Lu Heng finished upgrading and flew straight back to the Midtown Apartment.
He cooked himself a bowl of instant noodles and added two eggs.
What a luxury.
He was halfway through eating when it finally hit him.
"Wait, I've got this much money now, and I'm still eating this shit?"
"I want beef!"
"A big portion!"
Lu Heng flew straight out.
Using his unobstructed X-ray vision, he scanned the buildings across the entire neighborhood.
His vision could reach roughly a dozen kilometers.
He spotted a discreet party in some upscale private bar.
In the apartment next door, a young couple drew the curtains and started going at it...
At a local university, a professor in a suit was hugging a tree hollow and putting on an elaborate performance-art piece.
Lu Heng quietly shut off his unobstructed X-ray vision.
He felt like he was going to get eye cancer.
But just as he was about to find a fancy steakhouse, he suddenly spotted a few familiar faces.
His super-hearing instantly spread out.
It picked up a peculiar accent.
"...You better sit still, or I'll break your toes one by one."
"Go ahead and try! You think you can? You think my skin is like yours, you ordinary people?"
Butcher! Translucent!
Translucent really had been captured by Butcher. The plot hadn't changed at all.
And from the looks of it, Butcher had no idea how to deal with Translucent.
Use the steel-door bomb, bro!
Lu Heng decided to give them a hand.
The Boys had several key characters. He could farm a ton of experience from them.
An abandoned warehouse.
It used to be a seafood processing plant, but Butcher had rented it to kill Translucent.
A chair sat in the middle of the warehouse.
Fragments of chain littered the floor.
Translucent was in a cage, yelping as he was electrocuted, but the method couldn't do him any real damage.
After Mother's Milk finished shocking him, Butcher smashed him over the head with a crowbar.
He kept going until the head of the crowbar bent and his own hand was bleeding from the vibrations.
"Fuck!"
Butcher cursed.
Anyone who didn't know better might have thought some gang from northern Myanmar was putting on an event.
One club, one free club.
Sign up and get 200 free pulls.
Frenchie crouched by the toolbox, half a cigarette between his lips as he searched for something useful.
Hughie couldn't help at all. He just stood there like some random bystander.
As The Boys busied themselves, the warehouse's iron door opened.
The way it opened was rather unusual.
The man took the entire door off its frame, then gently leaned it against the wall.
He handled it as casually as someone setting down cardboard for the scrap collector.
All four of them turned around.
"Fuck, Butcher! You said this place was safe, that no supe could get in!"
Mother's Milk swore, but didn't stop moving.
He pulled out his gun and fired, going full American quick-draw.
Bullets clattered against Lu Heng's chest. He didn't feel a thing.
They couldn't even break through his biofield.
And his physical defenses were in a whole different league from his biofield.
"Hey, Billy boy! The local gang's got terrible manners!"
Lu Heng picked at his ear and waited for Mother's Milk to run out of bullets.
He brushed off his clothes.
Then he brought his hands together with a sharp clap.
The shock wave and gust of wind sent all four of them flying.
He'd used very little force, very, very little, making sure he wouldn't kill them.
"Shit! What kind of power is that?"
Mother's Milk was the first to get back to his feet.
But before he could run, Lu Heng grabbed him by the neck and lifted him into the air with one hand.
"Oi!"
Butcher got up and called out to Lu Heng. He was sure the other man meant them no harm.
If he really wanted to kill them, the warehouse would already be swimming in blood.
"Look, I was just joking around with you. Why'd you take it so seriously?"
Lu Heng gently set Mother's Milk down and even brushed the dust off his shoulder.
Mother's Milk backed away more than a dozen steps, terrified.
"How'd you find us?" Butcher asked, clutching his crowbar for comfort.
"Super-hearing. You guys were making quite a racket."
Lu Heng looked around and spotted Translucent in the corner.
Now that he'd gained X-ray vision, he could see Translucent's organs.
"Translucent, stop hiding. I can see you."
"Quick, save me! Guardian!"
Translucent thought Lu Heng had come to rescue him.
He immediately made himself visible.
He thought he was safe now.
"I have to say, you're the least impressive member of The Seven. Even Starlight, who just joined, isn't as useless as you."
"Some ordinary people captured you without breaking a sweat."
"Don't you think that makes the rest of us supes look bad?"
Lu Heng crouched down and started roasting Translucent.
The smile froze on Translucent's face.
