Chapter 243 - Transcendence

Chapter 243: Chapter 223 TranscendenceHe didn’t catch up.

Li Cheng squinted his eyes in the direction of the prison, observed for a while, and after ascertaining there were no pursuers, he tossed those two special helmets to Gray Rain.

"Ran into trouble? Got held up for so long?"

The strongman Gray Rain casually remarked while kneading the two helmets into a semi-spherical shape as effortlessly as one would roll a pancake, then reassembled them into the shape of a baby’s cot to house Angelica.

"Yeah. Encountered Black Panther who believes in white supremacy, Hawkeye with the cockfight eyes, and Captain America with the looks of an Indian."

Li Cheng fetched an oil drum from the three-dimensional warehouse to fuel the agricultural plane to full, "That Cervantes probably has a perfect quality skill or piece of equipment that can twist, transform, and control superpower users.

Those three oddballs were just the vanguard; more would follow."

"Huh?"

Gray Rain was taken aback, "Wasn’t Cervantes taken into custody by the Special Affairs Bureau? How come he still has good stuff on him.

The Special Affairs Bureau didn’t confiscate it from him? Even when I cheat at gaming, my teammates would confiscate the bot—as though I had one."

Regarding this, Li Cheng still felt stable, "After all, Cervantes is a core member of the Wild Laughter Troupe. He can be tortured for key information and utilized as a hostage and bargaining chip.

The Special Affairs Bureau wouldn’t just let him hang around in any script world; If there’s a mission, it’s probable some of his equipment or items are returned to him."

Cervantes is absolutely no good guy, to say nothing of Feng Youyun’s family, who ended up destroyed and homeless because of him. There are his victims all over the world, enough to monopolize the ’Today’s Case’ program for an entire year.

But a cruel fact is that even if the Special Affairs Bureau catches him, he won’t be immediately taken out.

History is always unkind to the foolish victor. For the Special Affairs Bureau to survive amidst chaos, they must be extremely rational and prudent, sparing every bit of strength at their disposal.

From the perspective of the Special Affairs Bureau, controlling Cervantes and using him as a bargaining chip provides far greater value than simply terminating him.

Gray Rain nodded with an air of comprehension, "So, what do we do now?"

"We’ll still take the plane straight to our destination.

We were able to fly near Denver just now mainly because the night concealed us. Now that it’s daylight, the spy satellites in low-earth orbit and the ordinary civilians on the ground can see low-flying planes,

so we’ll need you to cover the plane’s skin with camouflage, change the color, to delay as much as possible before we’re discovered."

Li Cheng said, "But before that, we must make a trip back to the prison."

He flew the plane back to the superpower user prison, which at that moment was deserted, all the prisoners had fled.

In the prison yard, the ground was strewn with the relatively fresh corpses of superpower users who had been gunned down.

Just like Caroline and Angelica, the mutant corpses couldn’t be placed into the Backpack slot, but they could be stored in the pesticide tanks of the agricultural plane, which had a maximum takeoff weight of 7257 kg.

"May I ask...why are we taking these corpses?"

Caroline, who had been silent all this while, couldn’t help but ask: "Are you planning to expose Vanguard Company’s scandal to the public, to inform the world about the existence of superpower users?

That won’t work. Given Vanguard Company’s influence over the media, not a single TV station or newspaper would come forward to cover it.

Even if some journalists, out of personal conscience and professional ethics, were willing to speak out, they would be swiftly assassinated.

The few bits of leaked information will be treated as conspiracy theories like lizard-people or flat-earth and will not stir any waves."

Caroline had witnessed some of her colleagues, who opposed Vanguard Company’s human experiment projects, mysteriously disappear within days, never to be seen again.

After that, she had anonymously contacted several well-known journalists in Washington, attempting to leak the story, but as soon as they heard the leak involved Vanguard Company, they hurriedly cut off contact.

The only journalist who didn’t cut contact seemed to have ties with Vanguard Company and attempted to fish Caroline out.

As for the Avalon Organization regarded by the superpower user community as saviors...

Frankly, if they really had the power to change the world, they shouldn’t still be hiding on some Pacific island by now, but should have come forward long ago to declare their existence to the world.

"I never thought about exposure."

Li Cheng curled his lip – he would only be staying in this script world for a few dozen hours at most; such a news leak wouldn’t have a significant impact in the short term, "What I want is quite simple, to counter Cervantes’ Avengers, we too need our own Justice League."

With that said, he took out a scalpel and, to Caroline’s horror, sliced open a superpower user’s skull, revealing the brain.

