The sonic waves struck like invisible hammers.
"Ahhh!"
Clark screamed as unbearable pain exploded inside his head. It felt like iron rods had been shoved into both ears and were being twisted violently.
His entire body stiffened. His thoughts became muddled.
Sweat poured down his face as the world spun violently around him. It was like riding a roller coaster a hundred times in a row. His strength drained away completely, making it impossible to keep struggling.
"Superman," Luthor suddenly shouted, abandoning his calm tone entirely. His voice became sharp and accusatory, filled with the hostility of someone convinced of his own righteousness. "Wherever you came from in the universe, you do not exist in the global database. You despicable alien must be the vanguard of an invasion plan to conquer Earth!"
"No! I'm not!"
Clark roared in pain and anger.
He had saved those people on the train, yet now he was being treated like this.
"Not?" Luthor's pupils shrank slightly.
Most people in this situation would instinctively deny being an alien. But Clark's immediate reaction had focused on rejecting the accusation of being an invading soldier.
Interesting.
"You really are an alien," Luthor concluded quietly.
"Let me go! And what are you?"
Even with the sonic weapons blasting his ears, Clark could still hear the voice coming through the speakers from a room dozens of walls away.
But something about that voice was wrong.
"I can't hear your heartbeat. I can't hear the blood moving through your veins!"
Clark shouted through the pain.
There was no heartbeat.
No sound of circulating blood.
No faint noises from breathing or internal organs.
Whoever was speaking definitely wasn't human.
"No heartbeat?"
Sam Lane's heart skipped nervously. He cast a suspicious glance toward Luthor and instinctively touched the pistol at his waist.
"Don't be nervous," Luthor said with a calm smile under the hanging lightbulb, preparing to explain.
At that moment, a squad leader rushed into the room holding a radio.
"General! Soldiers in the city just reported an extremely fast unknown humanoid creature approaching the base."
The squad leader glanced uneasily at Superman on the screen.
"It might be here to rescue him."
"Victor!"
Clark's heart lifted instantly when he heard the news. In his current desperate state, the only person he could think of was his brother.
"They're your kind?" Sam Lane demanded sharply. "How many of your alien species are hiding on Earth?"
His expression changed drastically as he grabbed the radio, ready to issue emergency orders. Fighter jets, tanks, and every combat unit at the base needed to enter maximum combat readiness immediately.
But suddenly—
Bang! Bang! Bang!
A series of explosive crashes echoed through the facility as concrete fragments blasted into the air.
Within a single second, dozens of thick reinforced concrete walls—constructed to withstand rocket attacks—were smashed open like fragile sheets of paper.
A figure moving as fast as purple lightning tore straight through the entire base.
With unstoppable momentum, he burst into the secret monitoring room.
Victor Kent had found Clark.
After seeing Clark's miserable state strapped to the interrogation electric chair, Victor's expression turned dark. He slowly lifted his head and stared directly at the camera watching him.
"It's fine to be curious," he said coldly. "But you'd better be prepared to pay the price for digging into certain secrets."
....
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