Chapter 26: Slapping Soldier Boy Away; When My LordSpeaks, Children Shut Up
A red nuclear blast beam erupted from Soldier Boy's chest.
It was like a stream of lava compressed to its absolute limit.
The beam was as thick as a bucket, accompanied by a piercing, tearing sound of energy.
The temperature in the office skyrocketed within a fraction of a second.
The air was ignited.
Two large potted green plants in the corner instantly turned to black ash without even catching fire.
Several modern oil paintings on the wall vaporized instantly.
The crystal chandelier on the ceiling let out a crisp, cracking sound.
The glass components melted, dripping down like raindrops.
The beam slammed heavily right into Shen Che.
The light was too bright, its blinding red glare filling the entire 112th floor.
Chloe stood a few meters away.
She raised her hand to shield her eyes and took two steps back, her leather boots dragging two charred marks on the scorching carpet.
The beam carried overwhelming kinetic energy.
Shen Che was completely engulfed by the red light.
The nuclear blast energy slammed into his chest, making a roar like a waterfall crashing against a reef.
The pillar of light could not advance a single step, forced to split to both sides.
The diverted red light sliced through the mahogany wainscoting behind Shen Che.
The steel rebars inside the wall instantly melted into molten iron, flowing down the wall.
Sparks flew everywhere, and thick smoke billowed.
Soldier Boy stood with his legs slightly apart, firmly pinned to the floor.
He gritted his teeth, the muscles on his face twitching violently due to energy overload.
The veins on his neck bulged like earthworms about to burst.
He maintained his maximum power output for a full ten seconds.
This was his trump card.
Decades ago, countless arrogant superhumans had their genes completely burned away by this very move.
Turning into useless cripples without any superpowers.
Only to have their heads smashed to pieces by his fist.
"Whew—"
Soldier Boy cut off the energy output.
The blinding red light on his chest gradually dimmed, turning into dark red embers.
He panted heavily, his lungs wheezing like a bellows.
His forehead was covered in sweat. As soon as the sweat seeped out, it was evaporated into white steam by the high temperature of his tactical suit.
He stood up straight.
He shook his slightly numb arms.
His military boots stepped on the charred carpet, making a crisp crunching sound.
"Is that all you've got?"
Soldier Boy grinned, revealing teeth yellowed from overexertion.
He looked at the thick, grayish-black smoke and dust ahead.
There was no movement in the dust.
He smugly raised his hand and patted the thick metal shield with the eagle emblem on his chest.
"And here I thought Stan had raised some kind of fierce hound."
He spat a mouthful of blood-streaked saliva toward the dust. The saliva hissed as it hit the charred floor.
"After this move, not a single trace of your extraordinary genes will be left."
Soldier Boy turned his head.
He looked at Chloe, who was leaning against the wall by the door.
He reached out and stroked the dark stubble on his chin.
"Now, this building is mine. And so are you."
He snapped his fingers.
"Go. Get me a cigar. I want a Cuba one."
Chloe didn't move.
She lowered her hand from her eyes, her blue eyes staring at the cloud of dust.
An undisguised sneer escaped her throat.
"What are you laughing at?" Soldier Boy frowned.
A gust of wild wind blew in through the shattered floor-to-ceiling window.
The cold wind from high up in Manhattan instantly dispersed the black smoke in the office.
The view became clear again.
Soldier Boy's brow furrowed tightly.
The smugness on his face froze in place like a shattered piece of plaster.
Shen Che stood in place.
He hadn't moved half an inch.
He didn't kneel, he didn't spit blood, and he didn't scream.
Even his standing posture hadn't changed.
His black bespoke suit was completely intact, with no burns or holes.
His tie still hung neatly in front of his chest.
Not even a speck of dust clung to the surface of his leather shoes.
A nuclear blast beam?
Energy that erases genes?
Shen Che looked at Soldier Boy, his eyes looking at him like he was a performing Joker.
The Silver Age Superman panel was a cheat code that defied all common sense.
Physical immunity, magic immunity.
Even this mutated radiation was blocked outside his body by an absolute barrier.
This proud killer move hitting Shen Che was like shining a flashlight on a titanium alloy plate.
It didn't even tickle.
It couldn't even make Shen Che feel slightly warm.
Soldier Boy's mouth fell open.
His jaw dropped.
He blinked hard twice, thinking the smoke was making him hallucinate.
He raised his hand and rubbed his eyes vigorously.
The man in front of him was still standing there, perfectly fine.
"This..."
Soldier Boy's voice caught in his throat, his Adam's apple bobbing up and down.
He suddenly looked down at his chest.
His tactical suit was still smoking; the energy had indeed been released.
"You... what kind of high-tech armor are you wearing?"
He took half a step forward, his voice weak.
"Impossible. Even a half-meter-thick lead plate should have been burned through by now."
He panicked. The power system he had built in his mind over decades was collapsing.
The trump card he was so proud of was tanked head-on by someone who didn't even bother to block it.
Shen Che sighed.
He pulled his right hand out of his suit pants pocket.
He raised his arm.
He stuck out his pinky finger and casually cleaned his ear.
Then he bent his finger and flicked the air off his fingernail.
"So noisy," Shen Che spoke.
His voice wasn't loud, and his tone was flat without any fluctuation.
Yet it echoed in the empty office.
"When My Lord speaks, children should shut up."
Every hair on Soldier Boy's body stood on end.
His Beast-like instinct was screaming in alarm.
He suddenly lowered his waist, reaching out with his right hand to grab his heavy shield.
He didn't grab it.
Because Shen Che moved.
There was no preparatory movement to start, and no bending of knees to exert force.
A dull boom erupted in the air.
Like a giant vacuum bubble being popped instantly.
The floor didn't shatter, because the force was entirely contained.
Shen Che's figure vanished from where he stood.
He appeared directly in front of Soldier Boy.
The distance was less than half a meter, and the two almost collided.
Soldier Boy's retinas couldn't even capture an afterimage.
He only felt his vision go dark, as the tall man had already blocked out all the light.
He instinctively wanted to retreat.
His brain issued the command, and neural signals were transmitting to his legs.
But it was too slow.
Shen Che's right hand had already been raised.
Palm facing inward, back of the hand facing outward.
A backhand.
There were no fancy techniques, no tactical movements.
Just a pure slap.
His palm sliced through the air.
The airflow was compressed to the extreme, forming a layer of white high-pressure airwaves along the edge of the back of his hand.
