Chapter 824: Lake Akali

Chapter 824: Chapter 824: Lake Akali

The Lake Akali Dam, located in central Alberta, Canada, was the U.S. military’s secret military base and also the site of the infamous Weapon X Program.

It was approximately 3,500 kilometers from New York, clearly too far for a helicopter to fly directly.

But for the Minotaur armor, equipped with alien technology such as a super-ejection acceleration system, getting here took little more than the blink of an eye.

After arriving, however, Minotaur didn’t simply charge straight into the secret base.

Henry still needed to study his route of entry.

He couldn’t alert the enemy too early and give his targets a chance to escape.

The dam itself wasn’t particularly large. Fitting a military research facility inside its structure would normally have been impossible.

But after conducting an on-site inspection, it became clear that the dam’s main structure was merely an upper-level passage used for entering and exiting.

The actual base occupied an enormous underground area that extended beneath the surrounding Lake Akali industrial district as well.

There were two entrances, one large and one small.

One was an ordinary access passage for workers maintaining the equipment inside the dam, with nothing more than a standard metal door.

The other was the reservoir’s spillway, which was large enough for heavy trucks to enter and exit.

From the movie, Henry knew that the base’s control center operated the water gates.

If outsiders or intruders entered, the U.S. military could simply release the water and wash away anyone who entered through the spillway.

The Minotaur armor, which made extensive use of Isu technology, was considerably smaller than the Green Arrow Duck armor, which relied entirely on mechanical technology.

Even after stripping away its feathered exterior disguise, Green Arrow Duck wasn’t much smaller.

It couldn’t fit through the ordinary passage and doorway meant for pedestrians.

So Minotaur could enter the dam directly through the metal door instead of using the spillway.

The disadvantage was that there were guards stationed near the door.

But there were surveillance cameras covering the spillway as well, so strictly speaking, the difficulty of infiltration was about the same.

Henry brought up the underground base’s structural map obtained by the Sparrow drones, along with the movement and distribution of personnel.

This kind of covert infiltration and target assassination wasn’t a mathematical problem where you simply chose the shortest route.

He needed to find the route with the fewest guards and infiltrate the base without alerting anyone.

Only then could the operation be considered a success.

The idea that stealth assassination was successful as long as every witness ended up dead was nothing more than self-deception.

Besides, Minotaur hadn’t come here today intending to carry out a massacre.

That wasn’t merely an excuse he’d given the immortals back home to maintain his image.

He genuinely didn’t want to kill everyone.

Those unrelated personnel weren’t his targets.

There was no reward for killing them, and bullets cost money too.

Even if he manufactured the ammunition himself, didn’t that still take time and effort?

Why waste it on people who had nothing to do with his objectives?

...The person inside the Minotaur armor suddenly felt that his thinking had been influenced again.

Still, it was fine.

As long as he didn’t go completely insane like Homelander, that was enough.

After reviewing the intelligence he’d gathered, Minotaur formed what it considered a "reasonable" infiltration route.

The feeling was rather strange, as though it had known from the beginning that this was the most efficient way to proceed.

Previously, whenever Henry planned tactics, he had relied on his superbrain to use brute-force enumeration—listing every possible option, every possible development, and the eventual outcome of each, before selecting the optimal result.

This time was different.

His brain simply provided the answer directly.

Once he thought about it in depth, he could immediately come up with all sorts of advantages to this approach, as well as the critical moments and locations he needed to pay attention to in order to minimize the possibility of an accident.

Before he could figure out what had caused this change, a small window popped up in the helmet’s display, informing him that friendly units were approaching.

Just like aircraft had transponders that could automatically identify friend or foe and determine identities, Henry’s various self-made suits naturally had similar functions.

In fact, whenever they were activated, once two units came within a certain range of one another, they would automatically establish a connection and exchange information about the surrounding terrain and environment.

This automatic function had existed since the design of the first auxiliary machine, Little Duck.

After all, a suit of armor relied heavily on environmental information to operate normally.

The more information it received, the lighter the computational burden became.

It was like how humans could see with their eyes, hear with their ears, and smell with their noses.

Using all this information, people could avoid obstacles while walking, remain alert to the direction of unusual sounds, and either avoid or actively seek out the source of a particular smell.

Once a person lost all five senses, they could only grope their way forward with their hands and feet, inevitably making movement much more difficult.

Machines worked the same way.

As long as another machine from the same system was nearby, this kind of information exchange would automatically be established.

Other systems would connect as well, informing their respective users that friendly units were nearby.

Minotaur immediately saw the notifications indicating that Aetos, Minotaur, and Bonnie had all come online.

He helplessly spoke over the internal communications channel.

"Why did you all come here...?"

Minotaur armor: "I came out to buy some beer."

Bonnie armor: "I came to buy some dried meat."

Aetos armor: "I... I just happened to be passing through."

"Heh. You came all the way from New York to this middle of nowhere just to buy beer and dried meat."

Henry ignored the one who was "just passing through."

He had no idea where they’d learned that ancient internet slang, so there was nothing he could say.

The three suits of armor appearing behind Minotaur vividly reproduced the facial expressions of their occupants on the exterior, and all three awkwardly scratched their faces.

Minotaur’s eyes projected a 3D terrain map, displaying the fully scouted military facility inside the dam, along with important surrounding structures.

"Since you’re already here, help me out."

Minotaur pointed at a certain hill on the terrain map.

It was the highest point in the surrounding area.

"Bonnie, go here. This position is suitable for long-range sniping. You can monitor the dam’s personnel entrance and exit from the front, and you can also conduct electronic warfare from there, blocking satellite signals and radio communications."

The others looked surprised.

"Eh? Bonnie armor can do that?"

Radio jamming sounded somewhat unfamiliar to these old-timers, but it wasn’t impossible for them to understand.

They thought the technology was rather advanced for this era, but they hadn’t realized that they themselves could use it.

Minotaur honestly explained, "Actually, every suit of armor has this capability. The difference is only in how far each one can take it. The rabbit ears on Bonnie armor are specialized electronic-warfare equipment. It’s particularly good at this."

He then pointed to another location on the terrain map and highlighted it in red.

"Minotaur, go destroy the facilities here. Focus on the external communications cables."

"Cut off both the wireless and wired lines. Turn this base into an electronic island so we don’t have to worry about them calling for reinforcements or communicating with the outside."

"After that, you can come here—"

Minotaur pointed to the exit of the spillway.

"—and block the enemy from using vehicles to enter or leave."

"Although I didn’t see any tanks inside, there are still several armored vehicles and heavy trucks. Small-caliber bullets won’t penetrate those things."

Since they hadn’t coordinated their equipment before leaving, Minotaur had simply brought whatever weapons he could find with the largest caliber.

What he was carrying on his back weren’t machine guns at all.

They were practically small cannons.

The Minotaur armor looked confused after being assigned the task.

"Don’t need me to charge in and kill everyone with you? I brought out the big stuff. The firepower is definitely enough."

"The only problem is that I don’t have much ammunition, and your own reserves aren’t exactly plentiful either. Before leaving, I practically cleaned out all the large-caliber ammunition at the base."

Minotaur helplessly rubbed his forehead and shook his head.

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