Twenty seconds passed. Thirty. After a full minute, Magneto drew a long breath, then dropped to one knee. His voice sank low. "Then… great lord, do you require my service?"
"Hahahahaha! Obedient—good," the voice boomed. "First, remove my seals. Then I shall mend your broken body. Undo my bindings, my foolish servant!"
A map flared across Erik's mind—an overhead of the tomb. With those directions, he could easily find the chamber where the speaker waited.
"Yes, my lord." A thin smile tugged at Magneto's mouth. He rose and walked toward the indicated room.
—
Elsewhere, after three hours of bleak silence on the beach, a miracle appeared—or at least an unexpected chance: a cruise liner, trying a route it didn't usually take. The sight jolted the three stranded men like a thunderclap.
Saitama had just made his peace with failure, but if there was still a chance to clear the quest, he wasn't going to let it slip. He bounded up; Charles and Beast all but vibrated with renewed hope. It was still the first half of the night. If they got aboard, they could fix everything.
Saitama grabbed each man with one hand, sprinted, and leapt for the ship—
Two hours later…
Charles, Beast, and Saitama were hunched in a bobbing life raft, paddling with grim, exhausted faces. Not because the cruise passengers refused them a lift—Charles could have handled that with a thought. The problem was the jump: from several thousand meters away. Ships… leak when you drop onto them like meteors.
Saitama had punched straight through the deck. In the end, the three of them could only flee with a lifeboat and row.
Back to square one.
Beast did some quick math. If they rowed flat out, they might still make it. So they rowed until their arms burned.
Six hours later, they hit a stretch of French coastline, flagged down a car, and tore off toward Paris. Thank goodness it was fifty years ago—today they'd have been illegal entrants without passports.
By the time they reached Paris, it was nine o'clock.
"This is the place… right?" Beast muttered, wincing. His hands felt like they'd crack off his wrists. After gripping a steering wheel that long, he swore he'd never fear anything again.
Saitama only sighed. Physically, he far outclassed everyone; endurance meant nothing to him.
He looked up at the building. "Best play is to throw the whole place into chaos. If we do that, Mystique won't have time to pull the trigger."
"No," Beast said, inhaling hard. "She's already inside."
Charles nodded. "Raven's gift is transformation. She's likely replaced someone on the schedule and slipped in. If we smash the building now, we'll just hand her a clean moment to kill."
"Then we go in," Saitama said—and strode for the doors.
The guards moved to stop him; Beast shouldered them aside. Charles's eyes flashed—his will pressed down—and the guards fell still, quiet as statues.
Saitama smirked. "Looks like your power is… occasionally useful."
Charles sweat-dropped. Once, his gift had stopped gods and demons alike. In Saitama's mouth it became "occasionally useful."
They reached the conference room. Saitama kicked the doors open. Mystique lay on the table, while an American officer held a device to her, running some kind of "electrotherapy."
Charles's face went green. He lunged and shoved the officer flying.
Saitama scooped Raven up. "Target secured. We're leaving."
They all knew they shouldn't linger. But the air buckled before they could reach the hall. The walls shivered; the bones of the building squealed. Everything around them began to twist.
"What now?" Saitama stumbled, tossing Mystique to Beast as he pivoted. A steel rebar lanced toward them; Saitama met it with a straight punch and shattered it mid-flight.
"Someone's controlling every scrap of metal in the structure. Erik?" Charles shouted.
"I don't know who it is, but we can't stay!" Saitama blew a hole through a wall and charged them out into the open.
When they turned back, the entire building had rolled in on itself, crumpling into a compact sphere. No one inside could have survived.
Charles felt cold sweat down his spine. Had they arrived a minute later, Raven would have died there.
"This isn't Erik. Not this strong," he whispered.
Beast nodded. Magneto could bend metal, yes—but not like this. Not to ball up an entire complex into a perfect iron planet.
A voice answered them—deep, resonant, and proud.
"You're right. This is not the old Erik. You may call me… Magneto Emperor. A new sovereign. I am one of my master Apocalypse's Four Horsemen. Offer your lives here as the sacrifice for my lord's return."
(End of Chapter)
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