Chapter 21: Rescuing Kimiko, the Brutal Mute Girl Only Listens to Me
"Who... the hell are you?"
This demand, filled with brutal killing intent, pierced through the cracked explosion-proof glass.
It slammed into the office, making the shattered glass fragments on the floor hum and vibrate.
The red heat wave almost singed Lynn's eyebrows.
The muscles on Lynn's face twitched violently.
His eyelids twitched frantically, his knees gave way, and he stumbled forward.
The water cup in his hand hit the carpet with a "clatter," spilling warm water everywhere.
His hands trembling, he grabbed the plastic ID badge on his suit collar.
He pressed it tightly against the glass, which looked ready to shatter at any moment.
"S-Sir!"
Lynn's voice cracked, shaking as if he had been soaking in an ice hole for three days.
He acted out the panic of a low-level corporate slave facing death with vivid realism.
"I'm from the PR Department... Lynn! Ms. Madelyn, she—she's having a heart attack!"
He turned his head, pointed at Madelyn, who was slumped in her chair rolling her eyes, and then snapped back.
"I'm calling for an ambulance! Sir!"
Outside the window, the scarlet glow in Homelander's eyes paused.
He narrowed those sky-blue eyes slightly.
His gaze pierced through the glass, through Lynn's suit and skin.
In his X-ray vision.
The kid's bones, blood vessels, and internal organs were all on full display.
That heart, belonging to an ordinary person, was beating wildly in his chest like a drum due to panic.
There were no traces of Compound V injection, no muscle density unique to superhumans.
This was just an ordinary piece of trash scared out of his wits.
[Ding.] [System advanced camouflage activated, shielding all physical and energy detection.]
The mechanical sound in his mind flashed and vanished.
The red light in Homelander's eyes slowly faded.
He curled his lip in disgust, looking at Lynn as if he were staring at a piece of dog shit stuck to the sole of his shoe.
"Useless trash."
He snorted coldly, not even glancing at the dying Madelynagain.
"Boom!" A sonic boom exploded outside the window.
The gale instantly swept everything away, and Homelander transformed into a red-and-blue afterimage, chasing in the direction where Black Noir had left clues.
Lynn leaned against the glass, gasping for air.
Watching that red light disappear into the night sky, he slowly straightened up.
The expression of being scared enough to wet his pants from just a moment ago was instantly stripped clean from his face.
He brushed the dust off his knees.
"Alright, boss, stop rolling your eyes."
Lynn walked to the desk and set the fallen water cup upright.
"That mad dog has flown far away. You'd better not go home tonight; just make do here for the night."
He loosened his tie, turned, and walked toward the door without sparing another glance.
...
Half an hour later, Flushing District.
An abandoned market with a sign reading "Old John's Seafood Wholesale."
There wasn't a soul on the surrounding streets; the air was thick with the stench of fermented dead fish mixed with the pungent smell of cheap diesel.
A paint-chipped van was parked in the shadows of the back alley.
The sliding door opened.
Frenchie jumped out, covering his nose, and stepped into a puddle of sticky motor oil.
"Merde! This hellhole smells worse than my grandmother's toilet."
He held a modified small tablet in his hands, with several red dots flickering on the screen.
Butcher stepped out of the van, carrying a shotgun loaded with slugs.
He spat on the ground.
"Stop complaining, Frenchie. Are you sure the live test subjects for that Compound V are hiding in this rat hole?"
"Can't be wrong." Frenchie tapped the tablet screen.
"The last fund transfer in the ledger of that old hag Popclaw's underling went to this Russian mafia gang. They're running an underground live smuggling operation."
Lynn got out from the passenger seat, his leather shoes stepping on the edge of a muddy puddle.
He looked at the rusty rolling shutter door ahead, his ears twitching slightly.
His Kryptonian hearing instantly pierced through the rolling shutter and the thick concrete wall.
There was movement below. It was chaotic.
There were gunshots, men's screams, and the squelching sound of flesh and bone being forcibly torn apart.
"Looks like someone beat us to it."
Lynn shoved his hands into his suit pockets and strode forward.
"Or rather, the cargo they were transporting blew up on its own."
Walking up to the rusty iron door, Butcher was about to raise his gun to blast the lock.
Lynn simply raised his right leg. "Bang!" A dull thud echoed.
The two-hundred-pound security iron door, along with the expansion bolts on the frame, was kicked flying inward.
The iron door crashed onto the concrete stairs leading down, making a thunderous roar.
It even managed to crush the legs of a gangster running up. The man passed out before he could even scream.
"Let's go down and take a look."
Lynn stepped on the iron door panel and walked down the dim stairs.
The lights in the basement flickered on and off. The smell of dead fish in the air was completely overwhelmed by the thick, pungent scent of blood.
The standing water on the floor was all dyed a dark red.
Hughie followed at the very back, holding his pistol. As soon as he poked his head out, his stomach began to churn violently.
The entire basement was like a slaughterhouse that had been baptized by bombs.
Over a dozen burly Russian gangsters lay scattered on the floor. Not one of them was in one piece.
Some had their arms torn off, others had their throats bitten open, and blood was still spurting from their necks.
In the center of the basement stood a huge, rusty iron cage. The bars of the cage had been bent by brute force.
At the edge of the cage, a small, thin figure was crouching.
She was wearing a tattered camisole of indistinguishable color and was barefoot. Her black hair was as messy as a bird's nest, matted with dark red blood clots.
She was straddling a gangster boss who hadn't died yet.
