Seeing the white-haired boy emerge from the nuclear fire, the generals in the command center fell into a deathly, suffocating silence.
Their absolute worst, most apocalyptic nightmare had become reality. The White Demon had truly evolved to the point where he could casually shrug off a direct hit from a tactical nuclear warhead!
If a nuclear blast couldn't kill him, did humanity possess a single weapon on Earth capable of even scratching him?!
Suddenly, one of the generals snapped out of his shock. He turned furiously to Colonel Stryker.
"Colonel Stryker! Care to explain why the mutant inhibitor failed to suppress his powers?!"
The other generals instantly realized the glaring discrepancy.
Exactly. If the mutant inhibitor was truly active, then the White Demon—stripped of his god-like powers—should have been instantly vaporized by the millions of degrees of heat. He wouldn't have survived a single microsecond at ground zero.
The fact that his powers were fully operational meant the inhibitor had completely failed to do its job!
Every single general in the room turned their furious, questioning glares toward Stryker.
Sweating under the intense scrutiny, Stryker remained silent for a moment before forcing an explanation.
"The prototype inhibitor deployed on the helicopter operated on a high-frequency acoustic medium. If the White Demon managed to completely soundproof his immediate vicinity before the blast, the inhibitor's efficacy would have dropped to zero. I suspect that is exactly how he bypassed it.
"But rest assured, Generals," Stryker said, a desperate, fanatic light returning to his eyes. "We have a secondary contingency. Based on the telemetry data gathered during the helicopter incident, we manufactured an upgraded inhibitor. This device is specifically calibrated only for the White Demon's unique genetic frequency!
"This specialized model is dozens of times more potent than the acoustic prototype! Furthermore, its suppression medium is electromagnetic radiation, which is functionally impossible to block!
"However, because the effective range of the electromagnetic inhibitor is incredibly short, we couldn't deploy it prior to the nuclear strike. But I have already installed these customized inhibitors into every single unit of our new Sentinel robots!
"Not only do these Sentinels carry the anti-White-Demon inhibitors, but they have also been pre-programmed with a mutant ability that allows them to launch conceptual spatial attacks! I assure you, they will absolutely terminate the White Demon!"
Hearing Stryker's contingency plan, the generals' furious expressions softened into appreciative nods. They finally let out a collective sigh of relief, their confidence in eliminating the God of Mutants fully restored.
...
Stepping out of the nuclear epicenter, Su Mu let out a deeply satisfied burp.
Devouring the absolute totality of a tactical nuclear explosion's energy was almost too much even for his Level 4 Energy Absorption. He felt completely stuffed, his internal cursed energy reserves literally overflowing!
If he didn't possess the System interface to continuously convert the excess energy into Energy Points and dump them into his Template Synchronization, his physical vessel would have violently exploded from the sheer, incomprehensible volume of raw power.
Even so, he felt an intense, burning urge to vent. He needed to violently release the boiling energy coursing through his veins!
And right on cue, through the telescopic vision of the Six Eyes, Su Mu spotted several dozen bizarre, towering mechanical figures rapidly approaching his coordinates!
Ah, perfect. A place to vent.
The moment the robots appeared on the horizon, Su Mu instantly recognized them. They were Sentinels—the apocalyptic mechanical hounds specifically designed to hunt and exterminate the mutant race.
In the cinematic lore, fully realized Sentinels could instantaneously detect any X-Gene ability and dynamically restructure their own molecular composition to mimic or perfectly counter it!
However, given the current timeline, these Sentinels were definitely early prototypes. They were nowhere near their apocalyptic, shape-shifting final forms.
Su Mu deduced that they could probably only field two or three pre-programmed mutant abilities at a time. And given the military's desperation, one of those abilities was undoubtedly the localized spatial-severing attack that had managed to breach his Level 1 Limitless back in New York!
But... Su Mu thought, a deeply arrogant smile crossing his face. I wonder if those little spatial cuts can breach a Level 3 Limitless?
In the subterranean command center, the spy satellite fed the live footage directly to the main screen. The generals and Stryker watched with bated breath. If this secondary ambush failed, they would officially have absolutely zero countermeasures against the White Demon.
Suddenly, they noticed the White Demon moving on the screen. Instead of fleeing or trying to snipe the robots from a distance, he was walking straight toward the Sentinel squadron!
