At exactly ten o'clock that night.
On the wasteland, an enclosed convoy was heading north along the old highway. Two black armored vehicles traveled at the front and rear, with a white transport van between them. There were no Vought logos on its body, only a few numbers.
Chen Mo stood in the shadow of the trees by the roadside, chewing gum as he watched the headlights draw closer.
This was all they had?
They were really afraid I wouldn't take the bait, huh?
He glanced down at his phone. The location marker was still in the same spot. That old fox Edgar planned his traps meticulously, but sometimes he went so far that it was a little sickening.
The convoy drew closer and closer.
Chen Mo rolled his neck, then vanished from where he stood.
The next second, a muffled boom erupted in the middle of the highway.
His body became a blur as he slammed head-on into the transport van in the middle. Its heavy front end caved in instantly, and the entire vehicle rolled sideways as though struck by a giant hammer, its tires throwing a trail of sparks across the ground.
The armored vehicles at the front and rear screeched to a halt.
"We're under attack! Return fire!"
The doors had barely opened, and the fully armed security guards hadn't even raised their guns, when they saw a familiar figure appear before them.
Several guards froze.
"A-A-Train?"
Chen Mo gave them a thumbs-up.
"Correct. Too bad there's no prize."
He reached out and gripped the edge of the blast-resistant rear door, forcing his fingers into the steel plate.
"Thanks for working overtime."
Chen Mo grinned and suddenly flexed his arm. "Time to clock out."
Crack.
He tore the entire rear door off and flung it into the distant wasteland like a discus. The steel door slammed into the dirt and tumbled twice before coming to a stop, throwing up a great spray of soil.
Inside the van, three people in straitjackets had fallen into a heap.
One was a fat man covered in pustules, the skin on his face like waterlogged dough. He lay on the floor, muttering indistinct numbers, his neck bulging rhythmically as though something were crawling inside it.
Another was a woman with twisted limbs, her knees bent backward and her head tilted against her shoulder. She was climbing the wall of the van in a bizarre posture, giggling as she went and repeating, "Mommy's on the ceiling."
The last was an emaciated man curled up in a corner. His skin was frighteningly pale, his eyes were tightly shut, and several detached monitoring leads were stuck to his forehead.
Chen Mo glanced over them.
"The talent pool at Vought's psychiatric hospital really is overflowing."
The fat man suddenly looked up, his mouth opening to an exaggerated angle.
A cloud of yellow-green poisonous mist sprayed out, filling the van in an instant. The metal walls sizzled as they corroded, and even the restraint straps on the floor began to smoke.
Chen Mo's right arm split open instantly, black-and-red flesh stretching into a long whip. It lashed straight through the poisonous mist, striking the fat man and the twisted woman beside him.
Crack.
Both bodies were severed at once.
Before the chunks of flesh hit the floor, a mass of black tendrils had already poured from beneath his feet. Like a swarm of snakes that had caught the scent of blood, they burrowed greedily into the van and dragged the remains into the black tide.
The poisonous mist was swallowed up along with them.
He looked down at the roiling flesh by his feet, raising an eyebrow slightly.
Nothing special in terms of value, but since I was already here...
The people in the armored vehicles finally reacted, and gunfire erupted. A dense barrage of bullets struck his back, failing to penetrate friendly armor.
He looked back.
"Don't rush. Wait until I've finished my vegetables."
Several guards went pale and turned to retreat.
Just then, the emaciated man in the corner of the van suddenly opened his eyes.
His eyes had rolled completely white, and a dry laugh came from his throat. The next second, a powerful invisible force descended out of nowhere, pressing down on Chen Mo's shoulders like a giant unseen hand.
The ground sank instantly.
Chen Mo's ankles sank into the asphalt, and his body was actually pinned down for an instant.
He frowned.
Why did these telekinetic fluctuations feel familiar?
The emaciated man slowly crawled out of the van, his neck crooked and drool hanging from the corner of his mouth. His voice was slurred.