The man was spitting blood bubbles, his hands desperately trying to push her away.
A growl similar to a beast guarding its food emanated from the girl's throat.
She opened her mouth. She bit down on the man's carotid artery and yanked backward.
"Rip." A piece of bloody flesh was torn off by her.
The man's limbs twitched twice, then went completely still.
Frenchie gasped, his tablet nearly dropping into the blood.
"God... what kind of monster is this girl?"
Seemingly hearing the commotion at the door, the girl stopped what she was doing.
She slowly turned her head. It was an Asian face covered in blood.
Her face was full of dirt, but her eyes were frighteningly bright.
There was no reason, no human emotion, only pure brutality and vigilance left.
Just like a wild wolf cornered in a dead end.
Kimiko.
After experiencing hellish experiments and torture, her brain now only held the instinct to kill.
She spat out the minced meat in her mouth. Supporting herself with her hands on the ground, she arched her back like a beast, staring fixedly at the three uninvited guests at the door.
Her fingernails were full of black blood and mud, her fingertips slightly curved like sharp hooks.
"Watch out, boss." Butcher leveled his shotgun, his thumb flipping the safety off.
"This little maniac is fast. Don't let her rip your throat out."
Lynn ignored Butcher's warning. He took a step forward, his leather shoes stepping into the blood, making a crisp "squelch" sound.
"Put the gun away, don't misfire and break my new employee."
A sharp hiss emanated from Kimiko's throat. She moved.
Pushing off the concrete floor with both feet, she transformed into a black afterimage, leaping directly over the corpse.
The speed was indeed ridiculously fast. In the eyes of an ordinary person, this was simply teleportation.
She twisted her waist in mid-air, her blood-stained right hand aiming straight for Lynn's carotid artery.
The tips of her nails even sliced through the air, creating a faint whistling sound.
Hughie was so scared he closed his eyes. Butcher's finger jerked toward the trigger.
But the next second, everyone was stunned.
Lynn didn't even dodge. He didn't even activate his powers.
Relying solely on the basic reflexes that came with his Man of Steel body, he casually raised his right hand.
"Smack." A dull thud echoed.
Kimiko's claw, which was capable of tearing through steel plates, stopped less than two centimeters from Lynn's throat.
Lynn's hand, like a hydraulic clamp forged from refined steel, was locked tightly around her neck.
The immense forward kinetic energy was instantly neutralized by this hand.
Lynn flipped his wrist and gave a gentle push forward. "Thud!"
Kimiko was pressed against the mossy concrete wall. The dust from the wall fell in showers.
Her feet left the ground, and she struggled desperately. Her ten fingers clawed frantically at the arm Lynn was using to choke her.
The suit sleeve was torn into rags, but the skin underneath didn't even have a white mark left on it.
The monstrous strength she was so proud of was as laughable as an infant's in front of this man.
Oxygen deprivation caused Kimiko's face to turn bright red.
The wild madness in her eyes finally began to waver, replaced by a fear of absolute power.
A "gurgling" sound of desperation for survival came from her throat.
Just as she thought she would be choked to death, Lynnraised his left hand.
He didn't make a fist, nor did he draw a gun. He extended his palm and let it fall onto Kimiko's matted, blood-clotted hair.
The movement was very gentle. It was like petting a stray cat that had just killed a mouse.
"Good fight."
Lynn's voice echoed in the vast, bloody basement, carrying a hint of strange gentleness.
He stroked the girl's head. His fingers smoothed down her messy hair.
"But you used your strength in the wrong place."
Lynn looked into her eyes, which were full of wariness and astonishment.
"Follow me from now on."
He pulled his mouth into a smile that lacked any warmth.
"As long as you listen to me, I guarantee you'll have an endless supply of scum to kill."
Kimiko's pupils dilated slightly.
The hand choking her neck was strong enough to snap her spine with ease.
But the hand petting her head transmitted a warmth she had never felt in her life.
A sense of absolute suppression and eerie protection.
She slowly lowered her blood-dripping claws.
The dirt in her fingernails loosened.
She stopped struggling, submissively pressing against the cold concrete wall, and let out a low whimper from her throat.
Chapter 22: Lamplighter Appears, You Like Playing with Fire, Huh?
Kimiko's claws, stained with sticky blood clots, slowly dropped down.
The bits of flesh in her nail beds fell onto the cold, hard concrete floor, making a faint pattering sound.
Like a feral cat stripped of all its defenses, the snarling in her throat faded into a weak gasp.
Lynn withdrew the hand that had been resting on top of her head.
His fingertips were still stained with the warmth and the scent of blood from the girl's messy hair.
Frenchie was squatting in a corner over a dozen meters away, stunned.
He was still clutching a tin box he had just pried open from a gang's safe.
His mouth was open wide enough to fit a lightbulb.
He swallowed a mouthful of dry saliva, shook the stack of papers in his hand, and stammered.
"Bo-Boss..."
Frenchie walked over, stepping through the mess, and handed several yellowed receipts to Lynn.
"These Russian bastards are just middlemen."
He pointed to an inconspicuous blue stamp at the bottom of the bill.
"The shipping origin for this batch of Compound V points to a psychiatric hospital called'Sage Grove'."
Lynn took the receipts and scanned them.
The edges of the paper were curled, reeking of a musty basement.
The Vought Corporation logo was hidden under a long list of pharmaceutical procurement names, a clumsy attempt to cover it up.
"Let's go."
Lynn stuffed the receipts into his inner suit pocket.
