Chapter 376 - 266: Bargaining Chip
While Paige Summers was busy negotiating with the Mercer Family, Marcus Monroe wasn’t idle either.
The standoff between Jean Shields, Commander Chandler, and the Dudley Family was about to reach its breaking point. He felt it was time to make a move.
Because Jean Shields was still prejudiced against Black S, Marcus chose to approach Commander Chandler, with whom he’d had previous contact and was more familiar.
There was no need for too many words. He simply placed a file in front of the commander.
It was a list of Superpower Users who had gone missing from the Power User Federation over the years.
It contained not just their names, but also their superpower types and ranks. It even included an analysis of their standing among all Superpower Users.
The moment Commander Chandler saw the file, he realized an immense amount of effort must have gone into compiling it and couldn’t help but glance at Marcus Monroe. But once he finished reading its contents, he no longer had the mind to ponder Marcus’s motives. Instead, a deep sense of worry washed over him.
The list only recorded the Superpower Users who had disappeared in the last two years, but the number was already a staggering two hundred. The rate of disappearances had clearly increased dramatically. Fifty people went missing in the first year, and that number jumped to over one hundred and fifty in the second. Most of them were Seventh-rank Superpower Users—ones who had just Promoted!
His heart clenched as he saw the numbers.
To be honest, he couldn’t say he knew everything about this matter, but he had a general idea.
Although he thoroughly despised such actions, he had always felt that sacrificing a few low-level Superpower Users in exchange for one Tenth Rank Superpower User was worth it.
But now that he knew the true number and variety of Superpower Users they had lost, he was filled with regret.
His thoughts now mirrored what Paige Summers had concluded earlier.
No matter how powerful that person was, he was still just one individual. But Astoria had lost so many Superpower Users with diverse abilities. The fact that they could Promote to such a level was proof of their potential, and now, Astoria had lost them forever!
And that bastard who feasted on their hot blood... even at the Tenth Rank, he couldn’t escape the fact that he was old and decrepit. No one could even be sure if that old coot would still be alive the next time Central City needed defending!
Commander Chandler rubbed the bridge of his nose and sighed, putting down the file.
"Perhaps... we were all wrong..."
’On one side, a setting sun about to dip below the horizon. On the other, a rising sun ready to burst with light. How could we have been so shortsighted as to bet everything on the former?!’
Marcus Monroe shrugged. ’What other reason could there be? Selfishness, plain and simple. These people’s ability to only look out for themselves is second to none.’
"It’s not too late, not before more people are ’disappeared’," he said slowly. "With so many people missing, some of the lower ranks have already noticed something is wrong. If you continue to remain silent, a conflict will erupt sooner or later. When that day comes, you’ll definitely be one of the top three people who will suffer the most!"
Commander Chandler fell silent.
He understood that all too well.
Whenever that side made a mess, it was always The Government that had to clean it up. And who did The Government rely on? The officials? Don’t be ridiculous. It was soldiers like them!
But if it really came to it, if he had to order his men to suppress those innocent people, he wouldn’t be able to live with himself!
He had been a soldier for half his life, after all.
He had worked his way up step by step since before the apocalypse.
To truly stand on the opposite side of the very people he was supposed to protect... his conscience wouldn’t allow it!
It wasn’t that he hadn’t considered these things.
But he had been holding onto a sliver of wishful thinking.
Now, Marcus’s blunt words had pierced that bubble, and he realized that if this continued, everything... might truly become irreversible!
But... "Do you have any idea what a Tenth Rank Superpower User represents?"
Marcus Monroe raised an eyebrow and the corner of his mouth curled up. He slowly rose from the sofa and looked down at Commander Chandler behind the desk, suddenly unleashing his formidable presence!
Commander Chandler’s face instantly turned deathly pale. Large beads of sweat rolled down his forehead, but he couldn’t even lift a hand to wipe them away. In just a few seconds, his breathing became incredibly difficult, as if a mountain were crushing his chest. It felt like if he took another breath, his heart would be pulverized in the next moment.
He could already taste the coppery tang of blood in his mouth...
’Is this kid actually trying to kill me?!’
But in the very next second, the pressure on his body vanished abruptly...
His fingertips twitched a few times before he finally managed to lift his hand and wipe away the sweat blurring his vision. His hand was soaked. He let out a heavy breath and roughly wiped his hand on his pants.
He looked up, but before he could lash out, Marcus had quickly popped a medicine pill into his mouth.
It dissolved the moment it touched his tongue, filling his mouth with a fragrant aroma.
Most importantly, within a minute, he found that he had completely returned to normal. His breathing was smooth, his body felt comfortable, and even the weariness from handling complicated affairs for so long had vanished!
The feeling was like seeing the sky fill with dark clouds, the day suddenly turning black. You think a storm is coming, so you go through great trouble to cover all your exposed supplies with a tarp. But the next moment, in the blink of an eye, the sky clears, without a single cloud in sight...
