Advantage Is Mine

Not far away.

Lin Mo and Dongfang Shuye crouched on a thick branch of an old pine tree, looking down from a high vantage point with an unobstructed view.

The firelight from around the road flickered across both their faces, one moment bright, the next dark.

"Whoa, palm-cannon version of a heat ray." Lin Mo found it somewhat thrilling.

"A fusion of Superman and Iron Man? Those old Yankees really know how to run their research."

Dongfang Shuye couldn't help but grow wary, his gaze fixed on the man on the road who kept raising his hand and firing off beams of light.

"This guy, I've never seen him before."

"Me neither."

Lin Mo snapped off a twig and twirled it in his hand, his tone casual. "But I know who he is. Sam Kahn, former recon sniper in the U.S. Marine Corps Special Operations. After discharge, he was selected for the Compound V human experimentation program. Survival rate was less than three percent, and he's one of the few who made it out alive.

His ability is the heat ray you're seeing. Peak temperature can reach 1600°C—hotter than lava—and it carries a kinetic impact with it too."

He said it all too casually.

Dongfang Shuye tilted his head and gave him a once-over.

"How do you know all this so clearly?"

"When I wiped out those U.S. military bases back then, I pulled the files while I was at it."

Lin Mo said it as if it were nothing. "A lot of the records are on file. The old Yankees are pretty meticulous—their experiment documents are more detailed than a thesis."

Dongfang Shuye's expression paused, like he was processing something hard to digest.

Then something clicked.

"Wait a second. Those U.S. bases in Southeast Asia—that was you?"

"Yeah."

"Weren't you in Hero City back then?"

"I just made you all think I was."

Lin Mo answered without hesitation.

Dongfang Shuye opened his mouth, then swallowed his words.

He'd known Lin Mo for a fair amount of time, but every time he thought he had a handle on the guy, something new came up. It was like those nesting dolls—you never knew what was at the very core.

Lin Mo turned his gaze back toward the road.

He also wanted to see what the Super Youth Corps would do next.

This was just the appetizer, anyway.

No matter what, breaking through the barrier was the real priority.

The two of them just quietly watched the four people who had gotten out of the vehicle.

The fight was still going on.

After Sam finished off the spit-attacker, he didn't lower his hand.

His eyeballs moved rapidly, like a high-precision radar scanning for targets.

His right hand lifted again, and several beams fanned out in a sweeping arc.

The heat rays passed through the tree trunks without any resistance.

The wood didn't even have time to catch fire before it was punched straight through—the cuts smooth and clean, the edges glowing a dull red.

Dozens of pine trunks, at least twenty centimeters thick, toppled over with a crash. Behind them, the anti-tank missile operators, along with their launchers, were pierced through by the light beams. They pitched backward, chests charred with holes the size of bowls.

But the Super Youth Corps clearly hadn't just prepared two tricks.

Another volley of anti-tank missiles flew out from different positions, trailing flames as they streaked across the night sky, their trajectories crossing as they screamed in.

Without the corrosive liquid in play, William wasn't too panicked. He pushed both hands forward, expanding the transparent barrier to its maximum size, ready to tank this salvo head-on.

But the missiles detonated ten meters short of the barrier.

The warheads weren't standard explosives—they were custom fragmentation rounds.

A green liquid sprayed out evenly from the cracked shells, like acid rain, covering at least two-thirds of the barrier's surface.

Sizzle sizzle sizzle!

White smoke started rising from the barrier's surface, like sulfuric acid poured onto an iron plate.

"Damn! How do they still have this stuff!"

William's face went pale. Those missiles had been mixed with corrosive rounds—he hadn't detected them in time.

He didn't have a moment to think. The barrier was dissolving faster than he could reinforce it.

"Everyone, get over here! Tighten up around me!"

The other three quickly converged on him, and the barrier shrank accordingly—from the size of a car down to just three or four meters in diameter.

Simple logic: spread the pancake too thin and it breaks; roll it into a ball and it holds thick.

"Sam! Don't stop!" William shouted.

Sam didn't waste words. He kept sweeping the tree line with his beams.

His lasers had no recoil, no lag—point and shoot, absurdly efficient.

Several shooters got hit in quick succession. Some died on the spot. Others rolled into the underbrush dragging the remnants of an arm.

But who knew how many more were still hidden in the dark.

Whoosh!

An arrow slipped through the gap between Sam's sweeps.

It flew fast, carrying some kind of piercing, penetrating force.

William immediately thickened the barrier to its absolute limit.

The arrow still punched through.

The tip embedded about half an inch into the barrier and halted, the shaft still vibrating slightly, as if some force was pushing it to keep going.

William gritted his teeth and held the line.

"Ivy, give me more vision!"

Sam shouted, his eyes locked on the direction the arrow came from, but the night was too heavy and the tree line too deep. He could spot the flash of missile launches, but the bow? That one he couldn't see.

The short-haired woman named Ivy placed her hand on Sam's shoulder.

"The All-Father shall grant you sight."

The change happened in an instant.

Sam's pupils contracted sharply, then dilated wide.

The darkness before his eyes peeled back like a curtain removed by an invisible hand.

Everything within several hundred meters—every person hiding behind every tree, every weapon mounted on every slope, every man crouched in every bush—all of it was laid bare in crystal clarity.

Lin Mo sensed it.

A wave of mental detection was spreading outward from Ivy as the epicenter, sweeping across the entire area like sonar.

His expression didn't change. His spiritual sense silently drew inward, wrapping himself and Dongfang Shuye in a tight cocoon.

Like two rocks.

No—quieter than rocks. A rock at least had a physical outline. The two of them simply ceased to exist on the spiritual perception plane.

Whatever bloodhound tricks they had, they'd be flying blind.

The detection wave swept over the canopy above their heads without a pause, pushing onward into the distance.

With full-area vision, Sam's efficiency went to a whole new level.

Right hand raised, rays fired in sequence.

First shot: took out a missile operator mid-relocation.

Second shot: hit a shooter who hadn't even gotten his launch off yet.

Third shot: precisely struck the archer eight hundred meters away.

That guy was fast—the moment he sensed danger, he rolled left.

But the heat ray moved at the speed of light. If you saw it, you were already hit.

A beam punched through the archer's chest, and just like the spit-guy before him, there were now two charred, bowl-sized holes—front and back.

The archer glanced down at his own chest. His bow fell from his hands.

Then his knees hit the ground.

High damage, low defense—that's usually how it ends.

But this wasn't over yet. More and more people were swarming in from all sides.

The reason the Super Youth Corps dared to box in these four S-rank (at minimum) agents from the Divine Eye Bureau was simple: they had their own confidence and tactics.

Human-wave tactics were still tactics.

Several hundred against four—advantage: us!