The semi-basement was enormous, with more than a dozen large iron cages scattered throughout. Half of them contained bones—mummified corpses that had nearly lost all human shape. More terrifyingly, many of the mummies' limbs were strewn around them, and they did not look as though they had been removed after death.
Kent began to tremble all over. He did not even know whether it was fear or anger, because above the abdomen of the corpse in the very center, he saw a tiny skull and fragments of small, underdeveloped limbs—this was the body of a woman who had been about to give birth.
For the first time, Kent understood what it meant to feel suffocated. It was not because he had lost his powers. He felt that even if he were still Superman, he would be unable to breathe in the face of this scene.
He instinctively stumbled back several steps and stood against the wall, taking several minutes to recover. Only after the dizziness eased somewhat did he shakily approach the nearest cage.
The semi-basement was dimly lit. Only when he came closer did he realize that all the corpses were female. They had suffered severe abuse while alive, and some of their wounds were deep enough to expose bone.
Clark Kent was not the Great Detective, nor had he received any criminal investigation training. But from what he could see, he could roughly guess what had happened here.
Not everyone was a lamb waiting to be slaughtered. Just as most superheroes were stubborn as hell, some people in this world were born highly resistant to brainwashing. Even flawless possession and deception could not fool them.
Such people were often stubborn and obsessive. If they sensed something was wrong, they would investigate it to the end. Even in an