The main gate of the fortress was designed to withstand an artillery barrage.
It was a colossal slab of reinforced neo-steel, twenty meters thick, laced with energy-dispersing alloys. It was, by all accounts, impregnable.
It was not, however, designed to withstand Pham Tuan.
From five kilometers out, he began his run. It started as a jog, then a sprint, then an all-out charge that tore up the jungle floor. He wasn't running like a man. He was running like a natural disaster. Trees in his path didn't just get pushed aside; they were uprooted, their roots ripped from the earth by the sheer force of his passage.
Quynh Nhu, keeping pace effortlessly from the canopy, clicked her tongue over the comms. "Show-off. You're going to have to replant all of those later, you know."
Pham Tuan didn't answer. He was focused. Lin Ming had given him a single, simple instruction: "Be the battering ram."
He was taking that instruction very, very literally.
The ten-man Madakaros squad guarding the gate heard him before they saw him. It started as a low rumble, like distant thunder.
"What's that noise?" one of them asked, peering out into the twilight.
"Probably just Gary having a bad dream," another grunted, not looking up from the device he was cleaning.
The rumble grew louder. The ground began to shake. The guards exchanged uneasy glances. This wasn't a dream. This was a freight train.
Then, he burst from the treeline.
Pham Tuan was a vision of controlled violence. His body was encased in a shimmering, diamond-like light—the full manifestation of his Earth Qi. He looked less like a man and more like a human-shaped meteor that had decided to take a horizontal trajectory.
The guards stared, their three eyes wide with disbelief. Their training had prepared them for firefights, for sieges, for aerial assaults. It had not prepared them for a single, terrifyingly large human who seemed intent on running through a solid metal wall.
"FIRE!" the squad leader screamed, finally snapping out of his shock.
The phase-energy cannons mounted on the walls swiveled and unleashed hell. Beams of incandescent green energy lanced through the air, converging on Pham Tuan's position.
They struck his diamond shell and... splashed. Like water hitting a hot pan. They sizzled, they steamed, but they did not penetrate. He didn't even slow down.
High above, Quynh Nhu went to work.
Her rifle, a weapon of surgical precision, began to sing. Each shot was a whisper of death.
Pfft. The operator of the left cannon slumped over, a neat, smoking hole in his helmet.
Pfft. The right cannon's operator followed suit.
Pfft. Pfft. Pfft. Three guards on the gate's upper catwalk dropped in quick succession, their rifles clattering to the ground. She wasn't just a sniper; she was an artist, and the battlefield was her canvas.
Down below, Pham Tuan reached the gate.
He didn't try to find a weak spot. He didn't use any fancy techniques.
He simply lowered his shoulder and slammed into twenty meters of "impregnable" neo-steel.
BOOOOOOM!
The sound was not a crash. It was a sonic boom, a physical concussion that cracked the very stone of the mountain. The colossal gate, a masterpiece of defensive engineering, buckled. A spiderweb of fractures spread from the point of impact. It bulged inwards, groaning in protest.
The remaining guards on the ground stared, their minds unable to comprehend what they were seeing.
Pham Tuan took a step back, shook his head like a bull preparing for a second charge, and hit it again.
CRACK-KOOOOM!
This time, the gate gave way. The central section, where Pham Tuan had struck, shattered inwards, sending massive, multi-ton chunks of twisted metal flying into the courtyard behind it.
He had created a door. A very large, very messy door.
He stood there for a moment, panting, surrounded by a crater of his own making. He looked at the gaping hole in the fortress's main defense.
"Knock, knock," he grunted into his comms.
Meanwhile, Gary the Gnasher was having a very confusing day.
First, there was the divinely delicious snack that had appeared out of nowhere. It had been the single greatest culinary experience of his three lives.
Then came the loud, Japanese-sounding yell from the direction of the mess hall, followed by a bright blue flash.
And now, his front door had just been kicked in by a shiny, diamond-hard human.
He sat up on his heated rock, all three heads now wide awake and alert. He was the guardian of this fortress. It was his job to deal with intruders. But his instincts were telling him two very different things.
His guardian instinct screamed: ATTACK! NEUTRALIZE THE SHINY THREAT!
But his stomach, which still fondly remembered the snack, whispered: Wait a minute... that's the snack-bringer's friend. Maybe he has more snacks.
Gary was conflicted.
He let out a low growl, a warning shot. But he didn't charge. He just watched as Pham Tuan and a pink-haired girl who had just dropped from the sky began to systematically and efficiently dismantle the remaining gate guards.
His job was to guard the gate. Technically, the gate was now gone. Did his job description cover guarding a hole? It was a philosophical dilemma.
He decided to wait and see if more snacks were forthcoming. It was the logical choice.