My Ultimate Sign-in System Made Me Invincible Chapter 489 For A Space Shuttle? Absolutely! Hit Me Again

Liam offered a smile as Matt stepped forward. There was a unique quality to his expression—a blend of genuine affection mixed with an amused sense of anticipation—that instantly caused the rest of the group to feel a wave of concern for their companion.

"Alright," Liam announced, his voice ringing out clearly across the icy wasteland despite the biting wind. "Here is the deal, Matt. If you can withstand five minutes of direct combat against me, I will grant you any wish you desire."

Matt’s eyes immediately shimmered with intense excitement. His level of enthusiasm was so high that it seemed his mind had completely bypassed the reality of being thrashed for five minutes, vaulting straight to the question of what impossible reward he should demand.

He answered without a flicker of hesitation: "I want a space shuttle. For my own personal use."

The entire group pivoted to stare at him in shock.

"Matt," Harper said, his voice flat with disbelief. "He just promised you literally anything, and you didn’t give it a single second of thought."

"Not even a half-second," Kristopher added, shaking his head. "You jumped straight to 'I want a space shuttle.' You didn't even consider a single alternative."

Stacy spoke up with a tone of fond frustration. "You could have requested anything in existence, and your mind went directly to a personal spaceship."

"That is quintessential Matt behavior," Kristy remarked, though she could not hide the laughter in her voice. "Give him infinite choices, and he will select the most ridiculous one imaginable without blinking."

Matt gestured defensively with his hands, though his grin made it clear he felt no regret. "Think about it, though. An actual space shuttle. My very own. I could head into orbit whenever I felt like it. Everyone knows that is objectively incredible."

"We aren't debating whether it's cool," Alex said cautiously. "We are saying that you didn't even pause. You heard the word 'anything' and your brain immediately shouted 'SPACE SHUTTLE' in massive capital letters."

Lana was chuckling openly now. "I bet he has been ruminating on this since Liam first mentioned having spacecraft. He has probably been dreaming up a name for it already."

"The Titanium Eagle," Matt stated instantly, which only triggered more laughter from the group.

"You even have a name for it!" Elise shook her head. "You haven't even survived five seconds against Liam, much less five minutes, and you are already naming your imaginary ship."

Liam watched the scene unfold with quiet amusement, allowing the others to react to Matt’s impulsive request. Once the laughter began to subside, he finally spoke.

"As long as you have a hangar for it, that is not a problem."

Matt’s face instantly shifted into a mask of calculation as he ran through the logistics. "Could it be stationed at the Lunar Base, but summoned to Earth whenever I need to use it?"

The precision of his question suggested this was no spur-of-the-moment thought; it was a well-developed fantasy he had been nurturing for quite some time.

Liam reflected on the query with a facade of seriousness. "Technically, it is feasible. The shuttle could be housed at the Sanctuary and respond to remote commands. However, you would have to deal with the geopolitical fallout of a shuttle landing in your backyard or wherever you chose to board it."

Matt did not waver. "Stealth mode handles that. The world only reacts to what they can see, right? The shuttle surely has advanced AI, so it can avoid commercial aircraft during arrival or departure. Besides, I have the exosuit." He pointed to his armored body. "The shuttle doesn't need to touch the ground. I can just fly into the upper atmosphere and meet it. No ground landings, no witnesses, and zero geopolitical incidents."

The group let out a collective sigh, audible through their helmet communications.

"He has clearly thought this through to the last detail," Kristopher noted, his tone caught between being impressed and deeply concerned. "That is not just a passing thought; that is a strategic plan."

"Naturally," Harper muttered. "This is Matt we are dealing with. He likely has backup plans for his backup plans."

Stacy shook her head, her annoyance softened by affection. "The fact that you have already mapped out the logistics for covert space travel proves you have been obsessed with this for a while."

"Ever since we toured the Lunar Base," Matt admitted cheerfully. "The second I saw those vessels, I knew I wanted one. I was just waiting for the perfect moment."

Alex turned to Liam. "Are you actually going to give him a spacecraft if he somehow lasts five minutes?"

Liam’s smile broadened as he acknowledged the logic in Matt’s plan, and he nodded with sincere approval. "I genuinely appreciate the thorough preparation. Yes, he will get the ship. But only if he succeeds in lasting the full five minutes. That means he must not only survive but maintain consciousness and combat readiness for the duration."

