There were no lights in the manor, only the occasional sound of suppressed breathing in the darkness.
Cody gestured, and two of his men climbed through a window into the first floor. Soldiers from the other two directions also converged, and the group advanced cautiously and quickly to the upper floors. As they passed the stairwell, they saw three strangely shaped corpses.
The heads of the corpses were rotated 180 degrees, their features twisted and grotesque, clearly having suffered immense pain before death.
At this moment, a low voice came through the earpiece,
"Target acquired, target acquired."
"The target is in the living room on the third floor, with no signs of movement."
Cody raised his hand to his neck and lightly brushed it. Several of his subordinates nodded in unison and quickly went to the third floor. A soldier took out a flashbang, gently pulled the pin, and two seconds later, threw it into the living room through the door crack.
Bang!
A brief, intense flash of light passed.
The four men kicked open the door and rushed into the living room like fierce tigers. At the same time, soldiers from other directions also launched an attack. In an instant, the muzzle flashes of the bullets illuminated the living room as if it were daytime.
A dozen soldiers simultaneously fired at the sofa in the center of the living room. Specialized armor-piercing bullets poured down like a storm. Under such dense firepower, let alone people, even a tank would be riddled with holes.
But the scene in the next second left everyone dumbfounded.
Time had paused!
Yes, in Cody's vision, the flow of time slowed down countless times. He could actually clearly see the air vortex created by the bullets as they left the barrel.
The air in the living room turned into some indescribable viscous substance, soft and tough. The bullets moved through it, slowing down more and more, flying seven or eight meters before stopping and eerily floating in mid-air.
Cody felt his thoughts stagnate, and his proud body became extremely sluggish. He wanted to drop his gun and take out the grenade on his belt, but his arm wouldn't obey, unable to exert any strength. Everyone else was the same, like falling into quicksand, sinking deeper with every struggle.
Time entered a bizarre buffer state.
Everyone could see and think, but they couldn't move, except for the person sitting on the sofa.
Hector stood up and lightly snapped his fingers.
Snap!
The lights in the living room brightened. In the bright light, everyone finally saw the target's appearance: a massive head, disproportionately large for a dwarfish body, hairless but extremely swollen, like a large balloon, with countless dense blue blood vessels appearing on it, like countless coiling and twisting earthworms.
This was not a human; it was a monster!
Cody gasped. He had seen Hector before; although he looked a bit strange, he was still within the realm of a normal person. But now, his head was wider than his shoulders, and those dark yellow eyes were like those of a cold-blooded reptile, cruel and ruthless, devoid of any human emotion.
Everyone felt their scalps tingle, wanting to act, but their bodies wouldn't move. The few soldiers who hadn't entered the living room were anxious, staring helplessly. Bullets were ineffective, and grenades would injure their target. Were they supposed to engage in hand-to-hand combat?
Hector stood with his hands behind his back, looking at the bullet heads floating around his body with satisfaction. His dark yellow eyes were like venomous snakes. Wherever he looked, no one dared to meet his gaze.
"Excellent!"
"You all did very well.
It's a pity there are too few of you, and your firepower is insufficient, far from reaching my limit."
Hector extended a finger and lightly tapped. The viscous air disappeared, and everyone regained control of their bodies. He spread his arms, like a poet preparing to embrace the world, and said sincerely and earnestly,
"Come, keep shooting, don't stop. Empty all the bullets you have."
Cody's face was extremely grim. He was a warrior, and a warrior's honor would not allow insult, but reason made him choose otherwise,
"On my command, retreat."
"This freak is not something we can handle."
Cody almost gritted his teeth as he spoke, and without looking back, he ran towards the stairs. Although the others were furious, they chose to obey their captain's instructions.
The group scattered like birds and beasts, some taking the stairs, some climbing out windows, disappearing in the blink of an eye.
Hector's cheeks quickly flushed with blood, as if he had been humiliated. He gritted his teeth and growled in a voice only he could hear,
"You guys, why won't you let me experience the feeling of being in the spotlight?"
"Disobedient… then die."
Hector clenched his fist.
The air suddenly twisted, creating visible ripples, like boiling water. An invisible force, centered on his palm, transformed into a powerful horizontal impact, sweeping outwards like a tsunami.
Boom!
Furniture, floor, walls, roof... everything in its path was compressed and shattered. A few slow soldiers were pressed against the wall by the impact, and cracking sounds came from inside their bodies as they were crushed into a bloody pulp.
A massive explosion occurred in the manor.
Standing far away, one could clearly see the visible shockwave spreading outwards. Wherever it went, everything disappeared.
Amanda's mouth hung open, her face full of disbelief. Councilman Hammond involuntarily took a few steps back. His eyesight was excellent, and he could see that the big-headed monster floating in mid-air was his cowardly and incompetent son.
How… how could he have become like this?
The shockwave spread for nearly a hundred meters before stopping. The manor had vanished, leaving only a twenty-meter-wide crater. Furniture, stones, and timber were carried far away by the shockwave, along with a dozen or so annihilation squad members whose fates were unknown.
Hector floated above the crater, his massive head pointing towards the sky, with a touch of absurdity and humor, yet also instilling a bone-deep fear.
He looked around, a satisfied expression on his face.
This was power!
This was what a man should pursue.
Councilman Hammond asked in a hoarse voice, "What… what should we do?"
Amanda replied, "What's your relationship with him?"
Hammond lowered his head and remained silent. Amanda understood, no longer holding onto illusions, and instead said half-jokingly,
"A side question, did you write a will before coming here?"
Hammond's face twitched, but he didn't answer.
"I did,"
Amanda murmured to herself, raising her silver metal gun and aiming at the big-headed monster in the distance. The red liquid in the glass canister began to glow, transforming into some kind of energy that flowed into the gun barrel.
As the energy poured in, the gun body grew hotter and hotter, even starting to smoke. A red dot appeared at the muzzle, and countless free-floating photons streamed inwards like birds returning to their nest.
Hector sensed something, turned his head to look, and a red light appeared on the distant hillside. The red light rapidly expanded, filling his entire field of vision.
A laser beam as thick as a thigh streaked across the sky, dyeing the earth deep red.
The dazzling red light illuminated his astonished face. Hector instinctively raised his hand, deploying layers of psychic walls in front of him.
Bang!
The laser collided with the psychic walls, accompanied by terrifying high temperatures and repulsive force. The air crackled with friction, and the light beam was blocked by the psychic walls, splitting into countless scattered rays.
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