Chapter 86 [Battle of Metropolis] 4
The air in the underground core laboratory was still tense enough to make people breathless.
The group of HYDRA researchers wearing white sterile suits watched Arthur swaggering and sitting in the chair that originally belonged to the controller, not even daring to breathe loudly.
Bored, Arthur took a bite of the donut on the table, felt the taste was a bit dry, and casually threw it back into the plate.
He stood up and strolled leisurely through the hall full of cutting-edge instruments.
Without walking a few steps, he stopped in front of the console of a bald middle-aged man.
This person was precisely the top expert in the field of Mutant research, Bolivar Trask.
Arthur pulled over a swivel chair from the side and sat down right next to Trask with a plop.
The pulleys of the chair made a crisp sound on the metal floor, and this sound, heard in Trask's ears, was simply like life-claiming notes.
"According to your current progress, how long will it take for this big guy to be completed?" Arthur pointed at the huge sentinel robot in the center of the hall that was not yet finished, his tone as flat as asking when the roadside fast-food restaurant would serve food.
Trask's hands, which were originally typing on the keyboard, suddenly trembled, and he swallowed a large mouthful of saliva with difficulty.
Was he scared?
Nonsense, of course he was scared.
Did he dare to move around right now?
Completely didn't dare to move.
Just a few minutes ago, he had seen with his own eyes through the surveillance footage that the alien monster Zod hadn't gained the slightest advantage in front of this seemingly ordinary Asian youth, and in the end actually fled dejectedly by breaking through the ceiling.
An Earthling who only knew how to do research, what did he have to act tough in front of this overpowered freak?
"Ac—According to the current progress..." Trask's voice trembled severely. Because of excessive tension, his tongue was even a bit tied, "About... about more than six hours before the system loading and hardware docking can be completely finished..."
"Six hours..." Arthur dragged out his tone, a disappointed expression visibly appearing on his face.
He originally wanted to conveniently take a complete guard dog back, but this efficiency was simply too dilatory.
His Gwen was still waiting for him, and he didn't have the leisure time to stay in such a godforsaken underground for six hours.
Arthur glanced at Trask with some disdain, then changed the subject: "So, um, you guys have finished researching Mystique's genes, right?"
Trask was stunned for a moment, and quickly nodded like a chick pecking at rice, as if being half a second slow would get him punched into the wall by the other party: "Al—Almost.
We have concentrated all the computing power of the past few days, pushing forward together with so many people, and have completely analyzed the biological principles of her ability to transform her appearance at will; the data has been stored long ago."
Arthur slapped the metal control console in front of him with a crisp sound of "slap", scaring Trask so much that he almost slipped off the chair.
"Alright, back up a copy for me.
Find a hard drive to install it right now and hand it to me." Arthur's request was straightforward and unrefusable.
Trask's lips trembled. He didn't go to get the hard drive in the first place, but cautiously turned his head to look at a high-ranking person in charge standing in the distant dispatch area.
That person in charge's expression was even uglier than having eaten a fly, and a full head of cold sweat flowed down his cheeks.
He really didn't know what to do anymore.
In HYDRA's original defense plan, this core laboratory built several hundred meters underground was entirely forged from that special insulating metal that even Magnetocouldn't control.
This was originally an impregnable fortress established to guard against various Mutant raids.
According to his calculations, relying on this wall, no matter how tragic the battle situation outside was, they could safely drag it out until the Sentinel's R&D success.
Once the Sentinel started up, all Mutants would have to die.
But despite all his calculations, he hadn't expected that there would still be an unreasonable existence like Arthurin this world.
What special metal defense line, under this person's operation of directly melting through the ceiling with bare hands, was simply like being made of paper.
Seeing that the other party could even force back an alien leader and was now sitting there grandly asking for core data, what else could he do besides lowering his head?
Looking across a long distance at Arthur's gaze, which seemed amiable but actually completely disallowed resistance, and then looking at Trask whose eyes were full of entreaty, the person in charge finally had to bite his back teeth hard and nodded in humiliation.
Seeing the Officer speak, Trask felt as if granted a great amnesty, and his hands typed rapidly on the keyboard.
In less than a minute, a packaged encrypted gene data was copied into a black solid-state drive.
With his hands trembling, he handed the hard drive in front of Arthur.
Arthur took the hard drive and casually stuffed it into the pocket of his casual clothes.
He stood up from the chair and looked at those researchers who wished they could find a crack in the ground to drill into: "Alright, don't just stand there stunned, find someone to take me to see where Mystique is placed."
A few minutes later, led by a trembling white-coated person, Arthur walked into an anatomy laboratory behind the main control room.
Under the pale shadowless lamp, on the metal anatomy table in the center of the laboratory, lay a horrific remains.
That was precisely Mystique Raven, who had previously been captured by Zod and handed over to HYDRA for dismantling and research.
At this time, she had long lost her vital signs, her dark blue skin had peeled off in large areas, and her bones and muscle tissue were chopped into pieces, making it almost impossible to recognize her original humanoid appearance.
After leading Arthur there, the white-coated guide didn't even dare to look at the minced meat on the table, directly shrinking to the side of the door.
Arthur stood by the table, his brows slightly furrowed, looking at this pile of blue flesh pieced together, feeling only a burst of chill.
Without any pause, he directly extended his right hand, placing his palm flat on Mystique's cut-open chest.
His thoughts flashed in his mind, and at the same time he mobilized the power within his body.
He first stimulated the power of the Horse.
Immediately afterward, a warm wave of energy gushed out from his palm, instantly covering the remains on the table.
One could see that those crudely cut muscle fibers, peeled dark blue skin, and broken bones, just like a movie playing in reverse, re-gathered and connected at an incredible speed.
The skin and flesh completely healed in a trace of subtle light, and Mystique's original blue body full of scaly textures was completely pieced together within a few seconds, without even leaving a single gap.
The outer shell was fixed, but the person was still dead.
Without any hesitation, Arthur subsequently urged another power.
The light of the Dog flashed across his eyes.
