Kyle’s End

To be honest, when Bucky went out of control and attacked, Taras had still held out a sliver of hope. Perhaps the Winter Soldier—the Red Room’s strongest asset, yet one it had never fully controlled—might somehow kill Kyle by accident.

But when Taras saw Kyle withstand Bucky’s strongest mechanical blow head-on, it felt as though a bucket of ice water had been poured over him, chilling him to the bone.

That was a mechanical punch with more than ten times a human’s strength! And he had taken it head-on?

Then, as Taras watched the Winter Soldier, the Red Room’s proud masterpiece, get kneaded and battered like a punching bag by Kyle, he was so shocked he could not speak.

"What is going on?" The other two executives heard the commotion and hurried outside the base. When they saw Kyle fighting the berserk Winter Soldier, they inwardly groaned as well.

"Winter Soldier, stop!" As the executive in charge of brainwashing the Winter Soldier, one of the Red Room officials was about to step forward and issue an order to steady him. But under Yutong’s Mind Control over the firearms, he had no choice but to stop before getting within ten meters.

"No one is allowed to approach." Yutong spread her pale little hands, silver light glinting in her eyes. With her extraordinary telekinesis, she controlled the situation beyond the battlefield and prevented anyone from interfering in Kyle’s fight with the Winter Soldier.

Well, calling it a "fight" was more like one-sided "bullying."

Bang!

At the center of the battlefield, Kyle violently seized the Winter Soldier’s Mechanical Left Arm, swung his entire body in a full circle through the air, then hurled him away with tremendous force.

The Winter Soldier flew out once again without changing expression. His feet hit the ground, and with his Mechanical Left Arm gripping the concrete, he plowed three trenches through the ground before barely managing to steady himself amid the billowing dust.

"Not bad. You’re about as strong as Steve," Kyle said with an impartial assessment.

The Winter Soldier, Bucky, was not much weaker than Captain America Steve with his shield. Their physical strength and combat skills were nearly identical. The only difference was that one had the Adamantium Shield to withstand damage, while the other had a powerful Mechanical Left Arm for offense.

One attacked while the other took the hits. Loving and killing each other—nothing wrong with that.

Kyle did not care how strong anyone’s offense was. When it came to brute force, Captain America, the Winter Soldier, and Black Widow were all little brothers and sisters in his eyes.

"St-Steve?" Upon hearing that name, Bucky seemed to recall something. Emotion surfaced in his hollow, cold eyes as he clutched his throbbing head and muttered to himself.

"I knew it. Even if you forgot my name, you wouldn’t forget Steve Rogers." Kyle smiled and slowly approached Bucky, continuing to guide him. "Have you forgotten? Steve was your closest friend. You once saved him from thugs in the streets of New York, and Steve once broke into a German factory to rescue you."

Steve’s name was like a key. Bucky clutched his head and rolled back and forth on the ground as the sealed vault of his memories was forcibly opened.

Seeing this, the Red Room executive outside the battle anxiously whispered, "This is bad. The Winter Soldier’s original memories are about to awaken."

"With that man here, there is nothing we can do. We’re powerless," another executive, Norris, said with a shake of his head.

Kyle looked at Bucky rolling on the ground and continued as he approached. "You, me, and Steve were on a mission together. To save Steve, you were thrown from a high-speed train and fell from an icy cliff hundreds of meters high."

"Steve… speeding train… icy cliff…" Bucky shuddered. His tightly shut eyes suddenly flew open, and as he looked up at Kyle beside him, clarity gradually returned to his eyes.

"Welcome back, Sergeant Bucky." Kyle bent down and extended his hand. Bucky gripped it heavily with his Mechanical Left Arm and rose to his feet with Kyle’s help.

His first words left everyone around them stunned. "Major Kyle, I didn’t expect to run into you here."

Major?

Kyle nodded with an odd expression. No one had called him that in a long time.

"What, is that wrong?" Bucky scratched his head.

Logan carried Natasha over and explained, "The boss was promoted to major general long ago. Of course, after the war ended, he applied for retirement."

"Major general? Wait, you said the war ended?" Bucky froze. During his time being brainwashed by the Red Room, even he did not know that more than half a year had passed outside.

"I’ll tell you on the flight back, including what happened to Steve." Kyle reassuringly patted Bucky’s shoulder, then swept his gaze over the Red Room personnel. "I can help you kill them. What do you say?"

As those openly chilling words fell, the armed Red Room soldiers and executives turned pale. Trembling all over, they stared straight at Bucky.

Bucky gave the Red Room executive a long look, then shook his head. "Forget it. They did save my life. As for the brainwashing and control they put me through, I’ll consider it repayment."

Hearing this, the people of the Red Room collapsed to the ground in relief.

"Then let’s go." Kyle did not particularly care. He headed out of the base, with Logan, Bucky, and the others following behind.

Not long after they left, the firearms floating over the base lost Yutong’s Mind Control and rained down onto the ground.

On Howard’s arrangements, they boarded a transport fighter bound for New York.

