Jason gazed at the brilliant light illuminating the night sky and exhaled with relief. The plan was complete.
Now, all that remained was to wait for the harvest.
He jostled the massive ammunition box behind him, noting it was still half full. No sense in wasting good ordinance.
"Might as well use it all," he muttered to himself as he resumed firing.
Rata-tat-tat...
The two missiles launched from the arsenal were instantly detected by the radar systems at Bagram Air Force Base.
The operators stared in disbelief at the rapidly approaching trajectories on their screens, their worldviews shattering once again.
It was bad enough that this devil wielded a machine gun with superhuman precision, but missiles too?
How outrageous could one devil be?
Given the short distance between the arsenal and Bagram base, they had less than two minutes to respond, making long-range interception virtually impossible.
Their only hope lay with the short-range interceptor missiles and the Phalanx defense system.
Meanwhile, two Jericho missiles soared above the cloud layer.
Bathed in moonlight, they gleamed with silvery brilliance, their fuselages proudly displaying the words "Made by Stark Industries."
By chance, they crossed paths with three fighter jets, passing each other at a distance of several hundred meters.
The missiles continued toward their destination as the onboard computer lowered their altitude and adjusted their flight path.
Below lay Bagram Air Force Base, its lights blazing and sirens wailing.
Dive. Deeper.
With ample fuel reserves, the missiles continued to accelerate, soon breaking the sound barrier and approaching Mach 2.
Suddenly, several flashes erupted from the base as interceptor missiles launched skyward, racing toward them with mutually assured destruction.
But the Jericho missiles were Stark's masterpieces. With an elegant flick of their tail fins and a twist of their bodies, they created distance between themselves and the interceptors.
Even when the interceptors detonated, the shrapnel couldn't touch them.
Closer. Almost there.
More than a dozen Phalanx arrays within the base opened fire simultaneously. The hail of bullets was so dense that not even a fly should have been able to pass through.
But just as the Phalanx systems unleashed their fury, the outer shells of the Jericho missiles peeled away.
Layer upon layer of submunitions dispersed like deadly blossoms raining from heaven.
The dense defensive fire stopped some, but most broke through the barrage.
In the war room, everyone went cold, frozen in shock at the sight.
Glenn sighed. So it was the Jericho missile. There would be no escaping tonight.
Outside the window on the runway, a massive C-130 was taxiing. In just seconds, it would take off with the GBU-43 "Mother of All Bombs" in its belly.
Unfortunately, seconds were all they had left.
The sky was peppered with submunitions, glowing like the embers of a magnificent but fatal fireworks display.
Glenn cast one final glance at his personnel. "Everyone, it's been an honor serving with you..."
"BOOM!"
A violent, unprecedented explosion engulfed the entire Bagram base.
Some would later say that on that night, divine punishment descended upon Afghanistan.
All invaders trembled, and all criminals were annihilated.
The next morning, when support troops arrived from other bases, they found only scorched earth.
It was as if God had finished smoking a cigar and extinguished it there, leaving behind a charred circle hundreds of meters in radius.
This, of course, was courtesy of the GBU-43.
The mid-air detonation had left no survivors at Bagram Air Force Base.
The morning breeze was cool as Jason sat atop a mountain, observing the devastated arsenal base from afar.
Those three fighter jets from the previous night hadn't even had time to drop their payloads.
As they'd reached the arsenal, they'd lost all contact with Bagram Air Base, then witnessed a blinding explosion in the distance. They had no idea what had happened.
Without orders from command, they couldn't bring themselves to bomb an arsenal where their comrades might still be fighting to survive.
After circling the base twice, they were forced to return, only to discover their home base was gone—reduced to smoldering ruins.
After a brief discussion, the three pilots reluctantly flew to other bases.
The arsenal they'd abandoned had resisted for dozens of minutes amidst massacre and flames before finally falling silent.
As the sun rose, Jason reviewed the night's harvest.
His most significant gains were two kill streaks: the first from the Jericho missiles' submunitions, resulting in two hundred kills; the second from the GBU-43 explosion, yielding three hundred consecutive kills.
He'd also acquired dozens of gift packs of various tiers.
Among them, the most valuable were a three-star gold gift package and a four-star platinum gift package.
He couldn't help but lament that his first platinum gift package wasn't even five stars! The chances of obtaining something truly exceptional were significantly reduced.
But "reduced probability" didn't mean "impossible."
Having a habit of saving the best for last, he decisively opened all the gift packages except the platinum one.
After a series of system prompts, a long list of rewards appeared.
He gained a total of 595 free attribute points, and four skills: Archery Mastery, Sword Mastery, Hacker Mastery, and...
Skilled in Postpartum Care for Sows!
Jason remained unfazed. The system's eccentricity was perfectly normal—it would have been strange if it hadn't thrown in something absurd.
Fortunately, the gold gift package provided an incredible ability: Flight!
His eyes lit up with excitement.
"Looks like I won't be hanging around with you earthbound chickens anymore," he smirked.
However, upon closer examination, he discovered that the maximum speed of [Flight] was only 150 kilometers per hour.
"Damn, that's barely better than a chicken with a jetpack!" he muttered.
Though useful for showing off, if he wanted efficient transportation, he'd be better off buying a decent car!
Even so, Flight would compete with Dragon chi for priority when he obtained his next ability upgrade card.
Next, he allocated his attribute points.
Considering he might rarely have such an opportunity to obtain so many attribute points at once in the near future, he decided to prioritize combat power.
For defensive attributes, since he'd obtained the Vibranium Soft Armor and planned to wear it constantly, his defense combined with the armor was already formidable.
He only added a symbolic dozen points, bringing it to exactly 300.
The same applied to will attributes. With [Soul Defense], his mental safety was guaranteed, and he didn't need particularly high will attributes.
He increased this lightly to 280 points.
His original constitution was only 203 points, but with a wave of his hand, he raised it directly to 300.
The remainder went to strength and speed, which had the most obvious impact on combat effectiveness. Strength: 540, Speed: 419.
His speed and strength had increased dramatically, multiplying his combat power several times over.
With his current speed, he could move like a shadow warrior in combat, reminiscent of Quicksilver himself.
Ordinary human eyes simply couldn't track his movements.
Finally, only the platinum package remained.
Jason stood up facing east, toward the rising sun, and clasped his hands together. "Jade Emperor, Queen Mother, Tathagata Buddha, and the Ten Kings of Hell, bless me!" he proclaimed half-jokingly.
He opened the gift package.
[Congratulations on receiving the reward: Title: Hammer God.]
Immediately, the system name column changed.
[Name: Jason, AKA: Hammer God.]
"What the hell?" he muttered. "Hammer God? Seriously?"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Support me at [email protected]/goldengaruda and check out more chapter of this or more early access chapter of my other fanfic translation.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~