Chapter 86: Superman Flicked Away with a Single Finger, Batman's Armor Shatters
"Clang!"
That slender hand had its index and middle fingers pressed together.
Gently flicking the bronze spear thrust at him by Diana,
the movement was shockingly slow, as if flicking away a stray gnat from his clothes.
But an irresistible absolute force erupted explosively from his fingertips.
The several-hundred-pound bronze spear, at the moment of contact,
like a fragile dry branch,
snapped straight into three pieces starting from the point of impact.
The crisp sound of snapping metal exploded across the plaza.
The three broken spear fragments dropped onto the shattered floor tiles with a clatter.
Diana was driven two steps backward by the terrifying recoil force.
The webbing between her thumbs and index fingers split open, and fresh blood flowed along her palm prints into the vambraces of her armor.
She gripped the sole remaining fragment of the spear shaft in her hand.
Her dark eyes were filled with shock and horror.
That was a bronze weapon forged on Paradise Island, capable of withstanding even a nuclear blast.
And it had just been flicked to pieces by two fingers?
Shen Che walked out from the dissipating white mist.
The trouser legs of his dark blue handmade suit were crisp and straight.
Not even a single droplet of liquid nitrogen condensation clung to the pure white shirt on his upper body.
He shoved both hands into his suit trouser pockets.
He looked at the group of superheroes in front of him who had formed a fatal formation.
"Is this all the noise you can make?"
He twitched the corner of his mouth, revealing an undisguised sneer.
"I thought you lot spent three days plotting in the sewers and could bring me some kind of surprise."
Shen Che's voice wasn't loud, but it was exceptionally clear in the silent plaza.
"Nothing but scrap metal, paired with a few painless firecrackers."
"How utterly boring."
Clark stood by Diana's side.
He had taken off that stubby red cape and changed into a black Kryptonian combat suit.
Hearing these words, the fury in his chest could no longer be suppressed.
The fighting spirit that had been suppressed on the Kansas Farm for twenty years was completely ignited in front of this man.
"Ah——!"
Clark let out a roar that tore through the air.
His legs suddenly exerted force.
The asphalt road surface was stomped into a half-meter-deep crater, with gravel flying in all directions.
He shot straight toward Shen Che like a black cannonball.
In the process of his charge, he gathered the yellow Sunenergy he had absorbed for twenty years
without reservation onto his right fist.
His right fist was enveloped by a visible layer of golden halo, and the surrounding air was warped and distorted by the high temperature.
This was the physical limit he could currently unleash.
Carrying kinetic energy sufficient to smash half a continent, he fiercely slammed toward Shen Che's temple.
The distance was closing.
Two meters. One meter. Half a foot.
Shen Che did not dodge. He didn't even move his feet an inch.
He merely pulled his right hand out of his pocket.
Extending his index finger,
right where Clark's fist, carrying terrifying golden light, was only half an inch away from his temple,
facing that kinetic energy capable of flattening mountain ranges,
he casually gave it a flick.
"Bang——!!!"
A dull explosion so intense it made hearts momentarily stop burst open at the center of Starlight Plaza.
There was no flashy exchange of energy beams.
There was only the collision of pure, dimensional-reduction-strike-like physical power.
A single index finger of Silver Age Superman
met the all-out strike of an ordinary Kryptonian.
On Clark's fist, that layer of golden Sun energy halo,
within 0.1 seconds of contacting Shen Che's fingertip,
directly disintegrated and vanished like a soap bubble.
Immediately following that,
the bones in Clark's right arm emitted a teeth-gritting grinding sound.
A terrifying recoil force that he completely failed to understand surged backward through his arm and into his body.
His weight of over two hundred pounds, in the face of this force,
was no heavier than a leaf.
His entire body, at ten times the speed with which he had rushed up,
flew backward directly.
"Boom!"
The glass curtain wall of the first commercial building was shattered by his impact.
"Boom!"
The load-bearing pillars of the second office building were smashed apart by him.
"Boom!"
The reinforced concrete walls of the third shopping mall were penetrated by him.
Like an out-of-control bowling ball, Clark smashed through the ground-floor structures of three consecutive buildings,
leaving behind three pitch-black large holes while dust and shattered glass cascaded down like a waterfall.
Finally, he heavily crashed into a pile of ruins in the back alley of the third building.
Half his body was buried beneath broken steel bars and chunks of concrete.
"Pfft."
Clark tilted his head back and spat out a large mouthful of golden-red blood.
The blood splattered onto his black combat suit, a horrifying sight.
His right arm hung limply by his side, the bones inside fractured with dense cracks by that recoil force.
He wanted to climb up, but his internal organs felt like they had shifted out of place.
The intense pain forced him to lie flat in the ruins, heavily gasping in dusty air.
Back in the plaza,
the rest of the Justice League members were completely dumbfounded.
That was their strongest physical combatant.
With a single finger, he had just been flicked flying across several streets?
Bruce sat in the wheelchair atop the armored vehicle.
He bit the tip of his tongue, forcing himself to snap out of the shock.
The tactics could not stop; this was the last chance.
"Arthur!" Bruce roared fiercely into the communicator.
Aquaman snapped out of his shock. Wielding the trident pieced together from discarded steel bars,
he lunged at Shen Che from the side.
Bruce himself was not idle either.
With both hands, he gripped and shoved hard against the rims of his wheelchair.
The mechanical exoskeleton emitted an overloaded screech as he forcibly stood up from the wheelchair.
That crude armor, welded out of scrap metal by him in the sewers, weighed a full three hundred pounds.
Dragging his paralyzed lower body,
his left hand raised a black metal transmitter—that was the mental disruptor.
