Chapter 92 Infamous.

Chapter 92: 92 Infamous.

Shit!

I scrambled backward, pushing off the reinforced cage mesh and violently jerking out of the way just as its jaw snapped shut, tearing a ragged chunk of fabric right out of my fluttering jacket.

The Throgg skidded wildly across the floor, its claws carving deep gouges into the cement as it rapidly pivoted to face me again.

We locked eyes for a split second, and then its neck started ballooning out as it did that disgusting, wet gagging thing all over again.

"I think it’s finally time we end this," I muttered, locking my focus squarely on the monster’s beady eyes.

The Throgg unhinged its maw, glowing green acid sizzling and dripping violently from its razor-sharp teeth as it prepared to hurl. But it was way too late.

I flicked my thumb, propelling the brass button forward with a concentrated, burst of magnetic kinetic force directly into the creature’s exposed eye.

It wasn’t a trick I normally bothered with, mostly because eyes are notoriously miserable targets; in a real brawl, your opponent is usually twitching and weaving too much to guarantee a clean hit.

But since this massive acid-bug had so helpfully anchored itself in place to spit at me,

I managed to thread the needle on the first try. The heavy metal disc punched straight through the soft tissue, popping the eyeball like a wet grape.

The Throgg screamed, its armored head snapping violently backward as I drove the brass button deep into its brain cavity, immediately using my powers to bounce the metal around inside its skull like a high-speed pinball.

The massive beast locked up completely, shuddering and convulsing as if I’d just hardwired it to a high-voltage transformer.

A wet, guttural groan rattled from its throat before the sheer trauma caused the damn thing’s insides to practically detonate, violently ejecting a slurry of dark blood and brains out.

The creature swayed drunkenly on its legs for a fraction of a second before collapsing onto the cement with a heavy, meaty thud.

A stunned, breathless silence momentarily blanketed the surrounding observers.

The VIPs clearly struggling to process how their apex predator had just been lobotomized by a piece of tailoring.

It took a few seconds for the gap-toothed announcer to recover his showman’s bravado, his voice booming over the speakers.

"W-well! It certainly seems we have our very first upset of the evening, everyone! The Skull Crusher has claimed victory! Let’s hear a round of applause!"

Surprisingly enough, the bloodthirsty crowd actually obliged, showering the pit with cheers and clapping.

I suppose as long as they got to see brains splattered across the floor, they were perfectly satisfied with the outcome.

I had no intention of lingering in the cage to soak up the adulation, so I immediately marched back across the cratered cement and scaled the iron rungs to the exit.

The heavy metal gate swung open, and before my boots even hit the grated walkway, both Glacia and Psyren were practically tackling me with tight, relieved embraces.

"Mr P! That was absolutely badass!" Psyren gasped, squeezing my arm affectionately.

"Most impressive, sir. For a brief moment, I genuinely believed the creature had bested you," Glacia admitted smoothly, her icy composure remaining flawlessly intact.

"It’s going to take a lot more than an oversized roach to put me in the ground," I murmured, my eyes already scanning the chaotic crowd on the opposite side of the dome.

It really wasn’t difficult to single out the one spectator who hadn’t enjoyed my sudden victory.

He was a tall, unnervingly thin figure draped in a long black trench coat and a wide-brimmed hat that effectively cast his upper face in deep shadow.

For a brief second, our eyes met, and I caught the distinct narrowing of his gaze before he swiftly turned on his heel and began retreating deeper into the ship’s hold, his movements so unnaturally smooth he practically glided across the metal decking.

Bingo.

"Is that our guy?" Psyren whispered softly, tracking my line of sight.

"Looks like it," I replied, gently detaching myself from the girls. "Come on, let’s go."

The two followed close behind as, I shadowed the bastard deeper into the ship.

We casually slipped past clusters of anxious, low-tier supers stretching and aggressively psyching themselves up for their own brutal matches.

I waited patiently until the heavy latch clicked shut behind him before closing the remaining distance.

Pressing my palm flat against the cold steel, I sent a pulse of magnetic energy into the lock, could’ve just busted it down but whatever.

It was a laughably simple deadbolt system; with a mere thought, the bolt shut back in and the door swung open for me.

The space beyond was a cavernous, dimly lit storage chamber, illuminated only by a few flickering fluorescent lights.

Stacked cages completely dominated the back half of the room, packed tightly with a horrific menagerie of grotesque creatures.

Vicious, hulking combat droids that looked like oversized suits of tactical power armor were slumped heavily against the side walls.

Letting my magnetic senses seep outward to map the room’s layout, I picked up the faint electromagnetic signatures of a few scattered security cameras, but thankfully, no active alarm grids or hidden turrets.

The creepy guy in the trench coat was already on the far side of the chamber, his head bowed as he muttered feverishly to himself while pacing between the rows of dormant monsters.

As the three of us slipped silently into the gloom, I already felt the weapon under his coat, but I honestly wasn’t picking up much of a threat.

He had some kind of augmented cybernetic microchip embedded deep in his skull, a handful of loose pocket change, a random metallic fish hook for god-knows-what reason, a digital keypad, and a strange, highly complex disc constructed of intricate circuits and wires that felt entirely alien to my usual magnetic readings.

I immediately latched my powers onto that strange little device, keeping it firmly locked down in a telekinetic grip just in case he tried something stupid.

"Hey," I called out, my voice cutting sharply through the quiet humming of the droids.

He whipped around, stepping out of the shadows, it absolutely wasn’t Delirium—unless the mad scientist had recently taken a heavy snow shovel directly to the face.

The guy standing in front of me possessed a sickly, sallow complexion with pale, incredibly loose skin that hung off his skull like half-melted candle wax, framed by patchy sideburns and aggressively sagging brows.

He had the exact kind of deeply unsettling, inbred you’d expect to find lurking around some rotting, fog-choked New England fishing village that harbored a deeply troubling obsession with the mating habits of aquatic life.

I pulled up short, maintaining a tactical distance as the weirdo calmly clasped his hands behind his back.

"Well, well!" the pale man croaked, his voice carrying a wet, highly unpleasant slur. "Come down here to rub my nose in your little arena victory, hm? Hmmmm?"

"Not really my style," I replied flatly, crossing my arms. "Actually, I was just wondering if the esteemed Professor Delirium had bothered to show up and present his own double-feature tonight, or if you’re just his middleman handling the merchandise."

"Wait..." he mumbled, before a slow, grotesque smile stretched across his waxy face, revealing a mouthful of teeth that had been meticulously filed down to jagged, needle-like points. "I know who you are. You’re the super who’s been playing bodyguard for Rhea!"

"I strongly suggest you monitor your tone when addressing sir," Glacia warned, the ambient temperature in the room instantly dropping a few degrees.

"Yeah, dipshit," Psyren added, stepping forward with a murderous glare, the air around her already beginning to hum and crackle with dangerous pink static. "Unless you’re in the market for some involuntary, unlicensed brain surgery."

"Girls, stand down, please," I said, raising a hand to placate them before turning my attention back to the grinning freak. "Yeah, I’m the one currently looking after Rhea’s interests. I’ll ask you one last time: Are you Delirium?"

"Not quite. But my master would very much like to have a word with you..." He slowly slipped a pale hand into his oversized coat.

I tensed, keeping a mental grip on his hardware as he extracted that strange, wire-wrapped disc I’d sensed earlier.

Cupping the device in his palm, he casually depressed a switch on its side.

The metallic ring instantly emitted a high-pitched electronic hum, glowing with an intense blue light before projecting a flickering, life-sized holographic figure right into the center of the gloomy storage room.

And just like that, I finally met the infamous Delirium.