Freeing the Mutants

He pushed past the last twisted, deformed alloy blast door, leaving a few more corpses in black combat uniforms strewn across the corridor floor.

They died in peculiar ways, their neck bones unnaturally twisted or their chests caved in by an unseen force, their wide-open eyes frozen in the terror of witnessing the unbelievable before death.

There were no gunshots, no signs of a struggle, only death following like a shadow.

Before the final barrier leading to the core control room of the Sector D Mutant Restraint Collars, Russell stopped his steps.

Before him stood an exceptionally thick composite metal door with a matte-coated surface. Besides a smart card reader, the door featured what was clearly an iris scanner.

Obviously, relying solely on Caspian's access card was not enough to open this door.

The surveillance cameras in this area had already burst silently as he passed, leaving the corridor with only the bleak red light emitted by emergency lighting. Russell could not be bothered to waste more effort finding a matching iris or cracking the password.

He raised his right hand with his fingers spread, aiming at the impregnable security door.

Invisible power began to gather in his palm. The metal door let out a groaning sound as it could no longer bear the weight, its center caving inward while blinding sparks burst from the edges where it met the doorframe.

The loud crash of the hydraulic locks snapping sounded like the dying wails of a mortally wounded creature. A few seconds later, the entire door, along with part of the doorframe, was violently ripped from the wall by an utterly tyrannical force and crashed inward, stirring up a cloud of dust.

Stepping into the control room, he was met with dozens of neatly arranged rectangular consoles flashing with various indicator lights.

Screens constantly scrolled with green data streams; some even displayed real-time vital signs, brainwave activity, and the working status of restraint collars for certain specific test subjects.

This was not merely the control hub for the prison zone's collars, but clearly also connected to the binding systems for high-value specimens in the deeper laboratories.

Just right to resolve them all at once. A knowing smile appeared on Russell's face.

He did not hesitate, raising his right hand once more. An even more powerful invisible force field expanded outward with him at its center, preparing to thoroughly turn this area—which symbolized imprisonment and control—into a pile of twisted electronic garbage.

"Freeze, you're surrounded!"

"Hands on your heads and get on the ground, now!"

A sharp shout came from the door as eight fully armed soldiers formed a sector formation, holding M16 Assault Rifles and closing in step by step.

Eight bright red laser aiming dots steadily locked onto Russell's forehead and vital chest area.

Russell did not even turn his head. "Sorry, you're too late."

Before his words faded, the entire control room seemed to be gripped by an invisible giant hand and violently shook.

All screens simultaneously burst with glaring snow and electric sparks, while a dense succession of "buzzing" short-circuit noises rang out, followed by chain explosions.

Capacitors and chipsets inside the consoles burst and overloaded under the violent telekinetic squeeze.

"Damn it! Fire! Fire!"

The squad leader leading the team roared at the top of his lungs.

"Tat-tat-tat!!"

The dense gunfire instantly drowned out the tail end of the explosions.

Bullets poured toward the white figure standing with his back to them like a metallic storm.

However, the next scene terrified everyone who had fired.

The bullets they shot hovered collectively and eerily about a meter away from Russell's body, as if they had crashed into an absolute and impassable transparent wall.

Then, Russell tilted his head slightly.

All the hovering bullets uniformly reversed by one hundred and eighty degrees.

The eight soldiers shook violently all at once as if pulled by invisible threads, blood bursting from their helmet visors while their bulletproof vests were easily pierced.

They did not even have time to scream before they fell backward in unison, the rifles in their hands clattering to the floor.

The control room plunged into complete darkness, with only occasional sparks from emergency lights and bursting circuits providing a weak light source that illuminated the debris and corpses all over the ground.

Sector D of the Agrawal Underground Base had completely changed.

As the core control hub completely failed, a large area of the base fell into darkness due to power outages.

Emergency power barely maintained critical areas and minimal lighting, but more fatally, all automatic doors controlled by the central system—including those for locked zones, isolation cages, and even some outer security gates—automatically slid open amidst a series of "beep" unlocking prompts.

