Whoosh!
The sound wasn't just a noise; it was a displacement of reality. In the mere blink of an eye, a heartbeat too fast for the human retina to register, Leon was upon the Black King. The air screamed as it was shoved aside by his frame, his fist a guided missile aimed directly at the center of the tyrant's chest.
But unlike the satisfying impact that had crushed Azazel moments before, nothing occurred this time.
Leon's fist froze mid-air, inches from the Black King's velvet suit. It looked as though he had punched a wall of solid diamond, or perhaps collided with the very fabric of space-time itself. An invisible force—a shimmering, translucent barrier of unknown energy—rippled outward from the point of "contact."
Whoosh! Whoosh!
Leon didn't hesitate. He didn't pull back in confusion. Instead, he doubled down. He twisted his hips, pivoting with the grace of a celestial dancer, and unleashed two more strikes. These weren't mere punches; they were sonic booms given physical form. The cracks of his fists breaking the sound barrier echoed through the facility like cannon fire, shattering the glass windows in the upper observation decks.
Yet, those too stopped dead. The kinetic energy, enough to level a small building, simply... vanished.
There wasn't even a scratch on the Black King's polished buttons...
But—
[Ding! Analysis Initialized... Analyzing Kinetic Displacement...]
[Adapting... 2%... 5%... 9%]
Leon's lips curled into a predatory smirk. The cold, blue light of the System interface flickered in the corner of his vision, a digital ghost only he could see. It was working. The "Black King" wasn't invincible; he was just a complex puzzle that needed solving.
"What the hell is happening?" one of the younger mutants whispered, his voice trembling.
"Why didn't Leon's punch do anything? He looked like he was going to turn him into paste!"
The surrounding mutants were utterly dumbfounded. To them, Leon was a god-like entity of raw physical power. If a strike carrying tens of tons of force—enough to warp steel girders like wet noodles—couldn't even make the man flinch, then what chance did a bullet or a blade stand? It felt as if they were watching a child throw pebbles at a mountain.
Of course, only Leon understood the physics of the nightmare he was facing.
Sebastian Shaw—the Black King—was a living battery. He didn't just block attacks; he devoured them. He had instantly absorbed every joule of kinetic energy from Leon's strikes, stripping the velocity down to zero in a fraction of a millisecond. The force hadn't been deflected; it had been eaten.
"No wonder he's called the Black King," Leon muttered inwardly. There was a spark of reluctant admiration in his chest. In a world of extraordinary people, Shaw's power was a literal "cheat code."
[Adapting... 16%... 32%... 48%]
The System's progress bar was accelerating. Leon could feel his own muscle fibers beginning to vibrate at a frequency that matched Shaw's absorption field. It was a terrifying power—a total defense that rendered all forms of conventional attack, whether physical or energy-based, utterly useless.
"It's pointless, boy. Stop wasting your energy," Shaw said.
The Black King showed no sign of irritation. He didn't even take a defensive stance. He simply crossed his arms over his chest and smiled lazily, his eyes tracking Leon with the mild amusement of a scientist watching a lab rat run through a maze it could never escape.
To Shaw, Leon's flurry of strikes was no more than a pleasant tickle, a slight buzzing of air. However, deep down, he was quietly impressed. He could feel the sheer magnitude of the power being fed into him. Each of Leon's punches was a feast of energy, more potent than a dozen grenades.
Leon acted as if he hadn't heard a word. The silence of his focus was more intimidating than any battle cry.
Suddenly, Leon vanished.
He didn't just move fast; he became a blur of afterimages. He reappeared on Shaw's left flank, then his right, then above him. He unleashed a literal rain of violence—dozens of punches and kicks delivered in a span of three seconds.
Over a ton of force pressed down on Shaw from every conceivable angle. Each strike broke the sound barrier with a rhythmic crack-crack-crack that sounded like a heavy machine gun. The ground beneath their feet began to groan and buckle. Cracks spider-webbed through the reinforced concrete, and a localized shockwave kicked up a storm of dust and debris that obscured the two fighters from view.
The rumbling was thunderous, a terrifying vibration that rattled the teeth of everyone watching.
What stunned Raven and the others even more wasn't the power, but Leon's stamina. He had thrown hundreds of punches, each one at maximum output, and he wasn't even breaking a sweat. His heart rate remained steady, his breathing rhythmic. To him, this wasn't a desperate struggle—it was a calibration exercise.
"Leon, are you kidding me right now?" Havok shouted over the roar of the wind. "How can he keep that up?"
"What a monster…" Raven whispered. She swallowed nervously, her golden eyes fixed on the epicenter of the storm. Even though she was on Leon's side, the sheer scale of his evolution was frightening.
