"Last warning!" A-Train lowered his body, getting into a starting stance.
"Get out of the way, or I’ll smash you to pieces!"
Lucas clapped his hands, his expression extremely relaxed.
"You can try."
A-Train moved.
He accelerated with all his might, and in less than a second, he exceeded three hundred miles per hour. In The Seven, only Homelander could keep up with him.
This time he went all out, charging straight at Lucas accompanied by a sonic boom.
The asphalt road instantly shattered.
But under Lucas’s Supersonic reaction speed, the speed A-Train was so proud of looked like slow-motion playback.
He could even clearly see the micro-expressions on A-Train’s face—rage, madness, and a trace of imperceptible fear.
Lucas raised his right hand and, the moment A-Train rushed in front of him, swung it at Supersonic speed.
A Supersonic slap!
The timing was precise to the millisecond, landing squarely on A-Train’s left cheek.
He used less than ten percent of his sixty-two tons of strength.
*Slap!*
The sonic boom cracked like a whip.
A-Train’s body traced an arc through the air, crashing through the door of a parked SUV by the roadside, embedding him completely into the vehicle.
Due to the massive impact, the SUV was pushed back more than three meters.
The car body looked like a crushed soda can.
The entire place fell dead silent!
It took a full three minutes before A-Train crawled out of the deformed car body.
The left side of his face was swollen high, blood dripped from the corner of his mouth, and his front teeth were nowhere to be found.
The high brought by the compound v basically wore off under the impact of this massive slap.
Lucas saw A-Train’s eyes visibly clear up.
Only then did A-Train take a proper look at Lucas: dark gray battle robes, with runes of unknown meaning drawn on the chest, shimmering with a dark golden glow.
He wasn’t any Supe he recognized.
A complete stranger!
"Who... who on earth are you?" A-Train’s voice was trembling.
Lucas slowly walked toward him.
The oppressive feeling brought by the Bio-field weighed on A-Train’s heart like a mountain.
This man, known as the fastest in America, was now like a dog with its tail stepped on, constantly backing away under Lucas’s pressure.
"You asked me earlier who I thought I was."
"..."
"I am Guardian!"
He squatted down, looking at A-Train at eye level.
"Remember this name. I will be the Sword of Damocles hanging over the head of every Supe!"
A-Train’s lips quivered a couple of times, but he didn’t dare utter a single sound.
Lucas stood up. The surrounding crowd of over a hundred people was completely dumbfounded.
A middle-aged man standing at the front of the crowd widened his eyes.
"He... he actually beat up A-Train?"
"The fastest man in The Seven was actually slapped so hard he couldn’t even fight back?"
"And with just one slap! Just one slap!"
The numbers on the panel fluctuated wildly.
This time, it wasn’t a gradual increase, but like a bursting dam.
+834 +1,247 +672 +1,893 +445 +2,156 +789 +1,034...
The emotions of the hundred-plus onlookers on-site peaked simultaneously—shock, adoration, fear, hatred, all kinds of positive and negative emotions.
The online livestream was even more exaggerated.
Over a hundred phones started broadcasting at the same time, streaming the footage in real-time to the screens of tens of millions of people. The bullet comments flew by so fast they were a blur.
[Holy shit holy shit holy shit holy shit!]
[He slapped A-Train????]
[No way, bro. A-Train is already fast enough, but who knew there was an even greater expert?]
[Guardian is awesome!!!!]
[Vought International must be dumbfounded now. It looks like this really isn’t scripted!]
[Don’t jump to conclusions, upstairs. Maybe this is a show arranged by Vought International to replace A-Train!]
[Can the conspiracy theorists just get lost? Are you saying Vought International would ruin A-Train, who is worth billions, just to prop up some nobody?]
[What if he’s some rich young master?]
...
The panel finished collecting Evolution Points.
Current on-site emotion collection: +11,237
Current Evolution Points: 24,075 / 100,000
Lucas took a deep breath.
He had collected over ten thousand Evolution Points in one go.
As expected, publicly beating up members of The Seven and slapping them in the face was the most efficient way to farm points.
