Volume 38 - The Frozen Timebomb

## Chapter 445 - Arrival

Their ship landed, through the blizzard, in a docking bay in Lacenope, as they all walked out, and looked around. The Yeti-like Larquds were cleaning and repairing ships, and didn't much seem to mind the cold.

"Excuse me." Candice says, walking up to one of the Larquds. "Where can we find Karim?"

"...Who?" The Larqud asks back."

"He's a terrorist." Jack explains. "And we think he's here to infect you all with a zombie virus."

"What's a zombie?" The Larqud demands.

"...Nevermind." Jack mutters. "You have sightings of him, right?"

"Of a human like you, yes." The Larqud responds. "In this very city."

## Chapter 446 - Snowstorm

Though there were roads, it didn't seem the Larquds travelled by car. Instead, there were metro tunnels in the air and, presumably beneath their feet.

As they walked, they saw mothers and fathers reading to children, mothers and fathers cooking, and outside the homes were somewhat rudimentary drones.

"It must be so cold..." Kasper remarks, before they walk into a train station to look for clues, and notice him, black trenchcoat and all. Karim was here, and about to walk onto the train!

"Hey!" Jack shouts, as he leaps to the ground level of the building to run after Karim, who walked into the train.

## Chapter 447 - High Speed Tussle

As the train began to leave, Jack leaped onto its roof, ducking beneath beams and sliding beside cables. It seemed these things were designed for the environment outside the tunnel, given the outside looked freezing cold. He uses a grappling hook to anchor himself as he lowers down so his feet touch a door, waving his gun at the Larquds inside before they opened it to let him in. It wasn't long after that he saw Karim walking to a different train car, and ran after him in pursuit. It had been a while since he'd seen him, maybe, at long last, Jack could defeat him. Hopefully...for this world's fate.

## Chapter 448 - Kickdown

"Karim!" Jack shouts, as Karim stops walking, knowing Jack had his gun pointed at him.

"Long time no see, Jack." Karim remarks.

"We're not gonna let you infect this world!" Jack continues to shout, as Karim merely smiles.

"You don't get it." He retorts, taking his gun out of a pocket. "I already have."

And then, he whirls around to fire at Jack, who, shocked narrowly dodges the bullets and leaps behind a train seat, firing back at Karim who seemed to ignore the bullets entirely.

"Ghhh!" Jack growls, holstering his gun, taking out a combat knife, and rushing at Karim to try and stab him with it.

Karim grabs Jack's wrist and throws him into a wall, creating a Jack-shaped dent in the train car and severely cracking both windows hit, before grabbing the knife and throwing it into a wall, then throwing Jack through multiple seats.

"Guh!" Jack grunts, getting back up to swing a kick at Karim, who merely blocks with his forearm, grabs Jack's leg, and slams him to the ground, kicking him in the stomach before he can get back up, causing him to be sent flying into the back of the train car, creating a Jack-shaped dent there as well.

"Argh!" Jack yelps, falling to the ground as multiple parts of his body felt broken.

## Chapter 449 - Beatdown

Jack notices Karim reloading, and is quick to fire at his gun, failing to simply knock it out of his hand that way, before kicking at Karim, who holsters his gun and punches Jack in the face, partly cracking his visor and sending him into the ceiling.

Jack points his gun at Karim, who merely grabs it, rips it out of Jack's hand, crushes it in his own with the sound of multiple metal clinks, and throws the pieces at a wall!

"NO!" Jack screams, as Karim grabs him by the neck to pull him out of the ceiling and throw him through three more seats. Jack groans in pain, but forces himself to get back up yet again.

Jack kicks Karim again, this time just focusing on the kicks, as though Karim grabbed both his legs, he punched him in the face repeatedly to make him lose his balance.

Jack was quick to kick Karim again the moment he began to stumble, aiming to trip him up more, to which end he tied his grappling hook around Karim's ankles, which finally sent Karim falling to the ground.

Jack stood over Karim, unholstering a taser to prepare to paralyze the terrorist with it. However, when he crouched down to do so, he suddenly felt a searing, piercing pain in his chest, and looked down to see Karim's fingers digging into it!

## Chapter 450 - Contact

Jack coughed up a bit of blood after having briefly gone into shock, before feeling Karim twist a portion of his ribcage around and throw him back, Jack curling up into a fetal position and wheezing raspily with a dry cough that released more blood.

He didn't notice his opponent rising back up, and walking slowly towards him, before it was too late, as he saw only his seemingly glowing red eyes on his silhouette above him.

Karim grabs Jack by the neck again, and drags him across the floor before slamming him into a window to shatter it, Jack wheezing more, having been attempting to scream.

"You're always gonna be out of your league, huh?" Karim remarks. "Perhaps I misjudged you. You were never gonna be a worthy opponent."