"Is that so? Steve actually… Kyle, you ended World War II?… A superhero, the Symbol of Peace?"

Faced with all this new information, Bucky was filled with mixed emotions—sadness and surprise alike. He had never expected so much to happen during his more than half a year in the Red Room, and he remained dazed for quite some time.

Especially after learning that Steve had flown his fighter into the ocean and vanished along with it, with his fate unknown, he sat blankly in his seat and sighed repeatedly.

Logan placed the unconscious Natasha in a seat. His sharp eyes seemed to notice something, and he looked at Kyle’s face in surprise. "Boss, your chin…"

"Hm?" Kyle raised a brow and wiped his chin. A little sticky blood smeared across his fingers.

It was the tiny wound Bucky’s punch had caused earlier. It had yet to heal.

"Sergeant Bucky, right? Is your mechanical arm made of Sodium-Carbon Steel?" Logan asked Bucky.

"Sodium-Carbon Steel?" Bucky muttered. He raised his Mechanical Left Arm blankly and shook his head. "It’s only made from mechanical parts of refined steel."

"Then why…" Logan was cut off halfway through by Kyle. "Don’t worry. I’m fine."

"Boss, you can get hurt too?" Yutong asked curiously. She had seen Kyle injured before, but even the massive wounds caused by a nuclear blast had healed completely within seconds.

"It’s just a minor wound." Kyle answered calmly, though his fists quietly tightened. He was far less calm inside than he appeared.

Back at the Red Room base, he had discovered that his self-healing ability had failed—not truly failed, but temporarily suppressed by a mutation within his body, unable to manifest.

Sure enough. After enduring the nuclear blast in Tokyo, some unknown and serious problem had emerged in his body.

"After we arrive at the airport, Logan, take them back to the manor first. I’ll make a trip to Stark Industries. I have something to discuss with Howard," Kyle instructed.

"No problem." Logan nodded.

"Yutong, your Mind Control can handle Bucky’s loss of control well. Keep a close eye on him." As Kyle gave the instruction, he walked over and ruffled Yutong’s little head. Yutong nodded obediently and solemnly.

Kyle still did not know what had gone wrong with his body and caused his self-healing ability to fail, so there was no need to tell the Karl family and make them worry for nothing.

And he had to get Howard to find the root cause of his physical condition as soon as possible!

It was late at night in New York, on the fifty-second-floor medical research division of the Stark Industries building.

The entire floor was deathly quiet. Only Howard, now wearing a white lab coat, was in a brightly lit isolation ward, his face taut as he operated medical testing equipment and busily conducted analyses.

Inside the advanced medical examination chamber, Kyle lay naked. His perfect physique looked like a work of art forged from steel as green light swept back and forth over him.

Half an hour later.

The medical chamber opened. Seemingly sensing something, Kyle sat up and put on a plain shirt.

Howard removed his mask and let out a deep breath. Looking at Kyle with unprecedented gravity, he said, "Some of the detailed test data isn’t out yet, but I roughly know what’s going on with your body."

"Go on." Kyle nodded calmly, with not a trace of panic on his face.

"Your body has been contaminated by a massive amount of nuclear radiation. Even one-thousandth of this radiation level would be enough to cause dizziness, fever, and other symptoms in an ordinary person. If it exceeded one percent, it could torment them to death with illness within a few years."

At this point, Howard gave a bitter smile. "With this much nuclear radiation penetrating into your bones, the fact that you’re still alive can only be described as superhuman."

"But you really are a ‘superhuman.’ Your metabolism is more than five times that of an ordinary human, while your strength, speed, and endurance are ten times greater. You’re practically the perfect evolved version of humanity! This should be the theoretical peak of the Super Soldier serum’s potential."

"And then there’s your unbelievable healing speed. Your blood contains a mysterious energy factor, and it is precisely because of that that the radiation sickness in your body has been suppressed and neutralized." Howard clicked his tongue in amazement.

Kyle rested his chin on his hand and asked, "So aside from losing my self-healing ability, my body hasn’t been greatly affected?"

"How could that be?" Howard frowned and shook his head. "The important thing isn’t the illness caused by nuclear radiation. Your Super Soldier genes had originally reached a stable, perfect state, but under the radiation’s contamination, they have begun to slowly fracture, collapse, and attempt to reorganize."

"Will I undergo a second mutation? Or perhaps a latent first mutation?" Kyle murmured.

"Don’t you understand how serious this is? If you become stronger than you are now without losing any of your natural lifespan, that would be evolution."

Howard paused, then slowly and laboriously said, "Your reorganizing genes will indeed induce powerful abilities. But before the gene restructuring is complete, you will gradually lose your abilities, and even your life—the genetic abilities are like a raging flood. Even with the strength of your current superhuman body serving as a dam, you still won’t be able to hold out for long."

Kyle’s entire body trembled, but he still calmly asked, "About how much time do I have?"

"Less than a year."

Howard’s words were like a death sentence from the Grim Reaper, declaring that Kyle had reached the final stage of his life.