Clash of Giants

His tone carried no hint of condescension, only concern.

"An elite squad of ours was just wiped out moments ago. I'm worried you might be underestimating Mira Wells's strength."

"Thank you," Tu Ran said without outright refusal. "We'll go in and assess the situation first. If we need backup, we'll send word."

"Understood." The guard captain nodded.

Tu Ran stood at the edge of the bridge, gazing at the ancient, restrained grandeur of the distant castle. She called Zero through her combat helmet.

"Zero, where is Mira Wells right now?"

After analyzing every inch of the castle's surveillance feeds, Zero replied, "She's on the second floor of the eastern tower, resting. This is the optimal window for infiltration."

Tu Ran immediately gripped her machine gun and glanced back at the others.

"Ready?"

"Ready!"

Everyone steeled themselves, tightened their grips on their weapons, and sharpened their focus.

"Move." Tu Ran gestured forward and took the lead, crouching low as she sprinted across the bridge connecting the castle to the outer grounds.

Behind her, Min Tao followed closely, then the third Pioneer, and behind them, a squad of guards prepared to rescue the hostages.

Once they reached the lawn, the guards first freed Mira Wells's second son, Das, from a tree. He was unconscious, his face badly congested from the blood flow.

Meanwhile, Tu Ran and her two companions slipped into the castle, moving swiftly toward the eastern tower where Mira Wells was located.

Through the combat helmet, Zero plotted the optimal route. The three passed through a gray brick corridor lined with a small garden, where a pile of corpses lay stacked on the grass, emitting a pungent stench of decay.

Men and women alike, dressed in matching uniforms, presumably castle servants. Each had a black hole in the heart, straight through—the unmistakable mark of a claw piercing flesh.

Their blood had stained the garden's lawn crimson, trickling along the stone path into a one-meter-wide stream that ran through the garden. The water had turned red, winding away into the distance.

The three crossed the corridor and finally reached the base of the tower where Mira Wells was.

Tu Ran raised a hand, halting Min Tao and the other from advancing. They followed her gaze and saw the ground littered with shards of broken glass. Stepping on them would inevitably make a loud noise.

In unison, the three looked up toward the upper floor. Through the glass of their combat helmets, they saw the scene on the second level.

The massive floor-to-ceiling window had been shattered, and a pitch-black wing jutted out halfway. It bore no feathers—instead, it was rugged and uneven, like coarse tree bark, with tiny blisters bubbling up from the cracks between rock-hard textures. When a blister burst, it released a wisp of smoke.

Tu Ran swallowed hard.

That window was at least three meters tall and three meters wide, yet it could only accommodate half of the monster's wing. Just how massive was that wing entire?!

And to think such a pair of wings grew out of a human's small body—Tu Ran couldn't help but admire the ingenuity of those radical protesters.

Min Tao contacted Tu Ran through the earpiece in his helmet.

"What do we do? There's broken glass everywhere, and the door's blocked. We can't get up."

"We wait right here. When it wakes up and notices something wrong, we'll keep it occupied. That buys the guards more time to rescue the survivors."

"Alright."

The three silently retreated to opposite sides, pressing themselves flat against the walls. Tu Ran stood alone on one side; Min Tao and the other on the other side. They all clutched their weapons tightly, nerves taut as they listened for any sound from above.

Mira Wells was asleep, her breathing heavy. With each breath, her wings trembled, occasionally scraping off tiny shards of remaining glass. The fragments fell onto their helmets with crisp little clicks. Luckily, the sound blended with the noise of the glass hitting the ground, and Mira Wells didn't notice anything amiss.

Everything remained calm—until a sudden scream pierced the silence from somewhere in the distance.

"What's going on?" Tu Ran whispered.

"A guard was rescuing a maid hanging from a height. She suddenly woke up and started screaming in sheer terror. She didn't see the guard's signals before she cried out."

Tu Ran felt the wall behind her begin to tremble violently. Mira Wells was awake!

She looked up and saw the enormous wings desperately forcing their way out. The remaining glass fell like snow from the edges, clattering onto her helmet.

Finally, both wings squeezed out fully, and a colossal shadow instantly engulfed the three of them.

Mira Wells flapped her wings, hovering in midair. She tilted her head, searching for the source of the sound.

It was Tu Ran's first time witnessing the full form of this genetically modified human. The shock was beyond words—wasn't this just like one of the alien creatures from the Threshold? The only real difference was that she wore clothes.

But by now, the white silk garments had already been torn apart by her swollen body, revealing black, rock-like skin underneath. Mira Wells was sandwiched between the two giant wings, her human appearance completely lost.

She chose a direction and flew toward the source of the sound.

At the same moment, Tu Ran raised her machine gun and opened fire on her body. Min Tao and the other moved immediately too, spreading out on either side and attacking Mira Wells from different angles.

Mira Wells instantly reversed course, her gaze locking onto the three insolent humans hiding near her resting spot.

"ROAR!"

She opened her mouth, and a streak of fire shot out, aimed directly at Tu Ran's position. Tu Ran's pupils contracted. She rolled on the ground to dodge the searing heat that must have been hundreds of degrees.

"How can it breathe fire?! The data didn't mention that!"

"This is a newly evolved ability," Zero replied quickly.

Failing to hit her target, Mira Wells let out another furious roar and continued aiming at Tu Ran, her mouth unleashing an unending torrent of fire. Tu Ran scrambled to her feet, rolling and diving in every direction to evade.

"Isn't it only dragons that breathe fire? Isn't she a bird? Why can she spray fire like this?!"

"Apologies, but that question requires further study by the Research Institute. Zero cannot explain it."

Tu Ran barely dodged one stream of fire after another. She was speechless. Why was this bird so fixated on blasting her alone? Weren't there two people behind her? Couldn't it see them?

Mira Wells chased after Tu Ran as she flew, while Min Tao and the other pursued Mira Wells, firing nonstop. They had no idea why Mira Wells was so fixated on Tu Ran, but they strained every muscle to draw her attention.

As she ran, Tu Ran spotted a thick stone pillar. She darted behind it, and a searing jet of flame slammed into the pillar right behind her. The heat waves that surged past her sides, mixed with sparks, were so intense that even wearing the auto-regulating combat suit, Tu Ran could feel the burn—which gave her a grim idea of what would happen if she were caught in that fire directly.