Sparks flew, and pits instantly covered the door's surface amid an incessant metallic clatter.
Fortunately, they were only submachine-gun rounds. A large-caliber sniper rifle or autocannon would have punched straight through the door.
Before the gunfire stopped, the muscles in Chen Xiao's legs swelled, and he kicked off the floor with brutal force!
Boom!
The floor shook. Like a savage prehistoric beast, he charged through the barrage with the force of wind and thunder, covering over ten meters in a blink.
Boom! Boom!
The instant he plunged into the crowd, the two men at the front had every rib shattered and flew backward as though struck head-on by a heavy truck.
Then he swung the steel door in a sweeping arc!
The immense metal slab, a meter and a half wide and two meters long, howled through the air. The surrounding guards suffered snapped tendons and broken bones one after another, screaming as they flew into the walls and slumped like mud.
Such inhuman strength and such a bloody sight drained the color from the men at the rear. They turned and fled.
Was this even a human? He was nothing they could handle!
"No!"
"Get out of the way!"
The remaining men in the corridor retreated for their lives, and one crashed through an iron door at the side in his panic.
Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!
The steel door became a giant paddle in Chen Xiao's hands. His figure flashed through the corridor like a phantom, and every time he appeared, someone was smashed hard into a wall.
Blood sprayed, staining the entire passage dark red in an instant, like an asura hell.
The guard who had luckily crashed through the door and escaped crouched behind the gap, shaking all over. He aimed his gun at Chen Xiao's back and screamed hoarsely:
"Devil! You're a devil! Die!"
Bang! Bang! Bang!
More than a dozen bullets roared out, only to pass through an afterimage.
Boom!
A kick struck home, caving in the man's chest and sending him flying like a cannonball. He slammed into the wall with a heavy thud and fell silent.
Then his whole body slumped limply to the floor, blood pouring from his mouth. He died on the spot.
In less than three seconds, every enemy had been slain, and the entire corridor fell deathly silent.
When Wolverine led the Mutant children upstairs, they were greeted by corpses strewn across the floor. Chen Xiao had already reached the entrance to the third level.
Bang! Bang!
Before the two armed guards could raise their guns, Chen Xiao swept in with a rush of air, shattering one man's skull with a punch and snapping the other's spine with a kick. Both died instantly.
The horrifying sight terrified the dozen or so researchers in white coats behind them, who were hurriedly gathering documents to evacuate.
This level was the institute's core experimental area. Transparent glass walls divided it into separate laboratories, each filled with precision instruments and strange devices Chen Xiao had never seen.
"No! You can't kill us! We're just ordinary employees!"
In the center of the hall, a middle-aged white man raised both hands. His face was deathly pale and his voice shook as he tried to beg for his life as a "noncombatant."
"Yes! We were forced into this too! They held guns to our heads! If we refused to work, they'd shoot us on the spot!"
"Please spare me..."
"I'm a tenured professor of biology at Cambridge University! Killing me would set human science back ten years!"
"I'm the head of Harvard's genetics department! If you touch me, the international academic community will never let this go..."
Facing Chen Xiao's murderous intent, the researchers turned ashen, scrambling to offer every possible reason for him to spare their lives.
But Chen Xiao's expression remained iron-hard and unmoved. "Whether you die or not, whether it holds society back-what does any of that have to do with me?"
"If you have something to say, save it for the Mutants you vivisected and tortured to death."
While rescuing people earlier, he had found most of the laboratories empty. But the disordered beds, bloodstains on the floors, and scratch marks on the walls were enough to prove that people had been imprisoned here for long periods and subjected to brutal abuse.
As for where those Mutants had gone, there was no need to guess. These people had already tortured them to death.
On his first day after transmigrating into this world, Chen Xiao had confirmed that he was a Mutant. From that moment on, he had stood unreservedly on the Mutants' side.
He understood perfectly well.
Even though he felt little sense of belonging in this world yet, he understood one thing: if he spared these people who treated Mutants like livestock and trampled lives at will today, tomorrow they might put the butcher's knife to his own neck.
So,
Boom!!
A fierce wind suddenly rose, and screams erupted throughout the hall.
Before they could even blink, they felt a tremendous force tear through their organs. Their bodies flew sideways like cannonballs, slamming into instrument casings and glass walls.
The instant they left the ground, every bone in their bodies had been pulverized and all their organs had burst. Their deaths were gruesome.
Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!
Within seconds, the entire laboratory lay in ruins: overturned equipment, shattered glass, bodies strewn everywhere, splattered blood...
Several exposed wires crackled, throwing off dazzling sparks.
In the end, only one female researcher remained kneeling on the floor. Shaking like a leaf, she stared fixedly at Chen Xiao, her lips trembling. "You... all of you... you're monsters... monsters!"
The corners of Chen Xiao's mouth rose slightly, and he chuckled. "Monsters? Perhaps."
Earlier, when he had gone downstairs and dealt with those two armed guards with two punches, a trace of hesitation had crossed his mind. But that discomfort had vanished in an instant.
