They only lasted two or three moves against Queen Maeve.
Relying on their excellent physical agility and reaction speed, the Cat-faced Man and Beast Girl managed to land a hit on Queen Maeve's shoulder, but that was all.
Yet, the strength they usually used to tear lions and tigers in half couldn't even break her defense, let alone injure Queen Maeve's body.
"You are not bad."
Queen Maeve was still able to make such an evaluation while being besieged, then used a punch and a side kick to end their wishful thinking.
The two collapsed in a corner of the wall; their severe injuries left them unable to stand up.
"Pfft..."
Rachim spat out a mouthful of blood, clutching his sunken chest, his face increasingly twisted in pain.
He said with difficulty to Beast Girl, "Th-this damn thing is not human at all; we cannot win."
"Vought International is the devil."
Beast Girl Natalie's arm hung limp, and she looked desperate: "Even if I die, I don't want to go back to that laboratory again."
The two fell silent, looking at each other. Not far away, Translucent ambushed another superhuman with natural abilities, using a dagger from who knows where to easily slit the other's throat.
His playful voice echoed in the warehouse: "Why can't you just listen to Queen Maeve? She really has your best interests at heart. If you make such a scene, you might not survive~!"
In fact, in this joint operation launched by Vought International, casualties were permitted in the contingency plan.
These casualties included not only the friendly units from the FBI but also the group of superhumans before them.
Vought stood to win either way; arresting them alive was better, but it didn't matter if they died.
As for the number of casualties, Vought's risk assessment before the operation did not specify.
Silence was an answer in itself.
In other words, a massacre was permitted.
Outside the gates.
Dozens of superhumans who managed to escape the warehouse didn't get far.
With fierce aerial firepower and the coordination of elite ground troops, a small number of unlucky ones lost their lives on the spot, while a significant portion were pinned down and forced to hastily find cover.
Whether one can dodge or withstand thermal weapons is the key to whether a superhuman can become powerful.
Vought's massive database and numerous combat results all indicated that such powerful individuals were extremely rare.
At this scene, under heavy fire suppression, the only one who successfully broke through was a middle-aged, bald, fat man who could tunnel through soil.
His ability could be considered strong or average; it didn't work on hard ground and could only be used where there was soil.
Just now, having escaped the gates, he had managed to reach the wasteland in the back, dived into it, and successfully evaded capture.
The bald fat man poked his head out a few times to catch his breath, finally reaching outside the encirclement by the narrowest of margins.
"Huff, huff..."
He panted heavily, glancing at the spitting tongues of fire and rolling smoke behind him, and said with lingering fear: "How is this any different from suicide? If I had known, I wouldn't have listened to the leader and rushed over..."
"Is that so?"
A woman's voice rang out beside him without warning.
The bald fat man replied subconsciously: "Of course."
Then he quickly reacted and turned around in terror.
A white woman hidden in the shadows, wearing gray-black robes, with a high, narrow nose bridge, prominent cheekbones, and distinct Caucasian features, was narrowing her long, slender eyes and looking at him expressionlessly.
"Oh my god!"
The bald fat man was startled at first, but after realizing who it was, his face lit up with joy: "Leader, you finally came! Please save the idiots inside; those bastards from Vought International have already killed many of our members!"
It turned out that the person who appeared here was the leader of the Freedom League—Stormfront.
"Idiots? I think you are one."
Stormfront didn't even lower her head, looking at the bald fat man with icy eyes: "I recruited you to cultivate warriors who could create a golden age for superhumans, not cowards who flee the battlefield and lack the courage to even resist head-on."
'Zzzzt——!'
She paused as she spoke, and streaks of faint lightning swirled around Stormfront's arms and wrists.
"No, Leader, I know I was wrong, please give me a chance!"
The bald man, half his body still in the soil, looked fearful; he had realized what was coming.
"The combat trial just now was the chance I gave you."
A perverted, chilling smile curled the corners of Stormfront's mouth: "And you, clearly, did not grasp it."
The purple lightning surged, colliding in the air and emitting a sizzling sound.
At the critical moment, the fat man took a deep breath and dived quickly into the soil; the leader was even crazier than he had imagined. He prepared to leave this hellhole and never return to America.
He might have been thinking a bit too much.
Stormfront didn't care; purple lightning roared on her loosely clenched palm. With a casual wave, the lightning plunged fiercely into the soil.
The next moment.
'BOOM——!!'
With a loud explosion, the ground ahead blasted open into a deep pit over six meters wide and three meters deep.
The bald man lay inside, charred black, the smell of soil mixed with the scent of decomposing protein drifting from his body.