"Smack!"
A dull thud.
It was like swinging an eighty-pound iron mallet and smashing it hard into a slab of raw pork ribs.
The slap landed solidly on Soldier Boy's stubble-covered left cheek.
The moment the power erupted.
The flesh on Soldier Boy's left cheek rippled violently like water waves.
His nasal bone snapped instantly, making a crisp cracking sound.
Nosebleed mixed with saliva sprayed directly from his mouth.
His cervical spine was stretched by this terrifying lateral force.
His neck twisted to an extreme angle impossible for a human.
His body, weighing over two hundred pounds, along with his heavy tactical gear,
Instantly took off from the ground.
His feet left the floor.
He completely lost control of his body in mid-air.
Shen Che withdrew his hand, his suit cuffs as neat as before.
Soldier Boy turned into a dark green afterimage.
His speed broke the sound barrier.
A white vapor trail was dragged through the air.
He flew backward.
"Boom!"
He smashed through the remaining half of the floor-to-ceiling window frame.
The thick alloy window frame was twisted and deformed by his body, flying out of the building along with the plaster.
He flew out of Vought Tower.
Suspended high in the air, over a hundred stories above Manhattan.
His speed did not decrease in the slightest.
Like a solid iron ball launched by heavy artillery.
He crossed the wide street.
Smashing directly toward the commercial office building with a full glass curtain wall opposite.
"Crash!"
Hundreds of glass curtain walls shattered at the same time.
Shards of glass fell down like a rainstorm, glittering.
Inside the office building, several white-collar workers were standing in front of the copier chatting.
A green light accompanied by a wild wind crashed past above their heads.
Copy paper flew everywhere across the room.
Soldier Boy smashed through the internal partition walls of the office building.
The drywall shattered.
His kinetic energy had not yet dissipated.
He snapped three reinforced concrete pillars.
And burst out from the back of the office building.
Behind it was a second building, a dozens-of-stories-tall old-fashioned red brick apartment building.
"Bang!"
He smashed entirely into the red brick wall.
A large hole with a diameter of two meters broke open in the wall.
He rampaged through the floors of the apartment building.
Smashing through the load-bearing wall of a certain family's home.
Knocking over the kitchen water pipes, causing high-pressure tap water to spray everywhere.
Then he penetrated the back wall of this apartment building.
Ultimately,
He crashed into the outer wall of the underground garage of a third building.
This wall was a half-meter-thick explosion-proof wall cast with reinforced concrete.
"Thud!"
A loud boom shook the ground.
A deep crater appeared on the wall.
The surrounding concrete was covered in web-like cracks.
Soldier Boy was embedded inside the depression in the wall.
A few seconds passed.
Like a deflated ragdoll, he slid down from the crater in the wall.
Falling into the brick fragments covering the ground.
His dark green tactical suit was shredded into tatters, and his shield had long since been lost in some unknown building.
He lay prone in the ruins.
Over a dozen bones in his body were broken, leaving him unable to move.
His left cheek was swollen like a purplish-black steamed bun.
He struggled to open his mouth, wanting to take a breath.
"Blegh."
A mouthful of shattered teeth mixed with thick blood clattered onto the ground.
Landing on the gray concrete floor.
Not even a single intact incisor was left.
He struggled to raise half his eyelid.
Looking through the large holes broken through the three buildings,
He could vaguely see the towering Vought Tower opposite.
Wind rushed into his bellows-like lungs,
hurting him to the core.
He lay on the ground, looking at the top floor of that tower.
All the glory of the last century and his arrogance about power in his mind were completely slapped into dust by this single blow.
He completely recognized reality.
That was the true daddy of this era.
Chapter 27: Stormfront acting high and mighty? Heat Vision burns her straight to ashes.
Boom.
The loud crash of Soldier Boy smashing through three buildings still echoed over Manhattan.
By the shattered window frame of the CEO's office, cold wind poured backward.
The members of The Seven outside the hallway looked like specimens drained of blood.
No one spoke.
No one moved.
A-Train sat in a wheelchair.
His legs were wrapped in thick casts.
His leg bones had been twisted into a pretzel by Shen Chewith a single hand a few hours ago.
He gripped the wheelchair armrests for dear life.
His palms were full of cold sweat.
Sweat flowed along his palm prints into the gaps of the cast, itching and aching.
He didn't even dare to scratch it.
Queen Mei leaned against the base of the wall.
She lowered her head, staring at the metal buckles on her combat boots.
Her chest rose and fell violently.
The air in her lungs seemed to have been drained, and every breath carried a hissed static noise.
That Soldier Boy who could burn away superpowers.
The living ancestor from the last century.
Was just slapped out of Shadow like that.
She didn't even see clearly how Shen Che raised his hand.
Starlight cowered behind Mei.
Her teeth chattered, her upper and lower jaws knocking together to produce a subtle click-clack sound.
This was Vought Company.
This was the superhero World she had dreamed of since childhood.
There was no justice here.
Only a monster draped in human skin.
Half an hour later.
Eighty-ninth floor.
The exclusive conference room of The Seven.
This was a rule Shen Che had just set.
No matter how broken the building was, the living people had to sit here for a meeting.
The mahogany long table was polished until it shone.
Shen Che sat in the main seat.
A cup of ice Water sat on the obsidian tabletop.
Ice cubes floated and sank in the Water, striking the cup wall.
Chloe stood behind his chair.
Both hands rested on Shen Che's shoulders.
Her gloved fingers in red twirled around his suit collar.
More than half of the seats on both sides of the long table were empty.
Translucent was dead.
The Deep was fed to sharks.
Now even Stan and Soldier Boy were gone.
The remaining few people sat on the edge of their chairs.
Their backs were straight.
It was just like sitting on an electrified electric chair.
The conference room's soundproofing was very good.
Only the howling sound of the central air conditioning vents remained.
Oppressive.
The air was as heavy as if it were poured with lead.
Bang.
The double doors of the conference room were kicked open by someone.
The door panel slammed against the rubber bumper on the wall and violently rebounded.
A woman wearing a dark red tight combat uniform walked in.
Stormfront.
She had half-shaved short hair.
She chewed gum at the corner of her mouth.
She held a cup of takeout hot latte in her hand.
Tiny purple electric arcs danced on her half-gloved fingertips.
"Heard the top floor was quite lively?"
She strode into the conference room.
