Chapter 127: Kyle’s End

To be honest, when Bucky lost control and launched his attack, Taras still harbored a sliver of hope that the Winter Soldier—the Red Room’s strongest asset, yet one it had never been able to fully control—might somehow kill Kyle by accident.

But when he saw Kyle take Bucky’s most powerful mechanical punch head-on, Taras felt as though a basin of ice water had been poured over both body and soul.

That was a mechanical fist with more than ten times the power of a human blow! And Kyle had simply taken it head-on?

Then, as Taras watched the Winter Soldier—the Red Room’s proudest masterpiece—being tossed around and tormented like a punching bag in Kyle’s hands, he was left so utterly shocked that he could no longer speak.

“What’s going on?”

The other two senior officials heard the unexpected commotion and hurried outside the base. When they saw Kyle fighting the rampaging Winter Soldier, they could only suffer inwardly.

“Winter Soldier, stand down!”

As the Red Room executive responsible for brainwashing the Winter Soldier, he was about to step forward and issue the command that would restrain Bucky. But under Yutong’s telekinetic control of the surrounding firearms, he was forced to stop more than ten meters away.

“No one is allowed to come any closer.”

Yutong spread her small, fair hand. Silver light shimmered in her eyes as she used her extraordinary mental powers to control the entire situation, preventing anyone from interfering with the battle between Kyle and the Winter Soldier.

Though calling it a “battle” was generous. It looked far more like one-sided abuse.

Bang!

At the center of the battlefield, Kyle violently dragged the Winter Soldier by his mechanical arm. He swung the man around in a full circle before suddenly hurling him away with all his strength.

The Winter Soldier flew through the air once more. His face remained expressionless as he landed on both feet, the mechanical arm anchoring itself against the concrete. He carved three deep furrows into the ground as he slid backward, finally coming to a halt amid a cloud of dust.

“Not bad,” Kyle said with an impartial appraisal. “You’re almost as strong as Steve.”

Bucky, the Winter Soldier, was only slightly weaker than Steve, the shield-bearing Captain America. Their physical strength and combat skills were nearly identical. The only difference was that one possessed an adamantium shield capable of absorbing tremendous damage, while the other had a powerful mechanical arm built for offense.

One attacked while the other endured. A perfect pair of bitterly matched lovers.

But Kyle did not care how powerful their attacks were. When it came to overwhelming force, Captain America, the Winter Soldier, and Black Widow were all little more than younger siblings in his eyes.

“St—Steve?”

At the sound of that name, Bucky seemed to recall something. Emotion returned to his hollow, indifferent eyes. Clutching his throbbing head with both hands, he began muttering to himself.

“I knew it. Even if you forgot my name, you wouldn’t forget Steve Rogers.”

Kyle smiled and slowly approached him, continuing to guide him with his words.

“Have you forgotten? Steve was your closest friend. You once saved him from gangsters in the streets of New York, and Steve once broke into a German factory to rescue you.”

Steve’s name was like a key. It drove Bucky to clutch his head and roll back and forth across the ground as a sealed vault of memories was forcibly opened.

Outside the battlefield, the Red Room executive whispered urgently when he saw what was happening.

“This is bad. The Winter Soldier’s original memories are beginning to return.”

“With that man there, there’s nothing we can do,” Norris, another senior official, said with a shake of his head. “We’re powerless.”

Kyle looked at Bucky rolling on the ground and continued moving closer.

“You, Steve, and I were carrying out a mission together. To save Steve, you threw yourself from a speeding train and fell hundreds of meters down an icy mountain cliff.”

“Steve… a speeding train… an icy mountain cliff…”

Bucky shuddered. His tightly shut eyes snapped open, and he looked up at Kyle beside him. Gradually, the light of awareness returned to his gaze.

“Welcome back, Sergeant Bucky.”

Kyle bent down and extended his hand. Bucky gripped it firmly with his mechanical left hand and rose to his feet with the aid of its enhanced strength.

His first words left everyone nearby stunned.

“Major Kyle, I never expected to meet you here.”

Major?

Kyle’s expression turned strange as he nodded. It had been a very long time since anyone had called him that.

“What? Is something wrong?” Bucky asked, scratching his head.

Logan walked over carrying Natasha and explained, “The boss was promoted to major general a long time ago. Of course, after the war ended, he applied for retirement.”

“Major general? Wait—you said the war ended?”

Bucky stared blankly. During his time being brainwashed in the Red Room, he had not even realized that more than half a year had passed outside.

“I’ll tell you on the flight back, along with what happened to Steve.”

Kyle patted Bucky on the shoulder reassuringly, then swept his gaze over the Red Room personnel.

“I can kill them for you. What do you say?”

His icy words were utterly undisguised. The Red Room’s armed soldiers and senior officials went pale, trembling as they stared at Bucky.

Bucky gave the Red Room executives a deep look before shaking his head.

“Forget it. They did save my life, in a way. As for their brainwashing and control, consider it my repayment to them.”

Upon hearing this, the people from the Red Room collapsed weakly to the ground in relief.

“Then let’s go.”

Kyle was unconcerned. He turned and walked out of the base, with Logan, Bucky, and the others following behind.

Not long after they left, the firearms hovering above the base lost Yutong’s telekinetic control and came crashing down like rain.

