Multiverse: Deathstroke

Chapter 259: Ch.258 One-Man Army

Chapter 259: Ch.258 One-Man Army

Once Su Ming had settled on a plan, he never wasted time in its execution. Wielding two massive swords—one black and one yellow—empowered by the symbiote, he charged out of the alley with terrifying speed.

Halloway exchanged a helpless glance with Monarch, but before he could say anything, the Cloak of Levitation grabbed him like pulling a turnip from the ground and whisked him away.

Monarch, watching the doctor struggle as he soared skyward, fought hard to suppress his laughter. Then, with a quick incantation, he lifted off the ground, becoming translucent as he floated toward the battlefield.

As Su Ming dashed forward, feeling the wind roar past his ears, he assessed the mass of enemy forces ahead. His black-and-yellow armor gleamed in the setting sun, a single crimson eye on his mask leaving a trail of red behind him.

"Enemies are limited to the street's width—about 500 soldiers directly in front of me. The rest are either at other intersections or behind me. There are dozens of tanks and robots, but none of their cannons are aimed at me yet, so there's still time. As for the airships above, there are about ten of them, each armed with 406mm coastal defense cannons. Which genius decided to mount those on a massive airship?"

While his mind calculated the situation, his hands and feet were anything but idle. Leaping from the street, he landed right in the middle of the enemy formation. His swords whirled, and in an instant, blood splattered in all directions.

With a single spin, dozens of soldiers were cleaved in half before they even realized what was happening. Su Ming saw one soldier clutching at his spilled intestines, trying in vain to shove them back into his body, but it was futile. Their lives were already ticking away.

The symbiote surged from his back, extending dozens of thin tendrils that quickly snatched up the fallen weapons from the ground.

The symbiote didn't differentiate between weapon types—it grabbed anything that looked remotely like a gun. In moments, Su Ming was transformed into a bristling porcupine of firearms, with the tendrils waving and firing in every direction.

There were assault rifles, submachine guns, energy weapons, and even witch-hunting crossbows. Anything that could be fired was aimed at the surrounding enemy soldiers, and soon the street erupted in a storm of gunfire. The German troops stumbled and swayed like leaves in a hurricane before collapsing onto the ground.

Under the cover of the symbiote's barrage, Su Ming slashed left and right with his massive sword, demolishing several tanks in quick succession. Soon, he came face-to-face with one of the giant robots he had seen earlier.

In the cramped, blood-soaked streets, the five-meter-tall robot loomed over Su Ming, its mechanical legs covered in cables, and its cruciform-shaped feet stomping toward him. Above the cockpit, a chainsaw revved to life, drowning out even the roar of its engine.

Where does Hydra find these crazy engineers? Su Ming wondered. This thing actually got built and deployed in battle, and judging by the cockpit's many red star markings, it was a veteran war machine, likely pulled from the Eastern Front.

Their strategy seemed to involve using the robot as a new type of tank—charging at enemies before shredding them with its weapons or chainsaw.

That might work against other tanks, but how could it possibly hit a target as small as Su Ming?

As the robot charged, Su Ming met it head-on. When it raised its massive leg to stomp him, his sword swung through the air, severing the limb cleanly, sending the towering machine crashing to the ground in a cloud of dust and sparks.

One of its legs, still sparking with electricity, stood upright, while the rest of the massive war machine lay in a heap, kicking up debris.

"Legs are just for show anyway," Su Ming quipped, "bureaucrats would never understand that."

He moved quickly, bending down to grab the cockpit of the fallen machine. With a powerful heave from his waist, he lifted the entire thing over his head.

If it weren't for the ominous black tendrils on his back, he might have looked a bit like Wonder Woman lifting a tank during World War I.

Against the backdrop of the setting sun, standing on a burning street littered with corpses, Su Ming raising an enemy war machine high above his head could have been a heroic image—a goddess of war, if not for the eerie vibe he exuded.

But on Su Ming, the sight was more akin to a nightmare—a vengeful specter risen from the depths, his armor drenched in the blood and viscera of his enemies.

He shook the machine to ensure the pilots inside were knocked out and unable to resist, then hurled it toward the densest concentration of enemy soldiers.

A massive explosion followed, bathing the area in a brilliant blue light, likely powered by a cosmic cube energy source. The enemies caught in the blast were vaporized into ash, and the ground itself was gouged into a smooth, circular crater, as though a giant metal ball had been embedded there.

Retrieving his sword from the symbiote tendrils, Su Ming continued his advance. Anyone in his path met the same fate.

As he hacked his way through the enemy, he couldn't help but admire some of their technology.

Those six-legged cyber-dogs, for instance, could scale walls like spiders and launch sneak attacks from unexpected angles. The half-mechanical soldiers were also impressive, only slightly weaker than Captain America after receiving the SSS serum.

In the Marvel universe, Captain America and Galactus were often used as units of measurement. When evaluating the strength of a being, if they weren't cosmic-level, you used Steve Rogers as the baseline. If they were cosmic-level, you used Galactus.

For example, the Winter Soldier had strength equivalent to one Captain America, as did Falcon.

That's why, after Steve stepped down for various reasons, both of them were considered plausible replacements for Captain America, and the government didn't think anyone would notice the difference.

These half-mechanical soldiers were about 0.8 Captain Americas. Unfortunately, that still wasn't enough against Su Ming. Their bodies weren't durable enough, and their combat skills were even worse.

With one stab, Su Ming impaled a soldier, watching sparks fly from the man's circuits. He followed up by grabbing another enemy, letting the symbiote shoot him in the head.

Before long, Su Ming had carved a bloody path through the enemy ranks and met up with his own forces. After vaulting over a few barricades, he found himself standing next to Cable.

Cable and the others had spotted Su Ming long before he arrived. When the chaos erupted behind the enemy lines and dismembered limbs began flying through the air, Cable had immediately assumed that reinforcements had arrived.

And when he saw the black-and-yellow uniformed figure lifting a tank like Wonder Woman in a parody, he naturally recognized who it was.

"I'd heard Wade say his cousin, Deathstroke, could take on an army by himself, but I didn't expect it to look like that," Cable muttered. He sat behind cover, a cigar clenched in his teeth. He clapped Su Ming on the shoulder, but his expression turned sour as he wiped his hand off on his own clothes. "That's not just blood—it's... more like meat paste."

The crossroads where the battle raged had four connecting streets. Su Ming had already cleared one path, but enemies continued to pour in from the other three, and reinforcements were arriving from all directions.

The path Su Ming had just cleared wouldn't stay that way for long.

Paris likely had more than 200,000 troops stationed within the city, not to mention the other soldiers on leave. There was only one choice for the group—strategic withdrawal.

"BOOM!!!"

A deafening explosion shook the air above them as a massive fireball erupted overhead. An airship had fired a high-explosive shell, but Monarch's magic had stopped it mid-air.

The explosion rippled like waves in the air, with flames and smoke spreading like crashing surf. Monarch, his face stern, quickly cast another spell to reinforce the barrier, then tossed a transference spell to redirect the cost of the magic onto the nearby German soldiers.

"Su Ming, I can't hold this much longer!" Monarch called out.

Su Ming turned his gaze to Halloway's position. As soon as the doctor completed his task, they could all make their escape.