"We're going to clean out this rat hole."
He turned and walked toward the stairwell.
Kimiko followed without hesitation, her bare feet treading in the blood, like a silent shadow.
Not a single step behind.
Half an hour later.
The van, its exhaust pipe spewing black smoke, sped along the potholed road.
The smell of dead fish left behind by The Deep hadn't fully dissipated, and now it was mixed with a strong, pungent scent of blood.
Hughie huddled in the corner of the last row.
His hands were clutching that Glock pistol tightly, his thighs shaking uncontrollably.
The light from the streetlamps outside swept across his pale face again and again.
"A-Are we really going to a psychiatric hospital?"
Hughie's tongue was a bit tied, his palms covered in a layer of slick cold sweat.
"Vought is conducting human experiments there... there must be a whole bunch of monsters guarding it, and there's only a few of us?"
Frenchie, sitting in the passenger seat, turned his head and rolled his eyes.
"Shut up, virgin. You're shaking that gun so much it's about to go off."
He took a swig of vodka.
"With the Boss here, even if we were heading to the White House, we could still pull the President's pants down."
Butcher was driving, flooring the gas pedal.
The old engine roared like a broken bellows.
He was biting down on half an unlit cigar, his rough fingers gripping the steering wheel so hard his knuckles turned white.
"Sage Grove is in the suburbs of Pennsylvania."
Butcher spat out the tobacco shreds in his mouth, his voice as heavy as raw iron.
"It's an abandoned asylum; Vought bought up the whole plot of land. That place isn't even marked on satellite maps."
Lynn leaned back against the second-row seat, closing his eyes to rest.
Kimiko curled up on the anti-slip mat at his feet.
She rested her chin on her knees, staring quietly at the floor of the van, her eyelashes only fluttering occasionally when the vehicle jolted.
Late at night.
Pennsylvania, deep in the remote forest.
A large, drab building lay in the night, like a long-dead giant beast.
The outer walls were covered in dead vines, and several searchlights swept back and forth across the open ground.
Surrounded by high-voltage barbed wire fences.
"Click."
The insulated hydraulic cutters in Frenchie's hands snapped the last steel bar of the barbed wire fence.
A few faint blue sparks burst from the cut.
The Boys filed in one after another.
Avoiding the security patrols, they snuck directly into the building's basement level via an abandoned sewage outlet next to the ventilation ducts.
The air instantly became thick and viscous.
Their nasal cavities were filled with the pungent smell of Lysol, mixed with the stench of excrement from incontinent patients.
Water seeped from the walls on both sides of the corridor.
The incandescent lights overhead had a bad connection, flickering with a buzzing sound.
"Bang! Bang!"
A dull thudding sound suddenly came from behind the iron door on the right.
Followed by a burst of incoherent, demented laughter, as if someone were crazily banging their head against the wall.
Hughie shuddered, his gun barrel hitting the wall with a crisp sound.
"This place... is fucking creepy."
He wiped his forehead, the back of his hand covered in cold sweat.
Lynn walked in the lead, his leather shoes making not a sound.
"Ignore the waste in the cages; find the main control room."
Just as he finished speaking.
The surrounding air suddenly felt wrong.
The temperature in the originally cold and damp underground corridor began to skyrocket.
The water droplets seeping from the wall plaster visibly turned into white mist.
In just a few seconds, it was as if a giant oven had been stuffed into the corridor.
Hughie gasped for air, pulling open the collar of his plaid shirt.
The air he inhaled into his lungs became scorching hot.
"Snap."
A crisp metallic sound of opening and closing rang out from the corner at the end of the corridor.
A cluster of orange flames lit up in the gloom.
The firelight flickered.
Illuminating a face with a touch of sickness and neurosis.
A man was leaning against a load-bearing pillar at the intersection of the corridors.
He was wearing a gray and white hooded uniform, the fabric spotless, looking completely out of place in this sewer-like dump.
The golden Vought Corporation logo was printed on his chest.
He was holding a vintage windproof lighter.
His thumb rhythmically rubbed the metal flint wheel.
The flame lit up, then went out.
Former member of The Seven, retired superhero, Lamplighter.
"I thought some crazy test subject had escaped."
Lamplighter didn't even lift his eyelids, staring at the jumping flame in his hand.
His voice carried a sense of lazy arrogance.
"Turns out a few wild rats from outside snuck in."
The moment Butcher saw that face.
His muscles tensed up violently as if shocked by electricity.
The cigar he had just bitten down on was snapped in two by his back teeth, half of it falling onto the scorching floor tiles.
"You son of a bitch, you fire-starting stick..."
A beast-like low growl rolled out of Butcher's throat.
He raised the shotgun loaded with slugs with both hands, the stock pressed firmly against his shoulder.
The muzzle pointed straight at Lamplighter's glabella.
Lamplighter then turned his head.
His gaze swept over Butcher's face, which was filled with murderous intent.
He raised an eyebrow, his mouth curling into an exaggerated smile, and tapped his finger in the air twice.
"Yo, isn't this Captain Butcher?"
He tossed the lighter into the air and caught it steadily.
"Long time no see. That gnashing expression of yours is still so familiar."
The temperature in the corridor rose a few more degrees.
Hughie was forced to retreat two steps by the heatwave, barely able to hold onto his gun.
Lamplighter took a step forward, the strings of his hoodie swaying.
"What, still holding a grudge over that little brat Mallory's business?"
He shrugged, putting on a helpless look.
