The next morning.
The sidewalks along Atlantic Avenue were already packed with people.
Vought International's staff had been preparing since early morning. They had strung up barricades along both sides of the road and put up enormous posters of A-Train.
The sound system had been tested, and a formation of drones hovered overhead, waiting.
The sidewalks were packed with people. As die-hard A-Train fans, some had even brought blankets and camped out there in the middle of the night.
A girl holding a fan sign boldly tugged down the neckline of her shirt, revealing her pale, smooth skin.
A reporter lugging a telephoto lens was busy adjusting his equipment, sweat running down his face.
Lu Heng had arrived early.
He wore a hoodie and a baseball cap, blending in with the crowd.
Hughie's workplace was just down the street.
Bloodline Perception was active on his panel.
It was a new ability of the Viltrumite Soldier. He could sense the bioenergy fluctuations of every superhuman being within a one-kilometer radius.
There were only a few faint signals in range. They were probably from a handful of low-level supes mixed in with the crowd.
A-Train hadn't arrived yet.
His bioelectric signal should be far stronger than everyone else's. If ordinary people were fireflies and low-level supes were light bulbs, A-Train was a searchlight.
As he waited, Lu Heng scanned the crowd and soon found the person he was looking for.
Hughie Campbell stood outside the electronics store, an arm around a girl.
Robin.
She clung to Hughie's arm, craning her neck to peer into the crowd as she muttered something.
From two hundred meters away, Lu Heng picked up her voice with his super-hearing.
"I'm telling you, A-Train is definitely shorter in person than he looks in the pictures. Vought retouched them way too much."
"How do you know?"
"Woman's intuition."
"Your intuition said the fish at that Mexican restaurant was fresh, and I had the runs for three days straight."
"That's because you have a weak stomach. What's that got to do with my intuition?"
Lu Heng's mouth twitched.
All right, this couple's everyday bickering was pretty entertaining.
Nine o'clock sharp.
The sound system suddenly blared, and the host's voice rang out across Atlantic Avenue.
"Ladies and gentlemen! Let's give a thunderous welcome to... A-Train!"
The crowd erupted in a deafening roar.
In the distance, a figure in a blue bodysuit appeared at the end of the road.
He started running. It was a leisurely jog, just for show; otherwise, no one nearby would be able to see him.
A-Train waved to the crowd as he ran, occasionally stopping to slap hands with fans or sign an autograph.
Lu Heng kept his eyes on him from afar.
A-Train's bioenergy was indeed more than ten times stronger than that of the low-level supes around him.
But compared to his own...
Lu Heng silently sized him up.
A-Train's strength was probably somewhere between fifteen and twenty tons.
His own was sixty-two tons.
More than three times the difference.
Good. More than enough!
The community fun run proceeded as planned.
A-Train finished the route, then spent half an hour posing for photos and signing autographs before Vought staff ushered him into a commercial van.
Leaving already?
Come on, man. That was it?
Just as Lu Heng thought he'd wasted his time again, he noticed that A-Train's bioelectric signal hadn't left Brooklyn.
The van drove about two kilometers north before stopping in a neighborhood.
Then A-Train's signal disappeared from the vehicle.
He got out. Was he going to visit his girlfriend?
Lu Heng turned his attention back to Hughie.
Outside the electronics store.
Hughie and Robin were walking home hand in hand.
Before long, A-Train's energy signal began moving.
This time, he wasn't putting on a show with the fun run's leisurely pace. He was moving at full speed.
The direction was... Atlantic Avenue!
Here he comes!
At that moment, the Viltrumite blood in Lu Heng's body fully awakened.
He tore off his hoodie. With a thought, the Dark Gray Soldier Uniform covered his body in two seconds, its dark-gold runes faintly glowing across his chest.
Lu Heng gathered his strength and took off at supersonic speed.
The ground caved into a shallow crater beneath him, while the shock wave sent nearby pedestrians stumbling backward.
Hughie was holding Robin's hand. A-Train came charging from three blocks away, moving at four hundred miles per hour.
At the microscopic level, his eyes were bloodshot, and his expression seemed almost blissful.
At that speed, even if he saw someone in front of him, he probably wouldn't react in time.
Like a drunk driving after a night of heavy drinking, by the time he hit someone, it would already be too late.
Lu Heng saw it all from the air.
Flying at supersonic speed made him faster than A-Train.
He was about six hundred meters behind and to A-Train's side. A-Train was about three hundred meters from Hughie and Robin.
He flew straight toward them.
One second!
The wind kicked up by A-Train's wake tossed Robin's hair. She reflexively looked back.
She saw a blue streak of lightning racing toward her.
Half a second.
A gray figure dropped from the sky and landed between her and A-Train.
Lu Heng's feet slammed into the ground, the impact of his force field sending spiderweb cracks through the asphalt.
Facing A-Train, he thrust out his right hand.
A bio-force field spread from his palm, forming an invisible wall in front of him.
A-Train's face slammed into it almost instantly.
BOOM!!!
The tremendous impact exploded against Lu Heng's palm.
The road on Atlantic Avenue cracked outward from the point of impact, fissures spreading more than ten meters in every direction.
The shock wave shoved the parked cars on both sides half a meter sideways, and the windows of the nearby buildings shattered all at once.
Lu Heng braced his feet against the ground and was pushed back about twenty centimeters by the force.
Even at full speed, A-Train could only push Lu Heng that far.
Lu Heng gave a one-handed shove.
The counterforce sent A-Train flying. He tumbled through the air twice like a ricocheting bullet before slamming into the road twenty meters away, skidding a long way.
Broken asphalt littered the ground, which looked as though a deep furrow had been plowed through it.
The world fell silent.
Lu Heng lowered his hand and glanced at his palm. It was only a little red.
He turned around.
Hughie and Robin stood less than two meters behind him.
Both their faces had gone pale.
"It's all right now."
A flood of information appeared on the panel.
[The fate of a key character has changed dramatically!] [Robin: Original fate—death → Survived] [Hughie Campbell: Original fate trajectory → Completely altered] [Key characters experiencing intense emotional turmoil...] +2,347 +3,891 +1,256 [Milestone achieved: Changed the fate of a key character who was destined to die (first time)] [Milestone reward: +5,000] Total this time: +12,494 Current ability points: 12,838 / 100,000
Lu Heng saw the number, and only one thought crossed his mind.
I'm raking it in!
Twenty meters away.
A-Train got back to his feet, scraped up all over.
Lu Heng hadn't used much force. Those injuries weren't enough to kill A-Train.
But something was seriously wrong with him. His eyes were bloodshot, and the agitation from Compound V hadn't worn off. To a supe, the stuff was a powerful stimulant.
He shook his head, then looked at Lu Heng like a crazed beast.
"You son of a bitch... You think you can stand in my way?"
Lu Heng regarded A-Train calmly. To an ordinary person, the enraged supe might have seemed like some primordial monster.
But from a Viltrumite's perspective, he was no more threatening than a kitten.
The huge crash had roused everyone nearby. Still shaken, they turned to look.
At some point, phones began pointing at the scene one after another.
Lu Heng's next words nearly killed A-Train.
"Do you know you almost killed two people just now?"
"So what?" A-Train grinned. "I'm in The Seven. What the hell are you?"
Lu Heng tilted his head, a cruel smile curling his lips.
Viltrumites were born with a thirst for battle.
The stronger their bloodline, the more intense that desire became.
And now, it seemed he'd just received a challenge!
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