On the transport aircraft arranged by Howard’s people, they began their return journey to New York.

“So that’s how it is. That fool Steve actually… Kyle, you really ended the Second World War? A superhero who symbolizes peace?”

Bucky sighed repeatedly as he absorbed the new information, his emotions fluctuating between sorrow and astonishment. He had never imagined that so much could have happened during the more than six months he had spent in the Red Room. He remained dazed for quite some time.

When he learned that Steve had piloted a fighter plane into the ocean and vanished along with it, his fate unknown, Bucky sat motionless in his seat and sighed again and again.

Logan placed the unconscious Natasha in a seat. Then, as though he had suddenly noticed something, he stared sharply at Kyle’s face in surprise.

“Boss, your chin…”

“Hm?”

Kyle raised an eyebrow and reached down to touch his chin. A smear of slightly viscous blood coated his fingers.

It was a small wound caused by Bucky’s earlier punch. It had yet to heal.

“Sergeant Bucky, correct? Is your mechanical arm made of sodium-carbon steel?” Logan asked.

“Sodium-carbon steel?” Bucky muttered. He raised his mechanical left arm in confusion and shook his head. “It’s just a mechanical prosthetic made from hardened steel.”

“Then why…”

Logan had only gotten halfway through the question when Kyle interrupted him.

“Don’t worry. I’m fine.”

“Boss, can you get hurt too?” Yutong asked curiously.

She had seen Kyle injured before, but even wounds of enormous scale caused by a nuclear explosion had healed completely within seconds.

“It’s only a minor injury.”

Kyle answered calmly, quietly clenching both fists. Inside, however, he was nowhere near as composed as he appeared.

While they had still been at the Red Room base, he had discovered that his healing ability had stopped working.

Not truly stopped—it had merely been temporarily suppressed by the changes taking place within his body, preventing it from manifesting.

As expected, the nuclear explosion he had endured in Tokyo had caused some unknown and serious problem in his body.

“When we reach the airport, Logan, take them back to the estate first. I’m going to make a trip to Stark Industries. There’s something I need to discuss with Howard,” Kyle instructed.

“No problem.” Logan nodded.

“Yutong, your telekinetic abilities are well suited to dealing with Bucky if he loses control again. Keep a close eye on him.”

As he spoke, Kyle walked over and tousled Yutong’s small head. She nodded solemnly and obediently.

Kyle still did not know what was wrong with his body or why his healing ability had failed. There was no need to reveal it and cause unnecessary worry among the members of the Carr family.

But he himself had to have Howard discover the root of the problem as quickly as possible.

It was deep in the night in New York.

On the fifty-second floor of the Stark Industries building, in the medical research division, the entire level was silent. The only person present was Howard, dressed in a white coat, operating medical testing equipment inside a brightly lit isolation ward. His face was tense as he hurried through a series of examinations.

Inside the advanced medical capsule, Kyle lay naked on his back. His perfectly sculpted body resembled an artwork forged from steel as green beams of light swept repeatedly over him.

Half an hour later, the medical capsule opened. Kyle seemed to sense it and sat up, pulling on a simple shirt.

Howard removed his mask and exhaled deeply. He looked at Kyle with an unprecedented gravity.

“I haven’t obtained all the detailed test results yet, but I have a general idea of what’s happening to your body.”

“Go on.”

Kyle nodded calmly, without the slightest trace of panic on his face.

“Your body has absorbed a massive amount of nuclear radiation. At one-thousandth of this level, an ordinary person would already suffer dizziness, fever, and similar symptoms. At one percent, they would be tormented by illness and die within a few years.”

Howard gave a bitter smile.

“With that much radiation penetrating your bones, the fact that you’re still alive can only be described as superhuman.”

“Of course, you really are ‘superhuman.’ Your metabolism is more than five times that of an ordinary human, while your strength, speed, and stamina are all ten times greater. You’re practically the perfect evolution of mankind. This should be the theoretical pinnacle of what the super-soldier serum can achieve.”

“And then there’s your astonishing healing speed. Your blood contains a mysterious factor. It’s precisely because of that factor that the symptoms of radiation sickness inside your body have been suppressed and neutralized.”

Howard clicked his tongue in amazement.

Kyle propped up his chin. “So, aside from losing my healing ability, there hasn’t been any major impact on my body?”

“How could that be?”

Howard frowned and shook his head.

“The radiation-induced illness isn’t the main issue. Your super-soldier genes had originally stabilized into a near-perfect state. But now, under the influence of the radiation, they’ve begun slowly breaking apart and collapsing as they attempt to reorganize.”

“Will I mutate a second time? Or perhaps undergo my first latent mutation?” Kyle mused.

“You still don’t understand how serious this is,” Howard said.

“If you become stronger than you are now without sacrificing your natural lifespan, then that would be evolution.”

He paused, then continued slowly and with difficulty.

“The genes currently undergoing reorganization may indeed produce powerful abilities. But before that reorganization is complete, you will gradually lose your abilities—and eventually your life. Genetic power is like a flood breaking its banks. Even the strength of your current superhuman body won’t be able to hold it back for long.”

Kyle’s entire body trembled once, but he still asked calmly, “Approximately how much time do I have left?”

“Less than a year.”

Howard’s words fell like a decree from the god of death, announcing the final stretch of Kyle’s life.