Lu Heng stepped over the three bodies and headed deeper in.
"Wait here."
"W-wait!" Cate hurried after him. "Farid's still down there. His power is geological manipulation. The whole bunker is his weapon..."
"Don't forget, I'm the one who brought you here on this mission. I already know everything there is to know about the enemy."
"Then why are you going down alone?"
Lu Heng glanced back at her, his expression saying, Are you kidding me?
"Just wait here. Daddy's going down to take care of something. I'll be back to pick you up in a bit."
With that, he pushed off the ground and dropped deeper into the darkness.
His figure vanished in an instant.
Cate and Jordan stood where they were.
"He seems to think we're a bit of a nuisance," Cate said.
On her first day out on a mission, she'd already made a mess of things for her boss.
"We really are a bit weak," Jordan said, sitting down against the wall and clutching her abdomen.
In her male form, she had the strength of several tons, but fighting that bald guy had been like scratching an itch. Guardian, on the other hand, had sent him into space in an instant.
"What a difference!" Jordan closed her eyes.
Cate shook her head. "Don't think about it. You'll get depressed if you dwell on it."
One hundred and fifty meters underground.
Lu Heng passed through several layers of rock and reached the deepest part of the shelter.
It lay beneath a vast domed chamber, thirty meters high and at least several hundred meters wide, like a natural underground cathedral.
The surrounding rock walls were smooth as mirrors, covered in marks left by the superhuman who had shaped them.
A man stood in the center of the chamber.
Behind him towered a colossal statue of a god, one hand supporting the sky and the other held across its chest.
Farid was forty-one years old. He wore an earth-yellow robe, and his face bore the marks of a life weathered by hardship.
The ground beneath his feet rippled faintly. On closer inspection, his feet seemed to hover over the gravel rather than touch it.
"Are you with Vought?"
Farid stood with his hands behind his back, projecting an imposing air.
He knew how to make an entrance.
"Twenty years," Farid said, his voice thick with an Indian accent.
"Farid. You brought Sandstorm with you. You're a superhuman from 2003, with the power to manipulate geological formations. That makes you one of the old guard," Lu Heng said. "No one was bothering you. Why suddenly come out and make life miserable for everyone?"
"For justice," Farid said.
Lu Heng took a few photographs from his pocket and tossed them to the ground. They showed civilians caught in the crossfire.
"This is your justice? What country's definition of justice involves massacring civilians and carrying out terrorist attacks?"
"Sacrifices are necessary for the sake of our ideals," Farid said. "In the world created by Allah, they have escaped suffering and will live happily."
"Guardian, I know who you are. You're a hero, a symbol of justice in America. You should know that sometimes, for the sake of justice, we must give certain things up."
Lu Heng tilted his head.
Things really had changed. Now even terrorists were talking to him about justice.
Wait, no. He wasn't on the rabbit's side now. He was playing the part of Uncle Sam.
"Let's stop talking. I need to take your head back as proof I did the job. By the way, could you fix your sewage system next time? The stench has a surprising number of layers." Lu Heng brushed the dust off himself.
In truth, there wasn't any dust on him. His biofield kept it away, but the smell was unbearable.
"Then you should also know that no one can defeat me on my own turf."
Farid raised one hand.
The entire domed chamber began to shake.
The surrounding walls, floor, and ceiling—all the rocks—came alive at once.
Countless stone spikes sprouted from every direction, packed together like the teeth in a giant beast's open jaws.
Every spike pointed at Lu Chen.
"Over the past twenty years," Farid's voice came from every direction, as if the rock walls themselves were speaking.
"The American military has come three times. Each time, they sent in special forces and air support."
"They all died."
"How much stronger do you think you are than them, all by yourself?"
Lu Heng counted the spikes jutting from the walls. There were several thousand, each as thick as an arm and tipped as sharply as a spear.
If they all shot out at once, any living thing in the chamber would be turned into a pincushion in an instant.
Clap, clap, clap!
"Damn, that's impressive. What a sight. You remind me of a comic book character. Have you ever read One Piece?" Lu Heng said, genuinely impressed.
He really hadn't expected to find someone in real life with powers like Crocodile's, manipulating sand. That ability would probably earn him a Level Four rating at X-Mansion.
Farid didn't hesitate. He thrust both hands forward, and thousands of stone spikes shot out at once.
They moved too fast to react to.
And they came from every direction, sealing off every angle. Not even a fly could escape.
He knew the man before him was a handful. He'd taken out three of Farid's superhuman subordinates in barely a minute, putting him among the strongest at Vought.
But Farid had taken control of the rock strata beneath the entire underground city. Everything within a five-hundred-meter radius had become a weapon.
He couldn't lose!
Vought Tower.
In the live broadcast, the camera was trained on the enormous crater, two hundred meters across.
A rumble like muffled thunder echoed from underground.
The entire desert trembled faintly.
"Ladies and gentlemen! It seems a fierce battle is taking place underground!"
The reporter had found his footing again.
"Guardian has gone deep underground to fight the terrorist Farid! We can feel the ground shaking beneath our feet..."
The pilot obligingly sent the helicopter into a violent wobble.
"...A very violent tremor! This shows the battle is on a scale beyond anything we could have imagined!"
Edgar watched the footage, expressionless.
Lu Heng's strength had exceeded his expectations. He'd thought he was merely on par with Homelander, but now it seemed he might even be...
Homelander could only think about how popular he'd be right now if he were in Lu Heng's place.
One hundred and fifty meters underground.
Thousands of stone spikes hurtled toward Lu Heng from every direction.
The corners of Farid's mouth lifted.
Wouldn't this turn you into a cloud of blood?
Lu Heng stood motionless. He even yawned.
I feel like having zhajiangmian tonight. I wonder if there's anywhere in America that sells it. Italian tomato pasta is awful.
That was what he was thinking.
The spikes struck him and shattered like thin chocolate sticks.
The stone spikes that hit Lu Heng's body couldn't even touch his flesh. They collided with the force field around him and crumbled to pieces.
A Viltrumite's true strength lay in his body.
But now, there was someone who couldn't even damage his clothes and was still talking about killing him.
What an overconfident, pathetic man!
Anyone else get it?
The spikes crumbled to dust and fell in a soft shower.
Farid's expression shifted from calm to shocked, then from shocked to disbelieving—an entire emotional pie chart.
"N-no... impossible..."
Before you continue