At 16, he drew Comprehensive Enhancement [one-time, non-upgradable]: bone density, muscle fibers, neural reaction speed, cell activity, self-healing…
all pushed to the theoretical limits of a mortal body.
That let him smash the skulls of three professional mercenaries with his bare hands during a business-related kidnapping, moving so fast the bodyguards never even saw him.
At 17, he drew Energy Absorption lv1.
That ability remains Hawk’s core power to this day, and that was also the year Hawk went through some highly dramatic experiences that pushed him to put on tights and do something thrilling and righteous.
At first, he wanted to call himself “Hungry Ghost Path,” but after getting mocked for how stupid it sounded, he changed it to “King.” In his eyes, this power had greatly boosted his ability to protect himself.
Energy Absorption lv1 might not measure up to the Black King, but in those days, in little Brooklyn, there was absolutely no one who could match him.
The ability he drew at 18 was Hawk’s current second favorite: Male Technique Enhancement lv1.
A perfect coming-of-age gift, a blessing from God.
The moment he got it, Hawk put it to use on his older sister Andy…
That very week, Andy, who was already the Chief Financial Officer, took her first week-long vacation and spent the whole thing in bed with him…
At 19, he drew an unremarkable Skill Card.
By then, he had three Skill Cards in total.
The ability he drew at 20 could only be called godlike, the most badass ability Hawk had drawn so far.
[Conceptual Immortality (Non-Upgradable)] No matter what form of life you are, as long as some medium within the Omniverse still records you, as long as you have not been forgotten, as long as someone still speaks your name, as long as traces of your existence remain, you will never truly die.
To celebrate, a thrilled Hawk threw a three-month yacht sex party, gathering famous supermodels and second- and third-tier actresses from all over the world, making entertainment and business headlines every single day.
After all, the ability description said, “as long as traces of your existence remain…” Hawk naturally wanted to leave behind as many traces as possible, every kind of trace, which definitely included his own genetic material…
During that stretch, even playboy Tony Stark’s scandals got no attention.
In short, he lived a life of drunkenness and debauchery…
and hey, he couldn’t die anyway…
But those peaceful days came crashing down a month ago.
Bates Capital, that greedy Wall Street vulture, finally bared its fangs after repeatedly failing to seize several Lane Mining sites through hostile takeovers.
No longer content with financial games, it went straight to hiring…
a squad of monsters.
The attack came while John Lane had gathered the company’s senior executives for an important meeting.
The enemy struck with precision and ruthlessness.
It was a four-person squad.
They moved too fast to be human, and they were strong enough to tear concrete walls apart with their bare hands.
Most bizarre of all, they seemed to possess some kind of telekinetic power.
When bullets were fired at them, the bullets seemed to hit an invisible wall and were instantly flattened into discs of metal.
Fortunately, Hawk happened to be at the company that day.
He charged into the conference room, absorbed most of the shockwaves with his body, and covered John Lane and most of the senior executives as they retreated.
Otherwise, the consequences would have been unthinkable.
The Lane family’s mercenaries and bodyguard teams suffered heavy casualties.
The blood, the twisted steel, the strange residual energy fluctuations hanging in the air…
All of it pierced the calm facade Hawk had worked so hard to maintain like a cold needle.
Anger burned in his chest, but stronger still was a cold resolve, because someone had crossed the line.
And this time, with an “immortal body,” Hawk feared nothing.
Using information from unofficial channels and his own hacking skills, Hawk locked onto the attackers’ location.
As the superhero “King,” he launched a merciless counter-hunt through New York’s underworld.
Of the four: Da-hun was dismembered.
His self-healing couldn’t keep up with the damage Hawk inflicted, and he was thrown onto the train tracks and ground to a pulp.
Park Seong-mi was cut in two; one half was buried at a construction site, the other was sunk into the Hudson River.
Ha Su-min’s head was blown off by a Heat Ray, and in the end her entire body was reduced to a pile of carbon…
Only the last member of the squad remained.
Hawk used the cruelest methods to interrogate the squad’s captain, the woman who had given him a little trouble: Eun-bi.
She was utterly crushed by Hawk’s power.
She struggled to lift her head, and fragmented words spilled from her mouth, laced with fear: “We are…
the Clay Doll Squad…
base…
Busan…
modification…
witch…
Koo Ziyun…” The “Witch Project”!
A name, a location, and a vague outline had surfaced.
Hawk’s investigative skills were far beyond ordinary.
Using Lane Group’s global server nodes as springboards, he spent a Skill Card to raise his Hacking to Lv.2.
With that, he broke into the peripheral databases of several national intelligence agencies, pieced together scattered fragments of information, and combined them with the hidden Bates Capital money trail Andy had traced through private financial channels to finally pinpoint their target: The “Witch Project” base hidden deep underground in Busan, South Korea, secretly funded by former S.H.I.E.L.D.
Director Alexander Pierce to develop superhuman weapons.
Digging through decades of financial activity, they discovered that Bates Capital, which had always opposed them and tried to carve up and swallow Lane Group, was actually Alexander’s front.
It was Alexander, the former head of S.H.I.E.L.D., who had been quietly trying to nibble away at Lane.
As for his motives, the first was simple: who would ever complain about having too much money?
The second was that this was far from the first time Alexander had pulled something like this.
Early in his career, he had abused his authority for personal gain, secretly acquiring controlling stakes in several multinational corporations.
Partly to fund his operations, and partly to use them as intelligence channels.
*So this is how Hydra slowly grew,* Hawk thought, swirling his wine glass.
He needed to snuff out this small threat and give his opponents a little American-style shock.