A shrill alarm suddenly echoed throughout the underground laboratory.
The harsh sound bounced off the metal walls, filling the entire facility with a piercing warning tone. At the same time, red emergency lights flickered to life everywhere, flashing rapidly as the alarm system triggered across every corridor.
Footsteps followed soon after.
Ethan Cole could clearly hear dozens of people running at full speed through the underground complex. Along with the rushing footsteps came the sharp metallic clicks of weapons being loaded.
"So fast," Ethan murmured with mild amusement.
The first person appeared in front of him almost instantly.
It wasn't someone running down the corridor. Instead, the man simply materialized out of thin air, appearing directly in front of Ethan with startling abruptness.
Ethan raised an eyebrow slightly.
He could clearly feel the spatial fluctuations surrounding the newcomer. The disturbance in the air carried a familiar signature—an Alpha-level spatial ability.
More specifically, the kind that allowed free movement through space.
The man stood fully armed, dressed like a professional soldier. Oddly enough, he carried no firearm. Instead, he extended both hands toward Ethan, palms open as if preparing to unleash his ability.
The moment he did so, Ethan felt the change.
The space around him had been disrupted.
The structure of the surrounding space was already destabilizing. If the man wished, he could theoretically tear the area apart and scatter the fragments of space itself. Anyone caught inside that collapse would be shredded instantly.
At least… that was the theory.
Unfortunately for him, it existed only in his imagination.
Ethan didn't move at all.
He simply smiled slightly and asked, "When did you become an evolutionary?"
"Leon?!"
The man's composure collapsed the moment he recognized Ethan's face.
Shock flooded his expression, quickly followed by unmistakable fear. His body trembled involuntarily as he instinctively stepped back.
"Relax," Ethan said calmly. "I'm not planning to hurt you right now."
He tilted his head slightly.
"First answer my question. When did you become an evolutionary?"
"You… how did you even get in here?" the man asked, trying—and failing—to hide the fear in his voice.
Ethan's eyebrows lifted slightly.
"Answer my question, soldier."
His telepathic ability activated instantly.
A powerful wave of mental pressure slammed directly into the man's mind. For a brief moment his expression turned blank, as if something inside his consciousness had been forcibly shaken loose.
A second later he regained awareness.
But somehow, despite himself, he began answering.
"Half a month ago," the man said honestly.
Ethan nodded thoughtfully.
"What's your ability?"
"Spatial manipulation," the man replied. "I can split space apart and move through it freely. I can also transport people or objects across space."
Ethan nodded again.
"That's actually a pretty good ability," he muttered to himself.
He vaguely remembered similar characters appearing in the original Marvel storyline. There had been teleporters like Nightcrawler and Azazel… and someone else he couldn't quite remember.
Probably some minor character.
"What about others like you?" Ethan asked. "How many are here?"
"Many of them," the man answered automatically.
Almost as if his words summoned them, several figures suddenly appeared nearby.
One after another.
Men and women materialized out of thin air around the soldier. In the blink of an eye more than twenty people surrounded Ethan.
Coincidentally, every single one of them possessed spatial abilities.
"Well, that's something," Ethan muttered.
Humanity's determination truly was impressive. More than twenty Alpha-level evolutionaries gathered in one place, many of them possessing extremely dangerous powers.
If even one ambitious person gained control of such a group, the resulting chaos could shake entire countries.
Of course, Ethan never once considered the threat he himself posed to human society.
If he had, he might not have reached that conclusion.
With him standing at the peak of power like an unmovable pillar, even someone as dangerous as Magneto had been forced to restrain himself. Anyone ambitious enough to challenge him would inevitably have to unite with others just to survive.
Ethan's expression turned slightly strange.
The moment the surrounding evolutionaries recognized him, their faces changed drastically.
Some of them reacted instinctively.
Fear triggered their powers.
"Hum—"
The space around Ethan rippled violently.
A moment later the air shattered like broken glass.
Fragments of space split apart and shifted, rearranging themselves in chaotic patterns. One section of the nearby wall was dragged along with the fractured space, breaking apart as if the entire environment had been sliced into floating pieces.
To an ordinary person, this would have been fatal.
Their body would be torn apart instantly by the collapsing spatial structure.
But Ethan remained exactly where he stood.
His clothes didn't even move.
He looked around curiously at the surrounding evolutionaries.
Some of them were visibly trembling with fear. Others swallowed nervously as they stared at him.
All of them were powerful Alpha-level evolutionaries.
There were more than twenty of them, and their abilities were almost identical.
Yet standing in front of a single man, they felt no sense of security at all.
"Why… why are you here?" someone asked with a trembling voice.
Ethan casually snapped his fingers.
Snap.
The fractured space surrounding him instantly stabilized.
The broken spatial structure reassembled itself, and the floating fragments of the wall fell to the ground.
Then something even more astonishing happened.
The shattered pieces of the wall suddenly reversed direction.
Like footage playing backward, the fragments rose into the air and slid back into their original positions. Within seconds the damaged wall restored itself completely.
Everything returned to exactly how it had been before.
The ability Ethan used wasn't merely spatial manipulation.
He had combined it with the power of time itself.
By rewinding a small section of space-time around him, he restored the environment to its original state.
Ethan smiled faintly.
"I heard you've cracked the structure of the X-Gene," he said casually. "Apparently you've even managed to create a lot of evolutionaries."
He shrugged lightly.
"Evolutionary is a better name anyway. Mutant doesn't sound very flattering."
Several of the surrounding people exchanged glances.
Then one of them suddenly shouted angrily.
"Stop joking around, you damned executioner! You should've gone to hell a long time ago!"
Ethan scratched his head slightly.
"Well, it looks like communication has failed," he said with mild disappointment. "You people really don't seem happy to see me."
He sighed.
"That's a little discouraging."
Then he suddenly smiled again.
"Forget it. I'm not in the mood to play with you anymore. Go back to whatever you were doing."
He turned and began walking down the corridor.
"I'll just take a look around."
He didn't hurry.
He didn't run.
He simply walked forward casually, like someone strolling through a shopping mall.
"Damn it!" someone shouted behind him. "We can't let him reach the core research area! Stop him and raise the alarm level!"
"Right!"
Several evolutionaries immediately launched another attack.
This time, they attacked together.
.....
Want to read ahead. Then Join my P@treon 60+ exclusive chapters that are waiting for you.
Free members can get 2 advanced chapters FOR FREE.
Link: ptreon.com/Lotus_Lover
Join Right Now