"I didn't mean to, the wind direction that night was bad."
A hint of perverted excitement flashed in Lamplighter's eyes.
"But honestly, children's bones are indeed quite brittle; that fire crackled and popped. I can still smell that scent of roasted meat in my dreams even now."
"I'm going to blast you into pulp today!"
Butcher's eyes were bloodshot, his finger pressing hard on the shotgun trigger.
"Snap."
A crisp snapping sound drowned out Butcher's roar.
Lamplighter didn't move.
But the weak flame in his palm instantly expanded wildly as if it had sucked up a bellyful of gasoline.
In less than a second.
A blinding, high-temperature fireball hovered above his palm.
The thermal radiation emitted by the fireball burned the surrounding air, causing it to distort violently, and the edges of the wallpaper began to blacken and curl.
"Don't waste your energy."
Lamplighter looked at the fireball, his eyes becoming cold and arrogant.
"I heard you guys have been jumping around lately? Even that iron turtle Translucent was killed by you."
He raised his hand, the fireball illuminating the murderous intent in his eyes.
The firelight dyed half the corridor a purgatorial crimson.
"Since you delivered yourselves to my door."
Lamplighter sneered.
"Then all of you can turn into roasted meat!"
Butcher didn't care; he was about to force a shot.
A hand wearing a luxury watch reached out from the side and pressed down on the scorching shotgun barrel.
Lynn pushed Butcher behind him.
The force wasn't great, but it carried an irresistible sense of oppression.
Lynn tugged at the tie around his neck.
He casually unbuttoned one button of his cheap suit.
His leather shoes stepped on the plastic floor tiles that were about to melt, making a slight sticky sound.
He walked forward two steps, unhurriedly, facing the blinding, high-temperature fireball.
The scorching heatwave rushed toward his face, blowing up the stray hair on Lynn's forehead.
His expressionless face was reflected in the orange-red firelight.
"You like playing with fire, huh?" A cold sneer tugged at the corner of Lynn's mouth.
Chapter 23: In Sage Grove, Burning Lamplighter to Ashes
"You like playing with fire, don't you?" Lynn curled his lips into a cold sneer.
Those words landed in Lamplighter's ears like a resounding slap.
The muscles on his face twitched violently twice.
A PR rat in a cheap suit dared to run up to him, a veteran of The Seven, and act so presumptuously?
"You're courting death!" The arrogance in Lamplighter's eyes was instantly swallowed by rage.
He shoved his hands forward violently.
The small, dancing flame in his palm seemed as if it had been doused with tons of aviation kerosene.
"Boom—!"
A blinding, orange-red dragon of fire roared out, instantly filling the entire narrow corridor.
The thousands-of-degrees heatwave, carrying a destructive force capable of turning ashes into glass shards, swallowed Lynn in one gulp.
The fluorescent light tubes on the ceiling burst with a "pop," and the glass shards were melted before they could even hit the ground.
The wallpaper on both sides of the corridor rapidly blackened, curled, and peeled, emitting a pungent smell of tar.
Butcher cursed, "Get down!" and slammed his hand onto the back of Hughie's head.
Several people pressed themselves tightly against the scorching plastic floor.
Frenchie hugged his head and huddled in the corner, the lenses of his goggles softened and warped by the heat.
Hughie felt as if he had inhaled a handful of broken glass into his respiratory tract; his throat spasmed from the heat, and he retched repeatedly.
Kimiko was forced to retreat several steps, shielding her face tightly with her bloodied arms, emitting painful whimpers from her throat.
The tongues of fire raged for a full dozen seconds.
Lamplighter panted heavily, lowered his hands, and the collar of his hoodie was soaked through with sweat.
"Fool..." He spat out a glob of bloody saliva, preparing to admire the charred corpse on the ground.
The smoke and flames gradually dissipated.
The mocking curse in Lamplighter's throat got stuck, unable to come out or go back down.
Three meters ahead.
Lynn was still standing there.
He hadn't even moved an inch; the tiles beneath his leather shoes had been scorched black and cracked.
His grey suit, bought from a street stall, let alone being reduced to ashes, didn't even have a single curled or pilled thread.
The bio-force field accompanying his Steel Body blocked all those high-temperature flames outside his clothes.
"What, what the hell is this?"
Lamplighter's eyes widened until they were about to pop out, and his legs retreated involuntarily.
"Clang."
The gold-plated windproof lighter in his hand slipped, hitting the ground with a crisp sound.
The lighter had just bounced once on the ground.
A faint blue electric light flashed in Lynn's eyes.
His superpower activated instantly.
On Lamplighter's retina, Lynn's figure blurred directly into an afterimage.
A gust of wind swept past, carrying the lingering smell of gunpowder.
Lynn was already right in front of Lamplighter's nose.
He bent down to scoop up the lighter in mid-air and tossed it upward in one fluid motion.
He caught it steadily with his left hand; the metal casing still bore Lamplighter's hand sweat.
Lamplighter's scalp tingled, and he instinctively raised his arms to block.
Lynn dropped his right shoulder, exerted force from his waist, and unleashed a straightforward, unadorned punch.
"Crack!"
A teeth-grinding sound of bone fracturing exploded in the corridor.
Lamplighter's forearm ulna and radius were snapped by this punch like two fragile, withered branches.
The broken bone shards pierced through the sleeves of his hoodie, sticking out white and ghastly, with blood flowing profusely.
"Ah—my hand!"
Lamplighter screamed and retreated, his back slamming heavily against the sheet metal wall, his features contorted in pain.