His right hand gripped a high-voltage electric shock needle coated with the suppression fluid formulated by Frenchie.
He desperately charged toward Shen Che's back.
He was going to drive this needle straight into the nerve plexus at the back of that monster's neck.
This was the fatal blow.
The distance was closing. Ten meters. Five meters.
Shen Che turned around.
He watched Bruce limping over like a battered iron tin can as he charged forward.
There was not even a trace of annoyance in his gaze.
Only pure boredom.
He raised his right hand.
Without even making a fist, he simply spread his palm open.
Backhanding with it,
like swatting a blood-sucking mosquito to death,
he slapped a palm against the armor plating on Bruce's chest.
"Crack——!"
A scalp-tingling sound of metal shattering rang out.
That exoskeleton armor, which Bruce had spent several all-nighters welding together using high-strength titanium alloy scrap,
under this single palm strike from Shen Che,
directly burst apart like a paper toy.
The heavy armor plating shattered on the spot into dozens of metal fragments,
scattering in all directions.
They embedded themselves into the surrounding asphalt road surface with a clattering din.
The high-voltage electric shock needle in Bruce's hand fell to the ground before it could even touch Shen Che's clothes.
The suppression fluid spilled all over the ground, emitting a pungent chemical odor.
His entire body was knocked backward by this force.
Lying unsupported by the exoskeleton, his paralyzed lower body simply couldn't stand.
"Thud."
Bruce collapsed heavily to the ground.
The fractured spine in his lower back suffered another impact.
The excruciating pain surged through his whole body like an electric current, causing him to curl up in agony on the ground, convulsing.
His hands clutched tightly at the gravel on the ground, his fingernails caked with blood.
He gasped heavily for breath, his face beneath the mask as pale as paper.
It was over.
What tactics? What trump cards?
In front of this man's single palm strike, they were all nothing more than a pile of shattered garbage on the ground.
Shen Che withdrew his hand.
He walked over to Bruce's side.
Lifting that polished black leather shoe,
he precisely stepped down onto Bruce's chest.
He didn't use his full strength, just enough to pin him firmly to the ground so that he didn't even have the strength to turn over.
Shen Che did not look at the painfully struggling Batmanbeneath his feet.
He raised his head.
His gaze swept past the shattered floor tiles,
looking toward the remaining few people.
Diana holding the broken spear, Aquaman gripping the steel bar, and The Boys shivering behind a car in the distance.
Shen Che yawned.
His eyelids were half-drooped, and his pitch-black eyes were filled with undisguised sleepiness.
"Just these few tricks."
His voice was calm, echoing across the empty plaza.
"How truly sleep-inducing."
Chapter 87: You can't even take ten percent of the Silver Age Superman's panel, you guys are too useless
Shen Che covered his mouth and yawned.
Even a tear of physiological fatigue squeezed out from the corner of his eyes.
He stepped on Bruce's chest, his black leather shoes stained with a bit of dust.
This sleepy, lazy appearance was captured without any blind spots from three hundred and sixty degrees by dozens of drones in midair.
Through satellite signal, it was clearly transmitted to billions of screens across the World.
Despair, like a barbed vine, tightly strangled the hearts of everyone in front of the screen.
In the Underground Room of Metropolis.
That Aquaman Arthur holding a steel trident had completely red eyes.
He watched with his own eyes as Clark was knocked flying, watching Bruce's armor shatter into a pile of garbage on the ground.
The terrestrial divine right he was proud of was trampled into the mud by Shen Che at the bottom of the sea.
Now, in front of the entire World, this group of people was treated like a Joker for amusement.
"Ah——!"
Arthur squeezed a Beast-like roar from his throat.
Disregarding the sharp pain of his sternum that had not yet healed, he grabbed that rusty steel bar.
His thigh muscles bulged, shattering the marble floor tiles under his feet.
Outflanking from the left, he stabbed directly at Shen Che's temple.
At the same time.
Behind the abandoned police car on the right side.
Billy Butcher threw away the empty heavy machine gun in his hand.
From the pocket of his black trench coat, he fished out a syringe filled with green, turbid liquid.
Inferior compound v, discounted goods bought on the black market.
This was the last trump card he left for himself.
The thick needle directly plunged into the carotid artery of his neck.
His thumb pressed hard on the plunger, injecting that entire tube of chemical reagent, which was enough to make a human heart burst, into his blood vessels without a single drop left.
"Hiss——"
The veins on Butcher's neck bulged like earthworms.
The black trench coat was torn open by the instantly expanding muscles, and the fabric made a tearing sound.
In his eyes, a crude, turbid red light emerged.
Unlike Chloe's pure high-temperature rays, it looked more like the sparks of an inferior battery about to short-circuit.
This was a short-term overdraft brought by the inferior reagent, with the price being organ failure in a few minutes.
But he no longer cared.
As long as he could leave a scar on the face of this high-and-mighty chaebol, dying would be worth it.
"Go to hell! You monster in human skin!"
Butcher roared frantically, lunging at Shen Che from the right.
Pincer attack from both sides, the brute force of Aquamancombined with the life-overdrawing Butcher.
This was the last bit of resistance kinetic energy they could squeeze out.
Shen Che stood in place.
His right foot was still stepping on Bruce's chest, not moving away a fraction.
He looked at the madmen rushing over from both the left and right sides.
His eyelids drooped lazily, lacking even the interest to raise his hand to block.
"Too slow."
Shen Che gently uttered three words.
Silver Age Superman's bio-field, along with these three words, released without warning.
No golden light, no storm.
It was just an invisible, to-the-extreme pure high-dimensional heavy pressure.
Taking Shen Che as the center, it descended with a boom.
"Bang!"