He then raises his gun to Jack's chest, his finger on the trigger, staring directly into his bloodshot eyes.

"STOP!" Andromeda shrieks, as Karim turns his gaze towards her and the others, who had gotten on the train as well, smiling at them.

"You're too late." Karim taunts, firing a bullet and dropping Jack out of the train before holding up a purple grenade!

"YOU SON OF A BITCH!" Andromeda roars, rushing at Karim as he pulls the pin, causing a massive explosion in the train car!

## Chapter 451 - Immediate Medical Attention

"SOMEONE, PLEASE HELP!" Andromeda screams, carrying a completely limp Jack through the storm. The bullet had only just managed to pierce his suit, not penetrating the skin, but the wound Karim inflicted with his hand was severe, and Jack had fallen unconscious.

"ANYONE! PLEASE!" Andromeda continues to scream, starting to cry hard. She falls to her knees and, holding Jack close, sobs, before they hear stomping and see a Larqud who wore what looked like a medic's hat.

"If you wish for him to live, then please, come with me." He says, walking to his home as they follow suit.

## Chapter 452 - Detection?

"Strange..." The Jarqud remarks. "I don't detect any of this 'zombie virus' in his system. I guess I don't know what I'm really looking for, but he doesn't seem infected."

"Karim must be able to control it, somehow." Shunsuke remarks. "He probably chose not to infect Jack, we'd likely not be as lucky."

"LUCKY?!" Andromeda shrieks, nearly giving Shunsuke a death glare, before catching herself and stopping, turning back towards Jack with a gravely worried expression. "Please...please don't die..."

They all look on in sadness and worry, as the Jarqud worked with the precision of any surgeon.

## Chapter 453 - Recovered but Not

Jack sat next to a window, looking out at the blizzard, as he was wrapped in bandages and had splints on most of his limbs. His chest still hurt, even if he knew his ribcage had been fixed back into place and the healing agent in his body would repair it quick.

If Karim had twisted his ribs a tiny bit more, he would be dead.

"...I'm still...not strong enough..." He whispers, bowing his head down and closing his eyes.

"Jack...you'll never be 'strong' enough." Shunsuke replies. "Karim's been a superhuman for centuries, he has experience almost no one else in the galaxy has. He's always been out of all of our leagues individually. This isn't even a friendship speech, though I do think you're letting this obsession with beating him consume you. This is the truth. We stand the best chance of beating him together, not alone. There is strength in numbers and it's the only type of strength we've got that will defeat him."

Jack didn't respond for a while, because he knew Shunsuke was right.

There was no way he'd surpass a two-hundred-year old supersoldier...

"Jack...please..." Kasper piped in. "...you need to stop treating this like something you can do alone."

"We're here for you." Candice says. "You don't *need* to do this alone. We *all* wanna stop him, together."

Jack still didn't say anything, since there was nothing to say.

And then, Andromeda sat beside him, and hugged him gently, her face wet with tears.

"I was so scared..." She whimpers. "I-I thought...I thought I lost you..."

He teared up, and hugged her back to the best of his ability.

They were all right. They needed to do this, together.

## Chapter 454 - Red Alert

Suddenly, they hear loud sirens!

"Wh-what?!" Kasper shouts.

"...It's happening" The medic remarks. "This world will...soon be no more. We need to evacuate."

As he walked away, Andromeda looked on, her eyes starting to water again as she remembered that her own homeworld had been befallen. No one deserved this...for their homeworld to be destroyed.

"We don't have time to stop Karim..." Shunsuke breathes. "He's probably already put the vials in place. We just need to escape like he's probably doing and track him down again."

"...Right..." Jack replies weakly, as Andromeda picks him up and they walk back to their ship.

## Chapter 455 - The Icy Cataclysm

In the swarm of evacuation shuttles, was the team's spaceship. They looked out the back to see orange cracks of lava form in the world, it wasn't long after that, that the cracks glowed brightly, and the world erupted into a mess of fire and fragments. All the history, all the reserves and monuments to the Larqud's past and legacy, gone, in the blink of an eye.

Now, all that remained were the Larqud themselves, and the team knew very well, that on some of those asteroids, were pieces of biomass Karim had planted there.

They had failed.

## Chapter 456 - The Next Target

"...You failed to stop him...?" Reuben demands.

"Yes...we weren't infected ourselves, but...now there's infected asteroids everywhere." Shunsuke explains, as Jack remained silent. Reuben put his hand on his forehead, closing his eyes and sighing, before looking at them again.

"I never expected you five to fail this badly." He retorts. "And it was because Jack ran in headfirst?"

None of them responded, but Reuben groaned.

"Karim is heading towards Gnayiliv 5X." He explains. "We need all of you at the top of your game, and for you to take him in, as a team."

"Don't worry, we will." Kasper replies.

"If you fail this mission..." Reuben says. "...you will be ejected from the military."