Lynn didn't go for the kill to snap his neck.
He turned his head and scanned the wall next to them.
That was a fully sealed isolation chamber used to detain uncontrollable mutants.
The bulletproof glass door was as thick as a bank vault, and there was a red metal knob hanging on the wall next to it.
Printed on it were white English letters: Medical High-Pressure Oxygen Valve.
Lynn walked over, his leather shoes crunching on the broken glass on the floor.
He grabbed Lamplighter by the collar and dragged him to the entrance of the isolation chamber like a dead dog.
"What, what are you doing... Let me go! Vought won't let you get away with this!"
Lamplighter struggled desperately, his broken arms flailing about, tears and snot streaming down his face from the pain.
"You're too noisy."
Lynn raised his right leg and kicked Lamplighter in the back of the knee.
The other man let out a muffled groan, dropped to his knees, and fell directly onto the metal floor of the isolation chamber.
Lynn casually pulled the hundreds-of-pounds explosion-proof glass door shut.
"Clang."
The thick bolt shot out, locking the fire-playing guy securely inside.
Lamplighter panicked.
He didn't care about his hand pain anymore, frantically slamming his shoulder against the explosion-proof glass, shouting loudly.
The soundproofing was too good; outside, one could only hear a buzzing sound like a fly.
Lynn didn't look at him and turned to walk to the red knob on the wall.
He gripped the metal valve and turned it all the way to the left with force.
"Hiss—"
High-concentration pure oxygen instantly sprayed out from the vents at the top of the isolation chamber.
The piercing sound of airflow echoed in this underground space.
Butcher had just climbed up from the ground at this moment, brushing the black ash off his leather jacket.
He walked over, panting, glanced at the terrified Lamplighter inside the glass, and then looked at the oxygen-spraying vent.
"Boss... what are you doing?" Butcher coughed twice. "This bastard burned Mallory's grandson to death. Let me go in and blow him away with a gun."
Hughie and Frenchie also helped each other over.
Hughie's face was flushed red from the heat, coughing incessantly, taking deep breaths of fresh air.
"Blowing him away would be so boring."
Lynn turned around, leaning his back against the explosion-proof door, toying with the gold-plated lighter in his hand.
"Isn't this place for experiments? Let's do a little chemistry experiment ourselves."
He tossed the lighter up and down, the metal clinking crisply.
"In a high-concentration pure oxygen environment, what would happen if there was even the tiniest spark?"
Frenchie swallowed, his Adam's apple bobbing up and down.
He was a weapons expert; of course, he understood this principle.
"It... it would become a high-temperature blast furnace, capable of melting steel bars into molten iron."
Frenchie's tongue tied in knots, and his gaze toward Lynnheld a hint of deep awe.
These methods were even more ruthless than those of them who hung around the black market.
Inside the isolation chamber.
The oxygen concentration had already reached a lethal level; Lamplighter had inhaled too much pure oxygen, and his face was flushed bright red.
The blood vessels on his neck bulged, as if they would burst at any moment.
Through the glass, he watched the lighter that belonged to him in Lynn's hand.
He finally realized what this man in the suit was going to do.
"No! No! Please! I don't want to die yet!"
Lamplighter opened his mouth wide, his forehead pressed hard against the glass, snot and tears smearing the transparent reinforced panel.
He shook his head desperately, wailing silently, like a dying loach in a dried-up water tank.
Lynn turned around, his gaze piercing through the thick glass, meeting those desperate eyes.
He didn't smile; his face was as cold as a block of eternal ice.
His thumb flicked open the metal lid of the lighter, with a crisp "ding."
The flint wheel turned.
A small cluster of orange-yellow flame lit up.
The firelight reflected in Lynn's eyes, which were devoid of any ripples.
Lynn walked to the ventilation grate at the bottom of the isolation chamber.
He brought the lighter to the gap.
"Be careful in your next life. Don't go around playing with fire."
Lynn let go, allowing the burning lighter to drop through the gap in the grate into the isolation chamber.
"Taste your own favorite way to die."
"Boom—!!!"
Pure oxygen met an open flame.
Without needing any accelerant, the entire isolation chamber turned into a blinding white sun in one-thousandth of a second.
The thousands-of-degrees high-temperature blast instantly drained all the air inside.
Lamplighter didn't even have time to scream; skin and bone were instantly carbonized.
Immediately after, under this confined high-temperature and high-pressure, the carbonized corpse shattered into ash fluttering all over the sky.
Not even a large piece of bone fragment was left.
The explosion-proof glass was baked red-hot, and countless fine cracks burst open on its surface.
The heatwave penetrated through the glass, baking Hughie until he retreated repeatedly and fell onto the ground on his backside.
Lynn stood in place, quietly appreciating this short and brilliant fireworks show.
Until the white light inside gradually faded, leaving only a pile of black ash emitting a scorched stench.
The flames that Lamplighter was so proud of ultimately became his own crematorium.
The underground corridor returned to dead silence.
Only the ticking sound of water leaking from the pipes remained.
Butcher let out a long breath, feeling that he had never felt so satisfied in his life.
"Is that it? I haven't had my fill yet." He touched the hilt of the knife at his waist and smacked his lips.
Just then.
At the end of the corridor, in that dark corner that hadn't been affected by the fire.
A harsh noise of iron chains hitting metal railings suddenly came.
"Clatter!"
Lynn's ears twitched, and his gaze immediately swept over.
