The military advance had been steamrolling everything in its path.

Then something went wrong.

Three death-eater faction headquarters had been struck by missiles — but the senior death-eater leadership had survived. Sharkskin armor and quick reflexes had carried them through. Only the bottom-rung cannon fodder had died in the blasts. The Beech weapons, the death-eaters' insurance policy, had been destroyed in the explosions — which left their leadership with nothing to do but fight back directly.

They injected stimulants. Combat capability spiked.

And then, fighting with the absolute recklessness of people who'd already lost everything, they began pushing the Command's forces back. If the military hadn't maintained a decisive advantage in conventional firepower, the retreat would have become a rout.

The situation kept deteriorating.

What terrified the Command's commanders was this: several of the senior death-eaters moved like human killing machines. Bullets turned off them. They didn't flinch. Virtually no jin people could stop them. And the most alarming element of all — a death-eater unit that poured out of New Hope Laboratory, combat capability not far behind the killing machines in the lead.

At the front of that unit was a figure in a white lab coat. Speed like lightning. The camera feeds couldn't track him cleanly.

Shen Cong studied the live footage on the laptop screen, his attention fixed on the white coat. That speed. Kills clean and fast. The level of evolution — it doesn't look far below mine. How is there a death-eater this strong? Even accounting for stimulants, the baseline capability is insane.

And a white lab coat...

He turned the laptop toward Zhao Zilong. "Do you recognize this death-eater?"

She waited until the figure paused between kills, then drew a sharp breath.

"That's my father."

The terrifying figure in the white lab coat was Zhao Yang. Director of New Hope Laboratory. Genius scientist turned architect of human depravity. The man Shen Cong had come here for.

The radio crackled. The field commander's voice: "Colonel Hu — requesting support. That white coat and the senior death-eaters around him — they're too fast. Our people can't…