Cate was also knocked to the ground by the speedster. He held back, clearly intending to leave one of them alive.
Aboveground.
Lu Heng was still lying on that rock, his cape covering his face.
The reporter in the helicopter had been broadcasting for forty minutes.
"Uh... the Guardian is still... charging up..."
"As you can see, his cape is fluttering in the wind, which means his energy field is... uh... resonating with nature..."
The reporter couldn't make anything else up. This was harder to get through than writing an essay back in school.
Vought Tower.
Edgar watched the live broadcast with a blank expression.
Starlight had made an excuse to use the bathroom, but in reality she'd slipped away to call the Guardian.
Suddenly.
Lu Heng's snoring stopped.
"Jordan still has room to develop his abilities. Cate is too weak; she can only be trained for support." Lu Heng opened his eyes. He'd been listening to everything happening in the bunker the whole time.
Neither Cate's nor Jordan's performance had escaped his notice.
But superhuman abilities could grow. Cate and Jordan were still students and hadn't reached their peak. They might improve their powers, the way Starlight had later on.
If Cate awakened long-range telepathy and mind control, her potential would be considerable.
He stood up and brushed the sand off his backside.
The reporter in the helicopter perked up.
"He's moving! The Guardian is moving! He's standing up!"
"After charging up for a full forty-three minutes, the Guardian is finally about to make his move!"
"Let's see what kind of move he'll—"
Lu Heng raised his right foot and brought it down.
It was just an ordinary step.
As casual as stepping on an ant.
But the instant his foot hit the ground, the earth collapsed across a radius of two hundred meters.
Rumble, rumble, rumble...
Dust filled the sky.
The shockwave sent the helicopter rocking violently. The cameraman nearly dropped his camera.
"Fuck the Guardian!!!"
Clutching the safety tether, the reporter shrieked, his earlier composure gone.
Once the dust had cleared a little and the cameraman had steadied the shot, an unbelievable sight appeared before them.
A massive crater had opened in the ground, more than two hundred meters across. Its depth... was impossible to see.
Lu Heng stood at the edge of the crater, looking down.
His X-ray vision had already located everyone.
"Fine."
Lu Heng jumped down.
He didn't use his ability to fly, relying solely on free fall.
He even accelerated his descent on purpose.
Four-tenths of a second later, the Guardian reached a depth of fifty meters underground.
Jordan was pinned to the ground by the giant, while the speedster was getting ready to knock Cate unconscious.
At that very moment, everything around them came to a standstill.
Like a ghost, Lu Heng drifted silently behind the three superhumans.
Then time resumed.
The fire-powered superhuman sensed the pressure of the wind behind him and instinctively turned around...
All he saw was an unremarkable hand, its fingers pressed together and the edge of its palm aimed at his neck.
Viltrumite Hand Blade!
It didn't look fast at all.
I can dodge that just by leaning aside.
"Haha, trying to sneak up on me!"
The superhuman thought his body had dodged the attack.
But in slow motion, he saw his body... or rather, half of it, still standing where it was.
The cut was perfectly clean. The blood hadn't even started spraying yet.
A soft sound reached his ears.
Like a knife slicing through tofu.
Like cutting open a block of tofu.
"When... did that happen?"
The fire-powered superhuman's eyes were still open, and he could even speak, but the flames at his fingertips were slowly going out.
The bald giant froze.
He stared at his companion's head, which had rolled to his feet, his mind completely blank.
"Who is this guy? He looks kind of familiar!"
Lu Heng's X-ray vision analyzed the giant's physical abilities.
"Skin hardening?"
The giant swung a punch at him. Lu Heng stood his ground, not even bothering to dodge.
Boom—
The punch landed on his body, sending a shockwave rippling outward.
"The air down here smells like shit. How about we go outside and have some fun?"
Lu Heng sounded as if he were asking a question, but he wasn't actually seeking the other man's opinion.
He grabbed the giant's head with one hand and shot straight up.
He punched a hole through the bunker.
Outside.
The reporter and cameraman were filming the huge crater, marveling at the destruction caused by the Viltrumite's stomp.
Then a loud crash sounded behind them.
Everyone turned around and saw a streak of light shoot into the sky, quickly vanishing beyond the atmosphere.
Holding the giant, Lu Heng flew to the edge of the atmosphere.
Outer space was just one step away.
"Come to think of it, I've never been out into space to play. Look, that seems to be the moon."
The giant's face had turned bright red from the pressure.
Frost had formed over his body as his defenses fought off the biting cold.
But the lethal Cosmic Rays and the vacuum were devastating to any superhuman.
The giant's eyes were bloodshot and swollen, and blood seeped from his ears.
But the moment it emerged, it froze in midair.
"Seems like you're not too fond of playing outside. We'd better head back."
Lu Heng gripped the giant and hurtled toward Earth at full speed.
This move was called—Earth Toss!
At Mach 30, the air around them began to heat up from friction, soon creating the high-temperature, high-pressure conditions of a meteor entering the atmosphere. The giant really did have strong defenses; he endured for more than ten seconds before melting into ash.
Lu Heng flew back to the crater.
The speedster tried to run. Lu Heng broke through the ground and landed right in front of him.
"Buddy, with your abilities, you should be delivering takeout. You could make ten grand a day. Why become a terrorist?"
"Was it to fulfill your childhood dream?"
"That won't do. When you fall into the hands of a partner of justice, you'll have to undergo some embedded therapy."
Lu Heng wagged his finger.
The speedster's whole body vibrated at an extremely high frequency. He was about to use his top speed to race past Lu Heng and escape.
That trick had always worked before. Even Farid had needed to use the terrain to catch him.
Lu Heng raised his hand high, signaling for the other man to charge as fast as he liked.
The superhuman really was fast.
In Lu Heng's eyes, he was only a little faster than a snail.
Lu Heng brought the heel of his palm down.
The cut ran from the man's head to his crotch.
Just like that, the three superhumans who had given Cate and Jordan such a hard time were dealt with by the Guardian in less than a minute.
The two women stood rooted to the spot, their mouths wide enough to fit eggs.
"Th-then what happened to that man whose skin was as hard as a giant corpse's?" Jordan asked in shock.
The giant had knocked him down with a single punch.
In his male form, he couldn't withstand even three seconds.
Yet Lu Heng had grabbed Egghead by the head and flown off.
The Guardian must have had a hard time breaking through the other man's defenses, too, right?
"Him?" Lu Heng scratched his head. "...His defenses were pretty average. I thought I'd get to make a wish on a shooting star, but he turned to ash halfway through."
T-turned to ash?
What did that mean?
Cate and Jordan didn't quite understand what Lu Heng was saying.
"Well, we just went to space. It was beautiful there, but that guy seemed a bit closed off and didn't really like my gift, so I let him make his own way back."
So he really had turned to ash.
Before you continue