Lu Wen strode down the corridor, wielding a steel pipe in each hand to shove broken walls and overturned desks out of his way.
The strength Compound V had given him was greater than he had expected. At the very least, clearing a path through the rubble was effortless.
Just as he reached the stairwell, the whole building shook again.
Lu Wen braced himself against the wall and glanced down. The stairs had broken away, collapsing straight from the seventh floor to the third. Crooked lengths of rebar jutted out like a twisted metal jungle.
"Jump, baby," Deadpool urged beside him. "A fall won't kill you now."
"I know."
Without another word, Lu Wen vaulted over the railing and jumped.
He dropped five stories, bending his knees slightly on landing before steadying himself. He glanced down at the broken concrete beneath his feet. His soles were torn, but his legs were fine.
After all, in The Boys, Soldier Boy was one of the few knockoff superheroes whose physical stats actually exceeded the original's.
It was just...
His movement speed was seriously hard to stomach! If he had been Captain America, he would have made it to the first floor in that little stretch of time! There would have been no need to wait for the stairs to collapse and then drop down.
The moment he left the office building, he came face-to-face with an overturned police car and three Chitauri soldiers.
The Chitauri in front raised his energy rifle.
Without hesitating, Lu Wen hurled the steel pipe in his right hand.
The pipe spun twice in midair and struck the Chitauri's faceplate with enough force to smash half his head apart.
The soldier toppled backward. Before the remaining two could react, Lu Wen leaped in front of them and slammed both fists down.
Although he did not know exactly how strong he was, Soldier Boy's feats in the original show guaranteed that he could exert at least several tons of force, so bursting these two soldiers' heads was effortless.
Splat~
"Whoa~ One little injection turned baby bunny into baby T. rex! What brand of steroids was that? Can I have a shot? I'll pay!"
Lu Wen looked back and saw Deadpool, who had hit the ground in free fall and splattered into a puddle. Blood was still spurting out of him, yet he had not forgotten to crack jokes at Lu Wen's expense. Lu Wen rolled his eyes speechlessly.
Sure, this guy could not die, but didn't it hurt? How could he sound so calm when he had fallen hard enough to end up looking like that?
Ignoring the show-off, Lu Wen surveyed the ruined street.
It looked as though Hulk had just smashed his way through here. Huge craters were everywhere! There were pitifully few people and just as few aliens, making it a great place to build himself up at the start.
[Event detected. System bounty section unlocked.] [Shoot down Chitauri aircraft-bounty reward: 100 points per aircraft.] [Kill scattered Chitauri grunts-bounty reward: 10 points each.] [Kill Chitauri elite soldiers-bounty reward: 50 points each.] [Rescue trapped civilians and assist evacuation-200-1,000 points depending on difficulty.] [Bring down Chitauri Leviathans-bounty reward: 500 points each.] [...]
"The points seem pretty reasonable. Just don't know whether they'll be enough when it's time to spend them." Lu Wen skimmed the system screen that had suddenly appeared and quickly understood how it worked.
Seeing that a dimensional mission listing page was still locked, Lu Wen was in no hurry. Getting through the starter zone mattered more right now.
"Hey~ Baby T. rex, spacing out somewhere this dangerous isn't good behavior. Sure, you only zoned out for a few seconds, but-" Deadpool was about to make another wisecrack when Lu Wen poked him in the face with a steel pipe.
"Shut up. You've been flattened into a pizza and you're still running your mouth. Doesn't it hurt?"
Deadpool pushed the pipe away from his face and said in a completely unconcerned tone, "Baby, you're being awfully unfriendly to an injured man. Still, I suggest you turn your head!"
Lu Wen glanced aside. A sense of danger made him instinctively tilt his head, and a blue plasma beam skimmed past his ear, blasting a washbasin-sized hole in the wall behind him.
"Holy shit!"
He looked back. Two Chitauri soldiers were emerging from behind an overturned bus with energy rifles raised, their alien weapons' muzzles already glowing.
