Chapter 88 Black Cat's Danger Rating, SSS+
The air along the island's coast reeked of blood and gunpowder.
In his three-in-one fusion state, Xi Nian stepped onto the beach in the form of a small black kitten.
Using his night vision, he scanned the surroundings.
At the border between the beach and the rainforest, signs of a brutal battle were everywhere.
Human limbs and mangled corpses littered the ground. Broken parts of helicopters and turrets were scattered across the sand. Bullet shells covered the area, and in places flames and smoke still lingered.
From the devastation alone, it was clear how savage the fight had been.
Yet now, the beach was silent. No signs of movement. No survivors.
Could it be no one made it out alive?
"Where exactly do you sense Starro?" Xi Nian rasped.
"Meow…" Xiao Huang's voice echoed in his mind. "I can only vaguely sense it's somewhere on this island."
A vague sense? Could it be some kind of spatial perception ability? Xi Nian wondered. Even Xiao Huang didn't know the details herself.
She was still in her infant stage. Her Flerken abilities were far from fully developed.
Just as Xi Nian was about to head deeper inland to investigate, he froze.
His gaze locked on a figure sprawled across the sand. It was a strange humanoid creature that looked like a giant weasel.
It was soaked, as if it had nearly drowned.
But Xi Nian's sharp senses caught the faint, irregular beat of a heart. It was still alive.
…
Night deepened over the island.
Inside the rainforest, a team moved through the dense undergrowth. Alongside the heavily armed human members was a towering humanoid shark monster and a young girl with a rat perched on her shoulder.
"I'm so hungry, so hungry… I want food," the shark-like monster muttered, drool dripping from its jaws as it patted its round belly like a drum.
"Damn it, are you sure this thing won't eat us?" a red-clad man with a helmet snapped angrily.
"Of course not. He's our friend," the young white girl replied innocently, waving toward the hulking shark.
"I don't buy it!" the man in red snorted, gripping his long-barreled pistol. "He nearly ate you earlier. For all we know, you're already halfway digested."
"Quiet."
The black-uniformed man who led the group spoke coldly. "We don't have a choice. Command already told us—he's our strongest asset. Without him, we can't get into Jotunheim. If you don't want the bombs in your necks to detonate, then shut up and keep moving."
"That's right," a calm female voice echoed through each of their comms.
Thousands of kilometers away, inside a high-security U.S. command center, Amanda Waller sat in front of a wall of monitors. The woman in a black business suit stared coldly at the screen, overseeing the progress of the suicide squad assembled from Belle Reve inmates.
Any sign of escape or disobedience, and she would press the button that detonated the explosive implanted in their skulls.
"You want your sentences reduced? Then do your jobs," Amanda Waller ordered flatly into the mic.
"Got it," one of the squad members replied weakly. It was a young man whose body glowed faintly with strange spots.
But before anyone else could speak, the shark monster suddenly froze. Its small eyes lit up as its huge mouth split wide open, and it lunged violently toward the jungle.
The squad spun around—
From the underbrush, a small black kitten padded out silently. It perched innocently atop a rock, glowing blue eyes fixed on them.
It looked… cute.
But the shark didn't care. It charged, a massive bulk of muscle and teeth, ready to bite the kitten apart.
The black kitten suddenly curled its lips into a sinister grin. A wave of murderous aura erupted skyward, shaking the air itself.
The kitten lifted a tiny paw and swiped.
The air detonated with a boom.
The massive shark was smacked aside as if struck by a truck. It flew backward over ten meters, crashing through trees until its bulky two-meter frame slammed into the ground.
"My God!"
"Fuck!"
The squad shuddered. A cold dread surged up their spines.
Just a moment ago they'd called him their strongest weapon. And now…
Still, they were hardened criminals. They recovered from their shock quickly and counterattacked in unison.
The black squad leader raised a heavy rifle and fired off precise bursts.
The red-clad man whipped up his pistol and shot rapidly.
The spotted youth thrust out his hands, unleashing a barrage of glowing energy dots.
The young girl clutched her strange glowing device, intending to summon the island's rats. But then she froze. Her face went pale with terror as her gaze locked on the kitten.
The hail of bullets and energy blasts rained down on the tiny cat.
The black kitten sat unmoving, letting the attacks slam into its body.
But in the squad's horrified eyes, the bullets ricocheted away on impact, their trajectories deflected harmlessly. The glowing energy orbs, strong enough to melt stone, splashed across the kitten's body without burning a single hair.
No—that wasn't fur at all.
The kitten's body was covered in a slick black bio-armor, like living liquid skin.
Their attacks couldn't even scratch it.
The kitten's glowing blue eyes burned with growing impatience.
"Stop! Don't attack it!" the young girl screamed, clutching the trembling rat in her arms.
At the same time, Amanda Waller's panicked voice blared through their comms: "All of you, stop! Stop right now! If you want to live, don't fight it! If you keep going, you're dead!"
The squad froze. They had no choice but to lower their weapons. They knew the truth—once they stopped, their lives were completely in the kitten's claws.
"Why is it there?!" Amanda Waller muttered in disbelief, pulling up an old dossier on her screen.
The image was identical to the creature now confronting her team: a black kitten.
Codename: Black Flash.
First appearance: December 23, 2011, Christmas Eve.
Location: New York City.
Species: Unknown.
Known abilities:
Strength sufficient to tear apart armored cars.
Supersonic speed.
Ability to morph or weaponize its body.
Tentacles capable of forming massive prisons.
Able to consume objects many times its size.
A roar that generates destructive ultrasonic waves.
Immunity to energy beams and heavy artillery.
Combat record:
Unknown liquid lifeform killed.
Iron Man captured.
Danger Rating: SSS+
One tier above the Hulk.
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