Carnage

The searchlights of six attack helicopters crossed overhead, lighting the airspace around Chu Men as bright as day.

On the streets below, dozens of black armored vehicles lined up bumper to bumper.

Hundreds of gun barrels tilted upward, their infrared targeting beams clustering across Chu Men's body.

LexCorp's tactical commander stood beside a command vehicle, gripping a high-frequency megaphone.

He was an ace commander who had served on Middle Eastern battlefields and dealt with superhuman riots.

"Warning! Put Mr. Luthor down!" the commander roared, his amplified voice carrying over the wind and rain. "We have every weapon trained on you. Cease your hostile actions immediately, or we will use lethal force!"

Chu Men ignored the shouting below. He gave Luthor a couple of shakes.

"Baldy, your people want you back," Chu Men said.

Luthor's throat was gripped too tightly for him to speak.

The commander watched the scene overhead, his palms slick with sweat.

He turned to the superpowered mercenaries beside him.

A burly man whose body was half liquid metal flexed his fists. His metal joints scraped together with a piercing screech.

Known as "Mercury" in the black-market mercenary world, he had once taken down a fully armed infantry company single-handedly.

"Give the order, sir." Mercury stared at the sky. "At a hundred meters, my liquid spear can pierce his heart."

Beside him, an electricity-wielding superhuman hovering half a meter above the ground clasped his hands together.

Blue arcs of electricity danced between his palms.

"My high-voltage grid is fully charged," he said. "Give me the word, and I'll turn that patch of sky into a thunderstorm. No matter how tough his body is, the current will paralyze his nerves."

The commander gritted his teeth.

Luthor was still in Chu Men's hands. He did not dare order his men to fire.

"King of Gotham!" The commander raised his megaphone again. "LexCorp has no desire to wage an all-out war against you. Release Mr. Luthor, and we can sit down and negotiate. Whatever you want, LexCorp can provide funding and technical support—"

"Negotiate?" Chu Men laughed.

His gaze dropped to the superhuman with electricity dancing between his hands.

"You there, the one playing with electricity. Did you say you'd turn this place into a thunderstorm?"

The superhuman looked up and met Chu Men's eyes.

A dark-red beam plunged straight down.

The superhuman's upper body vaporized. The arcs he had been so proud of vanished with it in the beam's searing heat.

Two charred legs remained standing on the asphalt, black smoke rising from the severed stumps.

The surrounding mercenaries recoiled.

The commander lowered his megaphone and swallowed.

"Hold your fire! Stay alert!" he shouted. "Nobody fires without my order—"

Red light flared in Chu Men's eyes again. The beam swept sideways.

A heavy armored vehicle was sliced cleanly down the middle, its turret and the machine gunner inside split in two.

Panic swept through the crowd.

"Fire!"

No one knew who shouted it. Every nerve that had been stretched taut finally snapped.

Gunfire erupted on all sides.

The mounted Gatling guns on all six helicopters spun at full speed, spewing long tongues of flame.

Armor-piercing rounds tore through the rain. Launch bays opened atop the armored vehicles, and dozens of miniature homing missiles streaked skyward on trails of fire.

High-energy laser beams wove a dense net over the sky.

At that intensity, the barrage could flatten an armored division in three minutes.

Luthor closed his eyes. This indiscriminate crossfire would turn him to pulp.

Bullets, missiles, and lasers struck.

Half a meter from Chu Men, an invisible ripple spread outward.

The armor-piercing rounds crumpled. Homing missiles exploded one after another half a meter away, but the force field shut out the flames and powerful shock waves.

High-energy lasers struck the force field and refracted into the walls of nearby buildings, severing swaths of neon tubing and concrete.

Chu Men hovered amid the fire of the explosions, still holding Luthor.

He watched the troops below pour fire at him and burst out laughing.

"Keep going! Don't stop!" Chu Men shouted. "Show me what else you've got!"

At the sound of his voice, Luthor opened his eyes.

He stared at the explosions blazing right beside him, then at the lethal weapons stopped by an invisible barrier. His mind went blank.

"What... what the hell are you?" Luthor forced out.

"I'm your god." Chu Men glanced down at him.

Dark-red light gathered in Chu Men's eyes again, and two thick beams burst forth.

The beams swept across the street.

Blue energy shields sprang up around the armored vehicles below—LexCorp's latest defensive technology.

Blue light met red.

The shields shattered. Ten-centimeter-thick composite armor and the soldiers inside the vehicles vaporized in the extreme heat.

Several superhumans thrust out their hands, raising barriers of different colors.

The red light swept over them. Their barriers collapsed.

Half their bodies carbonized, and they fell to the ground, crumbling into black ash.

A trench several meters deep opened across the street.

The natural gas pipeline beneath it exploded. A pillar of fire shot into the sky, lighting up the entire East End.

"Time to go down and stretch my legs," Chu Men said.

Still holding Luthor, he dropped straight down from a hundred meters up.

Chu Men slammed into the center of the crowd. Cracks spread outward through the ground.

Mercury charged with a roar, his metal arm forming a sharp spear aimed at Chu Men's eye.

"Die!" Mercury bellowed.

Chu Men raised his free left hand and caught the incoming spear.

He squeezed, and the high-strength liquid metal shattered.

Chu Men stepped forward and drove a fist into Mercury's head.

His skull shattered. Red and white matter splattered across a nearby armored vehicle, and his headless body fell stiffly to the ground.

Nearby, a two-meter-tall exoskeleton mech raised a heavy chainsaw spinning at high speed and swung it at Chu Men's shoulder.

Chu Men twisted aside and kicked.

The armor plate over the mech's chest caved all the way in.

The pressure drove the pilot's sternum through his heart. Pilot and mech flew more than ten meters and overturned another command vehicle.

Chu Men grabbed a charging mercenary by the throat and tightened his fingers.

"So this is what it feels like to go on a Musou rampage in Dynasty Warriors." Chu Men tossed the corpse into a burning armored vehicle. "Do you people ever eat? Put some strength into it."

Holding Luthor, he strolled through the crowd as if he had all the time in the world.

With every step, someone fell.

A mercenary aimed a high-frequency energy gun at Chu Men's back and fired several shots.

The energy beams struck the force field, sending ripples across it.

Chu Men turned to look at the mercenary.

The mercenary's hands shook. His gun fell to the ground.

Chu Men walked over, seized his shoulder, and tore.

An arm ripped free. Blood sprayed out and stained the ground red.

He kept walking. Severed limbs flew through the air, and blood mingled with rainwater, gathering into red streams along the street.

The gunner aboard a helicopter watched the slaughter below, his palms slick with sweat as he poured bullets down.