You Only Lost Your Legs

Sizzle!

With his hands behind his back, Ron ignored the robbers' attacks. His eyes lit up with a crimson glow as he picked off the robbers in the exhibition hall one by one.

The laser beams effortlessly pierced through bone and flesh. Each robber gained a scorched, bloody hole through the front and back of his head before collapsing stiffly to the floor.

"No good, boss! Bullets can't hurt him at all!"

The robbers backed away in terror, trying to evade him.

"Rockets! Bring up the rockets!"

After kicking over a display case, the Robber Leader cowered behind it in panic and shouted at his men.

Two robbers dropped to one knee and quickly hefted the black launchers they had prepared in advance, loaded with heavy rockets.

"Quick, quick! Blow him apart!"

"Help! Help!"

Seeing the rockets, the hostages clutched their heads and screamed in fear.

"This won't do."

Ron gave a slight shake of his head.

Sizzle!

The crimson beams swept across them. The two robbers' thick legs were effortlessly severed like hot knives through butter. They fell to the ground with piercing screams as blood sprayed everywhere.

"It's all your fault for making this so bloody."

"Ahh! My legs! I'll kill you!"

One of the robbers looked at the legs separated from his body and screamed in painful collapse. He desperately tilted up the rocket launcher and pulled the trigger.

Whoosh!

Across a distance of only thirty or forty meters, the rocket trailed white exhaust and arrived in an instant before exploding with a thunderous blast.

Boom!

Flying shrapnel pierced through tables, gouged deep marks into the exhibition hall's marble pillars, and shattered the glass, scattering it across the floor.

As the flames faded.

"You only lost your legs."

Ron stood by the window, completely unharmed. His tall body seemed forged from unshakable steel. The robbers stared in terrified shock. "Monster! He's a monster!"

He looked at that robber. "You really don't value your own life."

If he had obediently lain on the floor, then although he would have been crippled and lost his legs, and would have spent the rest of his life in prison, he could at least have kept his life, couldn't he?

Buzz!

He raised a finger and lightly tapped it.

A somewhat thicker dark-red beam shot through the air. The man exploded into pieces the next second, leaving no corpse behind as blood and flesh splattered across the ground.

"Ah..."

The horrific, brutal scene drew screams from all the hostages.

With precise control over his energy, the plasma energy beams Ron fired were no longer used for cutting, but for explosions.

Every beam that landed in the exhibition hall blew two or three robbers away and killed them.

"Retreat! Retreat now!"

Even rockets could not hurt him. In the mere ten or so seconds since he appeared, more than half of his men had been slaughtered like chickens and dogs. The Robber Leader shouted in terror, calling the remaining seven or eight men to grab the jewelry and fire suppressing shots as they tried to flee down the stairs.

Bang.

"Where do you think you're going?"

Suddenly teleporting behind them, Ron grabbed the fastest-running Robber Leader by the neck with one hand and lifted him off the ground like a chick.

His amused gaze turned toward the others.

"Ah!"

The others raised their guns in terrified despair, only for a beam to sweep across them.

A scorched trench was carved into the wall. The remaining robbers all collapsed, their chests and abdomens torn open as blood and other things spilled across the floor.

"You're the only one left."

Slowly turning his head, coldness surfaced in his eyes as he asked casually.

"Oh, right. What was it you called me just now?"

"Surrender... I-I surrender."

His legs kicked weakly as the iron-pincer grip around his neck left him unable to breathe. Veins bulged on the Robber Leader's forehead as the large man struggled to say that he wanted to surrender in exchange for his life.

He would rather go to prison than see this devil again.

"Wrong answer."

As though regretting that he had given the wrong answer, Ron gradually tightened his grip.

"Urgh... urgh..."

The Robber Leader's eyes widened in agony. He made meaningless, garbled sounds, his face turning purple from suffocation.

A few seconds later, wrapped in pain and despair, he died.