This aggressive maneuver filled the generals and Stryker with absolute, euphoric excitement.
Their biggest fear was that the White Demon would simply teleport away or use that apocalyptic purple singularity to erase the Sentinels from five miles out. Because both the specialized inhibitor and the spatial attacks had incredibly short effective ranges, a long-distance engagement would render the Sentinels completely useless!
As soon as the White Demon confidently strolled into the optimal effective radius, Stryker barked the order.
"Activate the anti-White-Demon inhibitors!"
In the desert, Su Mu heard a synchronized, high-frequency hum emanate from the approaching Sentinels. For a fraction of a microsecond, the cursed energy within his body stalled—before instantly recalibrating and flowing flawlessly again.
He immediately recognized the sensation as the upgraded mutant inhibitors. Unfortunately for the military, mutant inhibitors were fundamentally useless against cursed energy!
Smiling, Su Mu engaged Cursed Technique Lapse: Blue. Warping the spatial coordinates, he took a single step, instantly crossing hundreds of meters and materializing directly in front of the leading Sentinel.
He casually pressed his palm against the robot's featureless head.
A hyper-condensed black-red singularity detonated from his palm. The apocalyptic repulsive force of Red violently expanded forward! The Sentinel he was touching was instantly reduced to microscopic shrapnel. The catastrophic kinetic wave didn't stop, tearing through the desert and instantly obliterating over a dozen Sentinels lined up behind it!
Back in the command center, the room plunged into an absolute, suffocating silence once again.
Stryker stared blankly at the screen, his mind violently rejecting reality.
The White Demon had just effortlessly ignored the specialized inhibitor! And with a single, casual strike, he had wiped out a third of the incredibly expensive Sentinel prototypes!
For the very first time, a profound, icy dread gripped Stryker's heart. He actually began to doubt if it was even conceptually possible to hunt the White Demon.
Why did the inhibitor fail completely?! It was mathematically calibrated specifically against his unique genetic data! The engineers swore on their lives that it would suppress him for hours!
But he didn't even flinch! It had absolutely zero effect!
Overwhelmed by a suffocating sense of impending doom, Stryker desperately tried to reassure himself and the panicking generals.
"It's fine! It's fine! We still have the spatial attacks! He cannot defend against spatial attacks! The Sentinels will cut him to pieces!"
Following his frantic orders, the remaining Sentinels simultaneously engaged their spatial-severing weapons. A dense, inescapable net of invisible, localized spatial rifts screamed toward the White Demon, intent on slicing him into a thousand pieces!
Standing in the desert, facing the incoming barrage of spatial blades, Su Mu didn't show a single ounce of tension.
The attacks that had once genuinely threatened his life were now entirely incapable of touching him!
In the past, the velocity of the spatial blades was terrifyingly fast. But now, processed through the absolute dynamic acuity of the Level 3 Six Eyes, they appeared to be crawling through the air.
If he wanted to, Su Mu could have effortlessly dodged every single blade.
But he didn't.
After casually side-stepping the majority of the barrage, he deliberately positioned himself directly in the path of one of the spatial blades to test his defense!
The spatial rift—which had easily bypassed his Level 1 Limitless—violently collided with the fifty-centimeter absolute perimeter of his Level 3 Limitless.
Instantly, the terrifying velocity of the spatial blade decayed into a pathetic, agonizing crawl!
Faced with the astronomically upgraded spatial distortion of the Level 3 Limitless, the spatial blade was entirely incapable of breaching the defense.
Watching the spatial anomaly struggle hopelessly against his infinity, Su Mu smiled in satisfaction. It seems that once the Limitless reaches Level 4, it will be completely, passively immune to conceptual spatial attacks as well!
Experiment concluded, Su Mu casually raised his index finger, pointing it directly at the crawling spatial blade.
An azure black hole and a black-red singularity, both the size of a ping-pong ball, materialized and flawlessly merged at his fingertip.
Crackling with terrifying purple lightning, the sphere of imaginary mass was violently launched forward!
The miniature Hollow Technique: Purple instantaneously erased the spatial blade from existence. It continued its apocalyptic trajectory, effortlessly erasing every remaining Sentinel robot in its path until it completely vanished over the horizon!
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