Chapter 346

Chapter 346: Your Ability is Fine, Next Moment is Mine

The composition of the Second Team was not complex, but each member had a remarkable background.

Councilman Bordeaux was not the first to consider nurturing trusted superpowered individuals; as a member of the new generation, he had much to learn.

Those old things acted far more swiftly than he did, as they did not wish for their nurtured superpowered individuals to inherit their positions in the future.

In the early years following the establishment of Hope City, humanity had little experience in battling extraordinary beasts, resulting in a surge of orphans during that period.

Some high-ranking officials in Hope City chose to select the most powerful individuals for special training, and several of these exceptional individuals were eventually incorporated into the Second Team, becoming the right hand of Hope City’s leaders.

Blood Puppet was an unexpected case among them.

Though he was also an orphan, he did not awaken his powers during his childhood or teenage years, so he was initially overlooked and placed in a less prestigious superhero team.

Of course, his ability at that time was quite limited; he could only cut his wrist to form a short knife from his blood, which was even weaker than the standard equipment of Hope City.

What kind of ability was that?

Many people scoffed at Blood Puppet back then.

But ten years later, when this battle-hardened warrior used his ability to carve his way into the Second Team, no one dared to mock him anymore.

His abilities had grown strong enough to warrant his unusual promotion into such an exclusive team.

However, this also indicated that he found it difficult to bond well with his teammates.

The title of "Captain" mostly represented a kind of tenuous isolation.

Blood Puppet’s personality, much like his abilities, showed little understanding of what was meant by "face" or "gentleness." Normally, he was fine, but in a situation like the current one, everyone had already become accustomed to it.

The thoughts of those in the conference room varied, but they all focused on the battlefield displayed on the screen.

Soon, they saw a figure moving rapidly in one corner of the screen; at this pace, Blood Puppet would reach the battlefield in less than two minutes.

Meanwhile, the feathered serpent had already completely wrapped around the fiery figure a few seconds earlier and started to ignite fiercely.

If Blood Puppet was fast enough, he should be able to catch the scent of perfectly cooked meat.

If he arrived too late, he would probably only find a charred ground.

Blood Puppet was also aware of this; he kept accelerating in the air, conserving just enough stamina for defense against unexpected attacks from extraordinary beasts and for combat upon arriving at the battlefield.

As an ordinary orphan from Hope City, he had no family, and very few could be called friends.

Over the past decade, there were only two things he had consistently pursued relentlessly: training and fighting.

Whenever he mastered a new weapon, his coexisting blood could manifest a new transformation.

Although his base strength remained comparable to that of an average human, this kind of training made his abilities increasingly powerful.

He was almost there; he must not let that person die!

At this moment, Blood Puppet’s mind was not filled with mere concern for a possibly deceased human but rather a genuine sense of kinship.

His solitary and proud nature meant that Hope City lacked ordinary people and superpowered individuals with similar grit, but none of them matched his combat strength.

Those who could match Blood Puppet’s power were nearly a dozen, mostly loyal dogs of the council.

But that man nearby, who had never appeared in Hope City’s records before, was different.

In terms of combat power, he was on par with Blood Puppet; regarding spirit and conviction, although it was unclear why he had never acted before, he had at least chosen to step forward this time when extraordinary beasts brazenly invaded Hope City, and that was sufficient.

Perhaps in the eyes of the council members, he was an unstable element, but for Hope City, for Blood Puppet, his value was undeniable.

Blood Puppet’s flight generated a sonic boom, but just then, he suddenly noticed a drastic change in the massive fiery furnace composed of the extraordinary beast.

The previously tightly coiled body seemed to have numerous cracks, and fierce flames shot out, igniting nearby houses across half a street.

The feathered serpent’s expression seemed to flash with a hint of pain, and its body involuntarily began to twist, quickly breaking free from the furnace state.

Yet, its movements were still too slow.

As the feathered serpent’s curled body gradually unfurled, the approaching Blood Puppet caught sight of more details.

The half of its body tightly coiled inside the furnace now showed signs of slight carbonization, turning from a serpent-like grayish color into a fiery gray-white, resembling half-burned charcoal.

On this already carbonized massive body, seven or eight giant bone spikes were protruding from top to bottom, as if the target of the feathered serpent’s embrace had been an extraordinary beast covered in large, sharp spikes.

As its body expanded, a giant blackened ovoid emerged.

Blood Puppet glanced at the carbon-black ball resembling a feathered serpent’s egg, then looked at the half-burned, carbonized serpent, struggling to judge who would prevail.

But just then, surprisingly, or rather unsurprisingly, the giant "egg" cracked open.

A fiery arm emerged, flowing with flames; compared to the feathered serpent’s body, this arm was covered with fine cracks and exuded burning flames, resembling a mass of searing charcoal.

The flames seemed poised to break free from their confines and explode into every corner of Hope City.

However, each time the flames approached the edge of breaking free from the humanoid body, the fiery patterns on that arm would recede slightly.

This undoubtedly caused other fiery patterns to expand, as if in a frantic rush to cover the gaps, yet not a single flame successfully escaped, as though an invisible hand was enjoying a puzzle game.

The other side of the “egg” began to shatter, with fragments several centimeters to over a dozen centimeters thick gradually falling to the ground, revealing a shadow within.

“Your ‘cocoon’ is quite a clever idea.

But from this moment on, it belongs to me.”

As the last fragment fell, a proportionate man brimming with untold power emerged at the center of the “egg,” looking at the feathered serpent in front of him, who seemed to be contemplating whether to fight again or retreat.

He politely called out, “No need to rush off, my friend; I’m feeling a little fiery right now.”