Courtesy Matters

The moment he realized the bomb could not be detonated, the man in the rabbit mask rushed into the mall. When he heard glass shattering behind him, he rolled behind a checkout counter, grabbed his radio, and shouted, "Kill them! Kill all the hostages!"

At once, the extremists in the furniture section on the fifth floor prepared to act, when several soft whooshes suddenly rang out.

One after another, their foreheads burst open, spraying blood as the tips of pens emerged.

Steel pens had pierced through the backs of their heads, blown apart their foreheads, and killed them on the spot.

But.

The fifth floor was not the only place with hostages. A large number of hostages were also being held in the infant supplies section on the fourth floor.

Among them were many young mothers and babies still in swaddling clothes!

The extremists did not hesitate in the slightest. The instant they received the order, they prepared to open fire.

People wept in despair, clutching their heads. The mothers held their children tightly and instinctively shielded them with their own bodies.

Yet the expected gunfire never came. Two red beams shot down from the ceiling and swept across the area. The extremists all froze in place before their bodies split into several pieces.

On the fifth floor of the mall, Azu smiled and looked up. His eyes, which had just fired Laser Eyes, returned to normal.

He had scanned the mall long ago and mapped out the extremists' locations. He had devised a plan before acting and had never intended to give them a chance to shoot the hostages.

"Did it fail?"

The man hiding behind the checkout counter looked toward the furniture section. No gunfire had come from either the fifth or fourth floor.

His heart immediately sank to the bottom.

He was the mastermind behind the incident and Azu's assassination target: Gandy Alda.

Just then, he heard something slicing through the air. Alertly, he rolled away, and the checkout counter behind him suddenly exploded. Amid the flying fragments, a blue figure clapped his hands and brushed debris from his shoulders.

Looking at the man's blond hair and handsome face, Gandy Alda gritted his teeth and spat, "Damn Homelander!"

Azu naturally heard him. He shook his head and looked at Mr. Rabbit. "The game is over."

"You have two choices now."

"One, tell me what kind of organization this Vought really is, and I'll give you a quick death."

"The other is that you can refuse, but I'll crush every bone in your body piece by piece until you become a pile of mush."

Gandy removed his mask, revealing a distinctly Middle Eastern face. "Dream on, Homelander. You won't get a single piece of information from me."

"Is that so?"

"Then that's truly regrettable."

Azu lifted his feet off the ground and smiled. "Let me confirm one last thing. Are you Gandy Alda?"

The man froze, unable to understand how Homelander knew his name.

His expression confirmed it for Azu. The man before him was his target. With a faint smile, he flashed forward and appeared before Gandy in an instant, stepping on his right foot.

Gandy screamed immediately. Azu had flattened the front of his right foot, crushing all five toes in an instant.

"Sorry, I used a little too much force." Azu spread his hands.

The response was a rifle nearly pressed against his chest, followed by bullets blasting from its muzzle.

"Die!" Gandy roared. His temples throbbed as he squeezed the trigger all the way down, furiously unloading on the blue devil before him!

Azu shrugged. As the bullets deformed and fell to the floor, he reached out and gripped the barrel.

The rifle barrel immediately twisted out of shape, and the rifle exploded. One of Gandy's hands was instantly left bloody and mangled.

Mr. Rabbit screamed and staggered backward, falling onto the floor and inching away.

Suddenly, he pulled a syringe from his pocket.

He shouted.

"Long Live the Council!"

Then he plunged the syringe into his thigh and injected every drop of its contents into his body.

The familiar sight reminded Azu of the international airport, where a man named Edie Orr had injected something similar and turned into a monster.

This man had now injected Holy Blood as well, a substance that was actually Gene Potion, and a reaction quickly began.

Gandy's skin first took on an iron-black sheen. Then his teeth began falling to the floor one by one. From his now toothless mouth, new teeth grew in, sharper than before.

At that moment, Maeve arrived nearby. She had already dealt with the remaining extremists. Seeing Gandy undergo some kind of transformation, she could not help asking, "What's happening?"

Azu waved to Queen Maeve with a broad smile. "This guy took drugs. I ran into something similar at the airport last time."

"After injecting some mysterious substance, they turn into monsters."

Maeve spread her hands, looking utterly baffled. "And you're just watching?"

Azu said indifferently, "What does it matter? Besides, attacking without giving them a chance to show off would be terribly rude."

Maeve gave a dry laugh. "You're really polite."

Then she charged forward like a speeding train and slammed into Gandy. He was sent flying at once, his body twisting unnaturally. His spine had probably been broken by the impact.

Azu floated in the air and settled into spectator mode.

"Maeve, I think you should equip yourself with a weapon or two. A sword and shield would suit you well."

Maeve shot the floating man a glance and said irritably, "My body is the best weapon."

Then she saw Homelander point ahead with his chin. Maeve turned around and saw Gandy rise to his feet, his distorted waist already returning to normal.

He then lifted his head and looked at Maeve. Like Edie Orr, the man's eyes had turned blood-red, but aside from that, there was little else abnormal about him.

Overall, he still retained a human form.

Maeve frowned as she heard Azu warn her, "The weak point of these monsters is their heads. Only when their heads are gone will they truly die. Otherwise, even severe injuries will heal quickly, like the vampires in legends."

Without a word, Maeve charged forward. After accelerating for several steps, she leaped, clamped Gandy's head between her powerful thighs, and twisted sharply!

Crack!

Gandy's neck snapped at once. His body spun once through the air before slamming heavily onto the ground.

Maeve stood up.

She turned around.

Her right leg rose high, her toes above her head. Then, using her heel as the point of force, she brought it down like a massive axe toward her opponent's head.

Just as Maeve was about to split Gandy's head apart, the man suddenly moved on all fours like a lizard, sliding sideways in a bizarre motion and causing her kick to miss.

Bang!

The entire fifth floor shook. Maeve smashed an irregular crater into the ground, and the surrounding shelves toppled over in every direction.

But Gandy was not dead. He held his head in both hands and twisted it a few times, resetting his neck.

Then he turned and ran. His speed was inhuman. In the blink of an eye, he crashed through a window, burst out of the mall, and fell toward the parking lot behind the building!