Her combat boots stepped on the carpet, making a heavy accent with every step.
She pulled open the foremost chair on Shen Che's left.
Sat down with a thud.
Her legs directly lifted and crossed, propped up on the mahogany conference table.
The mud and dust on the soles of her shoes smeared onto the mirror-like tabletop.
She bit through the gum in her mouth.
A crisp snap sounded.
"The old popsicle got beaten up? What a pity I wasn't at the scene."
Stormfront took a sip of the latte.
Her gaze swept across the long table.
She looked at A-Train sitting in the wheelchair, and then looked at the pale-faced Mei.
"You bunch of trash, why do your faces look like dead people?"
She sneered aloud.
The purple electric arcs on her fingertips suddenly surged half a foot high, crackling in the air.
A strong smell of ozone diffused.
Stormfront was a senior veteran.
She had lived for nearly a century.
Back then she was called Liberty.
Her husband was the Nazi scientist who injected compound v into this group of people.
In her eyes, Vought Company was her family's back garden.
This group of packaged superheroes later on was all mud beneath her feet.
She turned her head.
Her gaze fell on Shen Che in the main seat.
She looked him up and down twice.
Her gaze revealed undisguised contempt.
"You're the new guy?"
Shen Che didn't look at her.
He picked up the glass on the table and took a sip of the ice Water.
His Adam's apple rolled.
Stormfront felt ignored.
She heavily slammed the paper coffee cup in her hand onto the table.
Brown coffee splashed out, spilling on the wood grain.
"I'rather talking to you. Yellow-skinned monkey."
As soon as these four words came out.
The temperature in the conference room seemed to drop to freezing point in an instant.
A-Train was so scared he almost fell out of his wheelchair.
He shrank back desperately, wishing he could embed himself into the wall bricks.
Starlight covered her mouth, her eyes wide round.
Stormfront didn't notice the strangeness of the atmosphere at all.
She was a fanatical racist to her core.
Nazi genes were engraved in her brain matter.
She stood up.
Both hands pressed on the tabletop, her body leaning forward.
"Stan, that old black ghost, is dead, and I am very happy."
She stared at Shen Che's face.
"But do you think that by slaughtering an old dog, you can sit in this position?"
Purple lightning spread along her arm onto the tabletop.
Burning a charred smell out of the several plastic folders on the table.
"This company was established by my husband. compound v flows with the pure blood of the Germanic people."
She opened her arms.
The purple thunder light illuminated her face pale white.
"We are gods. A superior race."
She pointed at Mei and A-Train.
"And you? You are actually so scared by a bastard who crawled out of who knows which inferior test tube that you don't even dare to speak?"
"Stand up! Show your superhuman dignity!"
She instigated loudly, spittle flying everywhere.
"Join me in skinning this fake!"
No one paid attention to her.
A-Train lowered his head, staring fixedly at his cast.
Mei turned her face away.
The look she gave her was like looking at a stinking corpse.
Chloe's hand resting on Shen Che's shoulder tightened.
Her breathing grew heavy.
Her blue eyes began to turn red.
Shen Che raised his hand.
Patched twice on the back of Chloe's hand.
The red light in Chloe's eyes instantly suppressed.
She obediently retreated half a step.
Shen Che put down the water cup.
He finally shifted his gaze to Stormfront's face.
Looked at that face full of arrogance.
And looked at those jumping purple electric sparks on her fingertips.
"Finished?"
Shen Che asked.
Only these three words.
The voice was very flat.
No anger, no killing intent.
Just like asking whether the janitor had mopped the floor clean.
Stormfront was stunned.
The fear, anger, or refutation she expected were all absent.
This man was as calm as a stone.
This made her feel like a crazy woman performing arts on the street.
"You're courting death!"
Stormfront roared.
She clasped her hands together in front of her chest.
Rampant purple thunder and lightning converged in her palm into a watermelon-sized plasma ball.
The electric light was blinding.
The cool lights of the conference room were all interfered with by the electromagnetic field, popping and bursting.
Glass fragments fell all over the floor.
The ozone smell in the air was thick enough to choke people.
She was going to blow this audacious kid into charcoal.
Shen Che didn't move.
He didn't even lift a finger.
He just quietly looked at Stormfront.
Deep inside his eyes.
A trace of scarlet light lit up without warning.
At first, the light was only the size of a needle tip.
But within a thousandth of a second.
This red light instantly occupied Shen Che's entire pupil.
Like two ignited miniature stars.
The temperature in the conference room rose abruptly.
It wasn't getting hot gradually.
But an instantaneous limit surge.
The previous second was still twenty-degree air conditioning cold wind.
The next second, the air directly distorted and deformed.
The remaining ice on the tabletop boiled instantly.
The glass burst.
The water vapor had not yet had time to disperse before it was directly vaporized into nothingness by the high temperature.
The varnish on the surface of the mahogany long table began to bubble, making a sizzle sound.
Black smoke rose up along the wood grain.
A-Train screamed.
The synthetic fiber uniform on his body was curled at the edges by the heat wave, sticking directly to his flesh.
He desperately turned his wheelchair, hiding in the corner of the conference room.
Queen Mei raised her arms to block in front of her face.
The fine hairs on her arms were roasted scorched in an instant, emitting a burnt smelly odor.
The purple thunderball in Stormfront's palm.
In front of this terrifying heat wave.
Was like a little match under the Sun.
Without even a spark splashing out, it was directly extinguished by the high temperature.
Her retina reflected those two clusters of red light.
Arrogance froze on her face.
The Nazi sense of superiority, the century of seniority, were all burned into flying ashes.
She felt pain.
An excruciating pain that began to disintegrate from the cellular level.
She opened her mouth.
Wanting to scream.
Wanting to call for help.
Wanting to kneel down and beg for mercy.
But she couldn't make a sound.
The moisture in her throat was instantly evaporated dry.
Her vocal cords turned into a shriveled dead leaf.
Then, the red light erupted.
No sound.
Two thick beams of Heat Vision spewed out from Shen Che's eyes.
Not ordinary rays like Chloe's that were only a few thousand degrees.
This was a silver-grade Heat Vision whose temperature approached the core of a star.
The red column of light was as thick as a water vat.
Directly penetrated the ten-meter-long air of the conference room.
Solidly bombarded Stormfront's chest.
No blood splattering.
No muffled sound of flesh tearing.
Not even resistance.
Stormfront's proud superhuman body.