Arthur rushed to a place three meters away from Shen Che.
The rusty steel bar had just been raised.
Suddenly,
he felt as if he had crashed headfirst into a transparent wall cast from lead blocks.
No, not a wall.
It was gravity.
The gravity within this three-meter range was instantly raised by a thousand times.
Arthur's body of more than two hundred pounds was directly slammed onto the ground by this terrifying heavy pressure.
"Crack."
The sternum that hadn't healed properly just now made another crisp fracturing sound.
His entire body lay flat in a sprawling shape on the shattered floor tiles, his face pressed tightly against the ground.
His nose was bruised and bleeding.
He desperately tried to prop up his arms, but that invisible weight pressed him down so much that he couldn't even lift a single finger.
His bones emitted a sore wail within his muscles.
On the right side.
Butcher, who had just expanded a circle, had an even more miserable fate.
The false power brought by the inferior compound v, in front of the heavy pressure of this dimensionality reduction strike, was like a popped soap bubble.
"Boom."
Butcher's knees were directly crushed, kneeling on the ground.
His upper body subsequently slammed down.
The crude red light in his eyes flickered twice and went out.
He spat out a large mouthful of black blood containing visceral fragments.
The backlash of the inferior reagent and the external heavy pressure broke out simultaneously.
He slumped on the ground like a dead fish drained of water, only able to breathe weakly.
Three meters.
An invisible absolute domain, pinning all the ants attempting to resist firmly into the dirt.
Shen Che looked at the two people lying on the ground,
and glanced not far away at Diana, who was holding a broken half-spear, her arms trembling and not daring to step forward.
And Hughie and Frenchie, who were hiding behind the armored car, covering their heads and trembling.
He shook his head.
The sleepiness between his brows grew heavier.
"I am standing here."
Shen Che's voice echoed in the silent square, passing into everyone's ears, passing into the broadcasting signals of the entire World.
"I didn't move my fists. I didn't use Heat Vision."
"I didn't even dare to use ten percent of the output of the Silver Age panel."
He sighed, his tone full of disappointment.
"Because I'm afraid that by accident, I might grind this broken stone of yours into powder along with all of you."
Shen Che's sole ground on Bruce's chest for a moment.
Bruce let out a muffled groan from the pain.
"And what about you guys?"
"Plotting for three days, swearing oaths as you ran over to Metropolis."
"Just to show me this kind of house-playing trick?"
Shen Che moved his foot away, looking at Bruce on the ground.
"Your tactics are like those of a moron who can't even build blocks properly."
He looked at the prone Arthur and Butcher.
"Your power isn't even worthy of dusting off this suit of mine."
"Too useless."
These two words, like a judge's gavel pronouncing a death sentence, smashed the last shred of dignity in the hearts of this group from the Justice League into pieces.
Despair spread across the square, a suffocating sense of powerlessness.
You try your best, but the opponent just treats it as watching a boring monkey show.
Shen Che truly felt bored.
He originally thought that gathering the hopes of the entire World would allow him to see some interesting sparks.
As a result, it was just a bunch of damp duds.
This farce should come to an end.
He raised his right foot, his toe inserting into the edge of Bruce's shattered battle armor.
Like kicking a deflated leather ball, casually flicking it forward.
"Bang."
Bruce's heavy body slid out along the floor tiles, leaving a bloody trail dozens of meters long, and precisely stopping at the edge of the building ruins that Clark had smashed through earlier.
Bruce slumped among the rubble, right next to Clark, who was vomiting blood from being smashed and had half his body buried in the ruins.
Two superheroes once regarded by Earthlings as hope and bottom line, now piled together like two heaps of useless garbage, lingering on their last breaths.
In the square, Diana half-kneeling on the ground, her broken spear hanging down.
Aquaman and Butcher lying prone under the heavy pressure, unable to even lift their heads.
The Justice League completely lost the ability to resist.
Wails and heavy panting echoed faintly in the wind.
Shen Che withdrew his foot, tidied the hem of his suit.
He no longer looked at this group of defeated generals on the ground, turned around, and faced the densely packed drone lenses in midair, facing the billions of Earthlings trapped in dead silence behind the screens.
The camera zoomed in.
Shen Che's expressionless face occupied the screens of the entire World.
His dark eyes exuded a coldness of sitting high on a divine throne.
He thrust both hands into his suit pants pockets, ready to issue the final ruling declaration to this Planet.
Chapter 88: Completely trample and shatter the spine of the Justice League, the World only allows Vought Company
"It's over."
Shen Che faced the camera, his voice not loud, but through the speakers of billions of devices, it clearly hammered against the eardrums of every Earthling.
There was no high-spirited passion after defeating evil, only a kind of utter boredom after dealing with sewer rats.
In the ruins behind him, Clark and Bruce slumped like two piles of rags.
Diana's broken spear dropped to the ground, and Arthurand Butcher couldn't even turn over under the heavy pressure of the bio-field.
This was humanity's last hope, now trampled until not even scum was left.
"These are the so-called heroes you pinned your hopes on."
Shen Che tilted his head, his chin pointing at that group of remnants and defeated generals.
"Hiding in the Underground Room, drawing a few red lines, taking a few broken stones, and thinking you could flip over my table."
Shen Che's gaze penetrated the lens, as if looking at those civilians hiding behind the screens and trembling.
"That deep-rooted bad nature in your bones of always hoping for a savior to descend from the sky is truly laughable."
At the edge of the square, a few reporters who still held a stroke of luck earlier, upon hearing this, relaxed their hands, letting the cameras crash onto the ground, shattering the lenses.
"Saviors can't save you."
Shen Che took a step forward, his leather shoes stepping on the broken glass.