He forcibly utilized this rule-level power, exploiting a bug, and infused a breath of life's origin into that newly restored shell.
The movement on the table disappeared.
Immediately after, a burst of hurried and forceful gasping sounds rang out in the anatomy room.
The resurrected Mystique suddenly opened her yellow eyes.
She panted violently, her gaze first staring at the dazzling shadowless lamp overhead, and then looking around the cold laboratory walls in a somewhat dazed manner.
She clearly remembered being skinned and cramped alive; that heart-wrenching feeling of Death was still deeply engraved in her mind.
Subconsciously, she raised her hands, touched her cheeks, lowered her head to inspect her intact blue body, and then looked at Arthur standing beside her, her face filled with complete bewilderment.
Arthur really couldn't stand her sluggish appearance of waking up from a big dream and still self-checking for half a day, and directly interrupted her unhappily: "Alright, stop touching.
You died once, and I resurrected you.
Get up quickly now, it's time to go home."
The amount of information in these few sentences directly stunned Mystique.
What is called 'died once'?
What is called 'resurrected'?
Can such words that violate the natural laws of birth, aging, illness, and Death be casually spoken out in such a flat tone?
The pile of questions in her head hadn't had time to be organized into language yet when Arthur had already turned around and strode toward the door.
"If you don't leave, I'll let these people tear you apart again, haha." Arthur dropped a threat without looking back.
This sentence directly cut off all of Mystique's thinking.
Compared to exploring the principles of resurrection from the dead, being sliced and researched by that bunch of madmen again was definitely the nightmare she least wanted to experience again.
She hurriedly turned over and jumped down from the cold metal table, opened her stride and closely followed behind Arthur.
Walking out of the laboratory, Arthur returned to that spacious core hall from just now.
His footsteps suddenly slowed down when passing by the huge sentinel robot right in the middle of the hall.
Since this thing hasn't finished loading its system yet, it happens to be useful for Arthur.
Arthur casually pressed his hand against the tech-infused metal leg armor of the Sentinel.
This time, he invoked the power of the Rat.
The invisible energy rapidly spread along the metal surface to the core of this behemoth throughout its entire body.
The Sentinel, which was originally lifeless and merely a pile of assembled special metal dead objects, suddenly emitted a low mechanical roar.
Several indicator lights under its head armor suddenly lit up, and a cold blue light pierced through the dimness of the air-raid shelter.
Under the ghost-seeing gazes of all the HYDRA personnel present, this ultimate weapon, which had cost them countless efforts and was originally a few hours away from completing system writing, directly ignored all external wiring and Base fixations, accompanied by a harsh grinding sound of metal joints, it slowly propped up its body from the workbench and stood firmly on the ground.
Arthur took two steps back and crooked his finger at the steel giant that was several heads taller than him: "Come here.
Listen well, from now on I am your Master, haha.
If you don't listen, I will turn you back into a lifeless object, and then dismantle you into scrap metal with my own hands."
The Sentinel's pair of electronic eyes glowing with blue light tightly locked onto Arthur on the ground.
Its main brain system seemed to be running at high speed, trying to understand and analyze the specific meaning of what the human in front of it was saying.
After a few seconds of deadlock, its massive metal head slightly sank downward, as if gently nodding, and then, with heavy steps, it obediently walked behind Arthur and stood still.
Arthur patted his hands in satisfaction and turned the yellow copper ring on his wrist.
Accompanied by splashing sparks, a huge Portal leading to the Metropolis battlefield opened out of thin air inside the underground air-raid shelter.
Without any hesitation, he stepped right across.
Behind him, the bewildered Mystique and the defected sentinel robot also silently followed him into the spatial passage.
Meanwhile, on the Metropolis battlefield hundreds of kilometers away.
The battle situation here was actually undergoing a dramatic tilt.
The Kryptonian invaders who forcedly descended from outer space had unreasonably powerful physical constitutions, but the defense line opposite them was not to be trifled with.
The newly established core team of the Avengers, coupled with the Mutant elites rushing to support from Charles, had actually forged a considerable tacit understanding with this temporarily put-together lineup.
Every single one of these people was a veteran who had crawled out from countless edges of life and Death, and their combat skills had long been engraved into muscle memory.
Facing those Kryptonian soldiers who only knew how to charge recklessly, the superhero faction relied on their sheer numbers and superpower cooperation to steadily control the battle situation.
Of course, the reason this battle went so smoothly had to be credited to that green behemoth who relied purely on brute force.
Hulk was completely plunged into frenzy at this moment, becoming more and more excited the more he fought.
Under the premise that the angrier he got, the more terrifying his physical functions became, Hulk completely ignored Nam-Ek's fists, pinned down the opponent's head, and dealt a series of brutal hammer blows that lacked technical content but were full of destructive power, beating this alien in the pit with no room to fight back, and now the situation was already Hulk steadily suppressing the opponent.
In mid-air over the battlefield, a cluster of purple smoke exploded from time to time.
Nightcrawler fully utilized his unreasonable short-range teleportation ability.
He didn't fight the enemy head-on at all; he just scampered all over the field.
Seeing which side of his own people was besieged by Kryptonian soldiers, he would flash over with a "bang" and directly teleport them to a safety zone; if he saw any alien falling into a disadvantage, he wouldn't be polite either, directly teleporting over to kick the other's ankle or back, casually disrupting the opponent's formation.
Across the entire battlefield, those Kryptonian soldiers were so sickened by this blue phantom that they couldn't stand it.
Not to mention reaching out to catch him, even trying to see what Nightcrawler looked like with the naked eye had become an extremely difficult chore.
On this battlefield, Steve swung his shield, sending an enemy flying; after Tony escaped Tor-An's pursuit with Nightcrawler's help, he continuously provided fire suppression in mid-air; coupled with various super soldiers unleashing devastating slaughter without holding back.
The balance of victory was about to completely tip toward the Earth defense faction's side.
However, at that very moment when victory was almost within reach, a sudden figure completely shattered this wonderful situation.
Accompanied by a piercing sonic boom in the sky that shattered glass, a figure wearing heavy black armor smashed into the exact center of the battlefield like a meteorite crashing to the ground.