In a rusty iron cage in the deepest part, a figure in a hospital gown was squatting.
It was a middle-aged man with a head as bald as a braised egg.
He held his head tightly with both hands, his whole body curled up in the corner of the cage, trembling like a leaking motor.
His crotch was soaked, and yellow liquid flowed out through the gaps in the iron cage, the stench of urine drifting down the corridor along the ventilation ducts.
The bald man, through the gap in the iron bars, saw Lynnturn his head to look at him.
Terrified, he slumped into the urine stain and let out a shrill scream at the top of his lungs.
"Don't kill me! I saw everything!"
Chapter 24: Mind Control? The Mind Reader is an Idiot in Front of Me
"Don't kill me! I saw everything!"
A shrill, raspy scream scraped and echoed through the underground corridor.
Lynn slowly turned his head.
His gaze cut through the sweltering air, still thick with floating black ash, and landed on the rusty iron cage at the end of the corridor.
A bald man was huddled in the corner of the cage.
He clutched his smooth head with both hands, and a large, yellowish-brown stain soaked through his striped hospital gown.
The stench of urine drifted over with the heatwave, mingling with the charred smell of roasted meat left behind by Lamplighter.
The smell was nauseating.
Butcher strode over, shotgun in hand.
His leather boots stepped on the melted plastic floor tiles, pulling up sticky strings.
Upon reaching the cage, he kicked the iron bars heavily.
"Clang!"
The iron door was already rusted to the point of falling apart; under that brute force, it broke off its hinges and slammed directly into the puddle.
"Well, look who it is."
Butcher poked the shivering bald man with his gun barrel and spat through his teeth.
"Isn't this that child prodigy from back in the day who taught kids how to read minds on TV?"
Hughie covered his nose and mouth, leaning in to take a look.
"He... he is the Mind Reader?"
Hughie stammered, his face full of disbelief.
"His posters used to be plastered all over the streets. How does he look like a moldy potato now?"
"He's a has-been." Butcher grinned, his face full of fleshy folds.
"This bastard can touch your skin and dive into your brain to watch your private movies."
Butcher smashed the edge of the cage with his gun butt.
"I guess he peeked at some executive's dirty laundry and got thrown into this rat hole as a lab rat."
Hearing this, the Mind Reader shivered violently.
He raised his bloodshot eyes, his gaze darting quickly between Butcher, Hughie, and Frenchie.
Finally, he locked his eyes on Lynn.
Having been locked in this asylum for so long, he was tortured to the point of losing his mind.
But his animalistic instincts remained.
He could tell at a glance that this man, whose suit didn't have a single wrinkle and who had just burned Lamplighter to ashes, was the alpha wolf here.
"Save me... Boss! Take me out of here!"
The Mind Reader suddenly lunged up from the pool of urine like a mad dog.
He scrambled on his hands and feet, crawling toward Lynn's feet.
His two slippery hands, covered in yellow liquid, grabbed onto Lynn's calf.
The sticky sensation transmitted directly through his suit trousers.
Lynn frowned.
Just as he was about to lift his leg to kick away this disgusting pile of muck.
A strange white light suddenly erupted from the depths of the Mind Reader's eyes.
His old face distorted violently, his mouth pulling back into a nearly insane grin.
"As long as I touch you... as long as I see through your weakness..."
He mumbled incoherently.
His mental power, like a sharp, invisible steel chisel, followed the fabric touched by his hands and hammered fiercely toward Lynn's brain.
He wanted to control this powerful man.
As long as he could seize control of this body that didn't even fear temperatures of thousands of degrees, he could slaughter his way out of this hell.
The mental power just touched Lynn's central nervous system.
[Ding.]
Deep in his mind, that emotionless mechanical voice rang out coldly.
[External low-level mental intrusion detected.]
[Passive defense triggered automatically—Mental Rebound (Max Level).]
Lynn didn't even shiver, nor did he blink an extra time.
It was as if a gentle breeze had brushed across his cheek.
But in the Mind Reader's world, the sky collapsed.
He felt his consciousness collide with a cliff made of millions of tons of solid lead.
Immediately after, a mental storm thousands of times stronger than his own power rebounded from the cliff.
It surged back against the current along his neurons with devastating momentum.
"Ah—!!!"
The Mind Reader let out a blood-curdling scream.
The sound was so shrill that it didn't sound like something a human vocal cord could produce, piercing one's eardrums with pain.
His hands, as if having touched high-voltage electricity, abruptly let go of Lynn's trouser leg.
His whole body flew backward, stiff as a board, for half a meter.
His back slammed heavily against the bars of the iron cage with a dull thud.
He clutched his bald head tightly with both hands, his ten fingers clawing frantically at his scalp.
His fingernails instantly scratched out bloody welts.
Handfuls of bloody scalp were ripped off by his own hands.
"My head... my brain is going to explode!"
The Mind Reader rolled frantically on the filthy floor tiles.
Two streams of black blood sprayed from his nostrils, flowing down his philtrum into his wide-open mouth, choking him as he swallowed and coughed.
Next were his ears.
Two lines of blood gushed out along his ear canals.
Tiny cracks split open at the corners of his eyes, and bloody tears mixed with yellow pus streamed down his face.
His eyeballs were about to pop out of their sockets, covered in dense bloodshot veins.
That rebounded mental power was like ten thousand red-hot steel needles, churning frantically inside his brain.
Butcher was startled, quickly leveling his gun and stepping back two paces.
"Holy shit, Boss, what did you do to him? Why is he acting like he's possessed?"
