Chapter 217: The Sea King

Angel City is located on an island in the Pacific Ocean, connected to the Los Angeles metropolitan area by a three-kilometer-long sea bridge.

In an apartment building next to the bridge entrance, a Vanguard Company agent sipped his cheap instant coffee, sat back in the window-side chair, and raised his binoculars to continue monitoring vehicles on the bridge, chatting half-heartedly with his colleague about yesterday's football game.

As a junior employee, he had no idea what exactly was happening, only that his superiors were treating it with extreme seriousness and had sent many personnel from headquarters.

"I was right there yesterday—that Eagles quarterback got smashed so bad he nearly got paralyzed, gonna spend the rest of his life in a wheelchair."

He gesticulated excitedly describing the game footage, only realizing after a while that his colleague was frantically signaling him—he snapped his mouth shut and cautiously glanced sideways with the corner of his eye.

In the room's corner, the bald man who called himself Professor N sat in a wheelchair, dressed in a suit, eyes closed in deep concentration.

He had heard the two mortals' conversation, and the words "paralyzed," "wheelchair," and more.

But as the leader of mutants, Professor N was always magnanimous—how could he possibly be petty?

He had merely implanted mental suggestions into these two men's minds: that in ten days they would develop depression, mania, and dissociative identity disorder.

'Even a nigger has three drops of fire in him.'

Professor N silently thought, continuing to direct his psychic energy to scan and detect vehicles below.

Angel City sits on the sea; if the superhuman wished to bring Caroline and Angelica into Angel City, there were only four ways.

High-altitude parachute jump, aerial penetration, driving across the sea bridge, or crossing by boat.

On each route, one or more Vanguard Company squads lay in wait, ensuring absolute security during the final two hours before the deadline.

Buzzzz—

The employee drinking coffee suddenly felt his phone violently vibrating in his shirt pocket—he pulled it out, glanced at it, and his eyes went wide.

【EMERGENCY ALERT】

【A ballistic missile is approaching the Los Angeles metropolitan area from the Pacific Ocean. Seek shelter immediately. This is not a drill.】

Before the employee could set down his coffee, the phones of everyone else in the room began ringing with sharp alerts.

Almost every phone in the apartment building, among drivers waiting at the bridge entrance, and throughout the entire city received the same text message.

"What the hell?"

"This is a joke, right?"

Drivers and pedestrians stared at each other, utterly bewildered.

Television stations broadcasting commercials abruptly replaced their screens with a black background and white text—an emergency alert issued in the name of the U. S. government;

Every email account registered in the Los Angeles metropolitan area received the same email;

Electronic traffic signs along the roadside changed color, displaying locations of nearby subway stations, underground parking lots, and other shelters;

"Damn it, it's an AMBER Alert!"

One pedestrian suddenly realized and screamed: "The text is real! The missile's coming!"

AMBER Alert, short for America's Missing: Broadcasting Emergency Response, is the U. S. Missing Persons Broadcasting Emergency Response system.

Originally established to respond to child abductions—when a child abduction is confirmed and certain conditions are met,

the U. S. Emergency Alert System (EAS) broadcasts alerts via radio, television, email, text messages, and social media platforms to ordinary citizens in the abduction's vicinity.

Because AMBER proved effective, the system has since been expanded to cover terrorist attacks, kidnappings, mass shootings, hurricanes, tsunamis, and earthquakes.

(China also has a similar system called Tuanyuan.)

A single missile alert might be a false alarm, but with cross-verification across radio, TV, email, and text channels, it's unlikely to be fake.

After a brief delay, pedestrians on the streets finally snapped out of their shock.

Chaos erupted across the entire city.

Some, drenched in sweat, trembled as they opened Google Maps and sprinted desperately toward the nearest underground parking lot;

Others punched strangers to the ground and stole motorcycles or bicycles as transport;

Some screamed for their parents and lovers, making final video calls on their phones;

Others, upon reading the message, sighed in relief, calmly walked up to their hated boss, slapped him hard across the face, and flipped him the middle finger;

Still others thought quickly and sped toward the city's north—missiles launched from the Pacific could only come from North Korea, Russia, or the Eastern Great Nation, and the latter two both had consulates in Los Angeles.

No matter what, a missile wouldn't possibly target its own country's consulate, right?

"?!"

On a pure-white helium airship, Cervantes widened his eyes, gazing down at the suddenly chaotic traffic below.

One full day had passed since the superhuman escape near Denver; only two hours remained before the 48-hour mission deadline.