It was precisely that highest commander of the Kryptonian, Zod, who felt in the underground Base that he couldn't do anything to Arthur and didn't want to continue entangling, directly bursting out of the Earth and flying straight to the battlefield.
Holding a belly full of unreleased fire, the moment Zodlanded, he didn't waste any words at all.
His eyes filled with tyranny directly locked onto Hulk, who was closest to him and was brutally beating his subordinates.
With a fierce push of his legs against the ground, he turned into a black line so fast that not even afterimages could be seen, and directly crashed into Hulk's waist side.
"Boom——"
With a loud crash, even Hulk, with his extremely heavy tonnage and astonishing defense, had no power to resist under this impact laden with alien technology and extreme rage.
This green behemoth was like a baseball hit flying by a high-speed train, and his entire body flew backward.
He traced a parabolic curve over a hundred meters long in mid-air, consecutively smashing through the glass outer walls of three buildings, and finally deeply smashed into the load-bearing wall of a three-story small shopping mall a few streets away, completely buried by countless concrete ruins.
Having instantly eliminated the most troublesome meat shield on the field, Zod's livid face slowly turned, and his next target directly locked onto Nightcrawler, who was flying all over the place and acting extremely sickening.
His vision, comparable to a super radar, scanned around just once, and he figured out the transfer pattern of Nightcrawler.
The exact moment Nightcrawler teleported to cause trouble and just revealed his form in mid-air, Zod had already rushed to a position less than five meters away from him like maggots on rotting bone.
Nightcrawler's reaction could not be said to be unfast; without even needing brain thought, years of accumulated combat instincts made him urge his ability once again.
Purple smoke burst out fiercely, and at a critical moment he teleported away from that deadly position.
However, he ultimately underestimated the terrifying intuition of the Kryptonian commander.
At the exact same microsecond Nightcrawler initiated his teleportation and disappeared, Zod didn't even look at that empty cluster of purple smoke.
He violently turned his head, his eyes directly locking onto mid-air a dozen meters away—that was a landing spot that was still completely empty.
Nightcrawler's body had just manifested at this new position, and he hadn't even had time to complete the terrified expression on his face.
The long-accumulated red heat vision in Zod's eyes, carrying a high temperature sufficient to vaporize steel, shot out without the slightest delay.
"Hiss——"
The dazzling red light traced a cruel straight line in mid-air, directly piercing through that newly formed cluster of purple smoke.
Nightcrawler's body stiffened abruptly, and he heavily slammed onto the floor tiles full of ruins, without even making a rolling cushioning movement.
He lowered his head somewhat sluggishly.
At his chest were unexpectedly two large holes directly pierced by that heat vision, where even the flesh at the edges of the wounds had been completely cooked and carbonized by the terrifying high temperature.
The surrounding battle seemed to stop at this very moment.
Nightcrawler lay prone on the ground, fresh blood oozing out with difficulty along the edges of the scorched wound.
His pupils, gradually scattering due to blood loss, slowly turned and ultimately looked at Magneto standing on the ruins not far away.
His lips twitched slightly a few times, seeming to want to say something, wanting to tell that senior to be careful.
He forcefully extended that blood-stained blue right hand toward Magneto's direction.
However, the passing of life was even faster than he imagined.
That hand barely stayed in mid-air for less than three seconds before all his strength was drained away.
After a bout of twitching, accompanied by that last trace of unwillingness in his eyes, that shriveled arm feebly dropped and smashed onto the grey, withered ground, leaving no breath of life whatsoever.
Chapter 87 [Battle of Metropolis] End
At this moment, even the wind in Metropolis carried a pungent smell of burning.
The sky was slashed into pieces of grayish rags by the shadow of the Kryptonian mothership.
General Zod stepped on a piece of concrete that had just peeled off a building's load-bearing pillar, his gaze sweeping over the gasping Earthlings below.
He didn't even look at the dead souls who had just perished at his hands, but instead raised his chin and coldly issued the final ultimatum: "Listen up, you ants on Earth, hand over Karl El. This is the only condition for you to die without pain."
In the distance, Tony, who had just caught his breath, forced himself to fly over with the thrusters on his palms.
The surface of that once glamorous armor was now covered with horrifying scratches and dents.
"Hey, alien plutocrat," Tony's electronic-sounding taunt came through the damaged faceplate, "though we've never heard of any guy called Karl El, but..."
This nonsense didn't even finish transmitting through the loudspeaker on the faceplate near his mouth.
There was no so-called sonic boom sounding in the air at all.
Zod's feet didn't even make a friction motion to leverage force from the ground; he simply vanished into thin air right where he stood.
The next instant, a pair of hands wrapped in alien heavy armor directly clamped onto Tony's paint-covered head.
Zod used a purely savage dragging method, pulling Tonyand slamming him into the half-section reinforced concrete wall across the street.
"Bang—"
The sound was muffled, yet bone-chillingly shivering.
The armor helmet crafted from the World's most cutting-edge materials was like a crushed tomato under this unreserved crushing force.
Sparks mixed with red-and-white minced meat and brain matter splattered in all directions as the helmet burst, smearing the entire pitted wall.
That headless steel shell twitched twice in the corner of the wall and collapsed dejectedly to the ground.
The person who was still trying to tell American jokes just a moment ago turned into a pile of unpatchable defective parts in the blink of an eye.
The entire scene was dead silent.
All the superheroes, Mutant warriors, and even the floating dust in mid-air seemed to be completely frozen by this bloody scene at this moment.
Magneto Erik clenched his teeth tightly.
Nightcrawler's Death had already pent up an unquenchable fire of brutality in his heart.
His hands hanging at his sides silently hooked upwards.
With Zod as the center, all the exposed steel bars, multi-ton scrapped cars, and shattered billboard iron frames on the surrounding streets were tightly grabbed by an invisible magnetic force, rubbing against the air with a piercing screech, pouring down towards the alien commander like a torrential rain.
But Zod didn't even turn his head back.
His upright spine didn't care at all about those whizzing metal debris.
