A building collapse was rare. A skyscraper blasted apart was rarer still.
But a forty- or fifty-story reinforced concrete headquarters being sliced cleanly in half by invisible sword energy—and then sliding down along a perfectly smooth plane—was something almost no one had ever witnessed.
Not even Richard.
He had developed God Avoidance some time ago, but until now, it had only been tested on trees and boulders. Watching an entire upper structure shear off with surgical precision was new even to him.
Boom.
The severed upper half of the Mutant Affairs Department headquarters crashed into the ground with a deafening roar. The impact sent dust erupting outward like a spreading sandstorm. The earth trembled violently beneath the shockwave, as if a localized earthquake had struck downtown Washington.
Guards and staff on the ground stared upward in disbelief.
What did he just do?
Is he declaring total war?
Where are the Operations agents?
Why haven't the Sentinels deployed?
Panic rippled through the surviving personnel.
Richard ignored them.
His telepathy expanded outward, scanning the complex. Only one category of mutant moved freely within headquarters grounds: Operations Department agents.
He found them instantly.
Nearly two hundred.
As expected of the national headquarters.
He sighed inwardly, then acted.
With a precise psychic surge, he immobilized every agent incapable of resisting telepathic intrusion. Once frozen, he increased output.
Mind obliteration.
Because they were paralyzed first, they felt nothing. No pain. No awareness.
They simply collapsed.
More than one hundred fifty mutant agents died simultaneously, falling where they stood like marionettes with cut strings.
Richard initiated plunder immediately.
[New abilities acquired: 187 (6 Alpha, 158 Beta, 23 Delta)]
[Duplicate abilities detected. Initiating fusion.]
[Enhancement complete.]
[X-Gene list updated.]
[X-Gene Superpowers: 12 Alpha, 25 Beta, 6 Delta]
The numbers were telling.
Before the harvest, he possessed 8 Alpha, 14 Beta, and 2 Delta abilities. After fusions, the total only rose by 19 net abilities. One hundred sixty-eight had merged into existing powers.
He had anticipated this.
Super strength, super physique, energy absorption, and super regeneration alone absorbed the majority of similar enhancements. Many Beta-tier powers simply became fuel for amplification.
He opened the Alpha list.
[Alpha Level: Super Senses, Gravity Control, Telepathy, Invisibility]
Telepathy and invisibility had both upgraded.
That surprised him.
The agents he killed were not purely psychic specialists, yet the cumulative fusion pushed telepathy to Alpha tier. Invisibility—rarely used—had also ascended.
He examined the new entries.
[Super Senses: Vision, hearing, smell, and sensory perception far beyond baseline human capability.]
[Gravity Control: Manipulate the strength and direction of gravitational force.]
[Invisibility: Self or object transparency. Undetectable by optical instruments including infrared and ultraviolet.]
He closed the Alpha tab and glanced at Beta.
As expected, super vision and basic invisibility had disappeared from Beta.
He dismissed the interface and focused on remaining threats.
Through enhanced super senses, he identified approximately thirty surviving mutant agents.
His brows furrowed.
Not all of them could possess telepathic resistance.
He observed carefully.
Two among them radiated active psychic fields—true telepaths reinforcing others. The majority of the remaining agents wore silver-white helmets.
Eighteen helmets.
Telepathic isolation.
Different design than Shaw's, but clearly functional.
Had the technology improved? New materials? Accelerated production?
The Mutant Affairs Department had adapted.
Richard did not waste time analyzing further.
Teleportation.
He appeared directly behind the first telepath.
Slash.
The Authentic Blade severed the agent's neck before any countermeasure could trigger.
Teleportation again.
The second telepath turned too late.
This time, Richard thrust forward instead of beheading. The blade pierced straight through the chest, impaling the heart.
Both were competent psychics.
Both died before using it.
With the primary telepathic shields eliminated, Richard expanded his mind once more, freezing every unhelmeted agent in place.
He walked calmly among them.
One strike per life.
No wasted motion.
[New abilities acquired: 17 (1 Alpha, 16 Beta)]
[Fusion complete.]
[X-Gene Superpowers: 13 Alpha, 32 Beta, 6 Delta]
He opened Alpha again.
[Thermal Vision: Adjustable red high-temperature beams emitted from eyes.]
Heat vision had upgraded.
He exhaled lightly.
Useful, but not essential. He rarely relied on it. With dimensional slash and long-range energy techniques, laser projection was redundant.
He dismissed the interface.
Eighteen helmeted agents remained.
Before he advanced, something massive entered his peripheral vision.
Six towering figures emerged from the damaged complex.
Sentinels.
Not matte black like those in Los Angeles, but polished silver-white—sleek, reflective, almost resembling Colossus in armored form.
Adaptive upgrade.
Richard felt no concern.
Three months ago, he had dismantled an entire Sentinel deployment. Even if these units were improved, they remained machines.
Unless they could counter dimensional severance, their fate was sealed.
He activated Dimensional Slash.
The Authentic Blade cut through the air.
Space distorted.
The nearest Sentinel became trapped inside warped spatial layers. Crescent-shaped distortions sliced inward from all directions.
Shing—shing—shing—
Metal parted like paper.
Limbs separated.
Torso split.
The machine disassembled midair, falling in fragmented slabs.
Five remained.
The war had only just begun.
.....
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