It was a good thing, but it still made him want to curse someone out!
He held it in for a long time before finally saying, "You little punk, you’ve actually Promoted to the Tenth Rank!"
Marcus Monroe tilted his head back and smiled, but wagged his finger. "No, I’m only Ninth Rank."
Commander Chandler was completely and utterly stunned.
To train himself, he had once asked his older brother—a true Tenth Rank Superpower User—to do the same thing and release his maximum pressure. Even then, he hadn’t felt an oppression as intense as what he’d just experienced. He’d chalked it up to the age difference, as younger people were always more aggressive, which was why he didn’t rashly assume Marcus was at the Eleventh Rank. But this kid... was only Ninth Rank?!
This was completely illogical!
Marcus sat back down on the sofa, propped his legs up on the coffee table, and asked, "Is this bargaining chip good enough?"
Commander Chandler’s expression shifted several times before he finally slapped his hand on the desk. "You little rascal! Looks like we’ll be working together again!"
Marcus replied with a smile, "That’s right!"
He narrowed his eyes slightly.
’In truth, with my current strength, it wouldn’t be impossible for me to create an opportunity to meet Old Devil Doyle and then kill him. The only reason I’m plotting all of this is for the sake of Paige’s grand plan.’
’What she and I want isn’t just a single life. It’s also about making those who deserve it pay the price. And the skies over Central City... it’s about time they changed...’
「After another two days of preparation, Marcus Monroe and Paige Summers gathered at their residence in District Four that night.」
According to the plan, the operation would begin tomorrow.
But Paige wasn’t particularly excited. Instead, she felt a faint, indescribable emotion.
Over the past month or so, she had met many people, made many arrangements, and secured several agreements. She had never understood human nature as clearly and thoroughly as she did now.
But the clearer she saw, the more disheartened she felt.
In this whole plan, they had exploited the weaknesses of so many people to engineer their deaths.
Of course, every single one of them deserved to die.
Take that ordinary soldier under Commander Chandler from the very beginning. On the surface, he didn’t seem to have any major faults; he was just killed for protecting his girlfriend. But who knew that he had once used his brother’s influence in The Power Corps to rape and brutally murder two ordinary girls? And when his brother found out, not only did he cover it up, but he also secretly eliminated the girls’ entire families!
Or take the people from the Walsh Family. On the surface, they were all elites of their family, but in reality?
This group was best at hunting not Mutant Beasts, but humans!
In the span of just two months, they had ambushed and wiped out three Hunting Parties, simply because those parties had better luck and found more High-level Crystal Cores!
Paige certainly felt they deserved to die.
But when she learned the real reasons why they deserved it, she wasn’t happy at all.
Although she was just a minor figure without grand ambitions to save the world, she understood perfectly well that the more people like them there were, the further away the end of the apocalypse would be.
And she longed so desperately for an end to these days, for an ordinary, peaceful life.
Letting out a long sigh, she stored the items prepared on the table one by one into her space.
Marcus Monroe sat on the edge of the bed, watching her.
Seeing her desolate expression, which he found jarring, he couldn’t help but pull her down to sit beside him.
He didn’t ask why. Instead, he reached out, touched her face, and looked her over. "You’ve lost weight. So ugly!"
Paige snapped out of her thoughts, rolled her eyes, and slapped his hand away. A phrase women often said in her past life suddenly came to mind. "I want to be as skinny as a bolt of lightning. Can’t I?"
Marcus scoffed. "Of course not! If you get that skinny, I might as well cuddle a skeleton to sleep!" As he spoke, he shamelessly placed his hand on her chest and even gave it a couple of squeezes. "They’re definitely smaller!"
Flustered and angry, Paige grabbed his wrist. "You pervert!"
But Marcus’s other hand had, at some point, already begun to snake down from the small of her back toward the cleft of her buttocks. As his hand roamed, he murmured in her ear, "I can be even more of a pervert..."
Paige started to panic. "Hey, hey! Tomorrow we still have..."
The rest of her sentence was cut short as the man’s mouth covered hers.
His nimble tongue twisted and sucked repeatedly, as if trying to draw out all her distracting thoughts. Gradually, Paige’s mind went blank, and she sank into the sensory pleasure.
The current Marcus always took what he wanted, and in this regard, she was completely helpless against him.
’Or maybe, I’m willing, too.’
After their time apart, after hearing what he said to Black S, and after seeing his support for all her actions—he was even preparing for all this with a destructive urge that was more zealous than her own... she felt like she was slowly getting to know and understand this side of him.
...
The night deepened. On the bed, the entangled pair finally grew quiet.
Paige was so exhausted that she fell asleep almost the instant she rolled over. But Marcus lay in the darkness with his eyes open, gazing unblinkingly at the woman in his arms. He roughly wiped the sweat from her temple and let out a soft, almost inaudible "Tsk."
’This woman is always overthinking things!’
’Looks like my method really is the best way to make her sleep soundly!’