Exerting force once more, his body seemed to transform into a black sharp blade that cut through all air resistance along the way, instantly appearing in front of Magneto in mid-air.
He simply threw his right punch.
There were no fancy combat skills, only absolute speed so fast that even Magneto's battle-hardened brain couldn't react.
[Although the physical mass of Kryptonians is comparable, Zod belongs to those who through acquired efforts practiced various skills to the extreme—of course, excluding Big Superman, the true protagonist. So it's completely normal for his expressiveness to be stronger.]
"Pfft!"
A teeth-aching piercing sound rang out.
Zod's fist, along with more than half of his forearm, directly pierced through Magneto's chest.
He didn't use heat vision, nor did he choose to knock him away; instead, like skewering meat, he directly smashed the Mutant leader's heart, lung lobes, and hard spine.
Losing the source point of superpower control, the all-over-sky scrap iron in the sky lost its gravity in mid-air like a suddenly powered-off magnet, pattering down a messy iron rain.
As Zod withdrew his blood-stained arm, Magneto's lifeless corpse crashed stiffly into a pile of scrap metal.
Metropolis completely turned into a one-sided slaughterhouse.
Right in this desperate and suffocating deadlock, in mid-air right in the center of the battlefield, a dazzling spark suddenly drew a circle out of thin air.
The orange-red Portal expanded rapidly.
Arthur stepped out from behind the door leisurely with his hands in his pockets.
Following closely behind him was Mystique, covered in dark blue scales, and that huge sentinel robot stepping heavily on the ground with a thud, obviously still lacking outer shell painting.
Seeing this weird combination crawling out of the Portal, Zod, who had just been possessed by a killing god, slightly frowned.
His gaze crossed over Arthur and locked tightly onto that huge mechanical creation.
He knew Earthlings were secretly plotting weapons targeting superpowered beings, but he couldn't figure it out no matter what: Could the HYDRA guys have defected at the last minute?
How could that R&D plan of the underground Base finish assembly so quickly?
This completely didn't match the intelligence progress they originally gave him.
Arthur had no heart at all to ponder what conspiracy theories were in Zod's mind.
As soon as he landed, his leather shoes stepped on a piece of armor stained with blood.
He looked around: Nightcrawler, who died silently; Tony, who was smeared all over the wall; and Magneto, who had a huge hole in his chest.
The surviving Avengers and Mutants were looking at him and Zod like they were monsters.
"Tsk." Arthur grinned, uttering a placid complaint: "Is the fight already this miserable?"
Mystique, following closely behind, saw the scene in the distance.
When her yellow eyes focused on Magneto's corpse in the scrap heap, the scales all over her body bristled up sharply.
She opened her mouth, suppressing an incredulous tremor in her throat.
She and Magneto had experienced countless battles, and that bond had long taken root in the years.
Now seeing her most trusted old friend having a huge hole blown into his chest by someone, immense sorrow and bewilderment slammed into her chest like a hammer.
She turned her head, clenching her fists tightly as she looked at Arthur, her lips trembling just as she wanted to speak.
Without even glancing at her, Arthur directly raised his right hand and pressed down casually, his voice as calm as checking out at a supermarket: "Alright, don't look like the sky is falling. Rest assured, one-click resurrection after the war."
After finishing these comforting and straightforward words, Arthur turned his head again to survey this ruined battlefield, his eyebrows gradually raising.
Among this ground full of heroes, there wasn't even a flash of blinding red and blue spandex to be seen.
That Big Superman guy still hasn't arrived?
Arthur muttered inwardly for a moment.
With superpowered individuals clustered here now, could that cape-wearing guy have scanned with super hearing, thought there were enough hands here to handle it, and run off to busy himself elsewhere?
No matter what the reason was, since the main person hadn't come, this mess could only be cleaned up by himself.
"Hey, this is really annoying." Arthur patted the back of his head.
He didn't look at the Kryptonian commander opposite him anymore, but instead turned around lazily, casually tapped the floor with his toes, and motioned with his chin toward the tall, cold semi-finished robot behind him.
His finger pointed at the alien draped in black armor standing on top of the ruins hundreds of meters away.
"Sentinel," Arthur's tone had not a shred of majestic undulation, "Kick his ass."
Following this command.
That giant Sentinel, with even half of its circuit boards exposed outside, instantly switched its electronic eyes into an aggressive crimson.
The engines behind its legs burst into a dark blue ghostly flame, and its huge metallic body, like a cannonball out of the chamber, directly crashed toward Zod along the ground.
Zod's gaze turned cold.
Facing this artificial creation several times larger than himself, he only slightly lowered his shoulders and fiercely swung his right arm.
"Clang—"
A piercing ear-splitting sound of metal clashing exploded.
With just a single counter-punch, Sentinel's stout right mechanical arm directly burst into a cluster of parts in mid-air.
The remaining momentum of Zod's fist edge did not abate, fiercely smashing onto Sentinel's main defensive chest armor.
This brute force knocked the robot, weighing several tons, flying away like kicking an empty soda can, plowing a deep trench of over a hundred meters on the ground until it smashed and collapsed a bus station platform before completely stopping.
Inside Sentinel, sizzling electric sparks emerged, its limbs twitched twice, and it completely lost all movement.
This gadget only has this much capability?
Just as a sneer welled up in the bottom of Zod's heart, the next second, his expression suddenly changed.
The right fist that had just directly collided with Sentinel's metal outer armor now transmitted a tingling sensation that even he himself couldn't believe.
Following closely, a weak but absolutely undeniable sense of fatigue spread rapidly through his forearm to his whole body like ivy.
His muscle groups, which were originally so taut that even tank shells could bounce off them, unexpectedly showed signs of loosening in this brief moment.
It was as if the power that was originally overflowing had been forcibly drained by a few parts by something.
This was definitely not an effect that Earthlings' junk metal could cause.
Zod instinctively activated super vision.
Under those eyes that could perspective view microscopic particles, he finally saw the reason clearly.
