Contradiction

Alex used Teleportation all the way as he searched, his face cold as frost and his heart filled with anxiety.

With Crystal’s abilities, she simply could not withstand the rocket launchers in Strucker’s hands. If anything happened to her, Alex would have no way to answer to the Inhuman race. After all, the current Inhuman King was Crystal’s brother-in-law!

Racing onward, Alex still carefully searched his surroundings. Yet to his surprise, he reached the place where he had previously fought Strucker and the others without encountering Crystal. There were no traces of battle along the way either.

"What happened?" Alex carefully surveyed the area, utterly baffled.

After observing for a while, Alex suddenly noticed something wrong. The signs of battle here seemed even more severe than when he had left. Most noticeably, several corpses lay on a small hill nearby. Without exception, they were AIM soldiers wearing beekeeper suits!

"Could Crystal have defeated Strucker?" Alex appeared beside the AIM soldiers’ bodies with an incredulous look. At a glance, he saw that every AIM soldier had a hole punched straight through their chest.

Frowning, Alex leaned closer for a look, then cried out in disbelief, "Mandarin?!" The holes in the AIM soldiers’ bodies had clearly been caused by Cutting Beams. Mandarin had killed these soldiers.

At that thought, Alex could not help smiling. Mandarin had quite a temper. Strucker had obviously tried to kill Mandarin along with the others, but Mandarin had not feared him in the slightest. Once he recovered, how could Mandarin possibly let Strucker off?

"I just wonder how Strucker is doing now?" As he spoke, Alex looked around before continuing toward AIM’s territory.

After suffering Mandarin’s attack, Strucker would not retreat toward X-Mansion if he could not win. He could only flee back the way he came. As for Crystal, since she had not encountered Strucker on her way here, she certainly would not be willing to let it go. Naturally, she would have chased after him as well.

Having figured it out, Alex quickened his pace. Not far from Poseidonia, he finally spotted Crystal and the others. Crystal led more than a dozen X-Men in surrounding and attacking AIM soldiers. Those AIM soldiers Alex had once feared like tigers were now like sheep facing a pride of lions, completely incapable of fighting back. The entire scene was a one-sided slaughter.

Seeing this, Alex could hardly believe his eyes!

Only after arriving did Alex realize that the rocket launchers in the AIM soldiers’ hands had become nothing but useless iron rods. They had been fumbling with them for ages without firing a single shot. Through telepathy, Alex quickly discovered that, like the special cannons fired by Hydra robots, these rocket launchers were "restricted" weapons. After twenty shots, they completely shut down!

The AIM soldiers had used up their twenty-shot limit during their battle with Mandarin. Although they had successfully forced Mandarin back, Crystal and her group had happened to arrive right afterward, resulting in the current scene.

Once he understood everything, Alex naturally showed no mercy. Like a tiger entering a flock of sheep, he began a massacre!

In today’s battle, X-Mansion had suffered devastating losses. At least eighty percent of the Floating Giant Island’s buildings had been destroyed, and casualties numbered over ten thousand. Alex had been suppressing a raging fire in his heart. Without question, Strucker and his AIM were the source of that fury. Now that he had encountered the culprits, how could Alex hold back? He vented all the vicious anger in his heart at once.

Alex’s sudden appearance was undoubtedly the last straw for AIM, who were already barely holding on. No, it was more like freezing snow atop ice. Alex at full strength might have been a notch weaker than Mandarin in combat ability, but his destructive and lethal power was absolutely top-tier. Like the god of death on the battlefield, Alex frantically reaped the lives of AIM soldiers.

Countless steel pellets turned into a sky-filling barrage that swept through the air, washing over AIM’s ranks again and again like a brush. The AIM soldiers were like stalks of wheat before a harvester, utterly unable to resist.

The Energy Impact Beam was an even more terrifying weapon. Alex did not need to control it deliberately. With a single beam of light, every AIM soldier in its path instantly turned to ash, leaving not even a corpse behind!

At the center of the battlefield, Strucker watched Alex slaughtering freely through binoculars, his face turning livid. He roared, "Send men! Send troops! Send every soldier we have!" Then he paused slightly, staring at Alex through the binoculars as he gritted his teeth and ordered, "Gather every high-power electromagnetic launch device! No matter what happens today, we must keep him here!"

Before today, Strucker had not known Alex’s weakness. But Mandarin had sealed off Alex’s spatial teleportation. Someone as clever as Strucker naturally saw through it. At the thought of killing Alex, a ferocious grin gradually appeared on his livid face.

Alex did not know that Strucker was already preparing to deal with him. After fighting for a while, he finally reunited with Crystal and the others.

When Crystal saw Alex, a brilliant smile bloomed across her dust-covered face. Her beautiful eyes curved unconsciously like a crescent moon, making her look exceptionally adorable.

"Alex…" Crystal took the initiative to approach him, calling out excitedly.

Unfortunately, what greeted her was Alex’s cold expression and an angry rebuke that burst from his mouth. "Do you remember the task I gave you? Stay on the Floating Giant Island and protect its safety? Did you forget all of it?"

The string of questions was like a bucket of icy water poured over Crystal’s blazing excitement, chilling her to the bone. Crystal stared blankly at Alex. She opened her mouth, wanting to say something, but no words came out. Two streams of clear tears burst forth like a collapsed dam, instantly streaking her face.

Alex regretted his words the moment they left his mouth. When he saw Crystal’s tear-filled eyes, his regret deepened until his insides twisted. But words spoken were like water spilled—they were not so easily taken back.

"Let’s go back first!" Alex decided to get everyone back first, then slowly persuade her and apologize. After all, this was a battlefield.

But to Alex’s frustration, Crystal lost her temper too. She unleashed a torrent of curses at him before finally declaring with a resolute expression, "I’m not going back! I’ll never go back!"

Alex knew he was at fault. Crystal had run out because she was worried about him, yet what she received in return was a furious scolding. No one would have been happy about that.

"Crystal, I was wrong just now. I apologize!" Alex had already sensed that the atmosphere around them was off, and he did not dare remain any longer. He reached out and grabbed Crystal’s arm, coaxing her in a subdued voice. "We can talk about everything else after we get back. This place isn’t safe!"

Crystal was still angry and did not care what Alex said. She raised her chin stubbornly as she looked at him, like an enraged little lioness. "If you’re scared, then leave first! I don’t need you to take care of me!"