Dear Heroes, I really am a Villain-Chapter 48: Maximilian VS. Photon Fury - 02

On the street leading toward the city outskirts, Strauss was racing through in his armored car, with Oldcowboy sitting in the passenger seat beside him.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa! Slow down a bit... They’ve already landed. You don’t need to be this nervous!" Oldcowboy said, his hand clutching the seat, trying to stabilize himself.

"That’s exactly why I’m in a hurry, Mr. Blackwood! That idiot didn’t even know who that new villain was or what his EF abilities were, and she immediately rushed to fight him! No! That guy might not even be a villain in the first place!" Strauss ranted the moment Oldcowboy said to him.

The current situation could only be described as a complete mess.

Fifteen minutes earlier, while Strauss was investigating clues about alien technology, his search had led him to The Fringe. The Fringe was chaotic; the moment they arrived, a large fire had already broken out, burning several buildings.

Then, an explosion rocked the outskirts of The Fringe. Strauss, Oldcowboy, and Photon Fury immediately rushed toward the source.

When they arrived, they saw a man in black armor—who looked like a villain—crouching near a muscular man whose arms and legs had been severed. Without fully understanding the situation, Photon Fury tackled the man in black, lifting him into the sky.

To make matters worse, the muscular man appeared to be a mutant. Why was a mutant even here in The Fringe? Had the black-armored man been fighting the mutant, causing all the chaos? That was also a possibility.

Strauss quickly called for reinforcements to take custody of the mutant. At the same time, he and Oldcowboy raced toward the city outskirts to catch up with Photon Fury and the black-armored man.

By the time they arrived, Photon Fury and her opponent had already landed somewhere within the outskirts. The GPS indicated they were in an area with few people—a small mercy.

Strauss’s car raced through the streets and finally arrived at the location where the two had landed.

At first, Strauss expected the area to be riddled with craters and debris from the fight, but to his surprise, it was silent. He quickly checked the GPS on his personal console and saw that Photon Fury was inside a nearby building. The heartbeat readings suggested she was engaged in combat with the black-armored man.

— Inside the Abandoned Building —

Maximilian and Photon Fury clashed. She enhanced her strength with her Photon Power and charged toward Maximilian, who was already prepared.

The punch she sent toward him was decent—the level of an amateur boxer—but... it wasn’t good enough.

Maximilian’s armored glove parried Photon Fury’s straight punch, redirecting it. He then countered with a punch of his own—an easy punch, more to test her reaction than to actually hurt her.

Pow!

Photon Fury smirked as she blocked it, but—

Zaaap!

A high-voltage electric charge surged through her. She recoiled, clutching her now-numbed arm.

It had to be said that Photon Fury’s endurance and durability were many times greater than that of an average person. If a normal human without any body-enhancement EF received a shock like that, they would likely have died on the spot. Yet Photon Fury merely recoiled with a bit of numbness.

"Playing dirty tricks, huh?" she snorted. "As expected of a man!" she said with a provocative smirk.

"As expected? You don’t seem to understand it very well," Maximilian replied coldly.

Hearing Maximilian talk back seemed to stir something inside her. She felt like she was being tested.

"Shut up!" she shouted, angrily rushing at him again. She increased her Photon Power, covering her entire body in energy. She wanted to finish this in one punch. However, it was clear she couldn’t fully control her power—the energy radiating off her began to burn the ground they stood on.

Seeing this, Maximilian smirked and easily avoided her punch, retreating a few steps before firing a forcefield-negation bullet at her.

Bang!

The bullet did its job, immediately disrupting her power. Since Photon Fury wasn’t channeling her power at full force—likely because they were still in an abandoned building and the "villain" in front of her was supposedly holding children hostage—the negation worked effectively.

"I see... You don’t seem too worried about the children’s welfare after all, Pamela Diamond," Maximilian said mockingly.

Seeing the ground burn, Photon Fury quickly rushed over and stomped on the fire, extinguishing it before it spread further.

"You! You coward! If you’re a man, don’t use hostages—fight me fair and square!" Photon Fury blurted out in frustration.

"You are a strange creature, Pamela Diamond. One moment, you scorn men as if they’re trash. The next, you demand chivalry from them when it suits your advantage," Maximilian replied.

Hearing this, Photon Fury was taken aback. She had spoken without thinking.

"Don’t you have any sympathy? They’re children! Do you want them to die!?" she immediately changed tactics.

"Sympathy? I am a villain, Pamela Diamond," Maximilian paused, his voice coming coldly through the voice modulator. "Besides... the one who will kill those children... is you. Not me. You’ll kill them yourself."

Without giving her a chance to respond, Maximilian rushed at her.

This time, he didn’t hold back. Photon Fury immediately tried to counter, but Maximilian dodged skillfully and sent a cross-counter punch to her face—another jolt of high-voltage electricity stunning her, this time striking her head directly.

Without giving her time to regain her footing, Maximilian swept her legs from under her, sending her crashing to the ground.

Seeing this, Maximilian quickly sat on her stomach and unleashed a rainbow punch barrage onto her face!

Bam Zap! Bam Zap! Bam Zap! Bam Zap! Bam Zap! Bam Zap!

With each punch, a high-voltage shock struck her. Photon Fury was helpless—she didn’t know how to get out of the situation. She tried to fight back, but it was no use. All the theories she had read online about how to counter this kind of attack didn’t work at all.

As for using her strength, she couldn’t either. She needed to channel her Photon Power to energize her EF and gain the strength necessary—the bare minimum level she could control without causing massive collateral damage.