On Sentinel's chest armor smashed by him and the cross-section of the broken mechanical arm, those inner deck plates used for energy conduction and reinforcement were faintly covered with a layer of plating glowing with a pale green light that was extremely difficult for the naked eye to detect.
That was special ore powder thoroughly dissolved by high temperature and forcibly soaked and attached, precisely the dissolved Kryptonite plating.
This was the root cause why this shell would make him feel his hands going soft.
Arthur didn't care at all what Zod's eyes were sizing up.
Stepping on the rubble and gravel all over the ground, he swaggered leisurely to the side of the semi-scrapped Sentinel wreckage.
He half-squatted down, lightly resting his palm on Sentinel's metal skull which had split open several huge gaps.
The next moment, the power of the Horse Talisman surged and rose over that rigid shell.
That was a reversal that completely crushed mechanical and physical laws.
The scattered parts and broken cable cores on the ground seemed as though they had been fitted with trackers, automatically flying backward in mid-air.
The previously scorched connection ports reclosed at a speed visible to the naked eye, and even several green-plated deck plates that had their paint scraped off restored their original smooth and undamaged texture.
This piece of junk, which was a pile of scrap metal just a second ago, became as clean and brand new under Arthur's hands the next second.
The indicator lights in its eyes suddenly lit up, and it smoothly stood up from the mess all over the ground.
"Keep attacking him." Arthur moved half a step to the side, his voice still maintaining that detached demeanor.
There was no shrinking back in the Sentinel's programming. Its engines roared, and it once again transformed into a battering ram, smashing toward Zod.
Faced with this massive iron shell that stuck to him like a piece of sticky candy, Zod gritted his teeth and met the attack head-on once again.
This time, he mobilized all the remaining explosive force within his body.
He forcefully kneed the Sentinel in the waist and abdomen, followed by an aerial downward axe-kick, directly stomping the Sentinel into the ground.
Amidst the Earth-shattering roar, the Sentinel was truly dismantled into fingernail-sized fragments this time, scattering into every corner of this abandoned block.
Just as Zod was panting heavily, feeling that he had finally settled this troublesome machine carrying disgusting radiation, that annoying human voice leisurely drilled into his ears once again.
He looked up.
Arthur had somehow once again stood at the center of that largest pile of wreckage.
With a gentle sweep of his palm.
All the metal fragments replayed and pieced themselves back together in reverse.
The intact sentinel robot stood up without a single scratch.
"Sentinel, attack him."
The Sentinel took off once again, lunging straight forward to meet him.
This tactical move, which could only be described as a rogue tactic, was too much for even Tor-An and Nam-Ek, who were observing from the shadows, to bear.
These two adjutants who had followed Zod through countless battles for a long time saw through the core of the problem at a glance.
It was completely meaningless to deal with that fearless machine; as long as they killed the controller standing in the back who kept resurrecting it, all these predicaments would naturally collapse.
These two high-tier warriors abandoned their entanglement with the other small fries, tacitly cutting through the mid-air with one black and one blue afterimage, targeting Arthur directly.
However, Zod didn't even have time to voice a warning at this moment; the radioactive green plating stained on that machine's body was constantly wearing down his own energy.
Facing the fatal killing moves exploding from two flanks, Arthur didn't even turn his head.
He simply aimed the palm of his right hand, which was resting flat by his side, directly at the trajectory of Nam-Ek's charge.
At the end where Arthur's palm was facing, a tyrannical aura instantly climbed to the extreme.
The Dragon Talisman was activated.
There was no charge-up, nor was there any warning.
A destructive energy orb compressed to the absolute extreme directly exploded, and a scorching explosive Impact shot out of his hand.
This power was by no means comparable to those laser guns and cannons; it was in itself an insoluble, high-temperature flash of fire that existed purely for destruction.
This blast smashed directly onto Nam-Ek's chest.
Whatever Kryptonian armor that could withstand a supernova explosion, whatever alien physical cells harder than diamond, all became a joke under this Dragon Blast.
Nam-Ek's upper body didn't even have time to deform for buffering; his entire sternum, along with the armor behind his back, was instantly vaporized into absolute nothingness in that violent light and heat.
That headless and chestless charred corpse heavily slammed onto the ground seven or eight meters in front of Arthur.
Tor-An, who was charging out from his other side, slammed the brakes mid-air.
He looked in horror at the puddle of black ash sludge on the ground that belonged to his companion.
How could this be possible?
Even with the most powerful energy Impact, it shouldn't be possible not to even leave Nam-Ek with an intact corpse.
What kind of perverted monsters were these so-called humans?
A fear even more piercing than facing a supernova explosion directly gripped Tor-An's heart tightly.
Having fought alongside Zod for so many years and experiencing countless battles without ever losing, a sudden surge of emotion called fear welled up in his heart at this moment upon seeing Nam-Ek's Death.
Arthur cast a disgusted glance at the smoking pit on the ground, blowing on the non-existent ember smoke on his palm.
Then, he strode forward to the place where Zod had directly ripped off a head, leaving only a ground mixed with red and white minced meat and metal armor fragments.
This was the last remaining existence of Tony Stark.
Arthur walked up to this pile of mosaics, not even wanting to bend his waist.
He urged the ball of light in his brain.
He not only released the healing power of the Horse Talisman to restore his body, but also forcibly compressed the aura of the Dog Talisman, which symbolized immortality and the return of life, into it.
The cruel slaughter scene seemed to experience a reversal of time.
Those bloodstains mixed in the cracks of stones, bone fragments and minced meat splashed in the corners of walls, and even the smashed armor mask crazily flowed and reassembled in a way that exceeded conventional logical understanding.
Nerves reconnected, flesh and skin regenerated, and the armor was recast.
Tony Stark gasped heavily almost instinctively, scrambling and rolling up into a sitting position.
Because his movement was too fierce, he even wobbled slightly with his heavy chest armor.
He had seen many outrageous things in his life, but absolutely none of the feelings could compare to the shock of watching his vision go black, only to open his eyes and see a floor of rotting flesh forcibly pieced back onto his body.
