"Run! Run!"
"It's coming! Oh God, it's huge."
"Its mouth looks like a butt."
"Stop talking and go! Run!"
The streets of Chicago had already descended into chaos. Civilians scrambled to flee the city, and even the police had no mind to maintain order at this point.
The 'Hive' was moving along the streets, throwing everything it could absorb into its body, humans, animals, plants, cars, reinforced concrete, everything, into its abyssal maw.
It was completely indiscriminate. Whatever it swallowed, it digested with high-temperature energy and converted into the basic materials it needed.
Even after its wounds had been completely repaired, it continued doing this. By the time it passed through a block, that entire block had already been leveled.
The 'Hive' itself was visibly swelling.
It was growing. It was still growing.
At this moment, on the interstate highway leading out of Chicago, there were so many vehicles that, naturally, the highway had become one long traffic jam.
Horns blared nonstop.
Unfortunately, it did nothing.
A man stuck his head out of his car and shouted toward the front, "You idiots, you've completely blocked yourselves in! Great, now none of us can move!"
Similar curses rang out all over the highway, but they were completely useless. Instead, they only made everyone more irritable, and arguments soon escalated into physical fights.
At this moment, a little girl sitting in the back seat of a car hugged her teddy bear and looked toward Chicago.
"Daddy, it's coming."
"The big jellyfish is coming this way."
The man in the front, who had been arguing with his wife about something, immediately looked toward the city when he heard his daughter.
His expression changed at once.
The 'Hive' was indeed moving toward the outskirts. It had sensed that there were huge numbers of living beings here, all clustered together, making them very convenient to absorb.
As a lifeform capable of traveling across the stars, the 'Hive' could absorb most substances and convert them into energy and various materials it needed.
But to it, life, no matter what kind, would always be its first choice.
The presence of life naturally attracted it. To the 'Hive', the humans packed together on the highway out of the city were the ultimate delicacy, a feast it could not afford to miss.
It was deeply drawn to them, and it had come for that reason.
"Run! Get out of the car!"
The father in the car made the decision immediately. He quickly got out, opened the back door, and pulled his daughter out.
Just as he was about to run, his wife screamed from inside the car, "David, I can't undo my seat belt! What do I do?"
The man named David had no choice but to put his daughter on the hood of the car. He then opened the door and tried to undo his wife's seat belt, but it was jammed.
By then, the 'Hive' was approaching. It looked slow, but was actually moving quickly.
The people farther back in the traffic jam were already screaming and running forward, constantly passing David. He was sweating with anxiety, but finally managed to undo the seat belt and hurriedly pulled his wife out of the car.
The two of them quickly grabbed their child and ran, but at that moment, someone who had completely lost their head stepped on the accelerator.
The car roared toward the family of three.
"No!"
The wife instinctively shoved David with all her strength, pushing him and the daughter out of the way.
BANG!
The woman was knocked into the trunk of another car. She coughed up blood and could no longer move.
The driver cursed, got out of the car, and joined the fleeing crowd.
"Mary!"
"Mom!"
David ran over with his daughter in his arms. His eyes were red as he tried to push the car away.
The woman named Mary shook her head.
"Leave me, David."
"I love you."
"Go. You have to protect Jenny."
David shook his head, "No, don't say that, Mary. Don't be so cruel to me."
"Go."
"Jenny, Mommy loves you," Mary forced out her final words. Her breathing stopped, and her head tilted to one side.
"Mommy, Mommy, wake up," The little girl cried hysterically.
David looked at the 'Hive' behind them, shouted, and picked up his daughter before running.
The 'Hive' had already arrived, constantly sucking cars and people into the air.
David looked back.
His wife was also being carried into the sky.
David hugged his daughter tightly and ran forward with all his strength.
But now even the crowd ahead had become completely jammed.
David looked left and right, then suddenly jumped onto a car and began moving from one vehicle to another.
Others quickly copied him. More and more people climbed onto the cars. Some even shoved people off the cars just to make room to stand or move.
