The Devil's Cage

Smorewill Street block that was clamoring ceaselessly regardless of night and day suddenly fell into a never before seen silence after the previous battle that happened there.

The silence pressured the criminals there.

Some who seemed to be vigilant enough chose to leave the street.

Their leaving was greeted by those who thought they themselves were the vigilant ones and those bold and reckless ones with cold laughs.

The former mocked them, the latter showed disdain.

They were mocked and considered fools, they were shown disdain because of their lack of courage.

However, these men fell to the ground one after another after the mocking and disdain.

A thin layer of mist that was almost invisible to the naked eye flowed into the street block along with the wind.

“The Silencer!”

A few of the alarmed ones shouted loudly but it didn’t help.

They too fell to the ground one after another, falling soundly asleep.

Then, the ground started to tremble.

Dozens of tractors and excavators were driving into the street. They were like hungry beasts in the form of machines that jumped onto the street, removing and tearing down the houses on the outer street that acted as a blockade.

House after house was torn down and soon, a straight path towards the inner street was paved open.

“Advance!”

The armed forces consisted of police and voluntary police that were waiting outside for a while now charged into the street after the call.

The armed forces advanced in groups, they looked extremely serious with the weapons in their hands and didn’t seem a bit relaxed because of the initial success.

They knew the real battle lay ahead.

Out of expectations, the real battle befell them faster than they could realize.

KABOOM!

A loud explosion later, the armed group that was taking the lead was blown to bits.

“MINES! HALT!”

As the command was abruptly given, the armed forces that had already entered the street stopped and the move turned them into live targets, exposing them under enemy’s fire.

Bang Bang Bang!

Dak! Dak Dak Dak Dak Dak!

The guns and machine guns that were hiding in the buildings further along the street fired away, spraying countless bullets at the armed forces, pouring down lethal shots like a heavy rain but…

It was useless!

A short and plump man dashed out from the group, squatted down in front of the others and laid his hands up.

Following his movements, a translucent force field barrier appeared around the armed forces, protecting them from the bullets like a sturdy fortress.

After the short plump man successfully put up a defensive barrier for the group, Machinist who was still scrawny and wearing a pair of frameless spectacles dashed out from his own group and headed towards the mine area; he pressed his hands down on the group.

Upon contact, the mines installed in the area jumped out of the ground as if they had come alive.

Bang!

A shot was fired from further away.

A specially enhanced bullet was fired directly at the Machinist but just when the bullet was about to perforate Machinist’s body, his body twisted in an unimaginable way. He was nimble and agile, the bullet didn’t even touch him, instead, it landed on the ground next to him, creating a big hole.

Machinist then dashed out like an arrow let loose towards the point where the bullet was fired; he also cleaned up the firing points of the criminals along the way.

Venom Snake, one of the supervillains in the area quickly retreated without a second thought when he saw that Machinist was coming after him.

He knew very well what his abilities were at and also understood he had fallen into a trap.

Machinist who was supposed to be the main target wasn’t actually the “Machinist” himself, but was another superhero in disguise, thus the nimbleness and agility.

“Damn it! I need back up!” Venom Snake yelled into the walkie-talkie.

“Right away.” A lazy female voice was heard from the other end of the talkie and Venom Snake heaved a sigh of relief. But right after that, he felt serious goosebumps all over his back.

Years of battle instincts allowed Venom Snake to dodge to the side with a roll but it was too slow.

Tssng!

The battle outfit that Venom Snake wore which had quite the defensive capabilities was torn apart like paper. A big portion of his back together with bones and organs were ripped out by that strike.

Venom Snake who fell to the ground with blurry vision heard a cat’s meow before he took his last breath.

Kat Lady?!

A sudden realization later, Venom Snake entered eternal darkness.

“A little worm meow!”

Kat Lady who disguised at Machinist laughed in delight as she was looking down at Venom Snake’s body.

However, her eyes were serious like never before at the very next moment.

“Another big wild cat meow?”

Kat Lady stared into the darkness beside her.

A figure similar to Kat Lady yet a few times bigger walked out.

“A big wild cat? Oh, you’ve said it, little stray cat!”

The figure that walked out and stretched her body like a feline, the leopard-like skin on the figure was shining brightly under the sunset’s glory.

She lifted her palm and extended her claws; she licked her claws and looked at Kat Lady with an extremely dangerous gaze.

Kat Lady refused to show weakness as she also extended her claws.

Both felines stared at each other as they moved around the walls in the tight spaces as though they were in a gladiator arena.

Then…

“MEOW!”

“ROAR!”

A cat’s meow and a leopard’s roar later, both felines were tangled together, engaging in a cat fight.

…

Kat Lady’s entrance started the prologue of the battle for both sides.

A whole house was pulled out from the ground together with its base and was thrown towards the side of the armed forces, aiming towards the short plump man among the crowd.

“WELCOME, FORTRESS!”

The supervillain who threw the house out was as big as a giant and as strong as Hercules grinned evilly.

“Heavy Lifter!”

Fortress, the short plump man who set up the force field barrier for the armed forces successfully blocked the flying house.

BANG!

The house crashed hard into the barrier and was crushed into pieces; of course, there was no one inside the house.

Chang!

Suddenly, a sword glare flashed over.

Fortress’ shield was sliced open right away, even his body suffered a wide long cut.

Blood kept gushing out from the wound but Fortress’ body didn’t fall apart.

“As expected of you Fortress! Not only the barriers you construct, but even your body is also sturdy! I can’t even cut you in half with a single slash with my sword! Guess we’ll have to do another!”

Another supervillain wielding a long katana with a mask over his face and a body donning clean black martial artist clothes laughed coldly.

The man meant what he said.

He wielded his katana in a flurry and went straight for Fortress’ neck.

Just as the blade was about to slice through Fortress’ neck, a metal rod suddenly cut in and blocked the katana.

CHANG!

A metallic buzz emanated throughout the area after the katana and metal rod clashed.

“It’s been a while, my teacher, no… Weapon Master!”

The man with the katana saw a white-haired elder in clean white martial artist clothes before him; he laughed coldly.

“Dark Arms…”

Weapon Master wanted to say something but his ex-disciple, Dark Arms raised his katana and attacked him.

Chang Chang Chang!

The metallic clunking was ceaseless as the white and black clashed fiercely.

Heavy Lifter didn’t stop there either as he walked towards Fortress with a vicious smile.

Bang Bang Bang Bang!

The police armed forces fired their guns at Heavy Lifter, covering Fortress in the process.

After Heavy Lifter took a few bullets heads on, he growled angrily and hid behind a house as he was being suppressed by the hail of bullets.

…

Deeper inside Smorewill Street, a thin young man was sitting in front of countless screens, watching what was happening in Smorewill Street.

The man then leaned back in his chair and sighed in disappointment.

“Drexton is still as lame as he ever, where is all the creativity? Wasted my few hours of anticipation.”

“Which means… Glutton Emperor is also nothing.”

“Tell the men to attack the obvious landmarks throughout the city. We need to make things more interesting out of this deadly battle.”