He was completely stunned in place, his eyes beneath the helmet blankly looking at his own hands through the gaps of the display screen, even unconsciously touching the head that had been rotten just moments ago.
"Hey, cut it out, what are you daydreaming for?" Arthurwalked forward, tapping twice on top of the new armor's head with his knuckles. "I know your brain is a mess right now. Listen, connect to Dr. Yinsen's communication, and give a direct message to that bald Egghead at S.H.I.E.L.D."
"Just tell them that since you guys have already finished fighting this battle and indeed couldn't beat them, I will now take over and clear the field, haha."
After giving these instructions, Arthur didn't bother to care whether Tony heard him clearly or not.
His gaze crossed over this messy battlefield, locking directly onto Tor-An, who was still trembling all over from fear not far away.
Feeling the Death-like gaze cast upon him, Tor-An could no longer care about any Kryptonian pride or honor.
Panic over Death occupied his brain.
The only remaining thought in his brain was one: "Escape."
Escape this ghost place shrouded by the God of Death.
His legs suddenly gathered astonishing power, and the ground under his feet instantly sank by several meters.
His entire body transformed into a streak of black light, turning direction to prepare to plunge straight into the high-altitude atmosphere.
But no matter how resolute his start was, it could not be faster than the instant Arthur's gaze fell.
Arthur's pupils seemed instantly ignited, and the destructive laser of the Pig Talisman locked directly onto the fleeing target deep within his retina.
"Hiss——"
Two red rays emitting extreme high temperature and terrifying penetrating power, without any ballistic warm-up, blasted out from the depths of Arthur's eyes like an invisible sharp spear directly cleaving open the night sky.
These two rays precisely caught up with Tor-An, who had just ascended less than dozens of meters into mid-air.
The rays penetrated his heavy black armor.
It was like a scalding laser knife slicing through a piece of tofu, without the slightest sense of hindrance.
Piercing in from the spine and bursting out from the chest.
Tor-An didn't even manage to buy time for his vocal cords to squeeze out a scream before he was smoothly split into two absolutely flat halves right down the middle by those two high-energy rays.
The charred cut surfaces were extremely smooth, and the blood that should have spewed out was completely carbonized by the terrifying high temperature the moment it gushed forth.
The two halves of the wreckage lost their momentum in mid-air, splitting apart and heavily crashing down upon the broken walls and ruins of the wasteland.
On the other end of the battlefield, the overall situation finally had an irreversible turning point.
That highest military commander of the Kryptonians, Zod, who had charged down recklessly from the sky, finally ushered in the complete collapse of his arrogant self at this moment.
Facing this super-powered iron shell that delivered itself to be dismantled dozens of times consecutively, the Kryptonite particle radiation constantly emitted during the violent collisions—every intrusion and every close-quarters friction—continually drained away his extraordinarily mutated energy.
His movement, which originally broke the sound barrier, turned into a dragging stagger, and his iron fist smashing against the scratched steel outer armor produced only a dull echo.
His body felt weak as if it were soaked in the deep sea mud.
Facing the Sentinel charging over this time without reservation, Zod finally had no way to swing those heavy blows capable of shattering stars.
"Boom——"
The Sentinel's newly reassembled heavy mechanical leg fiercely swept across Zod's flank. Accompanied by a harrowing, muffled sound of bone cracking, this general who had roamed across outer realms heavily collapsed onto the dilapidated floor tiles of the street like a deflated ball.
Before he could endure the excruciating pain and roll over from the numbness, the Sentinel's massive body had already loomed directly above him.
The heavy metallic steel foot mercilessly trampled onto his black chest armor.
The immense self-weight combined with the faint Kryptonite radiation oppressed this once-invincible alien shell so tightly that any chance for its lungs to inhale even a single gulp of Earth's turbid air was ruthlessly choked off.
This overlord, who was standing on broken bricks watching Death with cold eyes just a few minutes ago, could now only humiliatingly be firmly locked in the mud pit of the surface by a lifeless object, unable to move at all.
Chapter 88: Anyway, my ratings have hit rock bottom, so I'm just going to write whatever I want.
[If you can keep reading, I wish you a good mental state; anyway, I'm about to start playing abstract, the more chaotic the better.]
The steel prison, forcibly kneaded by Magneto out of scrap steel into a huge solid sphere, lay quietly in the center of the floor.
Arthur walked up to the large iron ball.
He didn't even warm up, just casually moved his wrists.
Deep within his consciousness, the glow of the Ox Talisman flickered slightly.
He pressed both hands against the astonishingly thick deformed metal, and with a burst of finger strength, he tore it apart to both sides just like ripping open wrapping paper.
A teeth-setting sound of metal twisting immediately rang out.
The heavy steel shell was directly torn apart, revealing the alien female warrior squeezed inside with extremely limited space.
Fiora, the Kryptonian lieutenant trapped inside, clearly had no idea what had happened.
Sitting in the cramped space, she even opened her mouth and yawned.
"Zod, you're so slow." Fiora twisted her sore neck, her voice carrying an impatient indifference. "I've already taken a nap. What, are you still playing? Did you kill that guy who plays with scrap metal?"
She muttered complaints while raising her head.
When she saw clearly that the person who broke open the iron ball and stood before her was not her revered General Zod, but a young man with black hair and black eyes, her whole body froze.
In her original expectation, the battle outside should have been settled long ago.
Mutants simply couldn't withstand the steel bodies of the Kryptonians. Once General Zod finished dealing with those small fry, he would surely come to break open this iron shell and drag the metal-controlling freak over for her to execute with her own hands.
Yet the one standing outside was not Zod.
Fiora dazed for two seconds, her cross-gazing over Arthur's shoulder to see the scene in the distance.
That once arrogant General Zod was at this moment being pinned firmly under the feet of a huge, half-assembled, incomplete robot—the Sentinel, unable to move.
Her pupils dilated instantly, and her pride-worthy composure shattered completely.
"Th... What is this situation? What's going on?"
Arthur had no intention of explaining the cause and effect to her at all.
He was even too lazy to speak, directly raising his hand and delivering a heavy slap across Fiora's face.