When David jumped onto the roof of a Buick, he encountered exactly this.
A bearded man reached out, grabbed his foot, and yanked hard. David and his daughter fell off together.
"No!"
He held his daughter tightly and watched as the bearded man climbed onto the car with a vicious expression, then leaped onto another vehicle.
David and his daughter fell to the ground and were about to get up when everything suddenly went dark above them. One pair of shoes after another came stomping toward his daughter.
The man immediately hugged the child and rolled into the space underneath a car. After this wave of people passed, he was just about to come out.
Suddenly, the car above them began clanging violently. Then David saw its tires leave the ground.
"No, no, no!", David quickly rolled out from under the car and was about to get up when a huge suction force sent him and his daughter flying into the sky.
Other people flew into the sky alongside David and his daughter. A heavyset woman screamed as she flew past David. The teddy bear in her hand kept barking, then jumped out of her grasp. Unfortunately, it did not fall to the ground after jumping out. It flew upward as well.
"Daddy, are we going to die?"
Midair, the little girl looked at David.
David could not bring himself to look directly into his daughter's innocent eyes.
"No. We'll be fine."
"Sweetheart, don't forget. We still have Homelander."
Jenny asked innocently, "Then where is Homelander now? Did he forget about us?"
David could not answer.
Just then, a car flew toward them.
David quickly turned in midair and took the impact with his back. Fortunately, there was no gravity now, so David was not seriously injured.
But after being struck by the car, they were even closer to the 'Hive's' abyssal maw in the sky.
David looked up and saw the layers of nest-like teeth inside that abyssal maw, as well as the lava-like crimson light deep within its mouth.
The man could only turn his daughter around so she would not have to face such a terrifying sight.
"Look at me, Jenny."
David tried his best to look calm, "No matter where we're going, Daddy will be with you."
"So you don't have to be afraid, okay?"
Jenny hummed and hugged her father tightly, "Daddy, will we see Mommy in Heaven?"
David's tears streamed down his face. He nodded.
"We will. We'll see her."
Jenny closed her eyes, "If I can see Mommy again, then I'm not afraid."
David closed his eyes as well and desperately prayed in his heart.
'God, please save us.'
'At least let my daughter live.'
Just then...
Bang!
David suddenly heard an extremely muffled sound. He could not help opening his eyes and saw the space in the distance seem to swell.
Thinking he was imagining it, he heard another bang. A ring of air erupted and shot out from that direction.
Bang! Bang bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!
The sounds grew louder and more frequent until eventually, the muffled noise became continuous.
A moment later, David saw it clearly. The sky in the distance suddenly cracked open at one corner, like a shattered mirror.
An irregular opening appeared in his field of vision.
Through that opening was a strange world that was difficult to describe in words.
Then a figure flew out of the opening.
A red cape fluttered in the violent wind like boiling flames. His black suit reflected dazzling light under the sun. His face was hidden in shadow, and two golden points lit up.
They were even more dazzling than the sun.
Instantly, cheers rang out across the highway and through the sky.
"Homelander!"
"Homelander is here!"
"Long live Homelander!"
"Homelander, save me!"
The huge roar of voices made Jenny open her eyes. She looked at the figure in the distance.
"Daddy, is that Homelander?"
"Did he come to save us?"
David nodded frantically, "He did, Jenny. We might have to wait a little longer before we see Mommy."
By then, that figure had already shot over from the distance.
He was like an arrow, with the heavens and earth as his bow and the raging wind as his string.
As if he were going to pierce through everything.
He slammed into the 'Hive'.
The enormous jellyfish was immediately pierced straight through.
At once, the 'Hive's' abyssal maw closed, and its enormous suction force vanished.
The people suspended in midair no longer had to be swallowed by that abyssal maw, but they now faced another problem.
They were more than a hundred meters in the air.
And now they were falling.
"No!"
David had never expected that, having just escaped one danger, they would immediately fall into another.
Another danger that would also mean death.
The ground rapidly approached.
David's mind went blank, and he instinctively hugged his daughter tightly.
