138. Sharon’s Advancement and the Prospects of Establishing the Women’s Federation

The Black Emperor had accumulated an immeasurable amount of energy beforehand—thunderbolts, missile explosions, and all manner of other things—so the blast he unleashed at the moment of his death was truly formidable.

Even though Su Ye had already sunk him to the bottom of the sea, the explosion still caused considerable destruction. Boston, several kilometers away, was affected as well.

The windows across nearly half the city were shattered by the blast wave, and countless civilians were killed or injured.

Fortunately, this was only an energy explosion. There was no nuclear radiation, and therefore no lingering contamination from a subsequent fallout. The surviving citizens of Boston could at least feel a sliver of relief.

At the same time, the explosion seemed to echo the earlier disasters in New York and Los Angeles, once again confirming the saying: peaceful, beautiful America—an explosion every day.

It was impossible for the public not to be worried or frightened.

Many people were already considering fleeing, while some of the financial conglomerates had even begun taking action.

The Black Emperor was dead. Until the very last moment, he had never believed that he would die.

He still had countless acts of revenge to carry out. He still had to fight for more opportunities for mutants to survive… Well, that was just an excuse.

Whether mutants had a future was not the point. The point was that once he accomplished this, he would have an excuse to establish a nation—or even a civilization—created by mutants.

And when that day came, he would be the emperor of this new civilization.

That was the Black Emperor’s true goal. Otherwise, why would his codename have been the Black Emperor?

He had spent decades plotting and scheming to ignite a nuclear-arms race between the world’s two superpowers. Had he really done all that merely to secure mutants a little space in which to survive? The Black Emperor was not that noble.

Magneto, who later inherited the Black Emperor’s ambitions, probably had much the same idea.

Su Ye was not entirely sure. In any case, as a combination of Professor X and Magneto, his own thinking leaned more toward Professor X’s side.

Mutants and humans should not be locked in irreconcilable opposition. Mutation should not become the source of family conflicts or a destabilizing factor in society.

Once the existence of mutants became commonplace, they could integrate perfectly well into ordinary human life.

Take Iceman, for example. He could simply be assigned to the fire department. Whenever a wildfire broke out, people would no longer have to anxiously watch countless firefighters and cyclists throw themselves into the flames, feeling both pride and anguish.

Just send Iceman over. He could surf through the mountains on an ice board, suppressing the flames with freezing vapor as he went.

He would be stylish and highly efficient.

Then he could start a livestream and shout, “Hit that like button, follow me, and double-tap for six-six-six!”

The little rockets would come flying.

Before long, he would become an idol worshipped by the entire nation. Commercial endorsements and variety-show appearances would come one after another, and he could even sell products through livestreams. What a wonderful life.

Wouldn’t that be far better than joining the Black Emperor or Magneto in rebellion, living in fear every day, and worrying about being captured by American government scientists and taken back for research?

That was why Su Ye would never follow the path of the Black Emperor or Magneto.

Anyone like the Black Emperor, who feared nothing so much as peace and even wanted to spread disaster across the globe—especially someone intent on threatening the lands across the ocean—had to die.

As she watched the enormous surge of air rising from the explosion beneath the sea, the White Queen in the sky immediately looked as though the sky had fallen in on her. Her face was ashen with despair, and she could no longer even maintain her diamond form.

Fortunately, Su Ye was quick enough to react. He used electrical cables to bind her from head to toe, preventing any accidental exposure.

Through the cables, Su Ye also conveniently measured the White Queen’s dimensions. That information was not suitable for public release, but suffice it to say, the results were astonishing—she could rival Mai Shiranui.

More importantly, it was only through observing her at such close range that Su Ye discovered that the lack of hair in certain places might actually have been natural.

The Black Emperor was dead. In the distance, Riptide and the Red Devil seemed to have suddenly lost their backbone as well. They slowly ceased their assault on Captain America and Wolverine, then nervously turned their gazes toward the Great Wall Guardians.

After feeding the Black Emperor his fill, the four brawny men turned and advanced toward them shoulder to shoulder. They had not even made a move, yet Riptide and the Red Devil were already trembling.

“Run!”

Riptide glanced at the Red Devil from afar, signaling for him to use his teleportation ability and take them both away.

The Red Devil’s teleportation was extremely powerful. Not only was its cooldown short, allowing him to teleport repeatedly at high frequency within an extremely brief period, but the distance he could cover was also immense.