Ron casually tossed the corpse aside like trash.

He did not care whether the man surrendered or not.

What he wanted to hear was weeping pleas for mercy, fearful and despairing repentance, and remorseful apologies.

Then perhaps he would have let him die a little more quickly.

"Not only rude, but stupid too."

Crash!

Maeve burst through the shattered window with a battle sword in hand, only to see Ron casually toss aside the Robber Leader's corpse.

She looked around the wrecked exhibition hall and the miserable, twisted corpses scattered throughout it.

Her expression went blank. In less than twenty seconds, all thirty-odd fully armed robbers carrying heavy weapons had been dealt with.

She still held her battle stance, knees slightly bent and sword gripped in both hands, but there were no robbers left in the exhibition hall for her to handle.

"Oh, you're here?"

Ron stepped forward, patted her as she stood frozen with her sword raised, and reminded her with a light laugh.

"Relax. It's over."

"..."

"Looks like you do have some skill. That saves me some trouble."

Maeve's expression was extremely unpleasant. Refusing to show weakness, she said that coldly and sheathed her sword, preparing to comfort the hostages.

"I've only seen wounds like these caused by one person before.

How did you do it?"

After taking two steps, she noticed some of the corpses with scorched, bloody holes in their foreheads where they had been shot through the head. Her pupils constricted. She stopped and turned to Ron, her tone anything but calm.

And on closer inspection, Ron had clearly been hit by a rocket at one spot amid the shattered floor, yet he had not lost even a strand of hair. His hairstyle was still exactly the same. It made her think of someone.

"Very simple. Lasers shoot from my eyes, then they die."

Facing Maeve's suspicious gaze, Ron raised an eyebrow and looked at her.

Wasn't the process obvious enough? Did she really need to ask?

"Don't brush me off. That's not what I meant."

"Wasn't that what you asked?"

"Uh..."

Maeve was momentarily choked up and fell silent for two seconds.

There was nothing wrong with Ron's answer based on her question, but that was not what she had meant.

"You know what I want to ask."

She tilted her head slightly upward, worry hidden in her eyes as she met the gaze of Ron, who stood a head taller than her, and asked seriously.

This black-haired, black-eyed handsome youth had first received treatment similar to Homelander's, then displayed abilities similar to Homelander's. The possibility it suggested was too terrifying.

"Wasn't it enough for Vought to create one monster capable of endangering the entire world? Did they make an even younger one too?!"

"It seems I have no obligation to satisfy your curiosity."

Ron gave a soft laugh and refused to answer.

"..."

Maeve frowned and fell silent.

"I know what you're worried about.

Don't be afraid. I'm different from Homelander."

He took a lock of hair from Maeve's shoulder and played with it from above, smiling teasingly.

"After what you just did, that doesn't sound convincing at all."

Maeve's expression darkened at the flirtatious gesture, and she knocked his hand away.

"I'm not interested in men. Stay away from me."

"Especially little boys who might not even have been born when I was in high school."

Having been silently mocked over the robbers, Maeve deliberately jabbed at Ron's age. A mocking smile appeared on her face as she looked at him, emphasizing the words "little boys."

"Little boy?"

Ron smiled, not angry in the slightest.

Calling him a little boy based on his age was not exactly wrong, but it was not that he had only been born when Maeve was in high school. When Maeve joined Vought as a superhero, he had not even existed in this world yet.

But physically, he was no little boy. Had she ever seen a little boy over six feet tall and nearly two hundred pounds?

"I heard you and Homelander used to date."

"We were a screen couple, cooperating with the company's publicity."

Apparently reluctant to discuss it, Maeve changed the subject and answered coldly.

"All right, we should go comfort the hostages."

"You showed no restraint at all. It was too bloody."

She frowned as she looked at the blood splattered throughout the exhibition hall.

"Why should I care about them?"

Ron spread his hands after glancing at the pale-faced hostages trembling in fear in the distant corner.