Benjamin burst through the front entrance of the office building just in time to see Richard carving through another wave of guards. Bodies were still dropping when he arrived, and the metallic scent of blood hung heavy in the air. Without a second of hesitation, Benjamin lowered his shoulders and charged forward like a rampaging rhino, each step cracking against the pavement.
Richard had never seen him before, but he immediately understood this wasn't just another field agent. Compared to Aiden and the others, Benjamin carried a different kind of presence—dense, oppressive, controlled. The air around him seemed heavier, and the faint metallic sheen beneath his skin triggered something Richard rarely felt: a warning.
It wasn't overwhelming, but it was real.
This man was more dangerous than the entire previous squad combined.
That assessment proved correct within seconds. Benjamin's speed didn't match a speedster's, but his momentum was terrifying. In two or three strides, he had closed the distance, and his right fist—gleaming with a cold metallic luster—shot toward Richard's head like a fired cannonball.
One look at that punch told Richard everything. If it connected cleanly, his skull would feel like it had detonated from the inside.
Even so, he didn't Flash away.
Instead, he stepped in.
Attack met attack. Fist met fist.
Richard didn't possess a steel body, but his enhanced physique and amplified strength were far beyond human limits. He swung his own right fist without hesitation.
The collision sounded like a war drum being struck in the middle of a battlefield.
Bang!
The impact released a visible shockwave that rippled outward in a circular blast. Nearby guards were blown off their feet as if struck by a sudden hurricane. The glass doors and surrounding windows shattered simultaneously, unable to withstand the combined pressure of sound and air. Shards sprayed through the square like metallic rain.
Both men felt it.
What terrifying power.
Neither had expected the other to match them blow for blow. But what unsettled Benjamin most wasn't the strength—it was the implication.
He finally understood why Inessa and Aiden had failed.
The Intelligence Department had already conducted postmortem examinations. Not all agents had been killed by blade wounds. Some had died from lightning. Others from freezing. There were clear signs of multiple ability signatures.
So far, they had confirmed six powers.
Summoning a sword. Flashing. Rebounding force. Lightning. Freezing. Super strength.
Ability count didn't automatically equal combat dominance, but a mutant wielding that many talents was never going to be mediocre.
Benjamin's rage cooled into calculation.
He adjusted his footing and settled into a textbook boxing stance. Guard up. Shoulders tight. Weight balanced.
Before joining the Mutant Affairs Department, Benjamin had been a professional boxer. He had never earned a championship belt, but he had been respected in the ring. Then came the night everything changed.
He had been losing badly. The crowd restless. The commentators already writing his defeat.
And then his ability awakened.
"Steel Body."
Under the live broadcast lights, in front of thousands in the arena and millions watching from home, he threw an uppercut infused with power no normal human could withstand. His opponent's skull had collapsed on impact. The blood had sprayed across the mat in a grotesque arc.
The audience had been horrified.
Benjamin had been terrified.
He was convicted of first-degree intentional homicide and first-degree reckless homicide and sentenced to one hundred and twenty years in prison. But he never served more than a month. The Mutant Affairs Department extracted him from a specialized mutant prison, trained him for three months, and reshaped him from a convicted killer into the head of operations.
Now, he stepped forward again.
Richard had no intention of trading technical punches with a trained boxer. As Benjamin advanced, Richard's left hand moved in a blur.
The blade materialized and swung.
Earth-Shaker.
Four arcs of lightning-laced cuts erupted outward in a cross pattern, fast and dazzling. The slashes tore through the air with lethal precision, interrupting Benjamin's forward momentum and raking across his body in rapid succession.
Chi—chi—chi—chi!
Four long wounds opened across Benjamin's torso.
Richard's pupils tightened.
What?
Benjamin hadn't been diced apart like Inessa and Aiden. He wasn't even staggering.
Without hesitation, Richard activated Flash and vanished, reappearing over twenty meters away.
He had known Benjamin would be stronger. He hadn't expected this level of durability.
Earth-Shaker had been upgraded to Level 2. Its destructive output had increased significantly, just like Eight Blades Flash before it. Against ordinary mutants—even high-tier ones—it was decisive.
Even if Benjamin's body truly possessed steel-like density, Richard had expected full dismemberment.
Instead, the cuts were several dozen centimeters long and barely one or two centimeters deep.
The defense had been breached—but not fatally.
Benjamin glanced down at the wounds, then back up at Richard.
For the first time since awakening his power, he had been injured.
His ability wasn't about brute force alone. It was about defense—skin harder than alloy, bones reinforced beyond industrial-grade metal. He had walked through gunfire before. Blades had shattered against him.
Yet this sword had cut him.
The air between them thickened.
Then the ground trembled.
It began as a subtle vibration beneath their feet, then intensified into a rolling shudder. Concrete cracked. Dust lifted from the pavement in thin streams.
In the center of the square, a circular platform split open. Mechanical components rotated and retracted, revealing a descending passage that led directly to the third underground level.
Heavy machinery hummed from below.
Seconds later, three massive figures rose from the darkness.
Each stood nearly four meters tall. Their bodies were matte black, layered with armor plates that resembled overlapping scales. Yellow light pulsed from their chests and burned from their eye slits. Their movements were synchronized and unnervingly precise.
Richard's eyes narrowed.
Sentinel robots.
He had never seen them in person, but he recognized the design immediately.
In Days of Future Past, there had been two primary models. The 1973 prototype had been bulky, capable of flight, constructed from advanced polymers, and primarily armed with a mounted Gatling weapon. The future iteration had been far more terrifying—built using Mystique's genetic blueprint, capable of mimicking mutant abilities and coordinating as an intelligent combat network.
These weren't either of those.
The units before him were third-generation Sentinels—modern-era models developed for active mutant suppression.
They weren't prototypes.
They weren't the apocalyptic future versions either.
But they were purpose-built weapons.
Richard exhaled slowly, blade steady in his hand.
So this was the Mutant Affairs Department's trump card.
After seeing the three sentinel robots rise into position, Richard knew that tonight's battle would not end so easily.
.....
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