In the central parade ground, the indicator lights on the metal collars—symbols of enslavement—around the necks of hundreds of mutant prisoners who had originally been crouching with their heads in their hands and trembling in panic suddenly went out.

At first, there was a deathly silence.

Then someone tentatively raised a hand, a small flickering flame sprouting from their palm that illuminated the incredulous ecstasy on his face.

"The control collar... failed?!"

"My powers can finally be used without restraint."

"Me too."

The commotion spread rapidly like ripples cast by a stone tossed into a calm lake.

More and more mutants began to display various powers on their bodies, some with hardened skin, others with electricity sparking from their fingertips or partial bodily transparency...

And when several prisoners who had witnessed Russell slaughter guards like a god or demon in the hallway and even control bullets out of thin air ran out, shouting excitedly:

"It's the guy in white, the one named Russell! He destroyed the control center and freed us!"

This commotion instantly turned into a boiling volcano.

The desire for freedom and the rage of vengeance, suppressed for years, months, weeks, or even days, rebounded fiercely like a spring compressed to its absolute limit.

"Destroy this damn base! Let's slaughter our way out and kill all these scum!"

"And me! Take me with you!"

"Kill those guys in lab coats! Kill the ones with guns!"

"Right, destroy this place! Leave none alive!"

The long-suppressed mutants were filled with righteous indignation, their roaring voices nearly flipping the dome of the underground space.

After the fear receded, it was replaced by towering hatred accumulated from long-term inhuman treatment and the frantic desire to escape the purgatory and see the light of day once more.

And this was precisely part of Russell's plan, as well as the desired effect of him deliberately showing his strength and heading straight to the heart to destroy the control center.

Relying on himself alone—despite possessing immensely potential-filled supernatural abilities like super healing and Psychic Telekinesis—his current level of development was ultimately limited.

The consumption of mental and physical energy was very real. Facing thousands of well-trained, heavily armed soldiers in this militarized base, along with various potentially hidden high-tech defense weapons and even specialized anti-mutant equipment, the success rate of a solo brute-force charge was too low and the risk far too great.

Yet with these liberated mutants, the situation would be completely different.

Normally they were submissive, acting as lambs to the slaughter simply because the collars around their necks were fatal shackles.

Once those shackles were broken, hundreds of mutants possessing bizarre powers that often defied the laws of physics would gather together, instantly transforming into a violent flood capable of tearing through steel—enough to turn this impregnable underground fortress completely upside down from the inside.

Seeing the furious indignation among the mutants, Russell, who stepped out with large strides, knew the time was ripe.

He moved slightly, suspended by invisible telekinesis as he slowly left the ground, hovering a few meters above the crowd in mid-air.

This action instantly drew the gaze of every mutant, the clamor quickly subsiding as pairs of expectant, fanatical eyes looked up at him.

[Gratitude Emotion +0.4]

[Adoration Emotion +1]

"Compatriots," Russell's voice was slightly amplified by telekinesis, transmitting clearly to everyone's ears, "of course I will help you and liberate you. But merely the few hundred of us here is not enough."

His gaze swept over the dense crowd below. "In this base, cages like this are definitely not the only ones. More of our compatriots are locked away in deeper places, enduring experiments and torture far more cruel than ours.

We must rescue them and ensure every mutant breaks free from this iron cage."

"Only when our numbers are large enough and our strength is formidable enough can we master our own destinies, and make those who view us as test subjects, as monsters, and as trash to be disposed of at will understand who the true hunters are and who the lambs for the slaughter really are!"

He did not rush to rally everyone to charge toward the exit immediately. A mere few hundred people, even with abilities, would suffer extremely heavy losses during a breakthrough in the face of a tightly organized army with heavy firepower, and might even be intercepted and annihilated.

Yet what if... all the mutants imprisoned in this base could be released? What if this flood could sweep through every corner?

When that time came, the strong and weak would reverse, and the offensive and defensive roles would change.