Although countless questions flashed through his mind in his final moments, the Red Devil would never receive any answers.
His vision darkened.
Then everything went black.
Plop.
Rorschach casually loosened his grip and tossed the Red Devil's body aside like discarded trash. The corpse landed heavily on the ground.
"Rorschach actually… killed that monster?"
"No way… that can't be real, right?"
Mystique, Hank, Darwin, and the other mutants who had been watching anxiously from inside the building were completely stunned.
Just seconds earlier, Rorschach had been on the brink of being teleported thousands of feet into the air. The situation had looked hopeless.
And yet, in the next instant, he had reversed everything and snapped the Red Devil's neck.
The sudden reversal was so dramatic that no one could process it immediately.
"Azazel!"
Sebastian Shaw finally reacted.
The Black Emperor stared at the Red Devil's lifeless body, unable to suppress the surprised exclamation that escaped his mouth.
He was shocked.
Azazel had always been one of Shaw's most reliable subordinates. The Red Devil had completed countless difficult missions with ease and had never failed him before.
Yet he had just died during what should have been a simple operation.
And worse, he had been killed by a young mutant who looked barely out of his teens.
But alongside the surprise came something else.
Interest.
Shaw's gaze slowly returned to Rorschach, and a greedy light appeared in his eyes.
This young man possessed enormous potential.
Perhaps greater than any mutant Shaw had encountered before.
He had to recruit him.
If he could bring someone like Rorschach into his ranks, losing the Red Devil wouldn't matter nearly as much.
Poor Azazel.
If he had known that his master had already begun forgetting about him seconds after his death, he might have felt something resembling despair.
But this was Sebastian Shaw.
A ruthless man who cared about nothing except achieving his goals.
"You killed Azazel."
Riptide stared at Rorschach in disbelief.
Shock flashed across his face as he raised one hand, summoning a swirling cyclone in his palm.
Whoosh!
But before he could launch the attack—
Rorschach moved.
His arm flicked forward.
A dagger flew from his hand like a streak of lightning.
Where had the dagger come from?
It was something Rorschach had quietly prepared earlier when he briefly disappeared after Charles and Eric left.
Now it became lethal.
With more than ten tons of force behind the throw, the dagger shot through the air like a bullet.
Twenty meters.
The distance vanished in the blink of an eye.
Swish!
Riptide barely saw the flash of metal.
Before he could react, his body jerked violently as the dagger struck his chest.
Boom!
The impact threw him backward as if he had been hit by a speeding vehicle.
He crashed onto the ground heavily.
The dagger had pierced directly through his chest, punching straight through his right lung.
"You… you…"
Riptide managed to force out two broken syllables.
Then his head slumped to the side.
He stopped moving.
Silence fell across the courtyard.
Everyone stared at the corpse lying on the ground.
The entire scene felt surreal.
Moments earlier, this same mutant had casually summoned a tornado powerful enough to destroy the Cerebro prototype. A squad of trained CIA agents had been helpless against him.
Yet now he lay dead.
And the person who killed him was a teenager.
To Rorschach, however, the outcome wasn't surprising at all.
Many mutants shared the same weakness.
Their powers were devastating offensively but offered very little defense.
Magneto was a perfect example.
His abilities were terrifying. In the future, he would lift an entire stadium and hurl it like a weapon.
Yet even someone that powerful could still be stopped by an ordinary bullet.
Professor X had the same problem.
Without protection, a simple gun or even a knife could kill him. That was especially true before his paralysis forced him into a wheelchair.
Riptide was no different.
His tornadoes were incredibly destructive, but they weren't instantaneous. The attacks required a brief moment to form and travel.
And physically, Riptide himself wasn't particularly durable.
Given that weakness, there was no reason for Rorschach to fight him directly.
The smartest option was to eliminate him immediately.
Which was exactly what he had done.
After the initial shock passed, the mutants inside the building began reacting again.
"That was insane!"
"Rorschach is unbelievable!"
The atmosphere shifted dramatically.
Two of the three terrifying enemies had been eliminated in seconds.
The overwhelming crisis suddenly seemed far less hopeless.
Seeing Rorschach standing there calmly, everyone felt an indescribable sense of reassurance.
Their admiration for him grew instantly.
Compared with how they had panicked earlier, Rorschach's calm efficiency made the difference painfully obvious.
Clap. Clap. Clap.
Applause echoed across the courtyard.
Sebastian Shaw was clapping slowly as he walked forward.
His expression carried genuine admiration, as if the two corpses on the ground belonged to strangers rather than his own loyal subordinates.
"Magnificent," Shaw said with a smile.
He stopped a short distance away, still studying Rorschach.
"Do you understand what those two were capable of? Do you know how powerful they were? And yet you defeated them both without hesitation."
"You didn't even blink."
His voice carried unmistakable appreciation.
"Someone with talent like yours shouldn't be wasting it in a place like this."
Shaw extended his hand slightly.
"Come with me. A new era is approaching… and it will be our era."
It was a sincere invitation.
"You're right," Rorschach replied calmly. "A new era is coming."
Shaw's smile widened with satisfaction.
He liked this young man more and more.
But then Rorschach continued.
"However," he said, shaking his head slightly, "I'm certain the era you're talking about isn't the same one I'm thinking of."
"And the person who creates the new era won't be you."
Shaw raised an eyebrow and chuckled coldly.
"Not me?"
"Then who would it be?"
His eyes narrowed.
"Don't tell me… you think it will be you."
In truth, Rorschach had more reason than anyone else to believe that possibility.
With the Homelander template and his knowledge of future events, he possessed enormous potential to shape the world.
But Rorschach had no interest in debating philosophy with a villain.
As someone who understood the future, he knew one thing very clearly.
Arguing with villains was usually a waste of time.
.....
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