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The screams from the walkie-talkie were unnerving, and even without further inquiry, Indira knew something terrible had happened.
"Damn it!"
She slammed her hand down on the equipment in the monitoring room, cursing loudly.
Then, suddenly remembering something, she darted to another piece of equipment, dug out an emergency button, and pressed it hard.
The ground vibrated, and alarms blared.
Feeling the trembling ground, Kevin looked up at the still-intact monitoring screen; from it, he could see metal walls descending on the floor where the Supes were held, completely sealing off the entire level.
Seeing this, Kevin couldn't help but ask Indira:
"...This is what you meant by 'don't worry'?"
Indira slowly exhaled and explained:
"There was a slight mishap, but it's fine. The floor where those Supes are held is separate from our current floor. I've already isolated them in there, so there shouldn't be any problems for now."
The Woods as a whole was not just a single floor as depicted in the plot.
Instead, it was divided into two levels: an upper and a lower.
One level was the staff rest area.
The personnel responsible for delivering meals to the detained Supes, the security members on standby to protect the place, and researchers like Cardosa, all worked here.
Indira and Kevin were also currently here.
The other level was the actual Supe containment area.
The entrance to that level was the monitoring room, and further inside, a massive iron gate separated the interior from the exterior, followed by smaller rooms sealed by more iron gates.
All Supes were held in those small rooms.
The emergency protection system Indira activated was the isolation wall between the elevator and the emergency staircase on that level.
Once this wall was activated, people outside couldn't get in, and people inside couldn't get out.
Now, all they had to do was wait for the Supes inside to calm down, then security personnel with specialized ultrasonic emitters designed to subdue Supes could quell this farce.
But... this 'farce' came a little too 'opportunely'.
Staring at the Supes on the monitor for a while, Kevin saw one of them melt through a relatively thin iron door used for partitioning, and then he suddenly said:
"Ms. Shetty, why don't I handle this?"
"What?"
Indira was surprised that Kevin would volunteer to quell this incident.
Kevin smiled and said:
"After all, I'm responsible for the security here. Isn't protecting the employees my job?"
"Normally, yes, but... you don't really have to do this, and you're only one person. The number of Supes here..."
Indira wanted to say that there wasn't just one Supe here, and they weren't like most of the useless super-powered individuals at Vought's other facility, Red River.
Many of the Supes here were very powerful.
Fire-breathing, electricity manipulation, teleportation... there was even one among them whose physical capabilities were on par with any member of The Seven.
Indira was very worried about whether Kevin could handle this matter.
"It's fine."
Kevin looked at the Supes through the remaining surveillance cameras, narrowing his eyes slightly:
"You can leave it all to me."
...
Kevin wasn't just acting on a whim when he wanted to stop this 'riot'.
His reason for stepping forward was easy to understand.
He suspected that this riot was a 'test' specifically designed for him.
Otherwise, how could it be such a coincidence that all the Supes in The Woods broke out as soon as Kevin arrived?
Kevin suspected this was a test from Edgar and the other high-ranking executives of the group.
On one hand, they wanted to test if he had abilities comparable to Homelander's and if he could handle large-scale Supe riots.
On the other hand, they probably wanted to see Kevin's methods for handling emergencies.
Of course, Kevin could have chosen to wash his hands of it at this moment, but then his evaluation within the group probably wouldn't be very good.
If he wanted to become the leader of The Seven, or even advance further into the group's upper echelons, it would likely not be so easy.
Although all of this was just Kevin's personal thoughts, he wasn't sure if he was right.
But his physique had already upgraded to Level 5, and even if Homelander himself came, it would be difficult to break through his defenses, let alone these children who were experimented on daily and were mostly malnourished.
A Level 5 physique was Kevin's capital for daring to step forward.
Kevin also wanted to test the defensive capabilities of his Level 5 physique.
If not for these reasons, Kevin would probably have chosen to stay here and not risk confronting the escaped Supes.
They were all working for a fixed salary, so why risk their lives?
After confirming with Indira, Kevin turned and walked into the elevator.
The elevator quickly descended to the containment floor, and as it stopped, the sealed partition wall that had been in front of Kevin slowly opened under Indira's control.
The scene behind the door immediately appeared before Kevin.
"Ahem, this is truly... cruel."
A blood-red expanse, with debris everywhere, was Kevin's first impression of the room before him.
Although not much time had passed from the incident's occurrence to Kevin's decision to come here and handle it himself.
However, the space on this floor was not large to begin with, and Indira had personally sealed off all escape routes, trapping the remaining people inside.
The processing personnel and temporary nursing staff, with nowhere to go, naturally could not escape the 'abuse' of those Supes.
Firearms were disassembled into parts, and the ultrasonic devices originally used to deal with Supes were also shattered into pieces.
Many Supes stood at the elevator door, seemingly discussing how to get out.
And as the elevator door opened, all eyes were drawn to Kevin.
Kevin's gaze also shifted from the gruesome remains to the few young people in the distance:
"Phew, although I don't really want to say anything self-righteous, I have to say, kids, what you did was indeed a bit excessive..."