Hughie hid behind Frenchie, watching the blood-covered man rolling on the ground, the sound of him swallowing his saliva clearly audible in the corridor.
"He... he's not contagious, is he?"
Lynn lowered his head.
He looked at the ring of yellowish-brown urine stain on his suit trouser leg.
His brows furrowed even tighter.
He lifted his foot and kicked the Mind Reader's still-twitching ribs casually with the toe of his shoe.
He kicked the ball of rotting flesh, bleeding from all seven orifices, half a meter away.
"Don't fake an injury."
Lynn's tone was full of disgust.
"I didn't do anything. His own brain capacity was just too small to hold the extra stuff, so it got blown out."
The Mind Reader lay on the ground, his body spasming in waves.
He spat out pink foam of blood, his eyes unfocused, like a fat fish dying on the shore.
Lynn brushed off his cuffs and looked around.
On both sides of this long underground corridor were rows of thick, heavy iron doors.
Some doors had rusty observation windows.
Looking through the glass.
Inside were all sorts of monsters tortured into unrecognizable shapes by Compound V.
One guy had three tumor-like heads and was lying by a sink drinking water.
In another room, someone's limbs had degenerated into tentacles with suction cups and were hanging upside down from the ceiling.
There was even a madman gnawing on his own arm, his mouth full of blood.
These were all the products of the sewer behind Vought Corporation's glamorous facade.
A pile of muck that couldn't see the light of day.
Lynn's gaze fell back onto the Mind Reader, who was gasping for air.
A thought suddenly popped into his mind.
He tapped his knuckles against the seam of his trousers.
A has-been hero who started as a child star.
A face once known by every household across America.
If paired with this living hell, the effect would surely be a hundred times more stimulating than a few dry overseas invoices.
Lynn stepped forward.
He bent down and grabbed the back collar of the Mind Reader's hospital gown.
Like picking up a dead chicken, he lifted this nearly two-hundred-pound man with one hand.
The Mind Reader's toes dragged on the ground, drawing two bloody lines.
His head hung limply, blood dripping down his chin and splashing onto the edge of Lynn's leather shoes.
Lynn took out the special encrypted mobile phone from his inner suit pocket.
He tossed it casually to Frenchie, who was standing to the side in a daze.
"Catch."
Frenchie scrambled to catch it, clutching the phone to his chest, almost slipping into the urine puddle.
"Merde, Boss, throw it slower. If this thing breaks, we'll be blind."
Butcher chewed on the half-stub of his cigar, puzzled.
His gun barrel was still pointed at the Mind Reader's blood-crusted head.
"Boss, why are we keeping this half-dead piece of trash? It's not convenient to run away with dead weight."
Butcher's finger rested on the trigger, eager to fire.
"Why not let me give him a quick end with a bullet? Consider it revenge for those he peeked at."
Lynn ignored Butcher's killing intent.
He looked at Frenchie and jerked his chin toward the Mind Reader's mangled face.
"Dead men can't keep their mouths shut; only the living can speak."
The corners of Lynn's mouth curled into a cold, mirthless smile.
He pushed the limp Mind Reader in his hand forward.
"Wash his face. Since this guy used to be a public figure, let him make use of his remaining value and create a big news story for the American audience."
Chapter 25: Live Broadcast to the Whole Network, Mind Reader Exposes Vought Corporation's Dirty Secrets
Frenchie was knocked back two steps by the sudden weight of over a hundred pounds of flesh.
He stumbled to steady himself, his hands gripping tightly under Mind Reader's armpits.
"Merde! This bald guy is heavier than a drunk Russian bear!"
Complaining aside, his movements were anything but slow, dragging and pulling the man toward the depths of the corridor.
Lynn shook the wrinkles from his suit cuffs, his leather shoes stepping over the sticky pool of blood on the floor.
"Butcher, find a sturdy chair."
Lynn's voice echoed through the empty underground passage.
Butcher grinned, revealing yellow teeth stained with tobacco.
He turned and walked into the interrogation room next door that had just been kicked open, hauling out an iron chair covered in dark brown rust with one hand.
"Clang."
The chair was slammed heavily onto the floor tiles in the middle of the corridor, kicking up a small cloud of dust.
Frenchie threw the half-dead Mind Reader into the iron chair as if he were garbage.
Hughie swallowed his dry saliva, fumbling to pull half a roll of yellow industrial tape from his backpack.
He stepped forward and wrapped Mind Reader's trembling arms tightly around the back of the chair several times.
"Rrrrip—" the sound of the tape tearing set one's teeth on edge.
Hughie wrapped it five times, his fingers still trembling slightly.
"He... he's still bleeding, boss, shouldn't we stop the bleeding first?"
Hughie looked at the yellow pus oozing from the corners of Mind Reader's eyes, his stomach churning.
Lynn stopped half a meter from the chair and pulled a white checkered handkerchief from his suit pocket.
He tossed it casually onto Mind Reader's lap.
"Dead men don't need medical resources wasted on them; just wipe his face clean."
Frenchie picked up the handkerchief and wiped it haphazardly over Mind Reader's face.
Smearing the blood scabs and snot all over.
Then, he pulled a tangled mess of data cables from his perpetually overflowing, worn-out military backpack.
Along with a palm-sized portable HD camera.
"Give me two minutes."
Frenchie fixed the camera onto an abandoned IV stand, the lens pointed directly at the bald man in the iron chair.
"Although the intranet here is blocked, I left a backdoor."