The skin claimed to be able to withstand armor-piercing missiles.
The moment it contacted the Heat Vision.
Directly vaporized.
The red light penetrated her body.
The remaining momentum unabated.
Bombarded the hard explosion-proof wall of the conference room.
The half-meter-thick reinforced concrete wall was like butter cut by a red-hot knife.
Instantly melted into a large hole.
The sunlight of Manhattan outside shone in through the large hole.
Shen Che closed his eyes.
The red light disappeared.
The temperature in the conference room was as high as an oven.
Fire was still burning on the edge of the mahogany table.
The red light of charcoal flickered on and off.
The place where Stormfront had just stood.
The person was already gone.
Only that office chair burned down to just an iron frame remained.
The iron frame had melted and deformed, lying limp on the ground.
Beside the chair.
Piled a small puddle of grayish-white powder.
Very fine.
Very White.
Like a pile of unburned cigarette ash.
A gust of wind blew in from the big hole in the wall.
The grayish-white ashes were whipped up by the wind.
Scattered gracefully, drifting in mid-air of the conference room.
Chapter 28: The Boys want to use poison? I chugged it like a beverage.
Two cleaners in blue work overalls knelt on the meeting room floor.
Holding specialized small brushes and portable vacuum cleaners in their hands.
No one dared to breathe heavily. They strapped their gas masks tightly.
The edge of the mahogany conference table near the main seat was burned through with a large hole, and the charred edges still radiated residual warmth.
On the ground was a pool of grayish-white powder.
That was Stormfront. The veteran hero who had lived for a century was now reduced to just this half-dustpan of ashes.
The cleaner's hands were shaking.
The brush swept across the floor, and dust kicked up, landing on the back of his hand. He yanked his hand back abruptly as if scalded by a spark.
The ashes were sucked into the plastic tube, making a faint rustling sound.
The air inside Vought Tower had completely changed.
Security personnel in the hallways walked without making a sound. Civilian staff didn't even dare touch the coffee machine in the pantry.
Terrified that the slightest noise would attract a Heat Vision blast from the monster on the top floor.
The aftermath of this bloody purge permeated every corner through the building's ventilation ducts.
This smell of blood also made The Boys, hiding in the Brooklyn Underground Room, feel cold in their hands and feet.
Butcher stubbed out his half-smoked cigar in the ashtray.
Applying too much force, he cracked the glass base. Tobacco crumbs stuck to his index finger.
"We can't wait anymore." Butcher clenched his back teeth.
He flung a crumpled photo onto the iron tabletop.
The photo was secretly taken at the risk of death by an internal Vought informant. In the picture, the explosion-proof wall melted through by Heat Vision was pitch black, resembling a man-eating mouth.
Hughie sat on a folding chair in the corner of the room.
His legs trembled uncontrollably up and down. The chair legs tapped against the concrete floor, making a clacking sound.
His ten fingers were tightly intertwined, and his palms were covered in cold sweat.
"He can instantly burn Stormfront to nothing." Hughie's voice floated faintly. "What are we supposed to fight with? Even sacrificing our lives wouldn't fill that pit."
Butcher turned his head sharply.
He crossed the distance in three strides, grabbed Hughieby the collar, and jerked him hard out of the chair.
"Then what do you want to do? Buy a plane ticket and go home to farm?" Butcher's spit sprayed onto Hughie's face.
Hughie's neck was choked, his face turned flush red, and he clutched his throat, coughing.
"Translucent had his neck crushed. A-Train's legs became twisted like pretzels." Butcher let go of his hand and pushed Hughie back into the chair.
He paced back and forth in the cramped room.
His boots stepped on empty beer cans scattered all over the floor, making a harsh scraping sound.
"Once he finishes reshuffling The Seven, the next one is us. He'll drag us out and chew our bones to pieces."
Butcher stopped in front of Frenchie's workbench.
"Is the stuff ready?"
Frenchie wore heavy goggles.
He ignored Butcher and stared intently at the glass test tube in his hand.
The test tube contained a bit of clear liquid. It looked like mineral water.
In the center of the workbench sat a glass petri dish containing a piece of bloody raw beef.
Frenchie took a dropper and sucked up a drop of the clear liquid.
His wrist was very steady; a drop hung at the tip of the tube and fell down.
It dripped onto the raw beef.
There was no explosion. No flash of fire.
But the moment that red chunk of meat made contact with the liquid, its color turned to a dead gray.
Immediately after, white acid vapor emerged from the surface of the meat.
"Sizzle."
It was like a bar of soap thrown into boiling oil.
Three seconds.
Half a pound of raw beef was gone. Only a puddle of foul-smelling yellow water remained in the petri dish.
Even the thick glass bottom of the petri dish had been etched into a shallow pit.
Hughie covered his nose, his stomach churning violently. He almost vomited his dinner.
"Done." Frenchie took off his goggles and rubbed the corners of his bloodshot eyes.
He had stayed up for two nights straight, and his voice was as hoarse as sandpaper grinding against a wall.
"An improved version of super neurotoxin. I added the reverse enzyme of compound v."
Frenchie carefully loaded the remaining half tube of liquid into a lead syringe.
"Colorless and odorless. Specifically targeted at Supes' metabolism."
"As long as one milliliter is ingested." Frenchie held up a finger. "No matter how hard his skin is, his stomach will be burned through within two seconds."
"Then the toxin follows the bloodstream and dissolves his internal organs into a puddle of mush."
Butcher snatched up the syringe.
The lead casing was very cold. He felt that this chill finally suppressed the anxiety in his heart.
"Let's go." Butcher tucked the syringe into his trench coat pocket.
Vought Tower, second basement level. Logistics-only food delivery tunnel.
Tommy the deliveryman leaned against the corner, sweating profusely.
He was a fat man in his forties who specialized in delivering food to Vought executives.
Butcher spent one million dollars in cash, plus a live video of Frenchie holding a gun to his wife's head.
Using both soft and hard tactics, he pried his mouth open.
Tommy's hands shook.
Watching Butcher jab the syringe into the cork of the bourbon whiskey.
The transparent venom silently flowed down the needle tube into the amber liquor.
Butcher pulled out the needle. The needle hole on the cork was so small it was completely invisible.
"Every day at three in the afternoon, he drinks this bottle of wine." Tommy's voice trembled.
"Deliver it up." Butcher patted his fat face. "Don't let your hands shake."
Floor 112. The CEO's office.
