Li Ang raised his hand and looked at his palm. As he exhaled a white mist, it formed ice crystals in his hand.
Freeze Breath!
The gamma rays had not only boosted his panel stats, but also given him a new ability.
"Seems like it came at just the right time." Li Ang tugged at the corner of his mouth.
Tony sat on the rooftop, his mouth hanging wide open beneath his faceplate. "JARVIS, how fast was he just now?"
"An accurate measurement is impossible, but estimates based on the Doppler effect put him at least two and a half times faster than before!"
"This guy leveled up again?"
Li Ang looked down at Abomination, who was getting up in the street and shaking his head.
Abomination stood up from the rubble. Several of his bone spikes had broken, but he grinned. "Another one? Good. Come at me together."
Li Ang said nothing. He dove down and collided with Abomination.
Neither used any fancy moves. It was simply fist against fist.
Boom!
A punch landed, and a shockwave spread out, shattering every car window within fifty meters.
Abomination staggered half a step back. Li Ang did not retreat a single step, swinging his other fist into Abomination's cheek!
Abomination's head snapped to one side. Before he could regain his balance, Li Ang's fist slammed into the bridge of his nose!
The two collided like mountains of flesh, every impact making the ground jump. A few survivors who had not gotten far down the street lay behind cars, barely daring to breathe as they watched.
"Oh my God!" A young man pulled out his phone to record, the footage shaking. "Is he human?"
"He just kicked that monster out of the sky!"
"Shit, did you guys see that?"
Aboard the Quinjet, Nick Fury braced his hands on the table and watched the live footage on the screen. His one eye had not blinked for a long time.
"Director," an agent beside him asked quietly, "should we provide support?"
"Support whom?" Nick Fury's voice was a little hoarse.
On-screen, Li Ang twisted aside to avoid Abomination's sweeping strike, then spun and drove an elbow into his temple. Abomination flew sideways into a nearby fire hydrant, sending a column of water shooting into the sky!
Nick Fury finally exhaled and leaned back in his chair.
"Have the police in Harlem pull back two blocks and set up a perimeter. Also..." He paused. "Encrypt and archive that footage. Assign it level A clearance."
"Understood."
In the street, Li Ang stood before the column of water, his suit completely dry. The white mist he exhaled lowered the air temperature by several degrees.
Abomination climbed off the ground and shook his head. For the first time, uncertainty appeared in his eyes.
He raised his head, unable to understand why this fellow, who looked barely bigger than a toy, was stronger than he was.
"You..." Abomination began.
"You talk too much!" Li Ang cut him off, pushed off the ground with his toes, and charged again.
This time, he was even faster. Abomination only had time to raise his arms to block before Li Ang's fist slipped past his guard and struck him square in the face!
Boom!
Abomination flew backward, smashing through an entire row of shops along the street before finally coming to a stop inside a Burger King, reducing the counter to splinters.
Li Ang landed in the doorway and rolled his neck with a crack. "Looks like gamma enhancement packs quite a punch."
He did not know why this Abomination was somewhat different from the one he remembered, but that no longer mattered.
Before, he could have beaten Abomination, though he would have taken some injuries. Now things were great: Abomination could not even break through his defenses.
He had barely finished speaking when a muffled roar came from the rubble.
Abomination heaved aside the half-wall pinning him down. Several new cracks marked his gray-green scales.
His left eye socket was swollen, and he looked as aggrieved as a mistreated little wife. As he stood, he knocked down another section of wall.
"I have to admit, you're stronger than that green-skinned guy." Abomination panted, anger finally entering his voice.
The words had barely left his mouth when Li Ang appeared before him in the blink of an eye and punched him in the chin!
Abomination's head jerked back. His back smashed through Burger King's remaining wall, sending him tumbling straight into the convenience store next door. Shelves toppled like dominoes, strewn across the floor.
Nick Fury stood at the Quinjet's hatch, still clutching his communicator.
"Director," the agent beside him asked quietly, "those recordings..."
Nick Fury's hand trembled around the radio!
"Encrypt them. Assign them level S!"
"One level higher than before?"
"Didn't you see?" Nick Fury stared at the screen with his one eye. "A monster that even missiles couldn't kill is being used as his punching bag!"
Li Ang followed him into the convenience store. Abomination had just risen from a floor covered in chips and shampoo when he raised his hand and hurled two bone spikes.
This time, Li Ang did not even turn aside. He exhaled, and the white mist robbed the bone spikes of their momentum the instant it touched them, then froze them.
Li Ang raised an eyebrow, then smiled faintly, revealing his sharply cut jawline. "You're certainly strong compared to Banner and Tony, but compared to me, you only count as a... loli."
"What?"
Li Ang did not give Abomination a chance to finish asking. He clenched his right hand and drove a punch into Abomination's stomach.
The punch shattered the glass in several surrounding walls at once, and half the convenience store's doorframe buckled!
Abomination doubled over and fell backward. Li Ang followed up with another elbow to his temple!
Abomination flew sideways, smashed a hole through the convenience store's back wall, and rolled into the alley outside. Li Ang stepped over the broken bricks and through the hole, brushing dust from his sleeve.
"Good God!"
That was Tony. He had just flown down from the rooftop and was now crouching on top of a fire truck across the street, his faceplate half-raised, his entire face saying, I'm not even shocked anymore.
In the alley, Abomination braced himself against the wall and tried to stand. His left hand was already deformed, scales jutting up over the broken bones, and his ragged breaths came with bloody foam.
He raised his head, his gaze completely changed. His earlier arrogance had turned into unmistakable fear.
"Who are you? Who the hell are you?"
Li Ang crushed a brick underfoot as he approached, then crouched to meet his eyes. "I'm your daddy!"
He stood, his eyes already beginning to glow red.
Abomination violently shoved aside the section of wall beside him and tried to escape. Li Ang raised his hand and snapped his fingers.
Gravity Capture Net!
Abomination had barely taken half a step when his entire body seemed to be nailed in place. His knees slammed into the concrete, leaving spiderweb cracks across the paving slab, his hands braced against the ground!
But Li Ang could clearly feel that the gravity capture net's duration was very short this time!
Just as Li Ang was considering whether to kill Abomination, a familiar system notification sounded in his head.
[Mission six: Holy war, deserved punishment (1)] [Antiheroes are born from righteous heroes being hamstrung by the law. Since you've decided to become an antihero, there's no need to stick to those so-called no-killing rules, is there? Kill 0/5 villains, and show villains that being a villain means being prepared to be killed!] [Mission rewards: 20 attribute points, High-Energy Radiation Shockwave (Soldier Boy's version)]