In the blink of an eye, they hit the ground.
Yet the pain he expected never came. He only felt as though his entire body had sunk into a mass of rubber, then bounced back up.
He froze for a moment before realizing that, for some reason, the surface of the highway had become soft and elastic. Whether people or cars, everything bounced back up after hitting the ground.
After bouncing several times, David and his daughter stood on the ground completely unharmed, staring at everything in disbelief.
In the sky, Alex narrowed his eyes. Using his 'Reality Distortion' ability, he had changed the properties of the highway.
Even so, some unlucky people were still injured or crushed to death by cars.
There was nothing Alex could do about that.
He had already been quite merciful by not simply letting those people fall to their deaths. He was not going to save every single person like Superman.
And even Superman might not be able to save everyone.
Besides, Alex was now burning with rage.
The 'Hive' had thrown him into an extradimensional space. In the end, he had relied on his full divine power output together with the 'Hercules Bracers' to forcibly shatter the void and escape that extradimensional space.
Now he only wanted to kill the 'Hive'.
After being pierced straight through by Alex, the 'Hive' kept twisting its body, desperately generating basic materials to repair its wounds.
Alex snorted, and 'Thermonuclear Ray' suddenly shot from his eyes.
Several of the 'Hive's' tentacles waved, and a strange prism-like force field appeared between it and Alex.
When the 'Thermonuclear Ray' struck the force field, it was immediately dispersed into dozens of energy beams.
Those beams swept across the sky, tearing the clouds apart.
They swept across the ground, triggering a series of explosions.
The people on the highway finally reacted. They realized they could no longer remain in the battlefield and hurriedly moved away.
Seeing that the 'Thermonuclear Ray' was ineffective, Alex stopped wasting his effort.
A mass of dark-red energy flames erupted around him as his divine power output surged.
Alex turned into a blur and slammed forward.
The prism force field that had been able to disperse the 'Thermonuclear Ray' was smashed apart by Alex.
The 'Hive's' body twisted as it opened an extradimensional space, intending to escape.
"Not a chance."
Alex raised a hand and pointed. Several bands of light glowing with magical energy shot out and wrapped around one of the 'Hive's' tentacles.
'Crimson Bands of Cyttorak'!
After capturing the 'Hive', Alex immediately turned and flew, dragging it out of the extradimensional space and into a mountainous forest.
Alex then violently swung it down.
The 'Hive' screamed as it flipped over Alex's head, then plummeted sharply and crashed into the mountains like a meteor.
Countless trees and rocks were shattered.
A relatively low mountain peak exploded directly into pieces.
The 'Hive' lay sprawled on the ground, seemingly unable to move for the moment.
Alex dived down.
But at that moment, one of the 'Hive's' tentacles suddenly swept through the air, drawing an extremely faint, multicolored light.
That was not light.
It was a spatial rift leading to another dimension.
The 'Hive' had actually used a spatial rift to launch an attack.
For a moment, Alex was not sure whether the 'Absolute Domain' could block an attack that used space itself as a weapon.
After only a brief hesitation, 'Quantum Split-Brain' reached a conclusion.
It couldn't, because Alex's will had wavered.
Alex abruptly twisted his body. A space rift as faint as a curtain of light swept past his eyes, rapidly moving away and disappearing into the city.
Deep within the city, everything the light curtain passed over was cleanly displaced and cut in half.
Seeing Alex evade for the first time, the 'Hive' was invigorated. Its tentacles waved continuously as spatial rifts crossed and advanced, attempting to cut Alex apart.
Alex snorted. His figure suddenly disappeared, and when he reappeared, he was beside the 'Hive'.
'Psychic Teleportation'!
Then, almost pressed against the 'Hive's' body, Alex fired 'Thermonuclear Ray'. He did not detonate it or trigger a chain reaction to cause a nuclear explosion. He simply used the cutting power of the rays to slice straight through the 'Hive's' jelly-like body.
At once, Alex saw a multicolored cocoon of light deep inside the 'Hive's' body.
That was the 'Hive's' core.
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