Tommy pushed the food cart out of the elevator.
The wheels of the food cart pressed against the new carpet in the hallway, producing a dull rolling sound.
This sound seemed especially loud in the dead silence of the top-floor hallway.
Four security guards stood outside the door like four wooden stakes. No one looked at him.
Tommy swallowed a mouthful of saliva and knocked on the door.
Twice.
"Enter." A single word came from inside the door.
Tommy pushed open the double doors.
Shen Che sat behind the obsidian desk, his long legs propped up on the edge of the table.
In his hands, he was flipping through a financial report from Wayne Enterprises.
Sunlight shone in through the floor-to-ceiling windows, hitting his black suit.
Tommy didn't dare raise his head.
Shrinking his neck, he pushed the food cart to the edge of the desk.
His hand reached toward the poisoned bottle of whiskey.
The moment his fingers touched the glass bottle, they trembled as if electrocuted. The bottle knocked over the metal decanter next to it, making a crisp sound.
"Open the wine." Shen Che didn't look at him, his gaze still on the financial report.
Tommy bit the tip of his tongue, forcing his hands to steady.
He pulled out the cork with a soft "pop" sound.
He picked up the crystal glass and poured the wine.
The amber liquid flowed down the bottleneck, hitting the ice cubes at the bottom of the glass.
He poured half a glass.
Tommy placed the wine glass on the corner of the desk. He pulled his hands back in front of his stomach, twisting them tightly together.
"Get out." Shen Che turned a page of the financial report.
Tommy felt as if he had been granted amnesty. Pushing the food cart, he backed out of the office.
The door closed.
Only Shen Che was left in the office.
He put down the financial report. His leather shoes stepped back onto the floor.
His gaze fell on that glass of wine at the corner of the desk.
The wine slightly sloshed amidst the collision of the ice cubes.
Shen Che's super senses, without needing to be deliberately activated, captured the abnormality.
The olfactory cells in his nasal cavity instantly dismantled the scent in the air.
The woody aroma of oak barrels. The mellow taste of fermented alcohol.
That wasn't right.
Beneath that mellow fragrance lurked a pungent, synthetic chemical odor.
It was like a pile of rusty, rotten iron mixed with acidic sewer water.
The scent was very faint. An ordinary person's dog-like nose couldn't smell it out, but Silver Age Superman could smell it crystal clear.
Shen Che extended his right hand and picked up the crystal glass.
His gaze locked onto the wine glass. His X-ray vision activated naturally.
The originally clear wine changed completely under the microscopic view.
Countless invisible gray flocculent molecules were undergoing a violent engulfment reaction with the alcohol molecules.
A glass of poisoned wine.
And the toxicity was quite fierce.
Shen Che raised the glass to the height of his chin and swirled it.
He found it somewhat amusing.
This kind of stuff would struggle even to kill a paramecium on a Kryptonian.
They actually wanted to use it to poison to death the Silver Age template.
His ears twitched.
Super hearing pierced through the air.
Amidst the white noise of the air conditioning vent, he heard a very faint buzzing sound of electric current.
It wasn't the normal frequency of the building's internal security system.
Shen Che raised his head.
His gaze crossed over the desk and looked toward the smoke detector in the northeast corner.
Behind the white plastic casing.
Hidden was a sesame-sized pinhole camera. A red light flickered faintly.
The signal was not connected to Vought's internal network; it was an external channel.
Shen Che understood.
Brooklyn. The safehouse of The Boys.
There were no lights on in the Underground Room.
Only the monitor on the desk glowed with an eerie blue light.
Butcher, Hughie, and Frenchie, the three of them stared fixedly at the screen.
The screen image was black and white with somewhat blurry pixels, but Shen Che's movements could be clearly seen.
He was holding the wine glass.
"Drink up." Butcher pressed both hands against the iron table surface, his face almost pressed against the screen.
His bloodshot eyes didn't blink at all.
Hughie was biting his thumb nail in the back. A piece of the nail was bitten off, oozing blood. He couldn't feel the pain.
Inside the screen.
Shen Che suddenly turned his head.
His gaze stared straight at the camera.
Butcher's heart gave a violent jolt.
He had the illusion of being choked from a distance. The hairs on his back stood up one by one.
Shen Che looked at the lens.
He raised the crystal glass in his hand.
He waved it toward the camera, as if making a toast.
Then, he tilted his head back.
Without a single pause, he poured that cup of poison—which was potent enough to melt an elephant's internal organs—directly down.
Just like drinking plain water.
He poured it all into his mouth in one go.
He swallowed it down. His Adam's apple could be seen rolling once on the screen.
The empty glass was slammed by him onto the table surface.
The safehouse was dead silent.
Frenchie stared fixedly at the stopwatch on his wrist.
"One second. Two seconds. Three seconds..."
The time for the poison to take effect had arrived.
Butcher held his breath, biting his lower lip with his teeth.
Waiting to see that person on the screen vomit blood, scream, and twitch on the ground.
Five seconds passed. Ten seconds passed.
Shen Che sat safe and sound in the leather chair, his face not even turning the slightest bit red.
He raised his hand and rubbed his stomach.
He opened his mouth.
And let out a long, loud burp.
Then, facing the camera hidden inside the smoke detector.
He slowly raised his right hand.
And raised a middle finger.
Chapter 29 Butcher Despairs Completely, This Guy Has No Weaknesses
In the Underground Room, there was only the cold light emitted by the monitor.
Now this light turned White.
In the center of the screen was an erected middle finger. The black-and-White pixels were somewhat blurry, but that gesture was glaringly clear.
Butcher stood in front of the iron table.
His heart felt like it had been stabbed by a rusty dagger. The blade fiercely stirred twice inside.
His chest felt hollow.
Frenchie's stopwatch in hand had stopped long ago. Time froze in the Underground Room.
No vomiting blood. No screaming. No dissolving internal organs.
Only that burp from the liquor, and this middle finger.
Butcher's breathing stopped.
The veins on his forehead bulged one by one. His temples throbbed violently.
Blood rushed entirely to the top of his head. His eardrums were filled with a buzzing noise.
He suddenly turned around.
He snatched up the iron folding chair beside him and swung it high over his head.
"Fuck!"
The folding chair smashed fiercely toward the monitor.
Bang.
The plastic casing burst. The picture tube exploded into a cluster of blue sparks.
The electric current crackled noisily. The screen instantly went black.