He finally realized Guardian hadn't come to save him.
"Guardian... what do you mean?"
"What do I mean?" Lu Heng said with a smile.
"You stole Vought's internal videos and ruined Homelander's press conference. The whole internet is calling you a traitor now."
"You've got some nerve, running away!"
"Homelander's put out a kill order. Your head's worth several million bucks on the black market now."
"Some of those Blackheart labs are even willing to pay a fortune for your body so they can experiment on it."
Translucent looked terrified.
But soon,
he was back to his usual defiant self.
"You can't kill me."
"Oh?"
"How many things have these losers tried? Crowbars, chainsaws, bullets, electric shocks. They haven't even managed to nick a single hair on my body."
Translucent patted his chest, brimming with confidence.
"My defenses are nothing like that loser A-Train's."
"Guardian, you can fly and fight. You can even go toe-to-toe with Homelander."
"But kill me? In your dreams!"
Translucent even stood up, completely exposing himself.
He was naked now, and no longer invisible. Everyone else stared in shock.
Hughie offered his commentary at the worst possible time. "Honestly, I think he's smaller than me."
Butcher shook his head and grinned.
"Boy! You're in a man's world!"
"And we love a little man..."
He got halfway through the sentence before Mother's Milk and Frenchie gave him strange looks.
"...You know that's not what I meant!"
Butcher hurriedly explained.
Translucent kept running his mouth.
"Forget you. Even Homelander might not be able to hurt me. The whole Seven might not be able to."
"With that kind of strength..."
"All right, all right. Why go on and on?"
Lu Heng cut him off.
"I get what you're saying. You think I can't chop through you?"
"That's a fact, kid! Go home and drink your mother's milk!"
Mother's Milk: "..."
Translucent was so cocky he even stuck out his neck.
"Come on, chop right here. Put some power into it. Don't say I didn't give you a chance."
Lu Heng looked at the neck Translucent had offered him and grinned.
Then he stood up and raised his right hand.
His fingers pressed together, the edge of his hand facing outward.
Viltrumite Hand Chop.
Translucent saw the move and laughed even harder.
"Are you serious? You think you're Superman?"
Butcher frowned beside him.
Everyone watched Lu Heng's right hand.
Did Guardian have some ability they didn't know about?
The next second, they saw what it meant to make a miracle with sheer force.
Lu Heng moved incredibly fast.
There was only a faint sound.
Translucent's head parted from his neck.
A smile still hung on his face when he died.
The warehouse fell silent.
Lu Heng shook his hand. There wasn't even a drop of blood on it.
Looking at Translucent's corpse, the cut was so clean that the instant heat from the friction had sealed the surface.
"His defenses really are pretty strong."
Lu Heng nodded, deeply impressed.
One hand chop hadn't even blown him apart.
An ordinary person would've been reduced to minced meat by the wind from his palm.
"Uh, did he just kill The Seven's Translucent with one hand chop?" Hughie's mind went completely blank.
Everyone knew that within The Seven, the only one who truly outclassed his teammates was Homelander.
But according to the official stats, Homelander might have dominated the others, but the gap wasn't supposed to be this huge.
Even chopping vegetables took a little effort!
How could he slice through Translucent so easily?
A sheen of cold sweat appeared on Butcher's back.
The numbers on the panel started jumping again.
[Key Character Billy Butcher—Shock, Fear, High Threat] [Ability Points Gained: +2,876] [Key Character Hughie Campbell—Physical Shock, Fear, Worldview Shattered] [Ability Points Gained: +2,341] [Key Character Frenchie—Shock, High Threat, Terror] [Ability Points Gained: +1,987]
[Key character: Mother's Milk—numb, hostile, high threat]
[Ability points gained: +1,654]
Lu Heng crouched down, lifted Translucent's headless corpse with one hand, and slung it over his shoulder.
"I'm taking this one with me, boys!"
Butcher came to his senses, utterly bewildered.
"You pinned the whole thing on Translucent? So that's why you had to kill him to keep him quiet!"
"Well, you can blame yourself for not playing fair!"
Billy blew out a smoke ring, completely oblivious to the fact that he was a terrible teammate.
"I trust you'll handle everything. After all, the enemy of my enemy is my friend!"
"But what are you going to do now, go back and claim the credit?"
"You're such a powerful superhuman, and you're really willing to wag your tail like a lapdog, begging Homelander for scraps?"
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