In his eyes, these so-called "scholars," who treated living people as expendable materials and gambled with their lives, no longer deserved to be called human. They were merely beasts in human skin.
Since they were beasts, slaughtering them was simply slaughtering them.
"Now hand over all the research data. Perhaps I'll consider sparing your life."
"Really?!" A sudden light flared in the eyes of the woman who had just been choking on despair.
Chen Xiao's tone was calm. "You have only two choices. Trust me and hand over the data immediately, or die right now."
As prey, she had no right to bargain.
Under the pressure of death, the woman submitted. She stumbled over to the central control console and typed with trembling fingers, bringing up the core database.
Chen Xiao had no time to examine it closely. He simply ordered her to transfer all the files to an external hard drive.
The download had barely begun when Chen Xiao drove a fist through her chest. Clean, swift, and without hesitation.
"You... wh... why..." She slowly toppled over, bloody foam spilling from her mouth, her eyes filled with shock and unwillingness. Hadn't he said he would consider sparing me?
Chen Xiao said flatly, "I said I'd 'consider' it. I never promised I wouldn't kill you."
She died with her eyes open.
When Logan and the others arrived, corpses still littered the third level.
Just then, the little girl Chen Xiao had rescued suddenly pointed at the female corpse on the floor, trembling all over. "Big brother... her... it was her..."
Her terrified, distraught appearance made their hearts tighten. Shadowcat quickly gathered her into her arms and gently patted her back. "Don't be afraid, Little Wei'er. She's dead. She really is."
Chen Xiao crouched down, his voice gentle. "Little Wei'er, what did this woman do to you before?"
"Boo-hoo... they dragged me into a room every day, tied me to a chair, and shocked me! It hurt... it hurt so much..."
The little girl sobbed her heart out.
As soon as she spoke, the other Mutant children lowered their heads too, their shoulders trembling slightly. Clearly, those memories had left their mark on them as well.
"Just as I thought. These people deserved worse than death." Chen Xiao nodded.
"Little Wei'er, don't be afraid. Your big brother has already wiped them all out. From now on, no one will dare lay a finger on you."
After comforting the children, everyone prepared to leave the third level. Before departing, Chen Xiao unplugged the hard drive, took out a lighter, and set the entire floor's evidence of their crimes ablaze.
Squelch!
On the second basement level, Wolverine's claws pierced an armed man's chest. Several guards in the distance saw it and turned to flee.
By now, muffled explosions were coming from overhead.
With the upper floors under attack, all the guards on the first and second basement levels had been sent up, leaving their defenses practically nonexistent.
Or rather, none of them had any mind to defend anything now,
After learning that the fifth basement level had fallen, followed by the fourth and third, everyone had only one thought left: run.
These invading Mutants were far too powerful. They simply could not stand against them.
But just as Chen Xiao's group rounded a corner and was about to enter the first basement level,
A grenade rolled toward them.
Logan's pupils contracted sharply, and he barked, "Move!"
At that critical instant, Chen Xiao's figure flashed. As though tearing through the air, he appeared before the grenade and kicked it hard back the way it had come before it could detonate.
Boom!
A dazzling fireball suddenly erupted in the room ahead, followed by two brief, piercing screams.
A grenade with a four- or five-second delay could not even go off in time against Chen Xiao. It was as absurd as trying to time lightning.
After taking down two more men, they met no further resistance. Chen Xiao's group reached the first basement level without incident. The area that had been disguised as a parking garage was now a charred ruin.
Flames rolled across the ground amid sprawled corpses and overturned cars. Standing among several bodies was Cyclops, crimson beams shooting from his eyes.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Nearby, Colossus's entire body gleamed with a cold metallic sheen as he fought fiercely with a burly giant.
The gray-skinned Mutant stood over three meters tall. His entire body was hardened like rock and denser than refined steel, making him nothing short of "living granite."
Every movement carried tremendous force as he clashed head-on with Colossus. Wherever they went, cars flew into the air like scraps of paper, the concrete floor shattered inch by inch, and collisions of pure strength made the air hum and the ground quake.
But a closer look made it clear that Colossus firmly held the upper hand.
Every heavy punch the stone man landed left at most a shallow white dent on his body or sent him flying a few meters. Yet every punch Colossus returned sent fragments of stone flaking from his opponent's surface, with the muscle tissue crumbling along with them.
He focused on the left leg, landing every punch below the knee.
The damage accumulated, and soon a bowl-sized gouge had been blasted into that thick stone leg. Finally, with a howl, the entire left leg broke off at its base, and the enormous body crashed to its knees.
Boom!
In an instant, Scott's eyes blazed in the distance. A searing white laser sliced out like a blade, piercing the stone man's head with precision.
Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!
The scorching beam burned through the rock. The Mutant let out an agonized roar before his head finally gave way, bursting into a cloud of blood and stone fragments with a bang.
Scott showed no mercy to these ability users who served as accomplices to evil, killing them on the spot.
With his opponent dead, Colossus let out a long breath and looked up at Chen Xiao and the others approaching from the stairway.