MSM Chapter 101 : Purple Lightning

Lucien dashed toward Wonder Man.

His daggers were aimed straight at the target—Wonder Man's neck. The twin blades gleamed in the dim light as Lucien closed the distance.

The gap between them was nearly fifty meters. At his full speed, Lucien covered that distance in under a second.

One moment, he was standing still. Next, his daggers were at Wonder Man's throat.

The blades struck. Metal met flesh—or whatever passed for flesh in Wonder Man's body.

The daggers stabbed into Wonder Man's neck, but they didn't cut through. The resistance was incredible, far harder than any human tissue should be. The blades sank in maybe an inch, maybe two, but no deeper.

No blood flowed from the wounds. Just tiny particles of energy—blue light that leaked out like steam from a crack.

Wonder Man's eyes focused on Lucien. Despite the mind control, despite the blank expression, there was something like understanding in that gaze.

He knew what Lucien was trying to do.

The energy in Wonder Man's chest continued building, the glow intensifying from purple to a deep, angry red. He needed a few more seconds. Just a few more seconds to finish charging his attack.

Wonder Man realized he wouldn't be able to avoid being neutralized. Not with Lucien this close, daggers already piercing his neck.

So he chose to delay instead.

His hands shot up and grabbed Lucien's wrists with tremendous strength. Before Lucien could react, Wonder Man yanked him forward and threw him away.

Lucien flew backward through the air. He twisted mid-flight, controlling his body, and landed on his feet about twenty meters away. His boots skidded across the concrete as he arrested his momentum.

He looked down at his daggers, then back at Wonder Man.

The ionic being stood there, hands still raised defensively, the red glow in his chest growing brighter with each passing second.

'It'll be difficult to cut through if he keeps resisting,' Lucien thought, analyzing the situation. 'I need to stop his resistance. Completely overwhelm him so he can't even try to block.'

That meant more speed. More power. More everything.

Lucien took a deep breath, steadying himself. Then he drew on his mana reserves again, activating multiple skills simultaneously.

Stealth. His body shimmered and vanished from sight.

Quicksilver. His agility surged by thirty percent, his already incredible speed pushing into territory that few beings could match.

Mana Fortification. Every stat received a thirty percent boost—strength, speed, durability, all of it amplified beyond his base level.

The combined effect was staggering. Power flooded through Lucien's body, reinforcing muscle and bone, sharpening reflexes to a razor's edge.

Lucien dashed.

....

Tony Stark sat with his back against the concrete pillar, watching the fight unfold. His body ached from the earlier beating, but his mind was sharp, his engineer's brain analyzing everything he saw.

Or trying to, anyway.

Because he couldn't actually see Lucien anymore.

What he saw instead was a blur. A purple blur that moved so fast it left afterimages burned into Tony's retinas.

It was like watching purple lightning arc across the room, impossible to track, impossible to predict.

Tony's jaw dropped open.

He'd fought alongside the fastest beings on Earth. He'd seen Quicksilver run at supersonic speeds. He'd watched Thor move with godly swiftness. He'd witnessed Captain Marvel fly faster than the eye could follow.

But this? This was different.

Even among the Avengers, only a very few—an extremely few—could match this speed. Quicksilver for sure. Thor... maybe if he really pushed himself.

And Lucien was moving that fast while invisible.

Tony tried to track the purple blur, but it was useless. The movement was too erratic, too fast. One moment, the blur was on Wonder Man's left, the next it was behind him, then above, then circling his right side.

'What the hell is he?' Tony thought, his mind struggling to process what he was witnessing.

....

Bob stood behind his concrete pillar, his eyes locked on the fight.

Unlike Tony, Bob could see.

His eyes tracked Lucien's movements perfectly. Every dash, every strike, every change in direction—Bob's vision followed it all with crystalline clarity.

He watched Lucien move, and something stirred in the back of his mind. A thought. A realization.

Bob remained quiet, processing what he was seeing, thinking about what it meant.

....

Lucien's focus narrowed to a single point. Wonder Man's head.

That was the target. That was the goal.

But first, he needed to remove Wonder Man's arms. As long as Wonder Man could defend himself, could grab and throw Lucien as he'd done moments ago, the head would remain protected.

Wonder Man could barely see Lucien now. With Stealth active and his speed pushed to its absolute limit, Lucien was more ghost than man.

Wonder Man kept one arm wrapped around his neck, protecting his throat. The other arm swung wildly, trying to hit something, anything.

Lucien appeared beside Wonder Man's outstretched arm. His dagger flashed.

A deep cut appeared in Wonder Man's forearm. Blue energy leaked from the wound like blood from a severed vein.

Lucien vanished and reappeared on the other side. Another cut, deeper this time, nearly to the bone—if Wonder Man had bones.

Again. And again. And again.

Within a single second, multiple deep cuts appeared along Wonder Man's arm. Each one spurted ionic energy, the blue light creating a grotesque pattern across his limb.

Then deeper cuts. Lucien's daggers found the same spots, cutting through layers that weren't quite muscle, weren't quite flesh, but served the same purpose.

Again and again and again.

Wonder Man tried to pull his arm back, tried to protect it, but Lucien was everywhere at once. The invisible blur moved faster than Wonder Man could react.