Shards of glass splashed out, splattering onto Butcher's black trench coat.
Several pieces of broken glass scratched the back of his hand.
Beads of blood welled up. He didn't feel any pain.
He swung the chair again, smashing it a second time, a third time.
The iron table was beaten into dents. The keyboard shattered into black debris.
The mouse cord broke into two halves.
Until that monitor turned into a pile of smoking scrap metal.
Butcher finally stopped his hand.
The folding chair dropped to the ground with a clattering sound.
He hugged his head with both hands, his ten fingers digging desperately into his hair.
His nails dug into and broke his scalp.
He was shaking.
Not from anger, but a despair seeping out from the cracks of his bones.
He had been the leader of The Boys for so long; what kind of superhuman hadn't he seen?
Thick-skinned ones, fast ones, ones that could discharge electricity.
There was always a way to kill them.
Blowing them up with C4 explosives, shooting them with zinc-alloy bullets, poisoning them with venom.
His tactics had always been perfect. Relying on his brains and ruthlessness, he sent those monsters to hell.
But what is this now?
His proud underground parking lot series of explosives were detonated targeting that man.
The other party didn't even wrinkle the corner of his suit.
Now, the top-tier poison Frenchie spent two all-nighters mixing up.
Added with the compound v reverse enzyme, stuff that could dissolve raw beef into yellow Water in seconds.
That man drank it down in one gulp as a chaser for bourbon whiskey.
Drank it like a beverage, then let out a burp.
Butcher squatted on the ground, his back leaning against the cold cement wall.
Panting heavily.
His lungs felt like they had inhaled glass shards, every breath pulling and aching painfully.
Tactics?
Explosives?
Poison?
In front of this monster, they couldn't even make a splash.
He was just tickling the other party.
The other party even found it funny and specifically looked for the camera to give a middle finger in return.
Everything Butcher was proud of was crushed into powder by this middle finger.
He began to doubt whether he had gone mad to go provoke this kind of thing.
A suppressed sound of sobbing came from the corner of the wall.
Intermingled with the chattering sound of teeth trembling.
Butcher raised his head.
Hughie cowered in the darkest corner, hugging his knees with both hands and burying his head in the crook of his arms.
A warm smell of urine, mixed with the moldy smell of the Underground Room, spread in the air.
Hughie wet his pants.
A large patch at the crotch of his light blue jeans was wet, and Water stains dripped down the pant legs.
Dripping onto the cement floor, gathering into a puddle of yellow Water.
He was scared out of his wits.
"We can't win." Hughie raised his face.
His face was full of snot and tears.
"Billy... let's break up."
His voice shook beyond words, his tongue tied.
"This is simply not human. He isn't some experimental subject, he is a god. Or a devil."
Hughie gestured wildly in the air with both hands.
"Explosives can't kill him, poison can't kill him. He looked at the camera just now! He knows where we are!"
The more Hughie spoke, the more excited he became, crawling up from the ground using hands and feet.
"He'll fly over right away and burst our heads like squeezing tomatoes!"
He turned around to grab the iron door handle of the Underground Room.
"I'm leaving. I have to run for my life. Disband The Boys, Billy. Before he comes looking for us."
Butcher stood up abruptly.
He rushed over in three steps and grabbed the back of Hughie's collar.
Giving a fierce fling.
Hughie slammed heavily against the sheet metal cabinet, which let out a loud bang.
"Run?" Butcher's eyes were bloodred.
His eyes were full of bloodshot veins, like a Beast driven into a desperate situation.
"Where can you run to? That pair of eyes can see through walls! He can fly out of the atmosphere!"
Butcher pulled Hughie's collar with both hands, lifting Hughie until only his toes touched the ground.
"Disband? You think if we disband he will let you go?"
Spit sprayed onto Hughie's face.
Hughie was so scared he even forgot to cry, staring blankly at the crazed Butcher.
Butcher let go of his hand.
Hughie slid down the iron cabinet and sat on the ground, clutching his neck and coughing violently.
Butcher turned around.
He was unwilling to accept this.
He refused to admit defeat. He didn't believe there was truly an immortal living creature in this world.
As long as it breathes, it has a vulnerability.
He walked over to the sheet metal filing cabinet on the other side of the room.
He yanked open the topmost drawer.
Using too much force, the drawer was pulled right off its track, smashing onto the floor.
The documents inside scattered all over the floor.
Those were materials he had bought over the years through the black market, insiders, or even LexCorp's abandoned servers.
They were all fragmentary records regarding alien genes and supernatural powers.
Butcher squatted on the ground, rummaging through a pile of waste paper like a madman.
"Kryptonian... Kryptonian..."
He muttered under his breath.
The papers rustled loudly as he flipped through them.
That guy wasn't manufactured in a test tube by Vought Company. The materials mentioned that this body had an alien background.
It was the same genetic sequence as Superman.
Superman could get hurt. Superman could be beaten back by heavy weapons.
Then this Shen Che must also have weaknesses.
Butcher found a kraft paper bag and tore open the string seal.
Inside was a stack of yellowed printer paper and a few blurry photos.
Frenchie stood to the side.
Watching Butcher lie on the ground, using a red pen to frantically circle things on the paper.
"Billy. It's useless." Frenchie's voice was hoarse.
"The reverse enzyme in the poison can dismantle known carbon-based biological molecules on Earth. It's ineffective against him."
Frenchie rubbed his face.
"This means his bodily structure exceeds our physical cognition."
"Shut up!" Butcher didn't even raise his head.
The red pen slashed heavily across the paper, the pen tip piercing through the paper.
Scratching onto the cement floor underneath.
"If physics is useless, then we'll find something else."
He flipped to a page of research reports regarding alien radiation bands.
"Radiation. Radiation of a special band. Or magicinterference."
Butcher's finger tapped the paper surface, his fingertips somewhat pale.
"Lex Luthor has always been researching some kind of glowing green stone. Constantine and those holy rollers can chant spells."
"There must be something that can counter him. There definitely is."
He spread out the materials one by one, covering nearly half the floor of the Underground Room.
Butcher sat cross-legged in the middle of the pile of papers.
He took all those theoretical data regarding high-frequency radiation, antimatter decay, and black magic interference.
And compared them all against the resistance Shen Chedisplayed today.
The red pen filled the paper with strings of messy formulas and logical deductions.
He staked all his hopes on these unknown fields.
Frenchie sighed and handed him a calculator.