The loud sound echoed in the empty Underground Room.
Accompanied by immense force, Fiora's head spun frantically on her neck in a manner that violated physiological structure, the sound of bones shattering ringing out continuously.
Finally, she crashed heavily to the ground like a broken log, losing her breath on the spot.
Dead as dead could be.
Having resolved this trouble, Arthur turned around and walked over to Zod.
At this moment, Zod's face was ashen, and his previous arrogance was completely gone.
"I won't say any unnecessary nonsense." Arthur looked at the alien commander on the ground, his tone calm. "Considering it respect that you're a commanding general, I don't plan to torture you."
Zod also seemed to have recognized reality.
He didn't struggle, nor did he utter any foolish words of begging for mercy, instead resigning himself to his fate and closing his eyes.
Arthur didn't drag his feet either, directly raising his fist and smashing his head in one punch.
The battle was completely declared over.
Arthur stood in the middle of the scarred battlefield and took a deep breath.
He mobilized the power of the Horse Talisman and Dog Talisman within his body, and an invisible fluctuation instantly swept across the entire area.
Those friendly superheroes and Mutants who were accidentally killed or severely injured in the fierce confrontation earlier began to have their bodies rapidly reorganize, their breaths gradually stabilizing, and one by one they climbed up from the ground with bewildered faces.
Looking at this group of people looking at each other in dismay, he casually comforted them with a few words: "Alright everyone, don't feel aggrieved. The opponents are Kryptonians from outer space after all; it's completely normal that you bunch of softies couldn't beat them, don't carry too much psychological burden."
Everyone kept silent.
Arthur waved his hand and continued: "Alright, disperse, everyone go back to your respective homes. I also need to hurry home to find my partner; running out for so long makes it easy to get checked up on."
With that, Arthur casually snapped his fingers, and the huge semi-finished sentinel robot beside him immediately stood up straight with a rumbling sound.
He didn't care about the complicated gazes of the surrounding superheroes—those people were probably wildly complaining in their hearts: Everyone worked themselves to death fighting half-dead, yet you wiped out the opposing team in just two moves, don't we have any face to keep?
Arthur didn't care what they thought; he directly drew a circle of fire in front of him and walked into the Portal with that huge Sentinel.
The other end of the Portal opened in an open space next to Gwen's school.
Arthur first called Fury, telling him simply and clearly that he got a big baby here and would send it over in a moment.
After hanging up the phone, Arthur immediately set off to find Gwen.
Gwen was waiting at the street corner not far away.
Today she wore a loose hooded sweatshirt, paired with simple ripped jeans, and her light blonde-pink short hair looked a bit messy.
She had been gripping her phone tightly, her fingers turning white.
The moment she saw Arthur walking over, her azure-blue eyes lit up instantly, and she trotted directly into Arthur's embrace.
"The news was broadcasting all of it..." Gwen buried her head in Arthur's chest, her voice somewhat muffled and carrying obvious panic. "The news broadcasted that the battle over in Metropolis was so fierce, and the explosions were so loud. I was really afraid something would happen to you over there."
Arthur gently patted her soft back, his palm rubbing her short hair.
"How could I possibly have something happen to me so easily, right? Those guys aren't even worth looking at to me."
Gwen raised her head and nodded hard, but the worry in her eyes still hadn't completely dissipated.
"I'm still scared... After all, you're my boyfriend."
Arthur was amused by her clingy appearance.
He took Gwen's hand, pulled her over to the open space, and then hooked his finger slightly.
The sentinel robot that had been quietly idling in mid-air immediately dropped down, making a dull sound.
Gwen looked at this huge lump of steel in front of her, startled, and instinctively tightened her grip on Arthur's sleeve.
"Wh... What is this thing?"
"This is called a Sentinel." Arthur pointed at the big iron man and introduced, "It's something researched by that Underground Room laboratory specifically to deal with Mutants. This gadget isn't even considered a semi-finished product before I forcibly snatched it out."
Gwen looked at Arthur, blinked, and after a few seconds reacted, unable to help bursting into a chuckle.
"Yu, you're so bad. This is totally a bandit's behavior."
Arthur smiled and shrugged, raising his hand once more, the Sling Ring on his finger lighting up with sparks.
The Portal leading to S.H.I.E.L.D.'s Helicarrier formed immediately.
As soon as he entered the core control room of the Helicarrier, Arthur saw Nick Fury frowning as he looked at the big screen.
"I don't have time to manage people, but I did bring the thing over for you. You can find people to study it slowly yourself." Arthur pointed at the big Sentinel behind him, casually tossing a hard drive full of Mystique's genetic research data onto the table. "This is also included as a freebie, don't lose it."
With that, regardless of how wide Fury's single eye stared, Arthur directly pulled Gwen and turned into the Portal.
The Sentinel obediently stood in the hall of the Helicarrier, staring wide-eyed with the surrounding group of S.H.I.E.L.D. Agents.
Returning to the apartment hallway, Gwen pressed close to Arthur, their hands holding tightly all along.
Having gone through so many messy things, Arthur only had one thought in his mind right now: to hurry back to a quiet room with his girlfriend, get cozy and intimate, and throw all these annoying killings to the back of his mind.
Arthur took out the key, turned the door lock with full anticipation, and shoved the door open.
"No matter what happens, no one can disturb us tonight——"
Arthur's words stuck in his throat.
In their rather warmly decorated small living room, no tranquility was waiting for them.
On the open space beside the sofa, a guy wrapped all over in a red bodysuit was standing there at some unknown time.
This person not only wore an eye-catching red leather outfit, but also wore a fully-enclosed mask without even a mouth cutout, with two sharp katanas crossed on his back.
At this moment, he was boredom-tossing a small dagger in his hand, and seeing the door open, he immediately stopped the action in his hand.
Arthur opened his mouth, holding back a sentence for a long time: "Hoh... Even Deadpool ran over? Which timeline did you crawl out from this time?"