He sat on the floor with his laptop on his knees, his ten fingers creating a blur on the keyboard.
Lynn turned his head, his gaze sweeping over the basement environment.
Directly behind the iron chair were two rows of massive, cylindrical glass tanks.
The tanks were filled with glowing green preservative fluid.
Inside floated several failed test subjects, their skeletons deformed by Compound V, some even having grown four arms.
"Shift the camera angle ten degrees to the right."
Lynn extended a finger and traced a line in the air.
"Get that freak with tentacles in the back; it makes for a perfect background."
Frenchie adjusted the camera's gimbal without looking up.
"No problem, boss. I'm connecting to the outdoor broadcast signal in Times Square, New York..."
He hit a few Enter keys, and strings of complex code flashed across the screen.
"Done! I've also hijacked the morning broadcast feeds for CBS and Fox News!"
The red light on top of the camera blinked twice before turning solid.
Lynn walked around to the side and back of the iron chair, perfectly positioned in the camera's blind spot.
He reached out and drew the tactical knife Butcher had strapped to the outside of his thigh.
The non-slip texture on the handle was a bit rough on his hand.
Lynn flipped his wrist, and the cold blade slid inside the hem of the hospital gown.
It pressed firmly against Mind Reader's left kidney area.
"Hiss..."
As soon as the knife tip pricked the skin, Mind Readergasped.
He had been on the verge of unconsciousness, but this jolted him fully awake.
His teeth chattered, and his crotch wet through once more.
"Look at that red light."
Lynn's voice drifted into Mind Reader's ear, as cold as a blade.
"One wrong word, and this knife will pierce your kidney."
Mind Reader struggled to lift his heavy eyelids.
Looking at the blinking red light in front of him, it felt like staring at a death warrant from the King of Hell.
"We're live." Frenchie snapped his fingers.
At the same time.
In New York's Times Square, the giant screens playing cosmetic advertisements suddenly glitched.
A second later, they all switched to the image of this dark, damp basement in Sage Grove.
Millions of televisions across the US, all playing morning news, simultaneously cut to this eerie signal.
On screen, a bald man in a hospital gown, his face covered in blood, sat in an iron chair.
Tears streamed down the wrinkles at the corners of his eyes.
"I... I am Mind Reader..."
His throat was as hoarse as if he'd swallowed sand, his voice trembling.
"I used to be a candidate for The Seven... you've seen me on TV."
Internet users across the US, eating cereal and holding coffee, all froze in their tracks.
The knife tip pushed half a millimeter deeper into his kidney area.
Mind Reader shivered, tears falling even harder.
"Vought Corporation is lying!"
He shouted at the top of his lungs, and due to the excessive force, a few more drops of black blood burst from the corner of his mouth.
"Superheroes aren't gifts from God! It's Compound V! A chemical agent!"
He gasped for air, his eyes locked onto the lens.
"They experiment on babies... and now they don't even spare adults!"
Mind Reader violently twisted his neck, the back of his head hitting the iron chair back.
"Look behind me! Look at these tanks!"
Hughie stepped forward in coordination.
The strong beam of a flashlight hit the tank filled with green water behind him.
Inside the glass tank, a humanoid monster with a face covered in scales and limbs degenerated into tumors.
Was floating lifelessly in the liquid.
This scene was smashed directly into the retinas of viewers across the US via the signal.
The comments on online forums exploded instantly, the scrolling speed so fast that even the servers lagged.
"Those cape-wearing bastards... they treat people like lab rats!"
Mind Reader was crying, snot and tears streaming down his face.
"A-Train killed people while high... The Deep is a rapist... it's all true!"
He completely broke down, spilling all of Vought Corporation's dirty laundry like beans from a tipped jar.
"They use us as tools, and when they're done, they lock us in this hell to wait for death!"
The broadcast had lasted for three whole minutes.
"Boss, I can't hold it anymore!"
Frenchie's hands were typing furiously on the keyboard, sweat the size of beans popping out on his forehead.
"Vought Corporation's cyber police are counterattacking too hard, the main node has been forcibly cut. The signal will go black in ten seconds!"
Lynn didn't say a word.
He stared at the countdown timer on the screen.
Five, four, three, two, one.
The red light on the camera went out with a "pop."
Mind Reader was still hysterically shouting, "Save me."
The sound stopped abruptly the moment the red light went out.
"Pfft."
Lynn's wrist, holding the knife handle, turned without warning.
The sharp military dagger pierced through Mind Reader's lower back without resistance.
The blade shredded his heart, the tip emerging from his chest, bringing out a large spray of thick blood.
Mind Reader's eyes rolled back violently.
He spat out a mouthful of black blood mixed with organ fragments, all of it landing on Hughie's canvas shoes opposite him.
His body twitched violently twice on the iron chair.
His head lolled to the side, and he was completely lifeless.
Lynn pulled out the dagger with an expressionless face.
He grabbed a clean corner of Mind Reader's hospital gown and slowly wiped the blood off the blade.
Hughie looked at the rapidly expanding pool of blood on the floor, his breathing in a mess.
"Is the signal cut?"
Lynn tossed the clean dagger to Butcher, the handle spinning half a turn in the air.
He adjusted his suit cuffs and looked up at the darkened monitor overhead.
"It doesn't matter anymore."
Lynn's leather shoes stepped through the blood on the floor as he walked toward the corridor exit.
A smirk of anticipation tugged at the corner of his mouth.
"The world outside must be exploding right now."