Chapter 273: The Hulk
The President felt utterly helpless, as did the rest of the high-ranking officials present in the room.
Thinking back, in the past, never mind more than three hundred people—even if only one or two had died, no matter who did it, they would have immediately sent people out and made the other side pay.
But now Terra was pressing down over their heads.
Not only could they not investigate or demand the killers, they even had to spend resources suppressing the negative impact of the incident. Simply put, someone had slapped them several times, beaten their head swollen like a pig's, and they still had to bow, smile, and flatter the other side, saying they had run into it themselves and asking whether Boss Terra's hand hurt.
This was a great humiliation for America.
But it was a humiliation they could not wash away.
Perhaps they never would.
For leaders who had always called themselves the strongest nation in the world, this filled them with rage.
But what could rage do?
Could they truly do anything to Terra?
Yet unexpectedly, a four-star general in the office spoke, immediately drawing everyone's attention.
"Mr. President, we are the great United States of America. Since World War II, we have held absolute leadership and control over the world."
"But the appearance of Terra has broken America's position in the global order."
"Now one of their killers has murdered more than three hundred people, including their wives and children, yet all we can do is sit here and help them cover up the negative impact."
"There is no doubt this is a tremendous humiliation for us."
His deep voice sounded especially harsh, cutting straight into the President and the other officials.
Even so, no one's expression changed. Their eyes simply focused on the man.
Since he could come to the White House and take part in this discussion, his status was clearly not low.
His name was Thaddeus Ross, a four-star general of the United States Army.
He commanded the Army's special operations and bioweapons task forces, held real authority over independent operations, equipment transfers, and project approvals, and answered directly to the U.S. Department of Defense. He belonged to the top circle of power in the military-industrial system.
Ross was also known as the Thunderbolt General.
That alone showed how tough his style was.
He was a standard representative of the hawkish faction.
Ross was able to appear here on behalf of the military entirely because Secretary of Defense Alexander Pierce had disappeared, with no body found and no sign of life.
He had also been listed among the missing in this incident.
By default, everyone assumed Terra had done it.
The President looked at Ross, who stood there in uniform with a hard and upright expression. Although his words were unpleasant to hear, the President did not mind.
"Please continue, General Ross."
The President's tone was very friendly.
Ross understood the atmosphere and forced out a smile before continuing in a clear voice. "Why are we afraid of the Terra Empire, a nation with only one hundred and ten square kilometers of land and a population of two million?"
"Precisely because they wield three extraordinarily powerful military forces."
"We know nothing about those three legions, but we do know one thing—every soldier possesses terrifying strength."
"According to calculations from the analysis department, every one of those super soldiers can move at speeds beyond Mach level."
"I believe everyone here understands what that means. It means their strength, explosive power, speed, bone density, muscle density, and more all far exceed the limits of humanity."
"The highest technology we possess cannot hit them. Even if it does, it may not cause them the slightest harm, not to mention that they also wear power armor and combat suits made from special materials."
Ross gave the analysis sentence by sentence.
In truth, everyone already knew this information very well. The analysis department had long since used the limited information available to clearly analyze the combat styles and data of the Astartes, Raven, and Grey Knights.
Those pieces of data had long since been clearly recorded in their minds.
And it was precisely because of that data that America had become so wary of the Terra Empire's founding—and so afraid.
A single combat unit capable of Mach-level speed, able to fight in the air, able to kick out a flying slash strong enough to cut through steel, concrete, and entire buildings, while also wielding unknown energy-particle weapons—
They might even possess nanosecond-level reaction speed.
What did an individual combat unit with all these abilities combined represent?
It meant that, by American military standards, conventional forces were already ineffective against them.
After analysis and calculation by professional departments, they reached a conclusion.
Individual firearms—standard rifles and machine guns—were completely behind in range, muzzle velocity, and aiming speed. They simply could not hit the target. Infantry squads, armored vehicles, and tanks would be destroyed in close combat with one kick, while at range, there were energy-particle bullets capable of piercing steel.
Air combat units like Black Hawks and Apaches were far too slow and would be hunted one-sidedly.
Air-defense systems would also fail.
To truly hunt down such a super soldier, there was only one way.
They would need a ground-based Patriot PAC-2 air-defense missile system, supported by an Avenger short-range air-defense team—vehicle-mounted Stinger missiles, with autocannons filling the close-range defense gap.