He was dead as a doornail.
Stormfront was quite satisfied with her casual attack and looked toward the direction of the warehouse, where the sounds of conflict were fading.
...
The chaos was gradually being brought under control.
Translucent continued to ambush from the shadows, and Queen Maeve was also displaying her honed and mature combat skills.
The number of superhumans they killed or injured grew, but they did not hesitate in their actions.
At this moment, they were not actors, but superheroes in the truest sense, capable of participating in brutal battlefields.
The helicopter camera perfectly recorded this scene; this would be another powerful proof of Vought International striking against super-terrorists and maintaining world peace.
If there were more such operations, over time, perhaps the doors of the American military, which had always been closed, would open for them.
After about ten minutes, the intense battle gradually subsided.
The Cat-faced Man Rachim had finally recovered a bit of strength and tried to fight back, but was punched against the wall by Queen Maeve, and now lay on the ground unconscious.
Snake Girl Una had woken up at some point, but she didn't dare to resist at all. Trembling all over, she hid her head between her legs, playing the ostrich.
Beast Girl Natalie was also knocked to the ground; one of her legs and both arms were broken, and she couldn't even stand up.
Inside the warehouse, only the punk man Kazari was still struggling to hold on.
His mental control had long reached its limit; at this moment, his eyes, nose, ears, and mouth were bleeding, and there were no longer any members around him who could serve as meat shields.
"Damn Vought International, hypocritical bitches!"
Kazari's pride would not allow him to bow his head and surrender. Even in his exhausted state, he remained dauntless and fearless, cursing incessantly: "The bad things you've done are not any fewer, perhaps even more!! Why can you act as righteous heroes while we can't?!"
Translucent sneaked up behind him, holding an iron pipe, and struck his head heavily.
'Bang~!'
Kazari skidded on the ground, rolling a few times until he faced upward.
"Hehe, hahahaha~~!!!"
His face was bloody, yet he still laughed wildly: "Kill me, do it now! I, Kazari, even if I die today, die right here, will not submit to any one of you!!"
Translucent was indifferent: "."
The indifferent persona didn't need to speak; Black Noir was like that.
In the distance, Natalie saw the bloodstained iron pipe being lifted in the air, its sharp end aimed at Kazari, and the last glimmer of light in her eyes vanished.
Beast Girl thought, "We are completely done for; no one in this world can save us."
She guessed she would be locked back in the laboratory to continue suffering through endless, dark torture, or perhaps her body would be used as material and dismembered into seven or eight pieces, with different parts sent to different places for so-called great biological research experiments.
This was the darkest moment for the Freedom League.
Queen Maeve stepped on a member, looking expressionless.
Translucent hesitated no longer.
'Whoosh~!'
Just under these circumstances, the sharp steel pipe stabbed down fiercely.
'Sizzle~~~!!!'
A bolt of lightning descended from the sky, blasting the steel pipe along with Translucent away.
Stormfront, wearing a purple robe and a cutout eye mask over the upper half of her face, descended from the air. She was surrounded by lightning, looking mysterious and flamboyant.
Queen Maeve shifted her gaze from the unconscious Translucent and looked toward the slowly landing Stormfront.
Mastering the power of lightning, and at such intensity...
"You are the leader of the Freedom League?"
Her face finally became grave: "Compared to these trash members, you look much stronger."
...
"Wow, looks like their leader is very powerful?!"
"Buddy, get a steady shot for me, focus in for a close-up~!"
"Huh? Why isn't the focus function working?!"
"Wait, the camera seems to have malfunctioned, and the lens is broken too!!"
On the helicopter, the Vought filming crew had been in high spirits; the strongest BOSS had appeared, and according to their experience, if nothing went wrong, this was the climax of the whole event.
Then, the accident just happened like that.
The feed was cut, and the machines went on strike.
"No!!"
"God, don't do this to us..."
The filming crew wailed.
They could already imagine how the audience outside the lens and the Vought News Department would curse them out.
Stormfront's mastery of lightning was clearly perfect; she could not only injure people over a large area but also interfere with or even destroy electronic equipment from a distance.
It was just that the Vought team's electronic equipment was too advanced.
Only one intern, eyes darting around, took out an antique, old-fashioned mobile phone. He turned on the recording function, and the image on it was as blurry as an egg pancake made by an eighty-year-old grandmother.
But he was trembling with excitement, "It works, this one still works!"
The intern's face was covered in excited sweat: "Although the live broadcast is interrupted, we won't miss the final outcome of this joint operation!!"
The recorded video would be sent directly back to headquarters; a delayed broadcast is still a broadcast, isn't it?
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