Without thinking, Lu Wen instinctively dove behind Deadpool and curled up, leaving Deadpool's immortal body facing the incoming fire.
He had meant to use Deadpool as a meat shield, but the guy suddenly rolled over and pushed Lu Wen out in front instead.
Thump, thump-
Two energy shots struck him square in the back.
"Hiss-That really didn't hurt much." Lu Wen got up and reached around to feel his back. Two large holes had burned through his clothes, but the exposed skin bore only two red marks, as though someone had flicked him in those same spots.
"Were you just trying to use me as a shield?" Deadpool sat up in the rubble.
"Nothing of the sort. You just got unlucky." Lu Wen stood up without batting an eye. For a moment, he had forgotten he was no longer an ordinary person.
He tossed aside the steel pipe, hoisted a concrete wall slab half his height, and hurled it at the two Chitauri soldiers.
The slab spun through twenty meters of air and hit its targets squarely.
Splat~
The two alien soldiers shattered into pieces like beer bottles struck by a bowling ball.
[Chitauri grunts killed ×2. Points +20. Automatically credited to the host's account.]
Lu Wen did not examine the points credited to his account. Instead, he looked at the Chitauri Leviathan flying toward him from a short distance away.
Apparently, killing those few grunts had drawn the Chitauri's attention.
Although he had no time to check exactly how to spend those points, he remembered that thing having the highest bounty in the mission section.
Besides, even without the points, he would have to take that big thing down! He had no desire to get slammed by an alien truck.
Lu Wen took a deep breath, focused his mind, and began drawing on the searing energy within his body.
The next moment, orange-red light shone from his chest, and nuclear-energy patterns spread from his chest cavity toward his limbs.
Boom-
The shock wave shot straight into the Leviathan's gaping maw, blasting through its body from inside its throat.
The Leviathan let out a roar like snapping metal. Its enormous body convulsed a few times in midair, then crashed crookedly toward the open space at the end of 42nd Street.
After the deafening crash, half the street was covered in scattered concrete and metal fragments, along with the shattered carcass lying on the road.
"Whew~ Feels like a dog chased me for five blocks. That really takes it out of you."
Lu Wen glanced back at the Leviathan's corpse and touched his forehead. No wonder Soldier Boy had always looked as though he was straining to squeeze something out whenever he used this move in the show.
And the charge-up really did take a little too long. In actual combat, unless his opponent was someone like Alien Empera, who refused to dodge no matter what, it was basically useless.
On the next street, the original Avengers, who were clearing out grunts, also had their attention drawn by that orange shock wave shooting into the sky.
"Guys, does anyone know what that was?" Captain America called his teammates over the comms.
"No idea, but it definitely wasn't the New York police." Hawkeye was the first to answer the captain, shooting an arrow that blew up a Chitauri grunt as he spoke.
"Tony, was that you?" Black Widow asked Tony Stark.
"No~ Not me, but I can go see what's going on. You know, according to JARVIS's analysis, the radiation level in that light wave was terrifyingly high."
As he spoke, Tony continued clearing out grunts while propelling his armor toward the next street.
"Oh-ho! That move packs a punch! But~ You're on your own from here, little transmigrator. Uncle Deadpool can't play with you anymore. That tin can's coming over. Bye-bye~"
Lu Wen had just recovered from his brief spell of weakness when he heard Deadpool saying goodbye behind him. By the time he turned around, Deadpool had vanished, and all he saw was a ripple in space.
"Gone already? Couldn't even leave me some contact information?"
Lu Wen clicked his tongue, feeling a little regretful. This Deadpool was clearly no ordinary version. He did not seem like the Deadpool who had only just learned to travel between parallel universes, nor like the one working for the Time Variance Authority. He might even be the one who could break through the fourth wall!
If he really was that last one, he was a major powerhouse! A shame Lu Wen had missed the chance to latch onto him.
[Dimensional mission listing section unlocked!] [Slap Loki twice!-bounty reward: 10,000 points! (Deadpool insisted on posting this bounty)] [...]
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