Kevin intended to say a few polite words to make a point, but before he could finish, a girl suddenly raised her hand and, without warning, unleashed a yellow lightning bolt.
Crackling!
The sound of electricity filled the air, and the yellow lightning was incredibly fast. Kevin only heard a series of crackling noises by his ear, followed by a flash before his eyes, and then he felt something strike him.
But...
The seemingly powerful yellow lightning didn't seem to cause Kevin any harm.
Aside from a faint tingling sensation and some impact that made Kevin's body sway slightly, Kevin felt nothing else.
Experiencing the power of a Level 5 physique for the first time, Kevin's eyes lit up:
"Interesting..."
"What?! This is impossible!"
Compared to Kevin's composure, the girl who launched the lightning was stunned, her face full of disbelief.
Don't let her lightning seem insignificant; when it struck the members of the cleanup crew earlier, it had directly incinerated them into ash!
How could the person in front of her seem completely unharmed?
The girl's eyes widened, at a loss.
Kevin snapped out of his thoughts, looked down at his uniform with a hole in the chest, and sighed helplessly:
"...I didn't bring a spare uniform."
"?"
The girl didn't understand what Kevin was saying, but she didn't need to.
Because the moment Kevin's words fell, the blood beneath her feet began to writhe as if alive.
The blood among the severed fingers and remnants rapidly coagulated, transforming into ropes at a speed the girl couldn't react to, swiftly coiling around her body.
Then, Kevin raised his hand and swung it down.
Thud!!
The girl, entangled by the blood ropes, was violently slammed against the metal wall.
The impact was heavy; even the metal wall showed a clear dent. Even though the girl was a Supe, with physical abilities far superior to humans, she simply couldn't withstand such a heavy collision.
She fell to the ground in pain, a tragic wail escaping her throat.
But Kevin had no intention of letting her go. The blood ropes wrapped around her, like wildly growing vines, bound and restrained her layer by layer.
Blood sealed her nose and mouth, cutting off her breathing.
In her agony, bursts of yellow lightning erupted from the girl's body, but these lightning bolts had no effect on the blood wrapped around her.
"Honestly, I didn't intend to do this. I wanted to treat you all in a gentler way, but you wouldn't behave."
Using the dirty blood on the ground to suffocate the low-level Railgun-like girl into unconsciousness, Kevin then looked at the remaining few.
Perhaps Kevin's appearance and methods had deterred the remaining few; none of them dared to make a move, each watching Kevin warily.
And one of the Supes, after staring at Kevin for a while, suddenly said with a trembling voice:
"I... I remember him! He's The Deep from The Seven! One of The Seven most powerful Supes in the world!"
"Supe? So you're also a Supe?"
One of the three, a more mature-looking bearded man, immediately became enraged upon hearing this:
"If you're a Supe, then why are you helping them bully us?!"
Kevin shrugged:
"Simple, because I'm also in charge here."
"You traitor!!!"
The bearded man yelled in extreme anger, then took a deep breath, as if something was brewing in his throat.
But before he could make a sound, the bearded man was like a duck whose neck had been squeezed, all sound suddenly stopping abruptly.
His mouth opened and closed, his throat wanted to move, but no sound came out.
Not only that, waves of pain came from his heart, and at the same time, he felt his blood seemed to solidify, and the aura of death enveloped him.
"Shh—"
Having already known the bearded man's superpower was sound waves through the monitor, Kevin was prepared for this.
He raised his hand, aimed at the bearded man's body, and then his body, like a puppet on strings held by Kevin, froze in place, swaying with the extension of Kevin's five fingers.
After doing all this, Kevin's voice finally came:
"Quiet down, don't be too noisy."
He said, lightly raising his right hand, and the other party's body floated in the air with Kevin's movement.
The physical quality of this sound wave bearded man was far inferior to that of the electric girl beside him.
In Kevin's eyes, his physical quality was almost like that of an ordinary person, which allowed Kevin to easily control the blood inside the bearded man's body through his skin.
By controlling the blood inside his body, he could achieve overall control of the bearded man's body.
One second, two seconds... three seconds.
In just three seconds, Kevin released his control over the blood in the bearded man's body.
Thud!
The bearded man's body fell to the ground, his eyes rolled back, his body twitched uncontrollably, white foam came from his mouth, and his consciousness faded.
When Kevin manipulated the blood to make the other party float in the air, the blood inside the bearded man's body stopped flowing, and his heart also experienced a brief cardiac arrest.
Just a cardiac arrest lasting more than three seconds was enough to make a person's consciousness blurry.
If the time exceeded five seconds, it would cause harm to the body.
If it exceeded ten seconds, it would cause life-threatening danger.
That's why Kevin chose to stop and let the bearded man down.
He didn't want to take the lives of these 'test subjects'.
The bearded man's fate was truly miserable. The remaining two Supes, seeing the electric girl lying in the blood and the sound wave man now foaming at the mouth, their two companions.
For a moment, their eyes looking at Kevin were as if they were looking at a devil.
Kevin's smile remained unchanged as he stepped out of the elevator.
As the elevator door slowly closed, Kevin softly said to the two in front of him:
"So, who's next?"
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