"Wow… that's some truly terrifying strength," Shaw remarked, his voice elevated to be heard over the sonic booms. For the first time, a flicker of genuine admiration—and perhaps a shadow of concern—crossed his face.
The more Shaw looked at Leon, the more he saw a kindred spirit. This wasn't just a mutant; this was a pinnacle of evolution. Shaw remained perfectly still, a calm center in a hurricane of fists. He was waiting for the inevitable—waiting for Leon to exhaust himself so he could strike back with the very energy Leon had provided him.
It was a flashy display, a visual spectacle of power, but Shaw knew the rules of his own game. You can't break what absorbs the break.
Until you can.
BOOM!
The sound was different this time. It wasn't the sharp crack of a sonic boom; it was the heavy, wet thud of meat hitting meat.
Shaw's body, which had been an immovable statue for the entire fight, suddenly jerked backward. His heels dug into the concrete, carving two deep trenches as he was forced back two full steps.
[Ding! Adapting 95%... (Partial Phase-Shift Bypass Detected)]
Shaw's eyes widened. For a split second, the "void" of his absorption had failed. It was as if Leon's fist had tuned itself to a frequency that his body couldn't recognize as energy. A small, dull ache bloomed in his chest—a sensation he hadn't felt in years.
Did he just... bypass my kinetic absorption? Shaw thought, his mind racing to find a logical explanation. Impossible. It's a fundamental law of my physiology!
Leon smirked. The look in his eyes was no longer that of a trainee; it was the look of a predator who had finally found the jugular.
[Ding! Adaptation Complete: Full Bypass of Kinetic Absorption Matrix Engaged.]
"My turn," Leon whispered.
He raised his right fist. He wasn't throwing a flurry anymore. He pulled his arm back slowly, and as he did, the air around his hand began to distort. The sheer pressure of his "Full Power" created a vacuum, drawing in the dust and smoke.
For the first time that day, Sebastian Shaw felt something he had long forgotten: Dread.
The energy radiating from Leon's fist wasn't just kinetic. It felt... fundamental. Absolute. Knowing he couldn't simply "eat" this strike, Shaw roared, unleashing every ounce of the energy he had stored from Leon's previous hundreds of punches. He funneled it all into his own fist, his arm glowing with a dull, angry light.
They launched their strikes at the exact same moment.
The collision was like a miniature supernova.
A massive, white-hot shockwave exploded outward, vaporizing the dust and throwing everyone in the room off their feet. The sound was so loud it transcended noise, becoming a physical weight that pressed against their lungs.
Leon was catapulted backward, soaring across the warehouse. His body slammed into the far wall with enough force to cave in the structural steel. His hand felt hot, the skin slightly scorched and the knuckles bruised—a testament to the incredible amount of energy Shaw had thrown back at him. Luckily, he had utilized his elementalization at the last millisecond, turning his physical form into a semi-corporeal state to dampen the impact against the building.
But the Black King... the Black King fared much worse.
When the dust settled, the scene was gruesome.
The collision had created a massive crater in the center of the hall, ten meters wide and three meters deep. The reinforced floor had been pulverized into fine sand.
Lying in the center of the crater was Sebastian Shaw. He wasn't smiling anymore. His expensive suit was in tatters, and his right arm—the one he had used to clash with Leon—was gone. It hadn't just been broken; it had been disintegrated into a fine blood mist under the sheer, unmitigated force of Leon's final punch.
Leon climbed out of the rubble of the wall, shaking his head to clear the ringing in his ears. In a flash of golden light, he vanished and reappeared directly above the crater. To the onlookers, it looked like teleportation. To Leon, it was just the speed of victory.
He looked down at the broken man in the pit. Shaw was gasping for air, his face pale, the shock of losing a limb finally overriding his legendary composure.
What should I do with him? Leon mused, his hand hovering near his side. I could end this right now. One more strike and the Hellfire Club loses its heart.
He thought of Charles Xavier. He thought of the dream of peace that the telepath held so dearly. If he killed Shaw now, would he be helping the future, or just becoming another monster for Charles to worry about?
Charles won't want him dead. He'll want him to face justice—or worse, he'll want to try and redeem him, Leon thought with a sigh. I'll give the Professor a face this time. Besides, a king without an arm isn't much of a king anymore.
"Leon! Are you okay?"
Raven, Havok, Banshee, and the rest of the young mutants scrambled toward the edge of the crater. They stopped several feet away, their eyes darting between the massive hole in the earth and the young man standing calmly above it.
They looked at Leon with a new kind of expression. It wasn't just friendship or even admiration anymore. It was awe—the kind of awe humans felt when looking at a natural disaster or a star.
Leon looked back at them, a small, tired smile playing on his lips. "I'm fine," he said, glancing back at the unconscious Shaw. "But I think we're going to need a bigger med-kit."
To be continued...
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