"With great power comes great responsibility."
Gwen returned home, then threw herself onto her bed.
She never expected Zodhis to be so gentle up close, and he was really handsome!
Of course, Gwen was not a hopeless looks-obsessed girl like Morgan. After that brief flutter, she started thinking about what Zod had said.
"With great power comes great responsibility."
For a high school girl like Gwen, that topic was simply too heavy. She was not like Jessica, a girl who had already lived through a shattered home and the loss of everything.
When Gwen became a superhero, it was mostly because she wanted to show her dad that she had grown up, to prove herself, and to help him. She rarely thought about anything beyond that.
Zod hovered outside Gwen's window, watching the girl agonize over the mindset a superhero was supposed to have.
That line was practically standard issue for every superhero.
"If you have the power to do something, but you choose to do nothing, then all the consequences that happen because you didn't act are your fault."
Zod, of course, carried no such psychological burden. After all, he was already a mature "adult".
But Gwen was not. Gwen's burden was enormous, so enormous that she even wanted to give up the identity of a superhero.
Still too young.
Zod vanished in an instant.
Once Gwen experienced more, she would probably understand.
The Human Torch, Johnny, had been in the spotlight lately, and he was very satisfied with how cool he looked.
"Aaaaah! A monster!"
"Help!"
Then he heard cries for help from a nearby street. Johnny did not hesitate for a second. He ignited and flew over as the Human Torch, only to see a monster.
It had a face like a human's, an old-style crown on its head, and a red cape flowing behind it. Its entire body was packed with muscle, its skin was blue, and there were fins on its back. It looked like some kind of marine creature, yet it walked upright like a person, with human-like arms and legs.
It was over three meters tall, and it was grinning as it grabbed someone and stuffed them into its mouth.
Boom!
A burst of flame exploded across its face. The Human Torch moved fast and saved the man who had been shoved into its mouth, only to discover the man's upper body was already gone.
"F*ck!"
Johnny cursed, then immediately felt nauseous because the corpse was too disgusting. At that moment, the monster noticed him and threw a punch that sent the Human Torch flying.
"How strange. A land-dweller like you actually burns," the monster clicked its tongue.
"You can speak English?" Johnny was shocked.
"It's just the language of land-dwellers. I learned it casually," the monster said with a savage grin.
"Fine, but what do you mean by land-dweller?" The Human Torch tried to coax out more information.
"A land-dweller is a land-dweller. What meaning is there?"
The monster suddenly lunged. It was so fast the Human Torch could not react in time. After all, Johnny's reaction speed was still that of an ordinary human. He relied on flames to deal with enemies.
Crash!
The two of them smashed through a house. The Human Torch was beaten so badly that he reverted straight back into Johnny.
Damn it. Where did this monster come from? How could it be this strong!
Johnny watched the burns on the monster's hide heal rapidly, dead skin peeling away. Cold sweat poured down his back, and he hurriedly ignited again, returning to the Human Torch.
"I'm going to turn you into grilled fish!"
Johnny unleashed a surge of fire. Who would have thought the monster would not even turn its head. It grabbed a heavy object nearby and hurled it over.
Thud!
Johnny was knocked flying. He slammed into a wall, let out a muffled groan, then collapsed to the ground, struggling to move.
It hurt too much.
"If I eat you, I should be able to become stronger." The monster walked up beside Johnny and reached out.
An invisible force field blocked its arm.
"Johnny!"
Invisible Woman Susan arrived. She first shielded Johnny with a force field, then shaped an ultrasonic shockwave through her invisible field and attacked from range.
The monster looked pained, but it was extremely fast and agile, and it slipped aside to evade.
At that moment, a hand wrapped around its right ankle, then crawled upward, winding around several times.
It was Mister Fantastic, Reed!
Reed originally meant to restrain the monster, but he quickly realized the monster was far stronger than he expected. It tore Reed's body apart with brute force.
"You land-dwellers really are weirder and weirder," the monster said, holding Reed in its hand.
Susan was speechless, but she still formed a force field and blasted the monster away.
"Johnny, can you still fight?" Susan hurriedly called to her brother.
"I can!"
Johnny gritted his teeth. Ever since becoming the Human Torch, he had never taken a loss this big!
Johnny released flames at maximum output. Susan used her force field to keep the fire from spreading elsewhere. The monster was swallowed by flame, but it quickly smashed through the wall behind it and escaped.
"Outside is the street. We can't let it keep eating people!" Johnny was anxious and charged after it.
The monster immediately hit him with a return punch. Johnny's face deformed on impact, and the monster seemed to lock onto him as the greatest threat. Before he could even fly away, it grabbed his leg like lightning, then smashed him into the ground over and over.
"Johnny!"
Susan's pupils shrank. With both hands, she exerted force. The monster instantly felt an invisible power detonating inside its body.
"Guh!"
Its legs went soft and it dropped to its knees, vomiting chunks of organs and green blood all over Johnny.
But there was no time to care about any of that. Reed reached out and pulled Johnny back.
"Die!"
Susan controlled the invisible force field to seize the monster and whip it hard into a wall. The wall shattered at once, and then she kept slamming it again and again.
However, as she kept smashing it, Susan sensed something wrong. In the next moment, the monster burst through the restraint of her invisible force field and charged at her.
At the critical moment, Reed stretched out and yanked Susan away instantly, making the monster's lunge miss.
"This monster is too fast, too strong, and its defense isn't weak either. Johnny just told me it can even recover from its injuries. We can't take it down ourselves. We can only stall it," Reed said quickly.
Most importantly, this monster had intelligence, and its combat reactions were extremely sharp, far beyond amateurs like them.
For example, when it faced the flames just now, it chose to smash through a wall and escape, then immediately came back with that return punch. They did not even react. For this monster, fighting and killing were probably pure instinct.
"We have to hold out until other superheroes arrive, or until the Dark Knight Zod gets here," Reed said seriously.
The Fantastic Three did not have the ability to solve this. What a pity. If Ben had not insisted on turning back into a normal person, then with Ben's strength, he could have fought this monster head-on in close combat.
/-\
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