"Because in front of absolute power, even saviors themselves have to lie prone like dogs."
He raised his right hand, his index finger tapping his own temple.
"Remember this. On this Earth, there is no need for bleeding hearts, nor for unruly vigilantes."
"Starting from today,"
Shen Che said word by word, every word carrying an unquestionable metallic texture.
"The World only allows one rule, which is Vought Company."
"The shipping routes of the Water, land security, and even every breath of air you take, are all on Vought Company's ledger."
He sneered, a smile that made people's bodies turn cold all over.
"Pay money, and I guarantee your absolute safety. Even if the sky falls, I will hold it up for you."
"Just like the solar flare of the Sun that I blew out."
"But if you don't pay money, or want to be the standing-out bird like them,"
Shen Che turned around, pointing at Bruce on the ground.
"The sewer will be your final destination. For the rest of your lives, you can only recall your laughable justice in a wheelchair with a urinary catheter plugged in."
Global dead silence.
No protests, no parades.
When hope was completely crushed, when the gap in power was too large to comprehend, humanity was left with only one instinct: submission.
In the bomb shelter of Washington, the Presidentdejectedly closed his eyes, pressing the speakerphone of the red hotline beside his hand.
"Notify Congress. Pass Vought Company's tax exemption bill. All security budgets... transferred to the Supreme VIP Project."
On the streets of Metropolis, those civilians who once threw empty paper cups at Clark, at this moment all knelt on the ground, kowtowing tremblingly towards Shen Che's face on the big screen.
Shen Che watched the red light flashing on the drone lens.
He knew the purpose had been achieved.
He didn't need to kill all these people; what he wanted was a batch of obedient, high-level laborers who would create profits for him.
This was the ultimate dictatorship combining capital and divine authority.
He turned his head, ignoring the lens anymore, and looked to the side.
"Chloe." Shen Che spoke.
A red-and-blue afterimage descended from the sky, carrying a pungent, burnt smell.
Chloe landed beside Shen Che.
She wore a tight uniform, her blonde hair somewhat disheveled.
She had just cleared a few individual mutant humans in the surrounding neighborhoods who tried to cause trouble taking advantage of the chaos.
The soles of her boots were still stained with black blood.
"Shen." Chloe ran up to him, her blue eyes full of morbid obsession.
She didn't care about any ruling declarations; she only cared about Shen Che calling her name.
"Clean up the garbage."
Shen Che pointed at those half-dead superheroes on the ground.
"The ones who aren't dead, pack them up and throw them into the special prison cells in the basement of Vought Tower."
"Draw their blood, extract their genes, find something for that tech nerd Frenchie to do, and let him develop new reagents."
Shen Che tidied the collar of his white shirt.
"Squeeze dry their last bit of value. Since they can't be heroes, they can be lab rats for Vought Company."
Chloe nodded repeatedly, like a loyal dog receiving an imperial edict.
"Understood! I guarantee to suck out their bone marrow completely!"
Shen Che didn't talk nonsense anymore.
He thrust his hands into his suit pants pockets, his legs slightly bent.
The sonic boom cloud exploded in the center of the square.
The white shirt turned into an afterimage, shooting straight into the clouds and flying back to the 112th floor of Vought Tower.
Leaving this mess all over the ground for Chloe to handle.
Chloe looked at the direction where Shen Chedisappeared, her gaze lingering.
Until the sound of the sonic boom completely subsided, did she turn her head to look at those crippled people on the ground.
The sweet smile on her face instantly vanished, replaced by an extreme, cruel, and sinister look.
"Did you hear that? Bugs."
Chloe walked up to Diana, stepping on the fractured bronze spear with one foot.
"Go to the Underground Room and be rats."
Just at this moment, at the edge of the square, that male news anchor who had previously held the microphone and sat on the ground in fright, suddenly went like crazy.
He grabbed the microphone on the ground and shouted wildly towards the camera.
"Did you all see this! This is a devil! Vought Company is a demon lair!"
The anchor's face was covered in tears, his voice hoarse.
"We cannot submit! We still have the army! We still have..."
"Hiss——"
Two crimson high-temperature Heat Visions sprayed out from the depths of Chloe's eyes without any warning.
Precisely and unerringly sweeping across the male anchor's neck.
The male anchor's voice abruptly stopped.
His head along with the microphone in his hand was instantly vaporized.
The headless corpse swayed twice and slammed heavily onto the asphalt road surface.
The cut was pitch black, not even a single drop of blood flowing out.
A pungent smell of roasted meat permeated the air.
Chloe turned her head, the red light in her eyes not yet completely extinguished.
She stared at the surrounding drones and reporters who were still filming.
"Whoever dares to curse him,"
Chloe's voice was cloyingly sweet, yet it made people feel as if they had fallen into an ice cellar.
"I will kill their entire family."
Chapter 88: Completely Crushing the Spine of the Justice League, the World Only Allows Vought
"How sleepy this makes me..."
This emotionless sigh spread across the globe through the microphone suspended in midair.
A dead silence hung over Starlight Plaza, save for the howling of the cold wind blowing through the ruined buildings.
On the ground.
Clark was half-buried in the ruins of the third building, the black suit on his chest torn open.
Golden-red blood dripped from his chin onto the concrete slab, his coughing of blood growing slower and slower.
His eyes, which could see through stars, were now dim and lifeless. Staring at the gray sky, only numbness remained in his gaze.
Bruce lay slumped amidst the shattered bricks dozens of meters away.
His ruined exoskeleton occasionally sputtered blue sparks. The fractured spine in his lower back prevented him from lifting even a single finger.
He gasped heavily, spitting out bloody froth with every breath.
Arthur and Butcher were pinned down hard under the gravity field.