The sound of buttons ringing incessantly in the Underground Room, tick-tock.
Ten minutes later.
A large "ERROR" popped up on the calculator screen.
Butcher's hand stopped.
The red pen dropped onto the paper, rolling twice.
He stared fixedly at the deduction results on the ground.
He overthrew all the previous hypotheses and calculated it all over again.
The conclusion was still the same.
All radiation wavelengths, before contacting that body, would be directly nullified by some invisible force field.
All magic interference, in front of that outrageous cell density, couldn't even be considered static electricity.
Butcher collapsed onto the ground.
The back of his head knocked against the cement floor, emitting a muffled thud.
But no matter how Butcher deduced and experimented, the conclusion drawn was only one: this was a god completely immune to both physical and magical attacks with no vulnerabilities whatsoever; human resistance in front of him was simply a despairing joke.
Chapter 30: Frenchie Developed a Secret Weapon, but It Turned Out to Be a Joke
The air in the Underground Room was so stuffy it could suffocate someone.
The smell of urine in Hughie's crotch, mixed with the burning plastic stench of Butcher smashing the monitor, drilled straight into his nose.
Frenchie couldn't stay there any longer.
He watched Butcher crawling on the ground like a madman, using a red pen to draw circles on the scrap paper all over the floor. That face covered in bluish stubble was already distorted.
"Looking for magic... looking for radiation..." Butchermuttered neurotically.
Frenchie shook his head.
He was a technician. He didn't believe in charlatans' incantations, nor did he believe in those illusory alien frequencies.
He only believed in science. He only believed in absolute destructive power on a physical level.
Frenchie turned around and pushed open the heavy iron door.
The door hinges made a dry, squeaky friction sound.
He walked into his own workshop next door and locked the door behind him, cutting off the madman's raving outside.
The workbench was piled high with discarded circuit boards and firearm parts.
Frenchie grabbed half a bottle of cheap vodka from the corner of the table, tilted his neck, and took a huge gulp.
The spicy liquor burned down his esophagus into his stomach.
He began to cough violently as stomach acid surged upward.
He slammed the wine bottle heavily onto the iron table, leaving a white mark scraped on the bottom of the glass bottle.
He couldn't just surrender like this.
Poison was useless. Explosives were useless. That was because the upper limit of conventional weapons was too low.
No matter how tough a carbon-based organism's flesh was, it still had to obey the law of conservation of mass.
As long as the matter making up his body was directly erased, what would he have left to live with?
Frenchie pulled open the bottom-most iron drawer of the workbench.
The drawer slides were rusted, making it a bit difficult to pull open.
Inside lay a black USB flash drive.
This was semi-finished data he bought at a high price on the black market a few years ago.
Antimatter weapon concept drawings.
Just a tiny bit of antimatter would annihilate the moment it touched regular matter.
That was the purest destructive energy in the Universe. It was unreasonable and ignored defense.
If it touched you, you were gone.
But building this thing required a precise magnetic levitation confinement device.
It also needed money. An astronomical amount of money.
The accounts of The Boys had long been empty.
Frenchie fished out the old phone from his pocket and dialed a string of numbers he knew by heart.
The phone rang five times before it was answered.
Deafening heavy metal rock music came through the receiver, along with the heavy panting of the Russian mob boss.
"Frenchie." The Russian bit on his cigar as he spoke, his voice muffled. "You still owe me half a million. What, tired of living?"
"I want to borrow money. Three million." Frenchie gritted his teeth.
The music became softer.
"Three million dollars?" The Russian sneered. "What are you using as collateral? Those few ribs of yours?"
"The coordinates of all safe houses of The Boys." Frenchieswallowed his saliva. "Plus Butcher's life."
The other end of the phone fell silent for a full five seconds.
Butcher's head was worth a lot of money on the black market.
"Half an hour. The money goes into your anonymous account." The Russian hung up the phone.
Frenchie threw the phone onto the table.
He had wagered his life. It was a do-or-die situation, his last desperate gamble.
For the next three whole days.
Frenchie shuttled through every corner of the New Yorkunderground black market like a ghost that couldn't see the light of day.
He used high-interest loans to buy military-grade electromagnetic acceleration rails.
He bought the highest-precision magnetic levitation confinement sabot.
The lights in the workshop hadn't been turned off for three days.
Frenchie's eyes were bloodshot, looking like a red spiderweb, and his eye sockets were deeply sunken.
He wore heavy anti-static gloves.
He took off his gloves and wiped the cold sweat from his forehead.
On the workbench, a strangely shaped sniper rifle was fully assembled.
The gun body was matte black. There was no bluing, no reflection.
The barrel was a circle thicker than a large-caliber anti-materiel sniper rifle, packed with electromagnetic acceleration coils inside.
A lethal weapon costing three million.
Just to fire one shot.
Two in the afternoon. New York Manhattan.
Today was an overcast day. The clouds pressed down very low.
Opposite Vought Tower, separated by a wide main road, was an unfinished building project that had been halted.
The main framework had been built over thirty floors, draped with green dust-proof netting on the outside.
The elevator shaft was full of accumulated water, and there was no electricity.
Frenchie carried a heavy black gun case on his back, climbing up the dusty fire escape stairs.
The hallway was filled with the stench of urine and the smell of cement dust.
He climbed breathlessly. His chest rattled like a torn bellows.
That special sniper rifle weighed forty kilograms.
The strap dug into the flesh of his shoulder, rubbing the skin raw.
With every step up, his thigh muscles trembled.
But he didn't stop. The flames of revenge burned in his bloodshot eyes.
Finally, he pushed open the iron door of the top-floor roof terrace.
The rusted door hinge made a harsh friction sound.
The wind at high altitude was very strong, blowing the dust-proof net on the edge of the unfinished building into a rattling clatter.
Frenchie walked to the edge of the roof terrace and squatted behind a waist-high concrete low wall.
The cold wind blew through his thin, tattered jacket, causing him to shiver.
He unbuckled the metal clasps of the gun case and lifted the black foam cushion.
The special sniper rifle lay quietly inside, exuding a cold, hard scent of machine oil.
Frenchie hugged the gun body out and mounted it on the concrete wall.
He pressed the spring lock of the bipod. With two crisp "click, click" sounds, the bipod firmly anchored into the cracks of the concrete ground.
He lay flat on the ground.
The gravel on the concrete ground ground against his elbows.