Suddenly, Wonder Man's arm separated. It fell to the ground with a heavy thud, blue energy pouring from the stump.

Wonder Man roared—a sound of rage and pain—and brought his remaining arm down from his neck to try and strike Lucien.

That was a mistake.

The moment his neck was exposed, Lucien adjusted his strategy. But the arm was still a threat, still swinging at him with enough force to crush concrete.

So Lucien dealt with it.

The same pattern repeated. Multiple cuts in rapid succession, each one deeper than the last. Blue energy sprayed across the floor as Lucien's daggers carved through ionic flesh.

Wonder Man's second arm fell to the ground beside the first.

Now armless, Wonder Man's eyes widened. Even controlled, even without true consciousness, some part of him understood the situation.

The energy in his chest was almost ready. Almost at critical mass.

He couldn't finish the charge. Not in time. Not before Lucien reached his neck.

So Wonder Man made a decision.

He unleashed the attack early.

Lucien sensed it immediately—the sudden spike in energy, the shift from building to releasing. His eyes widened behind the invisibility.

He moved.

In an instant, Lucien appeared behind Wonder Man. His daggers were positioned at the back of Wonder Man's neck.

Wonder Man screamed. The sound was horror and rage mixed together, echoing through the underground chamber.

He thickened his neck, making the muscles—or whatever passed for muscles—as dense as possible. Buying a few more seconds. Just a few more seconds.

The energy in his chest reached the tipping point and exploded outward.

A massive beam of red ionic energy burst from Wonder Man's chest. It didn't fire straight ahead. Instead, it fired upward at an angle, cutting through the air in a diagonal trajectory.

The beam struck the concrete ceiling, punched through it like paper, and continued upward. It carved through layer after layer of earth and stone, creating a tunnel that led all the way to the surface.

The beam was powerful enough to melt concrete on contact. Debris rained down around them as the structure groaned under the sudden damage.

But Lucien wasn't deterred.

He gritted his teeth, feeling Wonder Man's neck resist his daggers. The ionic being had hardened his throat to an incredible degree, making it almost impossible to cut through.

Almost.

Lucien pushed himself. His daggers bit deeper into Wonder Man's neck.

The energy beam continued firing upward, carving its path of destruction through the facility and the earth above.

Wonder Man screamed louder, the sound desperate now.

Lucien's daggers sank another inch. Then another.

The resistance was incredible. Like trying to cut through steel cable with a butter knife. But Lucien didn't stop. Couldn't stop.

His arms burned with the effort. His mana reserves dropped rapidly as he used both Mana Fortification and Quicksilver.

The daggers cut deeper. Halfway through Wonder Man's neck now.

The energy beam began to fade, its power depleting as Wonder Man's body started to give out.

Three-quarters through.

Wonder Man's screaming stopped. His body went rigid.

Almost there.

The energy beam sputtered, flickering like a dying light.

Then, finally, Lucien's daggers met in the middle.

Wonder Man's head separated from his body.

The energy beam cut off instantly, leaving only silence and the sound of falling debris.

Wonder Man's head hit the ground and rolled a few feet. His body remained standing for a moment longer, blue energy pouring from the stump of his neck.

Then both head and body began to dissipate. The ionic energy that comprised Wonder Man's being lost cohesion without the organizing structure of his form. His body dissolved into blue light that faded rapidly, leaving nothing behind.

No corpse. No blood. Just space where Wonder Man had stood seconds before.

Lucien deactivated his skills. Stealth faded, making him visible again. Quicksilver's speed boost ended. Mana Fortification released its grip on his stats.

The sudden drop in power made him stagger slightly. He caught himself and took a deep breath, his chest heaving from exertion.

He looked up at the damage Wonder Man's final attack had caused.

Where the energy beam had struck, there was now a massive hole in the ceiling. The hole continued upward at a diagonal angle, creating a tunnel through concrete, earth, and stone that stretched all the way to the surface.

Through the opening, far above, Lucien could see the sky, with clouds and sunlight filtering down through the tunnel.

The destruction was immense. The beam had carved through the entire facility and the ground above it, creating a diagonal shaft, maybe ten feet wide, that led from this underground chamber all the way to the surface.

Debris continued to fall from the edges of the hole, clattering against the floor in a steady rain of concrete chunks and dirt.

Lucien stared at the destruction, then looked down at where Wonder Man had been standing.

Nothing remained. Not even ash.

He'd done it. Wonder Man was defeated.

But the cost had been high. His mana reserves were nearly empty. The wound in his side from Vision's earlier attack still bled. His body ached from the sustained use of Mana Fortification.

He was running on fumes.

But he was still standing. Still moving. Still fighting.

One thing that bothered him was the sudden emergence of purple lighting around his body when he activated all his skills.

It had never happened before, and it made the stealth skill practically useless. He did not understand why that happened, but now was not the time to think about it.

Lucien took another deep breath and turned toward where Tony was sitting.

Tony Stark stared at him, his expression a mixture of awe, fear, and confusion.

For a long moment, neither of them spoke. Tony's mouth worked silently, trying to find words for what he'd just witnessed.

Finally, Tony managed to speak.

"Dayum."