Aquaman's face was pressed against the asphalt, the rough gravel scraping the scale tattoos on his cheek.
The veins on Butcher's neck were turning black due to the backlash of compound v, and black blood mixed with bits of internal organs spilled from the corner of his mouth.
Diana held the broken bronze spear, of which only half remained.
She knelt on one knee, the blood from her split web of her thumb staining the spear's shaft red.
This was humanity's last hope. This was the Justice League, which had just solemnly vowed to save the World.
Now, they had all become mere backdrops beneath Shen Che's leather shoes.
Shen Che wiped the sleepy expression from his face.
He pulled his hands out of his pants pockets.
His leather shoes stepped on shattered glass and stones, making a crisp crunching sound.
He turned around.
He faced upward, toward the hundreds of wind-resistant drones hovering densely like a swarm of wasps.
Hundreds of high-definition red-dot lenses stared intently at him.
He didn't take a microphone. He didn't need one.
His voice echoed across the empty plaza, as sharp and clear as a steel knife scraping bone.
"It's over."
Shen Che looked into the camera.
"These are the so-called heroes you placed your hopes in."
He turned sideways and gestured with his thumb toward the pile of defeated remnants behind him.
"Hiding in the sewers, drawing a few tactical red lines, and grabbing a few broken rocks..."
"...and you thought you could overturn my table."
Shen Che's gaze pierced through the lenses, bearing down directly on the billions of trembling eyes behind the screens.
"Saviors?"
He sneered, his chest vibrating slightly.
"On this plaza, your saviors couldn't even withstand a single finger of mine."
At the edge of the plaza.
A few peripheral reporters hiding behind armored vehicles heard these words.
They could no longer hold their cameras steady.
With a clatter, the cameras crashed to the ground, the lens glass shattering everywhere.
No one dared to bend down and pick them up; they all stood frozen, shivering violently.
"That deep-seated weakness of always expecting others to save you is truly laughable."
Shen Che took a step forward.
"In the face of absolute violence, even the saviors themselves have to grovel like dogs."
"Remember this. On this Planet, there is no need for bleeding hearts, nor is there any room for rogue elements who don't follow the rules."
He raised his right hand and tapped his temple with his index finger.
"From this day on, the World will only allow one rule: that of the Vought Company."
"The ocean shipping lanes, land security, and even every breath of air you take..."
"...are all on Vought's ledger."
Shen Che lowered his hand and adjusted his cuffs.
"Pay up, and I will guarantee your absolute safety. Even if the sky falls, I will hold it up for you."
"But this money is not a voluntary donation."
He delivered the final ultimatum that struck terror into the hearts of politicians worldwide.
"From this day forward, of the annual tax revenue of all nations..."
"...twenty percent must be deducted and wired directly into Vought Company's offshore accounts."
"Under the name of 'Planet Security Fee'."
Shen Che's voice dropped, running down the spine of every listener like ice water.
"Those who fail to pay on time, or those who want to settle scores with me..."
He pointed at the Starlight Plaza beneath his feet, which was pockmarked with deep craters.
"I will personally pay a visit to your capital, and with my eyes..."
"...I will completely wipe that nation off the map."
The entire World fell into a dead silence.
Inside Washington's underground air-raid shelter.
The President slumped in his leather chair, the fountain pen in his hand dropping onto the carpet, leaving a spreading ink stain.
The back of his shirt was soaked through with cold sweat, clinging tightly to his skin.
He stared at Shen Che's cold face on the large screen, his lips trembling for a long time without squeezing out a single word.
Beneath the desk, his legs were shaking like reeds in the wind.
He pressed the speaker button on the red direct-line telephone beside him.
"Notify Congress..."
The President's voice trembled, sounding as if he had aged ten years in an instant, his throat extremely hoarse.
"Approve Vought's security bill. Recalculate all defense budgets and transfer the funds immediately..."
Tokyo's cabinet meeting room, Paris's presidential palace, London's Downing Street.
All those in power stared at their screens, unable to even hold steady the handkerchiefs they used to wipe their sweat.
Not a single person dared to raise even half a word of objection.
Twenty percent of tax revenue—this was bleeding the entire nation dry.
But compared to becoming a second melted-through Boston, they could only grit their teeth and swallow this poison.
Shen Che watched the red lights blinking on the drone cameras.
He knew his goal had been achieved.
There was no need to kill all of these people; what he wanted was a compliant class of high-level labor that would generate profits for him.
This was the ultimate dictatorship, a fusion of capital and divine authority.
He turned his head, paying no more attention to the cameras.
"Black Noir," Shen Che spoke.
A black shadow slid silently out from the corner of the ruined building.
Black Noir wore his repaired, all-black tactical armor.
He walked up to Shen Che, knelt on one knee, and lowered his head deeply.
The mask concealed his face, with only his heavy breathing audible.
"Take this bunch of defeated remnants..."
Shen Che pointed at Bruce, Clark, Diana, and Arthur on the ground.
"...package them all up, and throw them into the special isolation chamber beneath Vought Tower."
"Draw their blood and extract their genes."
Shen Che glanced at Frenchie, whose legs had gone soft as he hid behind a discarded armored vehicle in the distance.
"Find something for that Frenchman to do. Put him in shackles and have him develop new formulas for Vought."
"Since they can't be heroes, they can serve as guinea pigs for the company."
Black Noir nodded silently.
He stood up and pulled two pairs of specially made heavy alloy handcuffs from his lower back.
He strode toward Bruce, who was slumped in a pool of blood.
He grabbed Batman by the collar of his shattered armor and dragged him aside like a dead dog.
Shen Che wasted no more words.