"Don't take... my moon... she'll cry..."
Chen Mo's gaze stilled.
The words made no sense on their own.
But the frequency of that telekinesis reminded him of a little girl holding a doll.
Mia.
The emaciated man's eyes rolled white, and the telekinetic pressure intensified again. Pebbles floated up one by one, the doors of the armored vehicles were pulled out of shape, and several guards were hurled away, hitting the ground and lying still.
"Find her... I have to find her..."
Chen Mo walked up to the man against the telekinetic pressure.
"No way. I hate this kind of plot."
As the words left his mouth, Chen Mo's chest split open.
Several scarlet spears of flesh burst from his chest cavity, crushing through the telekinetic pressure as they thrust forward. The air shrieked as it was torn apart, and the spears pierced the man's forehead, the back of his head, his chest, and both shoulders in an instant.
The man's body stiffened.
The telekinesis dissipated.
Chen Mo stepped forward and pressed his palm against the top of the man's head. Black threads of blood burrowed into his skull like countless fine needles, forcibly plundering his fragmented, chaotic memories.
A new power was unlocked: invisible telekinesis, a protagonist ability with a high coolness factor. But Chen Mo wasn't very happy.
Because at that moment, the broken memories had already stabbed into his mind.
A staircase with peeling paint outside a cheap apartment.
A man crouched in front of a little girl, fumbling to wipe away her tears.
The little girl was crying, the tip of her nose red, a filthy stuffed rabbit clutched in her arms.
"Daddy, when will you be back?"
"Soon, Mia. I'll get us dinner very soon."
The memory jumped abruptly.
A white hospital room, ice-cold restraints, and Vought researchers recording data through the glass.
The man struggled and slammed himself against the wall, his eyes bloodshot, shouting the same name over and over.
"I only gave blood. Why? Mia? Don't look for her. Don't touch my daughter..."
After that came electric shocks, drugs, and torture over and over again.
He was tortured until he could no longer remember his own name, but he kept his daughter's face hidden in the deepest part of his mind.
He hid it so deep that, in the end, even he could barely find it.
After that came a white hospital room, cold surgical lights, syringes, restraints, and people in Vought lab coats recording data nearby.
[Psychic fluctuations stable.] [Genetic similarity to the target child confirmed.] [Suitable for use as a control subject for the telekinesis sample.]
Chen Mo's fingers tightened little by little.
He knew there was an execution threshold here, and he knew people devoured one another here, but experiencing it firsthand was always different.
Chen Mo stood where he was, the black tendrils beneath his feet churning out of control. The weeds on both sides of the highway were pressed flat, gravel trembled faintly in midair, and a tangible killing intent burst from his body.
The remaining guards had only just gotten up when their legs gave out, and they fell back onto the ground.
Chen Mo didn't look at them.
He raised his foot and kicked the chassis of the armored vehicle beside him.
The entire vehicle flew up like a cardboard box, its steel frame twisting into a mass of scrap and all its windows shattering. The alarm inside sounded twice before it was quickly crushed amid the deformed metal.
Chen Mo closed his eyes, let out a long breath, and slowly drew his clone and the churning flesh on his chest back into his body. The black tendrils withdrew from the ground, cleaning up the chunks of flesh, bloodstains, shell casings, and residual tissue in the van along with them.
A few seconds later, only the overturned transport van, the mangled armored vehicle, and the wreckage strewn everywhere remained on the highway.
He turned and walked toward the sedan in the shadows.
He opened the door, sat in the driver's seat, and rested his fingers on the steering wheel.
The expression on his face had already returned to calm.
"This is such dogshit, The Boys."
The car phone rang just then.
There was no name on the screen, only an encrypted number.
Chen Mo looked at the incoming call, and the corner of his mouth slowly twitched.
He answered.
Edgar's steady voice came from the other end of the line.
"Good evening, A-Train."
Chen Mo leaned back in his seat, a flash of red glinting in his eyes.
"You little bastard, you're pretty good at this, huh?"