They would also need to deploy a heavy armored brigade, fighter groups as air combat units, B-52 bombers, a full air-defense network, MLRS rocket artillery, and a wide-area EMP device.
Only then would there be a chance of killing one.
And that was under the condition that the target had no intention of running.
If the target consciously tried to escape, the scale of that force would have to grow even larger.
That kind of troop deployment could only deal with one.
But how many such super soldiers did Terra have?
The known answer was at least fifteen hundred.
As for how many more they had in secret—who the fuck knew?
Those fifteen hundred alone were enough to destroy America completely.
Unless America chose mutual destruction and launched a large-scale nuclear arsenal for saturation bombing, there was no other way. A single nuclear warhead might not even hit them.
A nuclear bomb's power was not as absolute as people imagined. Its true strength lay in the killing radius at the moment of detonation. Once there was enough distance, the shockwave spreading outward could be blocked by concrete structures.
In fact, there were real cases of people surviving nuclear blast waves.
So would the Astartes, Raven, and Grey Knights be stupid enough to stand there and wait for a nuclear strike to hit them head-on?
As long as they wanted to run, their instant Mach-level burst speed, combined with nanosecond-level reactions, meant that the moment they saw a nuclear missile flying through the sky, they would already be outside the blast radius.
Even with all their arrogance, these high-ranking officials understood one thing very clearly.
The strongest nation on Earth had already changed.
Otherwise, they would not have behaved so gently toward Terra.
General Ross suddenly bringing this up made the senior officials interested.
Sure enough, Ross's next words shook every one of them.
"Conventional technological weapons have already fallen behind. The future belongs to genetic technology—to large-scale individual combat units that break past the limits of the human body."
"We need to redesign our future strategy and shift the direction of our progress."
Ross's expression was firm.
The President and the other high-ranking officials all fell into thought.
The President was the first to raise the question.
"General Ross, are you talking about the super-soldier program?"
"That's right, Mr. President. We need to restart the super-soldier program," Ross said with a serious nod. "During World War II, the Allies decided to create a super-soldier army to deal with HYDRA and the Nazis, but for various reasons, the plan was shelved. Since then, we have all studied it to some degree, but we were never able to perfectly reproduce or realize it."
His tone gradually grew excited. "Gentlemen, I succeeded by accident."
Ross took a file from his briefcase. Seeing this, the Vice President walked over, took it from him, and handed it to the President.
The President put on his glasses and read it carefully before passing it to the Vice President. Only after every senior official present had read the file did their expressions change in different ways, and the looks they gave Ross carried new meaning.
Good grief. This old bastard had actually succeeded.
Even if there was only one example.
The Bio-Force Enhancement Project was a top-secret military plan. Because it was classified, the others did not know the details, though most had heard a few rumors. They had thought the military's project had never succeeded, but now Ross had given them a huge surprise.
The Hulk.
A green-skinned giant more than two meters tall had been born because of an accident during the experiment, then broken through layer after layer of military defenses and fled America.
Ross had been hunting him ever since.
Judging from his combat performance, this huge figure could actually withstand autocannon fire, rocket launchers, and bombs, while his strength, speed, and explosive power were extremely similar to Terra's Astartes Warband—only with a different focus.
The Hulk was far more unstable.
But no one cared about that. It was only emotional instability. There were plenty of ways to solve it.
The truly difficult part was how to create a super soldier like this from nothing.
And now, one had truly appeared.
Because of that, all the senior officials immediately became interested.
"General Ross, what support do you need?" the President asked, excitement appearing on his face as he looked at Ross.
In the past, he might not have cared. But now that Terra had set a precedent, America needed to take back the throne of the world's strongest and become great again. That made this plan highly viable.
The other senior officials exchanged looks and raised no objections.
Seeing this, Ross was extremely excited. He knew his plan had succeeded.
Suppressing the excitement inside him, he said calmly, "I need a professional research team, sufficient funding, and authorization to act worldwide. He is the first successful experimental subject—the prototype. We must capture him first, then use reverse research on him to develop a stable serum."
Ross asked for everything at once.
"Very well. There will be no upper limit on the budget. We will approve the support you need, and the military will cooperate with your worldwide capture operation."
The President's tone became unusually solemn. "But the capture operation must remain absolutely secret. You are not allowed to make a large disturbance. Is that clear, General Ross?"
Ross stood at once and saluted the President.
"I will not betray your trust, nor the government's."
This meeting marked the official restart of the super-soldier program—and on a scale far beyond before.
...
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