He bent his legs slightly, preparing to take off and return to his office on the 112th floor.
He would leave this entire mess on the ground for his subordinates to clean up.
Just then...
"Screeech—!"
On the main thoroughfare of Manhattan, at the outer edge of the plaza...
...the extremely grating sound of screeching tires suddenly rang out.
An old yellow taxi cab was speeding frantically down the street, which had already been cleared.
It slammed on the brakes and fishtailed.
Its front end crashed violently into a red fire hydrant by the roadside.
Bang.
The hood crumpled, and white steam mixed with thick smoke from the antifreeze began to billow out.
The fire hydrant snapped, sending a high-pressure geyser of water shooting into the sky, spraying over the asphalt.
Immediately after, the front passenger door was kicked open.
"Let me go! I'm a reporter for the Daily Planet! I have the right to report the truth!"
A woman's voice, sharp and angry, carried a reckless stubbornness.
In the dead silence of the plaza, it sounded exceptionally jarring.
Shen Che stopped mid-motion before leaping.
He turned his head and looked in the direction of the voice.
His brow furrowed slightly.
Louise Lane.
She was wearing a mud-splattered khaki trench coat, with more than half of its buttons missing.
Her hair was as messy as a bird's nest, and her face was smudged with dirt and engine oil.
She held an old-fashioned film camera high in her hand.
She pushed away the taxi driver who was trying to stop her.
Stumbling over the shattered glass on the ground, she dodged the spraying water.
Braving the murderous glares of hundreds of security personnel, she ran toward the center of the plaza.
Behind her, several peripheral security guards from the Vought Company were chasing her with rifles.
"Stop! Keep running and we'll shoot!" a guard roared.
Louise acted as if she hadn't heard a thing.
Her eyes were locked onto Shen Che, who stood in the middle of the plaza.
"Shen Che! You absolute Butcher!"
Louise shrieked, her voice cracking from the intense running.
She raised her camera, aiming it at Shen Che and the group of superheroes being dragged across the ground.
Click.
The flash went off in the daylight, sending a blinding beam of light.
Shen Che lowered his legs, abandoning his preparation to leap.
His black leather shoes planted themselves firmly back on the tiles.
He looked at this female reporter who had no regard for her own life.
This woman had previously been caught taking secret photos in his office and was hung off the rooftop by Chloe, yet she actually hadn't fallen to her death.
Not only was she not dead, but she actually dared to run right in front of him now to press the shutter.
How interesting.
At a time when the entire World was kneeling and trembling on the ground...
...there was still an ant like this who couldn't see reality and tried to oppose absolute power with a broken camera.
Shen Che raised his hand.
He stopped the security guards who were preparing to fire.
He turned around, facing Louise as she ran toward him.
The corners of his mouth slowly curled upward into an extremely cold smile.
Chapter 89 Female Homelander makes an entrance, casually slaughters media supporting the Justice League
Louise's shutter click had just fallen.
"Screeech——"
It was another series of harsh screeching brakes, tearing apart the dead silence of the square.
Several old news broadcast vans painted with anti-Vought slogans forcefully broke through the checkpoints from several side roads.
Rushing blindly, the front of the vans pushed against the yellow warning tape set up by Vought security.
Stopped at the edge of Starlight Plaza.
The bodies of the vans were spray-painted in red with large characters: "Return my freedom", "Tyrant go to hell".
The red paint was not yet dry, dripping down the car doors.
The car door was kicked open by someone.
Several independent media reporters wearing vests and duck-billed caps jumped out of the car.
In their hands, they held portable loudspeakers and protest banners supported by bamboo poles.
These were underground news people not controlled by large conglomerates.
After seeing that tragic Carnage just now,
not only did it not scare them away, instead it stimulated a kind of martyrdom-like fanaticism.
"Shen Che! This is a crime against humanity!"
A male reporter with a beard holding a big loudspeaker roared wildly towards the center of the square.
The sound transmitted from the loudspeaker carried a sharp current echo.
"You destroyed Earth's democracy! You deprived us of the right to breathe!"
"You stepped heroes under your feet. You are a thorough fascist!"
He stepped forward, waving the loudspeaker in his hand.
Several people behind him shouted together.
"Protest dictatorship! Protest security fees!"
"The people of the world will not bow their heads to you!"
The sound of slogans echoed in the empty square, like a few flies falling on an iron plate.
Buzz buzz buzz, making people irritable.
Louise held the old-fashioned film camera, looking at this group of colleagues who suddenly rushed out.
She froze. The camera stopped in mid-air.
She originally thought she was the only madman in this square who dared to stand out.
Shen Che stood on the marble fragments.
He put away the sneer at the corner of his mouth.
The white shirt was blown by the wind to stick against his pectoral muscles.
He didn't turn his head to look at those reporters holding loudspeakers, nor did he raise his eyelids even a little bit.
Even less did he order the security to open fire.
This kind of noise was not worth him doing it himself.
He knew someone would sweep these trashes clean for him.
"Boom——!"
Above the clouds, a huge explosion breaking the sound barrier came.
A circle of white airflow exploded in mid-air.
A red and blue alternating afterimage,
carrying a charred smell and the sound of breaking through the air, like a meteor falling from outer space,
smashed straight toward those broadcast vans sprayed with red paint.
"Bang!"
A deafening loud noise.
The roof of the first broadcast van instantly caved in.
Chloe wearing a blue-bottomed red-star uniform stepped heavily on the car skin.
The huge kinetic energy directly turned this three-ton truck
into a flat iron cake pasted on the asphalt road.
The car window glass burst in all directions, and the tires made a desperate explosive sound.
The shock absorber spring snapped and pierced the carriage.
