Two fully armed Soldiers stealthily approached a door, and one of the Soldiers took a bomb from his chest, gesturing to his companion.
His companion nodded understandingly and made a countdown gesture. As three fingers retracted into a fist, he kicked open the door, and the special forces Soldier holding the bomb took the opportunity to throw it inside.
The bomb had just left his hand, and the two had not yet made a move to evade. A hand suddenly passed between them, grabbing the bomb tightly. Then, there was a deafening boom.
The bomb exploded violently, and the shrapnel, propelled by the gunpowder, was no less potent than bullets leaving a barrel. At such close range, the Soldiers' bodies, clad in tactical vests, were almost as unprotected as if they wore nothing. In an instant, the shrapnel pierced their bodies, and the violent blast impact sent them flying like rag dolls.
Zhou, who caused all this, indifferently clapped his hands, tidying his clothes as he pushed open the now dilapidated door. As for the two special forces Soldiers, their Death did not move him in the slightest.
As a Superhero, he could risk his life to save the innocent. But for these executioners whose profession was Carnage, he didn't mind giving them a push into Hell. For fellows who could eliminate other lives without batting an eye, Hell was their best home.
Pushing open the door, Zhou saw a messy room, the chaotic bed empty. Only the open window continuously blew cold air into the room.
"What a clever Little fellow!" Zhou, who had already used his Super Vision to locate all the Children, chuckled softly. He squatted down and looked directly under the bed.
There, two Children were hiding under the bed. These two Little fellows, dressed only in pajamas, covered each other's mouths, peering at everything outside through the gap under the bed with wary eyes. Seeing Zhou, the two Little fellows instinctively recoiled, then quickly reacted.
They quickly rushed into Zhou's embrace, huddling tightly against him like two trembling little hamsters.
"Don't be afraid, good Children. It will be over soon!" Zhou stroked the twin sisters' little heads, while he himself moved at extreme speed from the top floor back to the small living room downstairs. There, Pietro, who he had met once before, had already gathered with a group of classmates.
Suddenly appearing before this group of students, Zhou, while putting down the two twin sisters, directly ordered the nervous and defensive Mutant students: "Take them, Pietro. Logan and Bobby are in the dormitory, there's an escape route there, leave with them, now!"
"Mr. Zhou?" Pietro asked involuntarily. Not just him, but most of the students hadn't fully processed the fact that they were under attack.
"No time to explain this much. Find Logan. Get out of here first."
Before he finished speaking, Soldiers wearing thermal imagers appeared in twos and threes. Upon seeing the Mutant students, they immediately began to shoot.
The gunshots made many timid girls scream. Pietro immediately transformed into a steel body, bending down to protect the two Little Girls beside him. As someone with the ability to turn his body into steel, he could completely ignore the damage from such gunfire. So, without any hesitation, he used his body as a shield for his classmates.
However, to his surprise, he did not feel the impact of the bullets. Even the gunshots had stopped. When he turned his head to see what had happened, he found that his classmate's older brother, Zhou, who seemed like an ordinary person, had appeared where several Soldiers had just stood. In his hand, he held a handful of bullet casings crushed into a muddy pulp. And those Soldiers were lying on the ground, their bodies completely deformed.
Seeing their appearance, Pietro's first thought was of dolls accidentally pulled apart by Children. Honestly, even dolls were in a much better state than they were. He didn't even need to confirm; he had already concluded in his mind that these people were definitely dead.
"What are you still dazed about? Get moving immediately." Looking at Pietro's stunned expression, Zhou urged impatiently. There was no room for anyone to be in a daze at this moment. Hearing his words, Pietro, snapping out of it, quickly picked up the two Children and led the way, running towards the dormitory.
The students quickly left at his command, and at this moment, Zhou turned his gaze to the outside of the Mansion. In his sight, nearly a hundred Soldiers had surrounded the entire Xavier's Mansion. For the safety of these Children, he had to get these students out of here as quickly as possible. And to ensure the students could leave safely, he had to delay these Soldiers as much as possible.
Walking quickly to the outer corridor of the Mansion, which had become the frontline against the invading Soldiers. Zhou looked around. As a school, and a school for all ages, Xavier's Mansion naturally wouldn't store any dangerous items in areas frequented by students. Therefore, Zhou did not find what he was looking for.
In this situation, Zhou could only silently apologize to Professor Charles, who was still somewhere unknown, hoping he was mentally prepared for future school repair work. Because, not wanting to show himself, he could now only use the tables, chairs, doors, and windows of the Mansion to temporarily halt the Soldiers' advance.
