Apocalypse swung his staff toward Ian. The strike carried immense force, leaving Ian with no choice but to block it with his alloy staff.
Ian had performed this defensive maneuver countless times before. Using the mechanical structure of his battle armor to absorb the impact, Apocalypse's great strength could not shake Ian in the slightest.
Following the clash, Apocalypse used the recoil to withdraw his staff and retreat, while Ian seized the opportunity to counterattack.
However, this time, Ian deviated from the pattern of their previous exchanges. The alloy staff in his hand suddenly softened, transforming into an alloy rope that tightly bound Apocalypse's staff along with his right hand.
Simultaneously, Ian's battle armor shifted into a support structure, anchoring itself firmly to the ground while maintaining its grip on the alloy rope.
Apocalypse was caught off guard by Ian's sudden change in tactics. Unable to break free, he was trapped and rendered immobile.
At that moment, Ian slipped out of his battle armor, which continued to restrain Apocalypse, and circled around to his back. Ian launched an attack aimed at Apocalypse's rear.
Mid-strike, Ian summoned an elemental furnace into his palm, releasing a stream of high-energy particles from his hand.
A standard attack wouldn't harm Apocalypse, but this high-energy particle stream was Ian's true weapon.
The attack came too suddenly, and Apocalypse didn't have time to break free. In the final moments, he managed to turn his body slightly, channeling energy into his left arm.
"Boom!"
A deafening explosion erupted, its blinding light shaking the entire pyramid with its energy shockwave.
Moments later, the dust cleared.
A massive crater scarred the previously smooth stone floor, and the deformed battle armor still tightly restrained Apocalypse.
Apocalypse's once ornate armor was gone, and his body was now only half-intact—most of one leg and half his head remained. The rest of his body had been incinerated by the high-energy particle stream.
Despite his horrifying state, Apocalypse wasn't dead. His remaining body was visibly regenerating. Within the seconds it took Ian to observe, much of Apocalypse's head had already regrown.
Though Apocalypse wasn't dead, his severely weakened condition rendered him incapable of fighting until his body fully recovered.
Having managed to cripple Apocalypse, Ian wasn't about to give him the chance to recover, but neither would he kill him immediately.
The deformed battle armor transformed into chains, binding Apocalypse's mutilated body tightly. Ian descended into the crater and inserted a blood extraction device into Apocalypse's body.
"Apocalypse, you've lost!"
Ian surveyed the majestic pyramid.
"Where are your Four Horsemen? Shouldn't they be protecting you?"
Apocalypse gazed at Ian with calm eyes, devoid of anger, regret, or pleading typical of a defeated adversary.
Upon hearing Ian's question, Apocalypse opened his mouth.
"Hoo…"
His throat made a hollow sound, and after a brief adjustment, he spoke.
"When Apocalypse returns, the Horsemen will come as well."
With those words, Apocalypse's half-restored body suddenly transformed into sand, slipping through the gaps in the chains.
He left Ian with nothing but a cryptic smile.
The transformation happened so quickly that Ian had no time to react. All he could do was pull out the blood extraction device, only to find that the extracted blood had also turned into sand.
Ian sighed in disappointment as his plans were dashed.
The chains, imbued with Ian's energy signature, shouldn't have allowed Apocalypse to escape—not even in sand form. This meant that Apocalypse must have perished completely.
However, after searching carefully, Ian found no trace of Apocalypse other than some ordinary sand.
Watching from the sidelines, Aisha sensed the sudden disappearance of Apocalypse's consciousness. She asked hesitantly, "Is Apocalypse dead?"
"He probably isn't," Ian replied. "Apocalypse is at least a Level Five mutant. If he were truly dead, there's no way he'd leave behind nothing but sand."
Moreover, Apocalypse's final words clearly indicated that he wasn't truly gone and would return someday.
Aisha nodded thoughtfully. Then she asked, "What do we do next?"
Ian pointed at the sand-covered ground. "Stick to the original plan, as though he never appeared."
Apocalypse's unexpected appearance was a surprise, but failing to obtain his DNA sample meant Ian had to focus on the original objective: the Sentinel X-Gene Vault.
The only large structure remaining on this island was the pyramid. The Sentinel organization's treasure trove was undoubtedly hidden here.
Apocalypse wouldn't have allowed random facilities to be constructed inside his pyramid, so the vault could only be underground.
With that realization, Ian didn't bother searching for an entrance. Instead, he directly dismantled the entire pyramid.
Without Apocalypse, the pyramid couldn't resist Ian's deconstruction abilities. Within moments, all of its stone components had been disassembled, exposing the alloy-constructed underground facility and the pyramid's massive golden apex.
The golden apex, still glowing brilliantly even at night, was stunningly dazzling. The pure gold structure weighed over ten thousand tons, likely the result of Apocalypse hoarding the world's gold reserves here.
Even though Ian could synthesize gold himself and considered material wealth insignificant, the sight of such a massive block of gold left him slightly dizzy.
"Is this really pure gold? Not bronze?" Aisha swallowed hard, staring at the apex in disbelief.
"Of course, it's pure gold. Would Apocalypse settle for anything less?"
Ian disassembled the apex into individual gold atoms and stored them in a corner of his elemental furnace.
With the gold dealt with, Ian turned his attention to the underground vault. Instead of searching room by room, he dismantled the ceiling layer by layer, examining each floor as he went.
Finally, on the fifth underground level, Ian discovered the Sentinel organization's X-Gene Vault. The facility was massive, occupying an entire floor.
Ian descended into the archive room in the center of the vault. With so many X-Gene samples, it wasn't practical to take them all, so he had to be selective.
Ian quickly located the statistical data.
The vault contained over a million activatable X-Gene samples. Given the vast quantity, Ian could only take a small portion.
"Aisha, you're in charge of selecting the X-Gene samples," Ian instructed. "Prioritize those above Level Four and beast-type mutations. Anything below Level Three isn't worth taking."
In Ian's mutant academy, most of the less useful X-Genes were beast-type mutations. Acquiring more beast-type X-Gene samples would provide the best value for the academy.
While Aisha sorted through the samples, Ian began crafting containers to maximize the number of samples they could carry, as the vault's original containers were insufficient.
(End of Chapter)