The surrounding reporters were overturned by the air wave, and the loudspeakers dropped to the ground, making a harsh prolonged sound.
"Zzzt——"
Chloe stood on the flattened car roof.
Golden long hair danced wildly in the violent wind.
She did not look at those reporters fallen on the ground.
Her blue eyes stared dead at the bearded man who shouted just now.
In that pair of beautiful eyes, blood color surged instantly.
Deep in the pupils, two violent red lights burst brightly without warning.
The surrounding air suddenly heated up.
The asphalt road surface was baked soft, emitting a pungent tar smell.
Chloe didn't talk nonsense. She was even too lazy to listen to the democracy and freedom shouted by these people.
She only heard these people scolding Shen Che,
scolding her god.
"Die."
Chloe squeezed out a word from between her teeth.
Two scarlet Heat Visions carrying a high temperature of several thousand degrees
swept out from the bottom of her eyes,
like two red-hot God of Death sickles, directly cutting open the air.
The red light swept across those independent reporters who had just climbed up and were still grasping banners in their hands.
No scream.
The high temperature vaporized the water in their bodies in an instant and carbonized their bones.
Three living people,
within zero point one second after the red light swept across,
along with the plastic loudspeakers and bamboo pole banners in their hands,
directly turned into a pile of black smoke-emitting ashes.
The red light didn't stop,
continuing to sweep horizontally, cutting open the two broadcast vans behind.
The gasoline tank was ignited. Two loud noises of "Boom".
Fireballs rose into the air, and the orange-red flames illuminated Chloe's face full of murderous intent.
Heat Vision went out.
The edge of the square became quiet.
The long sound of the loudspeaker cut off. The protest slogans were gone.
Only the crackling sound of burning cars remained.
Louise stood more than ten meters away, the old-fashioned camera in her hand dropped to the ground with a clatter.
The film cover fell open, and the negative was exposed.
Her legs went soft, and she knelt on the ground,
looking at those piles of grayish-white ashes not yet blown away by the wind.
Her stomach churned violently, covering her mouth and retching.
Where was this a place to reason? This was a slaughterhouse.
Chloe jumped down from the flattened car roof.
Red boots stepped on the softened asphalt road surface,
stepping over the ashes of those reporters, leaving behind footprints with grayish-white powder one by one.
The surrounding Vought security personnel who originally still held guns and were ready to watch Shen Che's expression
were scared to step back repeatedly.
Their hands holding rifles were shaking, terrified that this crazy Female Homelander would burn them together if she became slightly unhappy.
Chloe didn't pay attention to these security guards.
She put away the grimness on her face. The red light faded, and her blue eyes recovered clarity.
Turning around, taking steps toward Shen Che in the center of the square.
The steps became slower and slower as she walked.
Golden hair drooped down, the kind of merciless brutality just now disappeared completely and cleanly.
She walked to a place two steps away in front of Shen Cheand stopped.
Hands behind her back,
like a bad student who fought with classmates in school and was caught red-handed by the teacher.
She lowered her head slightly,
the tips of her boots restlessly rubbed against a pebble on the ground.
Blue eyes peeked upwards secretly,
looking at Shen Che's expressionless face,
a bit aggrieved, yet carrying fawning.
"Shen..."
Chloe's voice was very small, sweet and sticky, carrying a little nasal sound.
"They were too noisy."
She pointed to the broadcast vans still burning behind her.
"Scolding you. I couldn't hold it back."
She cautiously observed Shen Che's facial expression,
fearing that Shen Che would blame her for acting without authorization and ruining the rules of the live broadcast.
Shen Che stood on the marble fragments,
looking at the yandere childhood sweetheart in front of him who had just burned people into ashes, but was now pretending to be pitiful.
He knew. This woman only had him in her brain.
Whoever scolded him a word, she could slaughter the other party's entire family.
This kind of bottomless food-protecting was a madman in others' eyes,
but here with him, it was very useful.
"Well done."
Shen Che spoke, his voice bland.
These four words were like a reassuring pill.
Chloe abruptly raised her head, her blue eyes instantly lit up, like two sapphires.
The grievance was swept away, and the corners of her mouth grinned to her ear roots.
She took a big step forward,
directly pounced into Shen Che's arms, her hands tightly hugging Shen Che's waist.
Her face pressed against his white shirt, rubbing desperately,
like a large dog that finally won praise from Master.
"I knew you would like it."
Chloe's voice was full of excitement.
She turned her head, resting her chin on Shen Che's chest,
blue eyes swept towards the civilians and reporters trembling behind the armored vehicles around.
"From now on, whoever dares to hold this kind of lousy sign on the street..."
She licked her lips.
"I will stuff him into the crematorium."
Chapter 90: The Yandere's Extreme Protectiveness; Whoever Dares to Insult Shen Che, I Will Kill
Chloe stepped on the ashes that were still emitting black smoke.
The soles of her red leather boots were stained with a layer of grayish-white powder.
She quickly walked over to Shen Che's side.
The fierce light in her blue eyes faded away completely, looking like a washed sapphire.
She reached out both hands and tightly hugged Shen Che's arm.
Her cheek pressed tightly against Shen Che's white shirt.
The female devil who had just killed without blinking was now like a wild dog guarding its food.
Her fluffy head rubbed against Shen Che's shoulder.
"They were so noisy."
Chloe's voice was sweet and cloying, with a slight nasal tone.
She turned her head, resting her chin on Shen Che's arm.
Her blue eyes swept over the shivering journalists and security personnel hiding behind the armored vehicles on the periphery.
Wherever her gaze landed, everyone felt as if the God of Death's scythe was held against their necks.
The journalists lowered their heads one after another, keeping their breathing as quiet as possible, terrified that a slightly louder breath would be taken as a protest by this mad woman.