Directly removing a classroom door, the heavy oak door panel was held in his hand like a piece of paper. Then he glanced at the several military jeeps surrounding the Mansion in the distance, directly swung his arm, and threw the entire door like a frisbee towards them.
Perhaps for Zhou, such a thing was no different from a paper airplane. But for the Soldiers under General Stryker, this was something no less potent than any bomb.
The solid wooden board, like a meteor, smashed directly onto the distant jeep. Under the immense force, the sturdy jeep, like one made of paper, began to collapse inward from where it made contact with the wooden door. The entire vehicle caved in, and countless broken parts flew out from the shattered body, scattering like bomb shrapnel and causing a large number of surrounding Soldiers to fall.
And this was just the beginning. After the wooden door hit its target, more things were thrown out. There were huge wooden tables and many lightweight chairs. These items, like cannonballs, easily destroyed Stryker's convoy, causing massive casualties. At the same time, they made his Soldiers cower in fear, not daring to advance another step.
Looking at the scene of injured Soldiers screaming and wailing, General Stryker's grim face was almost frozen like ice. He stared at his Deputy, asking through gritted teeth.
"What exactly is going on? Where is our advance team?"
Seeing General Stryker's ugly expression, his Deputy involuntarily swallowed. As his most capable assistant, he understood General Stryker's methods all too well. And precisely because he understood, he felt fear.
So he dared not conceal anything and answered directly.
"We have lost contact with the advance team. It's possible their mission has completely failed."
"Useless, all of them are useless."
Stryker growled, but still restrained himself from acting. "Why did no one report this to me!"
"General, there was no warning. We suddenly lost contact. We initially thought it was just a communication malfunction and didn't think of anything else!" The Deputy defended himself slightly. This was a common situation in war; special forces often lost contact with command Systems in many circumstances. He had no reason to take responsibility for this.
"Don't you know our enemies are a bunch of monsters? Are those damned battlefield regulations useful here?" Stryker pressed his Deputy's shoulder, whispering in his ear. "Because of your mistake, I lost my most elite group of men. If it weren't for the fact that you've been my Deputy for many years, I'd really want to stuff you and those Mutant trash into a cage together."
Being locked in a cage with those Mutants who had been tortured beyond recognition, one didn't need to imagine what would happen. The Deputy's face instantly turned pale, and he quickly nodded, responding.
"I'm sorry, Officer. I promise there won't be a next time."
"If there's a next time, you'd best take care of yourself. Now, give me the order to blast open this Mansion directly with Rocket launchers. I want to see how these Mutant monsters will stop my advance." Stryker waved his hand indifferently. He didn't have much time to waste here now.
The Deputy quickly relayed the order, and immediately, Soldiers retrieved shoulder-fired Rockets from intact vehicles, aiming towards Xavier's Mansion. When they lined up in rows, the Deputy immediately gave the order to fire.
Over a dozen Rocket launchers spewed dazzling Fire, rushing towards Xavier's Mansion. Stryker, no longer wanting to waste manpower in vain, chose the most violent method to open the Dao to his destination. The problem was, he didn't know. He was not only fighting Mutants, but also a more terrifying opponent.
Looking at the Rockets spewing flames and whistling towards him, Zhou, standing by the corridor window and watching silently, wore a disdainful smile. As long as he was here, these Soldiers outside wouldn't be able to advance a single step.
He made a gesture of closing his five fingers towards the window, and an invisible force field immediately attached itself to the incoming Rockets.
Having undergone Soul sublimation and the Awakening of divinity, Zhou had made tremendous progress in his innate abilities. If before he would exhaust all his strength just to open a gravitational field of a few hundred feet, now he could expand his controlled force field to several times that distance. And it wasn't just an increase in distance; the intensity of the force field was also a qualitative leap.
The powerful force field directly controlled the Rockets' trajectory from a distance, making them futilely spew flames in mid-air, consuming their kinetic energy. And when the kinetic energy ran out and the firing mechanism activated, the way those Rockets exploded also became strange.
Stryker's Soldiers all knew their weapons were definitely the best equipment in the active U.S. military. These Rockets, just deployed to the troops, had enough power to blast a heavy tank into scrap metal, and an explosion radius of twenty meters was absolutely no joke.
However, what they saw now were faint flames blooming in mid-air. These flames were not much larger than the light from a torch, and even such faint light was shrinking little by little. Soon, everything plunged into darkness.
Under the gravitational pull controlled by Zhou, the force of the explosion was infinitely reduced to a certain range. The light and heat emitted by the Rockets, which could only vent energy within this range, were naturally no match for the most ordinary torch.
And all this, the Soldiers did not know. They looked at this strange situation, and this time, they stopped their advance.