"It's me. So where's Invincible?"
Cecil shoved both hands into his pockets, his expression flat. His sharp eyes stayed locked on Titan—he could read the tiniest facial twitches and changes in heartbeat to tell whether someone was lying, so lies meant nothing in front of him.
"Invincible? Didn't your people just take him away a minute ago?"
Titan looked completely confused. One second ago, Invincible had just been taken by people from the Guardians of the Globe. The next second, Cecil from the Global Defense Agency was here asking for him. Weren't the Guardians and the Agency basically the same outfit? What, did they split into two groups now? Come on…
"What did you just say?"
"Say that again."
Cecil's calm finally cracked. What did Titan mean, Invincible had already been taken by their people? His team had only just arrived.
"Just now, you sent robots in. They took Mark, Machine Head, and every other criminal in this place. Hey—are you getting senile? You forgot your own orders?"
Titan glared at Cecil, irritation and a hint of mockery in his voice.
"Heartbeat's steady. Facial expression's normal… damn it. He isn't lying?"
Staring Titan down, Cecil confirmed he was telling the truth—and that only made Cecil more anxious.
"If I told you I never ordered any robots to take Invincible or the other criminals, and that our Robot is still on standby at Guardians headquarters… would you believe me?"
Cecil's face stayed a controlled poker mask, but his voice carried the faintest tremor.
"Hey, don't joke around."
Watching Cecil's expression, Titan realized something was seriously wrong. Sweat beaded on his forehead, his heart rate ticking up.
"I'm not joking. You'd better explain exactly what happened."
Cecil's tone turned hard as he ordered Titan to lay out everything that had just occurred.
"Fine…"
"It was just a few minutes before you showed up."
"A whole swarm of robots flooded in. They didn't waste time talking—they took Mark, Machine Head, and every last criminal in the building."
"Because those robots looked almost identical to the Guardians' Robot—except for the color—I thought they were yours from the Agency, so I didn't stop them. Didn't think for a second they weren't actually your people."
"Then after they grabbed Mark and the others, they jumped out of here. I swear, it freaked me out. And then you showed up…"
Titan rubbed at his head. He didn't have many brain cells to begin with, and forcing them to work this hard felt like he was losing the rest.
"They jumped out from here?"
Cecil stepped to the shattered window and looked down. There was no trace of any robots outside—like they'd vanished, as if they also had the same teleportation tech the Agency used.
"They looked exactly like Robot?!"
Finding nothing, Cecil turned back into the room, a dull ache building behind his eyes. He couldn't tell if this was an enemy scheme—using Robot's appearance to bait him into doubting Robot—or if Robot truly had a problem.
And if Robot really was compromised…
That thought made the headache worse. Robot was the person Cecil trusted most. If the one he trusted most had gone wrong, it would be a catastrophic problem for the Global Defense Agency—especially with the Viltrumite threat still unresolved.
"I understand. What happened today—you're not allowed to talk about it. Or else…"
Cecil's eyes cut into Titan like they could crack the rock armor right off his body.
"Yeah. Yeah, I get it. I understand."
Under that pressure, Titan nodded fast.
"Good."
Cecil didn't say anything else. With no way to get what he came for, he wasn't going to waste time here. In a blur, Cecil vanished from the room.
As for Titan's little ambitions, Cecil understood them perfectly. With Machine Head out of the picture, Titan wanted to absorb what was left of Machine Head's organization and build a new criminal order. Every city needed darkness to make the light stand out. Cecil knew that. So he tacitly allowed Titan's next moves—as long as he didn't cause a major mess and kept those high-energy young guys on a tight leash, Cecil wouldn't come looking for trouble. But if Titan crossed the line… then he'd get put down.
"Fall back!"
After Cecil left, the armed unit began withdrawing in an orderly retreat.
"…Whew."
Leaning against the corner wall, Titan watched the force pull out and finally let out a slow breath. The pressure those people put on him was overwhelming—far worse than Machine Head ever was. In front of a global organization backed by multiple countries, even a city-level underworld kingpin like Machine Head was still just an ant—someone who couldn't stand in the light. How could the shadows ever beat the "heroes" the world believed in? The scale was completely different.
Meanwhile…
With Robot and Dr. Genus working together, they had successfully linked the Grayson family's underground secret lab with the Guardians' underground lab, forming a massive subterranean palace. Tens of thousands of robots assembled with magnetic interlocks moved through the complex in disciplined rhythms, working nonstop. Their efficiency was genuinely higher than Dr. Genus's clones—if nothing else, machines didn't need sleep.
"That's brutal…"
On an operating table, Dr. Genus looked at Mark—half-dead and barely holding on—and shook his head.
"Mark and Jovian aren't even in the same league when it comes to energy."
"I once analyzed Jovian in secret. My conclusion was that if Jovian ever went all-out, there's a very high chance he could destroy the entire solar system outright. But Mark… at his current level, he can't even destroy Earth."
A white-haired Jack scanned Mark's whole body with the tablet in his hand. The excitement on his face quickly drained into disappointment.
"People are different," Dr. Genus said as he adjusted the instruments. "I've got a few guys I grew up with—compared to me, they might as well be pigs. You have to believe that when someone is born, they can receive a little gift from 'God.'"
"Dr. Genus… what gift did 'God' give Jovian?" Jack asked, lowering the tablet, confusion on his face.
"'God' gave himself to Jovian," Dr. Genus said softly, looking Jack in the eye.
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