He paused, letting the weight of his words sink in. "Five minutes might seem brief. But in direct combat against an opponent far beyond your level, it is an eternity. Your sense of time will distort, making every second feel like ten. Furthermore, I will not be reigning in my power as I did during our formation drills."

Matt’s grin somehow stretched even wider in response to the grim warning. "For a personal, AI-equipped spacecraft with orbital flight capabilities? I would happily endure five minutes of getting my face smashed in. That is the easiest bargain in history."

"You say that now," Liam replied, his tone shifting toward something darker. "Let us see if you maintain that attitude at the three-minute mark."

Matt rolled his shoulders, the exosuit matching his movement with mechanical precision, and dropped into a combat stance. "I am ready. Give me your best shot."

Liam’s smile morphed into something predatory. "I hope so. I meant what I said—I am not holding back."

The others instinctively retreated, establishing a perimeter. Their HUDs locked onto the distance, maintaining what they calculated to be a safe observation point, though debating if any distance was truly 'safe' when facing a display of Liam’s real combat prowess.

"The five minutes start now," Liam said.

In an instant, he vanished.

The speed was so extreme that it failed to register as conventional motion. A moment ago, Liam stood thirty meters away; in the next, he was absent, and the air at his previous location shattered with such force that it generated a pressure wave, shoving the onlookers backward despite their advanced gear.

The Antarctic air roared into the vacuum left by his departure, hitting the group like a solid wall. Temperature alerts blinked red across their HUDs as the ambient mercury plummeted by twenty degrees in a heartbeat, drawn into the void where Liam had been standing.

Matt’s enhanced senses barely caught the flicker of motion. His mind processed a blur sweeping in from his left at a speed that rendered their prior supersonic flight look like a crawl. He attempted to react, his exosuit’s systems struggling to initiate an intercept trajectory, his arms snapping up to defend.

However, there is a vast gulf between intending to block and actually executing a defensive strike before the attack lands.

Liam appeared directly before Matt, having traversed the distance in a fraction of a heartbeat. His fist was already in motion, throwing a straight, uncomplicated punch toward Matt's midsection—zero wasted motion, no telegraphing, just raw and efficient violence.

The collision was explosive.

Even with Liam consciously suppressing his true power—because without that restraint, the blow would have reduced Matt’s organs to pulp through his armor—the force was immense. Matt was launched backward as if he had been struck by a cannonball.

The exosuit’s damage alerts illuminated immediately, signaling critical stress on the torso plating. The armor mitigated the brunt of the kinetic energy, preventing the full devastation of Liam’s reach, but the impact still felt like being struck by a high-speed vehicle. It was as if his entire chest had been compressed in a vice.

He tumbled uncontrollably through the air, his flight assist offline and his vision swimming. The world became a chaotic, dizzying swirl of ice and sky. Through the ringing in his ears, he could faintly hear his friends shouting his name via the comms.

Matt slammed into the ice sixty meters from his starting point, carving a crater into the frozen earth while showering the Antarctic landscape in diamond-like shards of ice. He remained still for a moment, while his suit ran internal diagnostics and his lungs labored to remember the rhythm of breathing.

"Five seconds down," Liam’s voice chimed in calmly, as if he had just finished a casual stretch rather than launching a man sixty meters. "Four minutes and fifty-five seconds remaining. I suggest you rise. Staying planted on the ground won’t make the time pass any faster."

Matt grunted, frustration outweighing his pain, and forced himself onto his feet. The suit confirmed he was unharmed—the technology had performed its duty perfectly, shielding him from a lethal outcome. Yet, his pride was wounded, and the crushing reality of the power gap settled over him like a frost.

"Okay," Matt panted, his breath ragged. "Okay. That was... that was intense. Much harder than I had calculated."

Liam stood exactly where he had delivered the strike, watching Matt with a gaze that might have seemed empathetic were it not for the subtle smirk tugging at his lips. "And I was restraining myself significantly. Had I used even twenty-five percent of my actual power, the exosuit would have been irrelevant, and you would have been atomized on contact."

The detached way he used the word 'atomized' caused the group to flinch.

"Four minutes and forty-five seconds left," Liam continued with conversational ease. "The real question is whether you can survive another four exchanges exactly like that one. I promise, they will feel just as painful. The only variable is your ability to remain conscious throughout."

Matt drew a shaky breath, squared his armor-clad shoulders, and rose back into a guarded position.

"For a space shuttle?" he challenged, his voice dripping with grit that ignored the terror his body felt. "Absolutely. Hit me again."

Liam’s smile deepened.

"As you wish."