Gwen beside him was originally looking forward to being alone after entering the room. Hearing the three words timeline, as Spider-Woman who had experienced baptism across multiple Universes, although her Spider-Sensedidn't issue a fatal alarm, her brain immediately began to spin at high speed, roughly understanding how magical the current situation was.
She instinctively shrank behind Arthur.
Deadpool didn't care about the awkwardness permeating the air at all, directly tucking the dagger back into his waist, bouncing over while waving and greeting:
"Hello hello~~ Little Lin Lin, long time no see! Or I should speak more rigorously, this is the very first time meeting between the two of us at your time node, right?"
Deadpool came up close to Arthur, poking his own red mask with his finger, his tone exaggerated to death:
"You know what, finding a timeline with you among a bunch of messy space-times really took a huge amount of effort for me! After all, you are the resounding male protagonist of this book now. I flipped through the script for half a day and finally managed to locate you in the old timeline."
Arthur was directly dumbfounded by his full-of-train-running remarks.
What does the protagonist of this book mean? What the heck does old timeline mean?
Deadpool saw Arthur's deflated expression, and seemed to feel that he had rambled a bit too far just now, so he cleared his throat and began to use his unique language system to give a simple explanation.
"To make a long story short, buddy. In the future, which is not long from now, a guy with a particularly bizarre appearance popped out. He's covered in greenish scales from head to toe, looking exactly like a bipedal walking mutated lizard. And then, refusing to believe it, you went and had a grand, earth-shattering fight with him."
Deadpool paused, gesturing a throat-slitting action on his neck with two fingers. "Unfortunately, you lost and kicked the bucket directly."
Arthur's eyelids twitched violently.
Deadpool continued: "Because the male lead died, that timeline directly collapsed and reset. That's why I ran over here to find you who are still in the old timeline for help! Isn't it simple and easy to understand?"
Arthur completely fell into silence.
His brain right now felt like there were hundreds of flies buzzing around.
A green-skin lizard-like guy? A lizard? The grand stew he mentioned just now... Arthur suddenly thought of an extremely terrible possibility.
Could this thing be Shendu, the ultimate villain from Jackie Chan Adventures who holds the source of Talisman power?
Arthur felt terrible all over.
What kind of bullshit stew World is this anyway! It's one thing that DC Universe's Superman fighting Zod can get mixed in, but why can cartoon villains who aren't even in the same background set pop out now?
Just as Arthur was wildly complaining inwardly, Deadpoolover there suddenly turned around, turning his back to them, facing a blank wall in the living room, and began to talk to himself like a psycho.
"Hey, audience friends watching this segment in front of the screen, take my advice, close your browser right here and don't keep reading. I think the book you guys are reading is really ugly to death, super invincible ugly."
Deadpool gesticulated wildly to vent his dissatisfaction at the air. "How should I describe this awkward feeling? It's just like you sitting in a movie theater watching Batmanwearing a cool battle suit kicking ass all around, only for him to turn around and actually be a dead pervert who likes wearing maid outfits in the Batcave—making you uncomfortable!"
Finishing this sentence, Deadpool suddenly grabbed his head in pain. "Oh my old swan, what on earth was I spouting just now? Was my brain wave remotely controlled by that damned author? These people holding keyboards really deserve to die; sooner or later one day I'm going to crawl along the internet cable and hang him on the roadside streetlamp to slap his big mouth."
Gwen watched from the side as this red-clad freak went crazy facing the wall, finally unable to help pulling Arthur's hand and whispering: "He... does his brain have a problem?"
Deadpool's ears were quite sharp, immediately turning around to wink at Gwen (though it couldn't be seen through the mask). "Oh baby, don't mind these details at all. I was just having a friendly chat with the handsome readers looking at this line of text. Don't mind me."
He then clapped his hands, his tone suddenly turning serious—serious relatively speaking.
"Let's switch back to the main topic. The sole purpose of my making a special trip to this shabby house is to prevent the future from being completely reset into that disgusting new timeline. After all, nobody wants to watch a huge reptile swallowing bugs alive over there. Oh, the most fatal thing is, I don't want to go trim its toenails after it rules the World at all!"
Deadpool accused with an exaggerated tone of disgust:
"You know what, that green lizard's toenail size is thicker than Hulk's thigh! And it's all covered in aged dirt, emitting a kind of... terrifying stench just like stuffing ten catties of stinky tofu into a moldy fermented bean curd jar, and then exposing it to the scorching Sun during the dog days of summer for a full hundred and eighty days!"
Having finished complaining, Deadpool grabbed Arthur's arm.
"Alright friends, enough nonsense, no time to explain, we need to set off immediately! The Avengers saving the World are assembling!"
He raised his other hand and casually pressed a few buttons on an instrument-like panel on his arm.
Accompanied by a harsh current sound, a wormhole vortex glowing with an eerie blue light instantly tore open above the living room floor.
A strong suction force came from the other side of the wormhole.
Before Arthur could react to shake him off, Deadpoolexerted a sudden force and shoved Arthur straight into the spinning vortex.
Arthur only had time to emit a short curse before his whole person fell in.
"Arthur!" Gwen exclaimed, instinctively wanting to reach out and grab him.
At the same time, she thought in her heart:
Why is our date always interrupted?! Just now I was still worrying about the crisis in Metropolis, and now another red-skinned lunatic pops up. He said Yu will be killed in the future? This is absolutely not okay! I will never let such a thing happen!
Deadpool turned his head, looked at the terrified Gwen, and wagged a finger. "Hey, our quasi-female lead. If you aren't present for this grand drama, this book's title is going to get half-chopped off directly."
With that, disregarding Gwen's screams, he stretched out his hand and pushed against Gwen's back.
Gwen had no room to resist at all, and also tumbled down into that bottomless wormhole.
After kicking both of them in, Deadpool hummed a pop song and leaped in with a bound.
Accompanied by a faint "hum" sound, the blue wormhole instantly closed and disappeared into mid-air, as if everything that happened just now was entirely an illusion.
In the quiet apartment, only the security door that had been opened and not yet changed shoes for remained half-ajar.
An even more chaotic, even more logically baseline-free grand-stew era, at this very moment, completely lifted its curtain.