Moments later, Benjamin reached the office building's entrance, witnessing Richard methodically eliminating a fresh wave of guards.
Without hesitation, he charged toward Richard with the ferocity of an enraged rhinoceros.
Though they had never encountered each other before, Richard immediately recognized this was no ordinary mutant agent. Compared to Aiden and his team, Benjamin radiated an overwhelmingly superior presence and oppressive aura.
Moreover, Benjamin's metallic transformation triggered something Richard hadn't experienced previously—a sense of genuine threat.
To be precise, it was a marginal sense of danger.
Though the feeling wasn't particularly intense, and Benjamin's true capabilities remained unknown, one fact stood certain: Benjamin presented a far greater challenge than Aiden's entire team combined.
Richard's assessment proved accurate. Benjamin indeed outclassed Aiden and his associates collectively.
Otherwise, with only his Steel Skin ability, Benjamin could never have maintained his position as Operations Director, much less commanded the respect of volatile agents like Inessa and Aiden.
Within seconds, Benjamin closed the distance, his metallic fist rocketing toward Richard's head with cannonball-like velocity.
Judging from the speed of Benjamin's strike, Richard understood that a direct hit would likely obliterate his skull entirely.
Despite this, he didn't employ Blinkstep to evade. Instead, he swung his own right fist forward.
Attack against attack, punch against punch!
Though lacking Benjamin's steel transformation, Richard possessed super strength and enhanced durability far exceeding normal parameters—mutant power that had been enhanced multiple times.
BOOM!
Their fists collided with catastrophic force, generating a sound reminiscent of ancient war drums.
At the moment of impact, a visible shockwave erupted.
The concussive blast radiated outward at astonishing speed, sending nearby guards tumbling like leaves in a hurricane.
The building's glass entrance and surrounding windows shattered under the combined assault of sonic vibration and atmospheric displacement, glass fragments raining down like crystalline precipitation.
What incredible power!
Neither Richard nor Benjamin had anticipated meeting someone with comparable strength. The realization impressed them both equally.
Benjamin especially felt the gravity of this discovery.
Recognizing Richard's strength matched his own, he finally comprehended why Inessa and Aiden had failed to subdue their target.
Forensic examination of Aiden's team had revealed that not all casualties resulted from Richard's blade. Beyond the agents with severed necks or bisected bodies, many had perished from lightning strikes.
Though Richard's complete power set remained undefined, Benjamin had identified at least six distinct abilities:
Sword manifestation, teleportation, repulsion, electrokinesis, durability, and superhuman strength.
While numerical superiority in abilities didn't automatically translate to greater combat effectiveness, a mutant possessing multiple powers typically commanded significant respect.
Realizing Richard presented a more formidable obstacle than anticipated, Benjamin's initial fury gave way to tactical calculation. He adopted a professional boxing stance and renewed his offensive.
Before joining the Department of Mutant Affairs, Benjamin had established himself as a noteworthy professional boxer.
Though never capturing a championship belt, his credentials within the sport remained unquestionable.
During one pivotal match, facing imminent defeat, he had spontaneously manifested his "Steel Skin" ability.
Before the horrified audience and television viewers, he delivered an uppercut of inhuman force, catastrophically crushing his opponent's skull with a single blow.
The gruesome spectacle not only traumatized spectators but terrified Benjamin himself.
What followed proved predictable.
Convicted of first-degree intentional homicide and first-degree reckless endangerment, he received a 120-year prison sentence.
His incarceration proved brief. Less than a month after transfer to a specialized mutant detention facility, the Department of Mutant Affairs secured his release.
Following three months of intensive training, he transitioned from convicted felon to Department agent.
As Benjamin assumed his characteristic boxing stance and launched his renewed attack, Richard avoided engaging in a contest of fighting technique. Instead, he swung Masamune with lightning speed.
Gravesong!
A lethal, aesthetically magnificent four-strike combination interrupted Benjamin's advance, the blade continuing through his transformed body.
SLASH! SLASH! SLASH! SLASH!
Benjamin's body immediately displayed four wounds, each several dozen centimeters in length.
What the—?
Seeing that Benjamin hadn't been dismembered like Inessa and Aiden, Richard didn't hesitate. He immediately employed Blinkstep to reposition himself twenty meters away.
Though aware of Benjamin's mutant capabilities, Richard hadn't anticipated defensive prowess sufficient to withstand Gravesong without fatal consequence.
Had he employed the pre-upgrade version of Gravesong, Richard wouldn't have been particularly surprised by Benjamin's survival.
But the technique he'd just deployed represented the Level 2 enhancement.
Similar to the upgraded Octaslash, Gravesong's destructive potential had increased dramatically.
Even if Benjamin's body genuinely consisted of steel, Richard had expected to dismember him completely.
Instead, the Level 2 Gravesong had only inflicted wounds several dozen centimeters long and one to two centimeters deep on Benjamin's form.
Though penetrating his defenses, such damage remained non-fatal.
Like Richard, Benjamin's expression reflected genuine surprise.
Though Steel Skin granted him strength far exceeding normal human parameters, the ability's primary asset wasn't enhanced power but rather its extraordinary defensive properties—resistance surpassing conventional steel.
This marked the first injury Benjamin had sustained since manifesting his mutation.
As Richard and Benjamin evaluated each other warily, the ground beneath them trembled slightly.
Accompanying this vibration, a circular entrance leading directly to the third underground level materialized in the plaza before the office building.
Seconds later, three towering robots—nearly four meters tall, completely black with yellow illumination emanating from their chest cavities and optical sensors, their bodies appearing segmented with scale-like armor plating—emerged into Richard's field of vision.
Sentinel robots?
Though seeing them firsthand for the first time, Richard immediately identified these massive black machines as Sentinels—the mutant-hunting automatons specifically engineered for mutant extermination.
In the film Days of Future Past, only two Sentinel iterations had appeared.
The first—a prototype debuting in 1973—possessed flight capability, utilized space-age polymers in its construction, and primarily deployed the Gatling gun mounted on its right appendage.
The second version appeared in the dystopian future timeline.
Created using Mystique's metamorphic principles, these advanced models could replicate mutant abilities at will and transmit these copied powers among their networked units. They represented a future weapon system with advanced artificial intelligence and coordinated tactical capabilities that had effectively eliminated mutantkind.
The machines now confronting Richard represented neither the 1973 prototype nor the future genocide-class Sentinels, but rather the third-generation models of the current era.
Is this the Department of Mutant Affairs' ultimate contingency?
Upon witnessing these three Sentinel units, Richard realized tonight's confrontation would escalate dramatically beyond his initial expectations.
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