Chloe raised her other hand, the one not holding Shen Che.
She pointed at the few piles of residue on the ground that were still sparking with embers.
"Listen up."
Her voice wasn't loud, and she didn't use a megaphone, but when it reached everyone's ears, it was more terrifying than heavy machine gun fire.
"He is mine."
Chloe's blue uniform with red stars fluttered loudly in the wind.
"If anyone dares to print bad words about him on your crappy papers,"
She sliced her finger through the air, as if making a cutting motion.
"or let even half an insulting word about him slip from their mouths,"
"I will find you."
Chloe grinned, revealing a row of forest-white teeth, her smile innocent yet cruel.
"I'll rip your heads off, pull out your entire family's intestines, and hang them on the lampposts."
There was dead silence on the plaza.
Hundreds of people, and not a single one dared to breathe heavily.
This pathological possessiveness and protectiveness sent chills down everyone's spines.
Shen Che was a high-and-mighty tyrant. Although he was cold-blooded, he cared about benefits and absolute rule. As long as you obediently handed over money and acted like a dog, he probably wouldn't even bother to look at you.
But this mad woman in blue was different.
She didn't even have the most basic logic.
As long as she felt you were disrespectful to Shen Che, even if you just typed a single wrong letter on your keyboard,
she would fly halfway across the Earth and use her Heat Vision to burn your house into a brick kiln.
Fear fermented among the crowd.
Louise slumped in a puddle over ten meters away, her hands tightly covering her mouth.
She looked at the ashes on the ground, her stomach churning in spasms.
She suddenly felt that it was a miracle she hadn't been burned to death by this woman just now.
Shen Che stood in place.
His arm was tightly held by Chloe, but he didn't feel constricted.
He turned his head and glanced at the blonde leaning on his shoulder.
He didn't push her away.
He even raised his free left hand.
His slender fingers ran through Chloe's blonde hair, sliding down against her scalp.
He casually ruffled it a couple of times.
It was just like stroking the fur of a large dog that had bitten its prey to death and run back to beg for a reward.
This simple action,
in the eyes of everyone on this plaza, was no different from a death warrant.
He had acquiesced.
This consortium deity who ruled the Earth had acquiesced to the Carnage announcement of the mad dog by his side.
From then on, even complaining privately on this Planetwould become a capital offense.
On the ground,
Bruce Wayne lay paralyzed among the rubble.
His exoskeleton armor had shattered into hundreds of pieces of scrap metal, stabbing into his bloody lower back.
He tilted his head, watching Shen Che ruffle Chloe's hair.
His eyes beneath the cowl were bloodshot.
The last glimmer belonging to a master tactician in his eyes went dark.
He knew.
Earth's conventional resistance was completely dead.
There were no boundaries, no rules, only absolute violence and pure madness.
They couldn't win by force, and even the opportunity for public opinion to speak out had been obliterated.
This World had truly become an iron cage.
Bruce closed his eyes.
Two lines of tears mixed with dust and blood flowed down the corners of his eyes and into the gaps of his cowl.
Those were tears of despair shed for Gotham, and for the no-kill rule he had upheld his entire life.
Shen Che withdrew his hand.
"Let's go."
His voice was flat, as if he had just finished watching a boring circus performance.
"This place smells too bad."
The smell of tar, blood, and the burnt stench of ashes mixed together was indeed pungent.
Chloe nodded repeatedly.
"Okay! Let's go back and change to a new carpet!"
She released her hands from Shen Che's arm, preparing to take off behind him.
Shen Che bent his legs slightly.
The granite floor tiles beneath his feet made an overburdened creaking sound.
Just as he was about to burst through a sonic boom cloud and fly back to the 112th floor of the tower,
a sudden change occurred.
The air two meters away from Shen Che's side
emitted a sharp, piercing "sizzle" without warning.
It sounded like a thick canvas being forcibly torn by a rusty iron hook.
A distortion visible to the naked eye appeared in the air.
Ripples of transparent waves rippled out in mid-air.
It was not a heatwave, but a refraction of the spatial structure being forcibly broken.
"Snap. Snap. Snap."
Yellow high-voltage electric arcs leaped wildly in the center of the distorted air.
These arcs were not natural lightning; they carried a destructive aura that disrupted time.
They sucked in the surrounding light, forming a miniature black vortex.
Shen Che's jumping motion stopped.
He stood up straight and turned his head.
His dark eyes stared at the vortex of air flickering with yellow electric arcs.
His brow furrowed slightly.
Chloe instantly entered a combat stance.
She shielded Shen Che, her blue eyes once again flooded with blood-red.
Heat Vision charged in her eyes.
The yellow electric arcs in the center of the vortex gathered more and more.
*Crack!*
A loud crash, as if glass was shattering.
Under this violent tearing, the river of time
was forcibly torn open, leaving a half-person-tall rift.
A yellow afterimage,
carrying a heart-palpitating sound of breaking air and a speed so fast that even the afterimage stretched into a straight line,
burst violently out of the rift in time.
Leather boots slammed heavily onto the ruins of Starlight Plaza.
*Bang.*
The surrounding rubble was blown away by the kinetic energy brought by this crossing of time.
The yellow afterimage stopped.
Red lightning interwove and crackled out in the sky above the plaza.
A man wearing a yellow skin-tight battle suit stood less than ten meters away from Shen Che.
The suit was covered in scorch marks, and a reverse lightning symbol was printed on his chest.
He wore a yellow cowl, with a crimson glow shining from where his eyes should be.
He was staring fixedly at Shen Che.
His breathing was rapid, like an evil ghost that had run all the way out of hell.