During this time, Cervantes had been on edge, wary of the opponent. Now that the shoe had dropped, he finally relaxed.

"Any major power's nuclear strike prioritizes enemy nuclear facilities, political centers, arms factories, military bases, and ports—only lastly do they target major cities.

Los Angeles has too low a priority. Washington didn't receive any alerts—this proves the entire alert is fake. Artificially created."

Cervantes's mind raced, "FEMA—the U. S. Federal Emergency Management Agency! The opponent hacked FEMA!"

FEMA's headquarters is in Washington, with offices scattered across the United States.

The opponent didn't need to threaten the entire city—just by seizing control of the Los Angeles FEMA office, or even merely hacking its network, he could bypass countless steps and trigger pre-programmed scripts to broadcast false alerts citywide, creating massive chaos.

His intent was obvious: to exploit the confusion.

"The alert is fake. Stay calm. Hold your positions. The superhuman is coming."

Cervantes shouted over the communication channel, but his voice reached only Vanguard Company personnel.

Traffic congestion and chaos in the city intensified; under every surveillance camera, everyone fled aimlessly, making it impossible to identify any suspicious individuals.

"Shit."

Cervantes swore in local slang, took a deep breath, and spoke over the broadcast channel: "Professor N, it's up to you."

"Hmm."

The black bald man nodded, lit a joint with a lighter, took a deep drag, and began meditating.

The original X-Men's Professor X could locate and control any mind anywhere on Earth.

This Black professor N, modified by the Old Seal, naturally couldn't be as heaven-defying as Professor X; what he could do was find relatively calm minds amid the chaos of minds throughout the city.

The whole process didn't go smoothly. A flood of chaotic thoughts poured into Professor N's mind, overloading his brain, and blood streamed from his nostrils.

He could sense that senior officials of the Los Angeles government had scrambled into underground bunkers, so that no one went to the FEMA Los Angeles office to verify anything;

He could sense that in the jam-packed subway stations and parking garages, countless people were weeping, confessing, regretting, begging;

He even sensed a pair of biological siblings kissing each other with the thought "nuclear bombs are coming anyway, we all die, might as well have some fun before we die"—well, he had no idea how those two would face each other once the false alarm was debunked.

Passing over these minds, Professor N finally found several suspicious targets approaching the cross-sea bridge from different directions.

One of them was less than five hundred meters from him.

"Under the sea! There's a mind fluctuation right under the sea!"

Professor N's eyes flew open. Ignoring the nosebleed, he snatched up the tablet and marked the coordinates on the map.

Cervantes pressed his lips tight. Just as he'd expected—the enemy had thrown the city into chaos to cover the assault.

In that case—

He turned his head toward a burly, sideburned man clad in Nordic armor. "Lei Shen Thor, it's your turn."

"Mm."

The burly, sideburned man nodded. He was a Level Four lightning-element ability user modified by the Old Seal.

Since the Old Seal could only modify the human body itself and couldn't forge equipment, what he wore was a cosplay uniform hastily bought at a comic convention, and the hammer in his hand wasn't Mjolnir—

but a claw hammer for nailing boards.

Never mind how out of place the claw hammer looked. In short, "Lei Shen" opened the hatch, leapt down, lightning blazing around his body, and at the instant he touched the sea surface, he swung the hammer hard.

Crackle—

Rolling thunder poured into the still-shallow coastal waters, illuminating the murky seawater.

A human figure, struck by the lightning, leapt up from beneath the sea.

It was a handsome middle-aged man in a soaking-wet suit, with a rose pinned to his chest.

"I am the son of Odin, the King of Asgard, the guardian and heir of the Immortal Palace—Lei Shen Thor. Who are you?" Lei Shen, gripping his claw hammer with half his body soaking in the water, demanded in a low voice.

The suit-wearing man stepped on the surface of the sea and smoothed back his hair. "I'm the Sea King."

Sea King? Doesn't look like it—he's way too skinny, and where's your trident?

As if reading Lei Shen's confusion, the Sea King pulled a phone directory from his pocket, densely covered with a long string of names.

【Wendy, Chicago, twenty-two, unmarried, nightclub DJ, occasional hookups】

【Pella, Seattle, thirty-four, married, husband goes to Europe on business every summer】

【Julia, San Francisco, nineteen, likes skiing, poetry, photography】

After each string of names, there were also phone numbers and specific addresses attached.

Holy sh*t, this is what you call a Sea King?!

(End of chapter)