Multiverse: Deathstroke

Chapter 275: Ch.274 A Trap

Chapter 275: Ch.274 A Trap

Empty, empty, and more empty—the series of cabins Su Ming passed through were all deserted.

He could even see the dust floating in the air, illuminated by the lights of Paris below through the portholes.

Su Ming quickly came to a conclusion: the enemy had only recently figured out his plan and hadn't had time to prepare a proper "welcome" for him.

This airship seemed to have launched hastily in the midst of the chaos, merely as a decoy to lure him away.

However, now that he was here, the "reception" he'd encountered so far was clearly underwhelming. He expected that something more significant—a creature the enemy considered a surprise—was waiting ahead.

With this in mind, Su Ming pushed open the next door, moving steadily despite his thoughts.

Sure enough, just as he opened the door, a massive fist shot out from behind it with terrifying speed, slamming into his chest armor and sending him flying backward.

The cloak and the symbiote immediately helped him slow down, but the blow was powerful enough to hurl him through the previous cabins, nearly knocking him out of the airship entirely.

The symbiote dug deep trenches into the floor as it dragged Su Ming along.

Cough, cough.

The enemy was not only strong but incredibly fast. Su Ming had caught only a glimpse of a shadow before being hit, but it had been too quick for him to dodge.

For someone fast enough to escape his sight, Su Ming already had a guess.

It had to be a speedster—one not like the Flash, who draws power from the Speed Force, but rather a mutant whose X-gene granted them extraordinary speed.

Such speed would also give the host immense impact force.

However, the laws of physics still applied. If the enemy had punched his Saint Icon armor, they surely weren't feeling great either, right?

Unfortunately, the truth was different. A bizarre creature stood where Su Ming had been struck, resembling a skinless monkey. Its fists were grotesquely mutated, like two oversized pillars dragging along the ground.

Each fist was thicker than its waist, and if they were solid, they'd likely weigh over a hundred kilograms. The creature's fists were entirely covered in inorganic material, or perhaps exoskeleton, making them look like giant war hammers.

There was no humanity left in its eyes, only raw animalistic fury. This creature might have once been human, but genetic experiments had long since driven it mad.

As everyone knows, madmen feel no pain. If you beat a lunatic, they'll only laugh maniacally.

"Gaaah!!!"

The creature let out a shriek and vanished from Su Ming's sight, its shadow disappearing into the chaos of the cabin.

"Here it comes."

In the next instant, Su Ming was hit again, sent hurtling out of the airship. The cloak caught him, stopping him in mid-air after a hundred or so meters.

He touched his chest. The impact hadn't seriously injured him—his armor and X-metal skeleton had provided solid protection.

But if this continued, it would be an endless cycle of being knocked around like a pinball—charge in, get hit, charge in again, and get hit again.

Su Ming wasn't Aquaman, who enjoyed absorbing damage.

"I need to figure out a strategy... Hmph, it'd be nice if Barry were here," Su Ming thought as he dashed back toward the airship, formulating a plan.

Just as wizards are best countered by other wizards, speedsters should ideally be handled by another speedster.

But since he didn't have that luxury, Su Ming would have to improvise.

Perhaps other speedsters didn't have this weakness, but this particular monster did. It lacked intelligence and was very short in stature. Its two attacks had exposed its flaws.

If it could reach Su Ming's head, why had it punched his chest both times? Even a mindless monster should know that the chest is the most armored part of his body.

If the creature had wanted to rip out his guts, it could have aimed for his abdomen, where the armor was softer.

This meant the creature had likely tried to strike his head or neck but couldn't reach that high.

The monster's immense destructive power came from its speed, not its physical strength. It couldn't even lift its own fists without using momentum, like a yo-yo.

Its short height and lack of strength to jump with its massive fists gave Su Ming an opportunity.

The cloak brought Su Ming back through the hole in the cabin, sticking him to the ceiling like a spider. The cabin was five meters tall, far out of the creature's reach.

The speedster's shadow zipped back and forth below, trying to jump up, but its oversized fists had become a hindrance.

It even tried running along the walls, but unlike Quicksilver, it wasn't fast enough, and gravity kept pulling it back down to the floor.

After watching the creature flail around for a while, Su Ming calmly pulled out a flashbang from his chest and detonated it in his hand.

The entire cabin was illuminated in an instant, visible even to the citizens below in Paris.

No matter how fast a monster is, it's still a monster, not a human with brains. The creature was blinded by the flash and, when its vision returned, it saw Su Ming staring down at it, his head tilted, his single red eye glowing ominously.

"Can you fly?"

The monster didn't understand human speech, but it noticed that its arm, which had lost all sensation, was wrapped in a large piece of red cloth.

Before it could react, the Magic Floating Cloak yanked the creature out of the window, flinging it into the air.

The beast flailed its limbs, but its figure grew smaller and smaller as it plummeted, eventually crashing into the ground with a sickening splat, leaving a crater filled with bloody pulp.

The symbiote peeled Su Ming off the ceiling, using its black tendrils to slowly lower him to the ground.

The cloak, now free of its burden, gave a triumphant little flap before returning to Su Ming's shoulder, its corner lifting slightly as if expecting praise.

"Not bad, way more reliable than Wade," Su Ming complimented, before the cloak could get too smug, continuing his journey through the series of destroyed cabins.

The monster's cabin had looked like a laboratory, but all the equipment was covered in thick layers of dust. It had been unused for a long time.

Su Ming's red visor scanned the surroundings. The white lab was pristine, without any recent signs of human activity.

Suddenly, the lights went out, and a piece of equipment on a nearby table activated. It projected an image onto the wall, like a hologram.

The figure on the wall was wearing a Hydra uniform, though their face was obscured by a velvet mask, with a golden headband holding it in place—like a bandit from an old story.

The man stared at Su Ming, his blue eyes betraying an unreadable emotion. There were probably surveillance cameras in the room watching him.

"A super-soldier, not just powerful but clever too," the man said, leaning closer to the camera as if trying to peer through the projection.

"Oh? I see it's Baron Zemo of Hydra. I was wondering who was behind this little game."

"Oh? You've recognized me? It seems your intelligence network is also quite impressive..."

Before Zemo could finish his sentence, Su Ming raised his pistol and shot the projector and the surveillance camera in the corner. Sparks flew from the broken devices, and the image on the wall flickered and disappeared.

Su Ming didn't need to engage in small talk with the enemy. Knowing who his opponent was was enough.

"So, you want to play hide and seek with Namor's fragments? Fine, I'll track you down, extract what I need, and hang you from a tree."

He knew what Zemo's next moves would be, so as he thought this over, Su Ming sprinted back the way he had come.

The main door in front of him sealed shut, but with a swing of his Godslayer sword, Su Ming sliced it in half.

With a swift kick, he sent the broken pieces of the door flying and dove out of the airship's porthole.

Sure enough, the airship exploded the moment he leaped out.

The large, gas-filled balloon and the bombs Zemo had placed caused a massive fireball, turning the sky a brilliant red. The burning airship disintegrated, its remains plummeting toward the ground.

Su Ming floated nearby, calmly watching it fall before turning away to prepare for the next battle.