"Denver is still fifteen hundred kilometers away from Angel City, and with the flight speed of the AT-802 agricultural plane, it will take at least five to six hours. If they don’t want to crash into an encirclement, they’ll have to detour. And detouring might take even longer."

"The network department is closely monitoring the social networks of ordinary citizens along the way, and will immediately report any suspicious low-flying aircraft."

"Summon every near-earth orbit spy satellite we can, if we can’t borrow, we rent; if we can’t rent, we’ll buy them outright!"

"Additionally, notify the United States Homeland Defense Forces, in the name of the Vanguard Company, telling them a superpower user terrorist has hijacked a plane, attempting to replicate the 9/11 attacks on the West Coast. Instruct them to turn their radars to full power and destroy all suspicious targets!"

"Have all the superpower users in Angel City been assembled? We are arriving soon."

Onboard Vanguard Company’s Gulfstream private jet, Cervantes gave orders without a moment’s respite.

The man standing next to him, expert pursuer Alexander, was particularly excited, rarely having the chance to call upon such massive resources; he immediately leveraged his old connections in the American intelligence agencies to assist Cervantes in organizing this large-scale capture.

(Alexander wasn’t dead, earlier at the motel, he stayed inside his command vehicle and did not follow those three SUVs into the farmland)

The only person not happy on the plane was probably that commissioner.

"Mr. Cervantes! You were asked by the company to help retrieve a high-value target, not to cause trouble for the company!"

The commissioner said sternly: "Calling spy satellites, requisitioning homeland defense forces, all these consume the company’s political and financial capital in Washington. We cannot squander them endlessly."

Cervantes glanced at him and ignored him completely, continuing to give out orders through the satellite phone.

To be honest, after seeing another player take out three fourth-level superpower users cleanly, Cervantes was truly feeling a bit uncertain.

Some of his equipment was still being held by the Special Affairs Bureau, and he was not in full combat strength.

There, the system even considered him as the weaker party in a head-on fight and had to arrange a company for him to balance things out.

The operational style of the Wild Laughter Troupe is crazy but not stupid; instead of directly teleporting to surrender, it’s more prudent to follow the original plan and continue the pursuit.

It’s definitely not because he chickened out.

Thoughts surged in Cervantes’ mind,

while the ignored commissioner became more anxious and angry, suddenly standing up with a slap, using his gaze to intimidate the employees, including Alexander, urging them to stop what they were doing and not forget their identities.

Finally, Cervantes stopped what he was doing and slowly turned his head to look at the commissioner, and for the first time in his eyes, there was not optimism and carefree attitudes, but pure indifference.

The commissioner was deterred by some indescribable premonition, subconsciously taking a half step back, but he quickly remembered his identity and forcibly stood erect, locking eyes with Cervantes.

"If I recall correctly, your company also employs fourth-level superpower users as enforcers and guards.

Those people, clearly capable of snapping your neck with as much ease as killing an ant in a moment, upon seeing you, have to respectfully address you as Mr. Commissioner."

Cervantes said calmly: "They do not fear you, but rather the things behind you.

Systems, organizations, social structures, the machineries of state... whatever concrete term it’s called, it symbolizes a collective power. Humans are social animals, they cannot exist without society.

And for this reason, those superpower users who are far stronger than you, bow and greet you respectfully.

But I am different."

As Cervantes slowly approached, the commissioner’s face turned paler, retreating step by step.

"I don’t need anything on this planet, I don’t need anybody to produce goods for me, I don’t need medical insurance, pensions, retirement funds. Without desires, I am invincible."

Cervantes pulls out a glass cylinder containing a bright blue liquid, "This bottle may contain a virus that can sweep across the globe, or it may not.

I may smash it to the ground, or I may not.

As I stand outside your societal rules, thus I can disdain them."

He extends his palm and places it on the commissioner’s forehead.

The latter falls to the ground, letting out a piercing scream, his face melting away like wax.

"To put it in the words of our guild’s president, those self-proclaimed noble and moralistic Special Affairs Bureau and Global Supernatural Alliance are just like our Wild Laughter Troupe, a bunch of locusts plundering different worlds.

All locusts, why bother hypocritically discussing morals."

Muttering to himself in a voice only he could hear, Cervantes suddenly retracted his hand.

The commissioner’s face stopped melting and gradually returned to its original form; he slumped into the chair, exhausted, no longer daring to look Cervantes in the eye.

"Now, get to work."

Cervantes slowly sat down, looking out the window at the gradually approaching coastline, waiting for the cooldown countdown of the changeling’s mark.