The buttstock pressed tightly against his right shoulder, and his cheek pressed against the cold cheek rest of the gun.
He lifted the dust cover of the high-magnification scope.
He brought his right eye close.
The crosshair swayed slightly in the lens.
His finger turned the focus knob.
Vought Tower one thousand meters away. The one hundred and twelfth floor.
That huge floor-to-ceiling window clearly appeared in the scope.
The explosion-proof glass couldn't stop the penetration of the high-magnification scope.
Frenchie saw the target.
Shen Che.
That monster who plunged them into despair.
He was standing in front of the floor-to-ceiling window, wearing a black custom-tailored suit without a single wrinkle.
His back was held very straight.
Shen Che was holding a white porcelain teacup in his hand.
He wasn't drinking whiskey today. Wisps of white steam were rising from the rim of the cup.
He lowered his head to look at the bustling traffic on the street below.
His posture was leisurely. Like a king inspecting his territory, and also like an onlooker watching ants move house.
Frenchie gritted his teeth. The muscles on his cheeks bulged piece by piece.
"You must die today."
He mumbled a sentence to the air, his voice instantly torn apart by the wind.
Frenchie pulled the bolt with his right hand.
The gleaming special bullet was pushed into the chamber, locked in place.
The crosshair moved slowly.
Crossing over Shen Che's shoulder, passing over his chin.
Finally, it locked dead onto Shen Che's right temple.
That was the weakest part of the human skull.
As long as the antimatter touched the skin, even if his skull was made of titanium alloy,
it would instantly annihilate into a puff of nothingness.
Frenchie's right index finger rested on the cold trigger.
His finger was trembling.
Three consecutive days of staying up late, coupled with high-intensity mental tension, caused his muscles to spasm uncontrollably.
He swallowed a mouthful of saliva, his Adam's apple rolling up and down.
The wind speed meter displayed data on the edge of the scope frame.
Westerly wind. 2.5 meters per second.
Distance: 1050 meters.
Frenchie rapidly calculated the lead in his head, shifting the crosshair slightly to the upper left by half an inch.
The cold sweat on his forehead gathered into a single drop, flowing down along his eyebrow.
Flowing into his right eye.
A sour, stinging pain flared in his eye.
Frenchie quickly let go of his right hand and wiped his eye randomly with his dirty cuff.
He couldn't make a mistake. This was his last chance.
He gripped the gun handle again.
His index finger pressed close to the trigger once more.
"Inhale..."
His lungs filled with the chilly air of Manhattan, his chest swelling high.
"Exhale..."
When he was halfway through exhaling, he forcefully held his breath.
The entire World instantly fell silent.
The rattling sound of the dust-proof net on the unfinished building could no longer be heard. The car horns downstairs disappeared.
Only the man holding the teacup in the scope remained.
Frenchie exerted force with his finger.
He pulled the trigger fiercely.
"Bang!"
The muzzle equipped with a special silencer let out a muffled explosion.
It sounded like a large dynamite package being ignited in a sealed iron barrel.
The huge recoil slammed against his shoulder along the buttstock.
Frenchie let out a muffled grunt.
A slight bone-cracking sound came from his right collarbone, and his shoulder went numb instantly.
The muzzle spewed a half-foot-long deep blue flame.
The special antimatter bullet broke out of the chamber.
The air was torn apart by the bullet head.
The surface of the bullet instantly burned red-hot due to rapid friction with the air.
But inside the bullet head, that trace of deep blue destructive light grew brighter and brighter.
A distance of one thousand meters. For this electromagnetically accelerated bullet,
it took less than a second.
Frenchie couldn't care about the severe pain in his shoulder.
He didn't even blink his eyelids, staring fixedly at the scope.
He wanted to see with his own eyes that monster's head explode into a mist of blood, watching that arrogant skull vanish into thin air.
The bullet flew across the wide main road.
Instantly piercing through that layer of aviation-grade explosion-proof glass of Vought Tower.
The glass did not shatter over a large area, leaving only a smooth bullet hole with edges showing the smoothness of high-temperature melting.
The bullet head carried that deep blue light capable of erasing everything.
With absolute precision,
it slammed into Shen Che's right temple.
The bullet shell shattered, and the miniature magnetic field stopped running.
Antimatter met regular matter.
Frenchie opened his mouth, preparing to welcome that silent annihilation.
But,
there was no explosion.
No blood mist.
Not even a trace of a spark emerged.
"Clang."
A slight, crisp sound.
Penetrating a distance of one thousand meters, it eerily traveled to Frenchie's ears.
It was like someone taking a sesame seed and casually flicking it against a solid piece of steel plate.
The sound was crisp, even a bit ethereal.
Inside the scope,
Shen Che didn't even tilt his head the slightest bit.
The white porcelain teacup in his hand was held steadily.
The white steam at the rim of the cup was still leisurely drifting upward.
Not even a single drop of tea splashed out.
The moment the antimatter bullet contacted that layer of skin,
its internal structure was forcibly crushed to death by an absolute force field completely beyond comprehension.
Before the annihilation reaction could even begin, it was forcibly suppressed back to its origin.
That hard, special bullet head deformed instantly.
Like a piece of plasticine slapped against a wall, it flattened directly into an iron disk.
The massive kinetic energy had nowhere to release.
It bounced back.
Frenchie was still in a daze, his brain completely unable to process it.
He watched in the scope as that deformed blue spot of light suddenly grew larger.
"Whoosh—"
A harsh piercing sound exploded above his head.
That bounced-back spent bullet head moved even faster than when it went out.
It flew past, directly grazing Frenchie's scalp.
The scorched smell of hair singed by the high temperature instantly drilled into his nasal cavity.
A wisp of curly hair was sheared off, spinning down onto the gun barrel.
Frenchie's hands went limp.
The heavy sniper rifle slid off the concrete low wall and slammed onto the ground.
His whole body collapsed backward, as if his spine had been pulled out.
He slumped heavily into a puddle of dirty water on the roof terrace.
A burning, stinging pain came from his scalp. He reached out and touched it, his fingertips stained with a streak of blood.
Half a centimeter closer, and his head would have exploded like a rotten watermelon.
Frenchie gasped heavily for breath, his lips as pale as death without a trace of color.
He looked at the undamaged glass building opposite.
An uncontrollable warm liquid flowed down along his crotch.
Soaking his dirty jeans and dripping onto the concrete ground.
He had peed his pants.