He had once teleported a military colonel from Las Vegas to Washington, D.C., three thousand kilometers away. The entire process took less than ten minutes—and that included the time the colonel needed to mentally prepare himself, change clothes, and disguise his appearance.

In reality, the actual transportation time had to be even shorter. Perhaps he could cover the whole distance in a single jump, or perhaps through numerous short-range jumps. In any case, it was very likely that the time could be measured in seconds.

In short, until Su Ye learned the Flying Thunder God technique or some other form of spatial movement, the Red Devil would make an excellent choice of mount.

It was a shame that this particular mount was male, meaning Su Ye could only ride him when traveling on business. Even so, Su Ye certainly was not about to let him escape.

Just as the Red Devil received Riptide’s signal and prepared to act, he suddenly realized that he could no longer move.

Su Ye activated his telepathy. At such a short distance, controlling a mutant whose brain was not exactly overburdened with intelligence and pinning him in place was as easy as lifting a finger.

At the same time, the Red Devil’s long, arrow-shaped tail was manipulated from behind him to the front, its pointed tip aimed directly at his own brow.

A voice sounded in the Red Devil’s mind.

“Do not try to escape. I have countless ways to kill you before you get away. Do you believe me?”

The moment he heard that voice, the Red Devil lost his nerve.

He had joined the Black Emperor’s group simply because the Black Emperor was powerful. By following him, the Red Devil could enjoy a life of luxury that he had never even dared dream of before.

As for fighting for the future of mutants? The Black Emperor himself might not have believed in that, and the Red Devil certainly did not. To him, this was merely a job.

You paid me, and I worked for you. It was that simple.

So when he discovered that the teleportation ability he relied on for survival had become useless, and that the other party could kill him at any moment if he wished, the Red Devil immediately chose to surrender.

“Please spare me, sir! I’m only an employee. As long as you give me a—no, as long as you spare my life, it belongs to you from now on!”

Su Ye was not particularly surprised by how quickly the Red Devil had understood the situation. After all, the man looked like some unfinished beast that had never fully evolved. He probably understood the laws of the jungle—survival of the fittest and the strong devouring the weak—more thoroughly than most.

Riptide, on the other hand, had followed the Black Emperor for a long time. He dressed like a respectable member of high society and seemed to share the Black Emperor’s style.

Perhaps persuading him to surrender would be somewhat difficult.

Yet when the surrendered Red Devil teleported over and wrapped his tail around Riptide’s neck, Riptide surrendered almost as quickly as his companion.

They were both civilized people accustomed to comfortable lives. Fighting and killing was acceptable when one had the advantage of superior technology and equipment, but genuine life-and-death combat—staking one’s life against another—was something only fools and savages engaged in.

What was wrong with surrendering? Didn’t the Geneva Convention say that prisoners were to be treated humanely?

So when faced with a battle they could not win, they simply surrendered.

That was what American law said, after all.

If the mission had completely failed and there was no way to break through; if weapons and ammunition had been exhausted and could not be replenished; if food and water had run out and could not be replenished; if communications had been completely severed and could not be restored—in such circumstances, one should surrender.

The sort of situation in which one fought to the last man with empty ammunition and empty stomachs, facing an enemy dozens or even hundreds of times larger, biting with one’s teeth, throwing stones, and hugging a sack of explosives in a final act of mutual destruction simply did not exist.

They were civilized people from a civilization barely two hundred years old, after all.

With Riptide’s surrender, the assault operation against the Black Emperor’s group came to a more or less satisfactory conclusion.

The “more or less” was due to the White Queen.

Although her body had been captured, it seemed that her soul had been blown away alongside the Black Emperor. Her current condition was fundamentally different from the after-credits scene in the film, in which she had displayed considerable charm—and even impatience—when Magneto recruited her.

Su Ye’s attitude toward the matter was simple: whatever. Let her do as she pleased.

She was only one White Queen. Her telepathy overlapped with his own, and her diamond transformation was not invincible. Most importantly, her direct combat ability was merely average.

If he truly had no way to recruit her, he could lock her up and keep her like livestock. Whenever necessary, he could toss her a bra or a pair of panties to provoke her into transforming into diamond, then take the resulting diamonds out and sell them.

The White Queen would have no way to refuse that. No one would willingly be raised like a hairless pig.

At the very least, she would need something to cover herself with.

And if she happened to soil it, there would be no need to wash it. She could simply turn it into diamond and sell it.

What a bargain.