However, Lucas did not lose himself in the moment for too long. He knew that from this point on, the nature of things had changed.
For the past few days, he had only been acting as a vigilante and doing good deeds, which Vought International could tolerate.
But today, he had slapped A-Train’s face in public, right in front of over a hundred livestreaming phones.
The Seven’s image had also been damaged because of this.
Vought International probably wouldn’t be able to just observe anymore.
They would definitely take action.
Lucas looked back and saw that Hughie and the other person were still standing there.
"You two."
"Go home quickly, don’t stay here."
Hughie finally came to his senses and stammered, "You... you’re the one who came to buy speakers yesterday... You really are Guardian. I knew I had seen you somewhere..."
"Let’s talk another day."
Only then did Robin react, tightly grabbing Hughie’s arm. "Hughie... A-Train... he almost ran into us..."
"I know... I know..."
Hughie pulled her back, comforting her while casting a glance toward Lucas.
[Key Character: Hughie Campbell]
[Drastic Emotional Shift: Cognitive Reconstruction in Progress]
[Evolution Points Obtained: +1,847]
Lucas did not linger.
Just as he was talking to Hughie, A-Train had already slipped away, exerting the fastest speed of his life.
If a speedster truly wanted to run, it was indeed impossible to stop them in this chaotic scene.
Forget it, let him run.
As long as his goal was achieved, it wasn’t like he absolutely had to kill A-Train.
A-Train still had his own life’s highlight moments to turn around.
Lucas tapped his toes on the ground, shot up into the sky, and quickly disappeared from Brooklyn’s line of sight.
...
Twenty minutes later.
Vought International Headquarters, 72nd floor.
Madelyn’s office.
The video was playing on a tablet in extremely high definition, with at least five different angles.
A gray figure descended from the sky.
Stopping A-Train’s full-force sprint with a single hand.
Slapping him into a car with one blow.
As if he had done something completely insignificant.
A provocation! This was an outright provocation to Vought International, and pure disdain for The Seven!
"The Sword of Judgment hanging over the heads of all Supes?"
Madelyn could almost imagine how Homelander’s sensitive nerves would react when he heard this audio, and what kind of state things would escalate to!
Madelyn paused the video.
The analyst beside her didn’t even dare to breathe loudly.
"What are the view counts?"
"...It’s been posted for eighteen minutes, and the total views across all platforms have already exceeded twenty million. It’s expected to break one hundred million within an hour."
"What about public opinion?"
"Completely out of control!" The analyst’s voice trembled slightly. "The incident where A-Train was speeding high on drugs and almost ran over pedestrians has been dug up.
On Twitter, #ATrainAttemptedMurder is already the number one trending topic in the US.
All public discussions are asking the same question: if A-Train is so dirty, what about the rest of The Seven?
At this point, Vought International has no way to trick the public by claiming that video of A-Train was faked by AI.
Madelyn’s fingernails scratched a white mark on the desk.
"What is Guardian’s current public image?"
"He’s been deified across the entire internet. Currently, positive comments about him account for 97%, and there are even online petitions demanding that he replace A-Train and join The Seven."
"Bullshit! What ’deified across the internet’? It’s just that the public loves dragging old gods off their pedestals and propping up a new one!"
Madelyn said in exasperation, "Do they really think they’re standing up for justice? They just want to use this opportunity to make a fortune off traffic!"
"What about the mainstream media’s reviews?"
The analyst pushed up his glasses, his tone easing slightly. "So far, not a single mainstream media outlet has dared to report on this publicly. They’ve maintained a silent stance. It should be Mr. Edgar’s side exerting pressure!"
Madelyn picked up the phone and dialed a mysterious number.
There was no voice on the other end, only steady breathing.
Madelyn kept her voice very low, choosing her words extremely carefully.
"Mr. Edgar, I suggest recalling Homelander to nip this Supe who is challenging Vought’s authority in the bud!"
"Foolish!"
The voice on the other end was flat, but every word uttered made Madelyn shrink in fear.
"Then... sir, what should we..."
"Contact him and negotiate terms. If you can’t even see the opportunity hidden behind this, then step down and resign!"