Chapter 125: Getting to Know the Human Club (Second Update)

Madam Gao’s suddenly widened eyes gleamed with the radiance of certain victory!

It would be unfair to say that Madam Gao was the only one laboring under the illusion of triumph. The two generations of Black Widows on the other side were both so tense that their hearts seemed lodged in their throats.

Only Mei Tianli remained silent. With his left hand, he opened a magical repulsion shield, pretending to cast a defensive spell while using the purple radiance of magic to conceal the movements of his right hand.

His extended index and middle fingers traced circles in the air. The motion appeared slow, but was in fact incredibly swift. As golden sparks flared, a tiny portal opened at precisely the right moment, less than an inch before Madam Gao’s fist.

“No!”

Madam Gao realized what was happening, but stopping her fist was far easier said than done.

A fist thrown with all her strength, like a high-speed train racing at two hundred kilometers per hour, could not simply be brought to a halt. The instant her fist—and her entire right arm—plunged deep into the portal, which was barely larger than a bowl, the outcome was sealed.

The tiny portal abruptly contracted and vanished.

“Aaaaah—!”

Madam Gao tried to twist her body and pull out her fist and arm, but she managed only halfway. More than half of her upper arm, above the elbow, was severed on the spot.

The wound was neater than one made by a laser cutter, without the slightest jagged edge.

The pain of losing an arm was devastatingly real.

Before Madam Gao could recover, more portals appeared beside her remaining three limbs. Her body suddenly sank.

She struggled, but Mei Mumu’s magic was faster.

Three tiny portals closed around her limbs before rapidly contracting and disappearing as well.

In the blink of an eye, the ferociously imposing Madam Gao had become an old tortoise with all four limbs cut off. Blood sprayed from her wounds as she writhed on the ground, screaming in agony.

“Ahhhh! Impossible! You… You’re actually from Kamar-Taj! Ancient One… Since when did she have a disciple like you?”

Correct! Sadly, there was no prize.

Mei Mumu smiled.

That move had been nothing less than a spatial severance. A body like Madam Gao’s had no hope of withstanding it. Even the Black Dwarf, one of Thanos’s generals and famed for his immense physical strength, lost an arm in Avengers: Infinity War when confronted by the crushing force created by spatial contraction.

One had to understand that even the main cannon of a cosmic warship might not be enough to kill that brute.

The power of spatial cutting was plain to see.

Techniques like this could not easily catch powerful spellcasters off guard. Mages were extraordinarily sensitive to fluctuations in magic and energy; they could detect them in advance and evade or counter them.

Against pure close-combat specialists, however, such methods often produced astonishing results.

As for where Madam Gao’s limbs had gone, Mei Mumu himself had no idea. Perhaps they could go looking for them in the Pacific Ocean?

If the sharks had not eaten them, they might eventually sink into the Mariana Trench.

“Ahhh!”

An old woman without limbs writhed in agony on the ground. It was a sight horrifying enough to make anyone who heard her screams tremble and weep. Yet when the two generations of Black Widows remembered everything Madam Gao had done, they felt a faint, grim satisfaction.

Even if the people she had vivisected had not been Soviet citizens, the feeling remained.

For Mei Mumu, it was the exhilaration of avenging his fellow countrymen. He knew perfectly well that he was already in a parallel Marvel universe, but that profound sense of identification still refused to fade.

With his left hand, he flicked his four fingers in succession, excluding the thumb. Four tiny flames landed on Madam Gao’s severed limbs.

The intense burning pain made her scream and convulse violently, her entire body arching backward.

The flames did not kill her. Instead, they cauterized the wounds, preventing her from bleeding to death.

“Kill me! Kill me! Let me die!”

Madam Gao shouted in Russian.

“Heh. You committed such grave sins, and you still expect to enter hell so easily? It won’t be that simple. Come now—first, hand over every piece of intelligence you possess…”

Torture and interrogation had always been the intelligence department’s specialty. On top of that, Mei Mumu had discovered that his unusual bloodline granted him a talent for exerting psychological pressure.

In less than ten minutes, Madam Gao broke down.

On the surface, it appeared that the torture had shattered her. In truth, Mei Mumu’s spiritual abilities had played the greater part. After that, everything proceeded with astonishing smoothness.

Yelena escorted Madam Gao back to the aircraft, then summoned most of a company of assault troops to serve as laborers, carrying crate after crate of documents.

The men below wore their legs raw with effort while their commander naturally took the opportunity to be idle—or rather, to plan his next move.

On the terrace atop the castle, Natalia watched the Russian soldiers below haul supplies through the rain. Her expression was somewhat gloomy.

“Brother, you handled that beautifully. But could this…”

“Hmm. I’ve once again proven that, as far as Stalin is concerned, I can be both an asset and a threat. Originally, he promoted me to major general because I had been honorably discharged with disabilities. Now, he’ll probably feel that I deceived him. In any case, he’ll most likely begin preparing a contingency plan. Once the time is right, he’ll still send me to assassinate Hitler.”

“Then have you ever considered retiring with honor after helping the Soviet Union kill Hitler?” Natalia asked.

The moment she said it, Mei Mumu understood.

At the end of the day, he and Natalia were still Russians. Stalin had committed more than a few monstrous deeds, but his achievements could not simply be erased either. That alone was not quite enough to make Natalia sincerely betray her country.

Mei Mumu laughed from the bottom of his heart.

“Believe me. As far as Stalin is concerned, the outcome he wants most is for someone as powerful as me to perish alongside Hitler. If I successfully assassinate Hitler and return unharmed, Stalin will be the one losing sleep.”

A poisoned blade was always double-edged.

No one could guarantee that a man capable of killing the leader of a major Axis power would not, because of some personal grudge, turn that blade against his own superior.

To the highest leader, the very fact that a subordinate possessed such power was already a crime.

Perhaps that was simply the art of imperial rule.

Natalia fell silent for a moment. Then she suddenly raised her head, her gaze more resolute than ever.

“If the people above really move against you, Brother, then I’ll rebel! But I truly hope that day never comes.”

That was the Black Widow’s bottom line.

Mei Mumu smiled and kissed Natalia on the forehead.

“I hope so too.”

Elsewhere, Mei Mumu ultimately did not kill Madam Gao. It was not because of her status in K’un-Lun. He simply felt that letting her die so easily would be far too merciful.

After shattering every vertebra in her spine, he sent a Nightmare into her brain. Then he bound the half-dead Madam Gao inside the bomb bay.

Someone as important to the course of destiny in the Marvel universe as Madam Gao could not possibly lack a point of divergence. The system had remained silent until now because it was waiting for Mei Mumu to deliver the final judgment on her fate.