Under the night sky, a Quinjet flew silently and slowly from the East Coast toward the West Coast.

On board, the pilot Hawkeye and Black Widow remained silent, but countless storm waves had already risen in their hearts.

With the formation of the Avengers and their merger with the Great Wall Guardians, the enemies faced by the superhero teams had grown increasingly powerful.

At the same time, the number of members in the superhero teams was rapidly increasing.

Take the two they had just captured. Riptide and the Red Devil were still prisoners for the moment, but from the way they were fawning over their captors, it was obvious that it would not be long before they became members of the Great Wall Guardians.

And they would be among the most daring and aggressive members of the team.

After all, they were prisoners. If they did not want to die, they had to offer a proper token of allegiance.

Looking at those two, then looking at themselves, Hawkeye and Black Widow both felt a wave of dejection.

They had already degenerated into marginal support personnel whose only function was to pilot fighter aircraft. Would there come a day when even flying planes was no longer their job?

After all, the Red Devil was a far more powerful means of transportation than a Quinjet. He could casually teleport people wherever they wanted to go.

With the Red Devil around, who would still bother to take a plane?

Once the pride of S.H.I.E.L.D., founding members of the Avengers, and among the first members of the Great Wall Guardians, they now faced the risk of unemployment.

But they were still young. They did not want to lose their jobs, nor did they want to be sent home to retire. And after witnessing the battles of the superheroes, they would certainly be unwilling to return to S.H.I.E.L.D. and carry out ordinary missions.

Therefore, they had to find a way to save themselves.

Only by becoming superhumans could they survive within this ever-expanding army of superheroes.

And it seemed that they already had a way to become superhumans.

The Extremis virus.

Su Ye had brought a sample of the Extremis virus back to the laboratory and had Dr. Connors and Gwen study it. He had not kept the matter secret, so the two of them knew about it as well.

Now, they had independently reached the same decision.

They wanted to become test subjects for the Extremis virus.

Although the earliest version of the Extremis virus might be unstable and unsafe, and might even carry the risk of turning its host into a bomb, one had to enter the tiger’s lair to obtain its cub.

Only those who received the earliest injections had a chance of becoming collectors’ editions of Extremis soldiers.

The stable mass-produced version that came later would inevitably have many of its functions reduced. By then, there would be little point in injecting it.

What they did not know was that at the very moment the two of them reached this conclusion, someone on the West Coast, in Dr. Connors’s laboratory in Los Angeles, was already lying on an operating table.

“Miss Carter, are you certain that you want to be injected with this experimental version of the Extremis virus?”

Beside the operating table, Gwen held a tablet computer. She monitored Sharon’s physical condition while making one final confirmation.

“This is an experimental model. It may produce many uncontrollable and unknown mutations, and we have no way to predict exactly what will happen. Are you certain?”

Sharon slowly exhaled on the operating table.

“I’m certain. Go ahead.”

“All right!”

Gwen had entered full scientific mode, and her expression was solemn. Science allowed no room for carelessness.

Soon, Sharon was pushed into the apparatus. A streak of orange-red Extremis virus, sparkling like starlight, was injected into her body.

Dr. Connors and Gwen watched the readings on the various instruments with tense concentration, ready to make adjustments at any moment.

The entire process lasted a full half hour.

Then, amid the sound of an airlock opening, the apparatus slowly unfolded, and Sharon was gradually wheeled out.

“How do you feel?”

Gwen stepped forward. She examined Sharon’s body, which seemed unchanged, while questioning her and testing her physical sensations.

“I feel better than I ever have.”

Sharon opened her eyes. A sudden orange-red glow ignited within them.

At the same time, the notification sound of Su Ye’s system suddenly rang out.

That system notification only ever sounded when a girlfriend card was issued in the middle of the night or when he checked the arrival of a girlfriend card. It had never gone off for no reason.

So when Su Ye heard that familiar chime, he assumed he had accidentally triggered the White Queen’s girlfriend-card option.

But clearly, he had heard wrong.

“Ding! Girlfriend Card [Sharon Carter — Green] successfully upgraded. Obtained [Sharon Carter — Blue].”

[Character: Sharon Carter.]

[Current Affection: 100 — Utterly Devoted.]

[Helpful Tip: Her abilities have changed, but her loyalty has not. She is not only your warm little sweetheart in everyday life, but also an excellent partner in your career. So let her fly without worry. Perhaps you will gain an entire Avengers team.]