With a month and a half of telekinesis training under his belt, combined with his daily Destiny Draw, Kenji’s actual combat power was currently far from low.
…
“Help!” “Somebody save me!!” “Ah!
Ah…
No!!
Ah, I’m dying!” “Please don’t kill me!
Argh…” …
Inside the pedestrian street.
Crackle…
Beside the shattered floor-to-ceiling windows, a neon sign broken in two struggled to spit out a final electric spark before completely dying out.
The air was thick with the distinct, rusty stench of blood.
Following the cries for help, Kenji furrowed his brows, his gaze gradually sharpening.
There were corpses everywhere.
All kinds of human bodies.
Humans had been reduced to prey, slaughtered wantonly by an unknown hunter.
A pet store on the street suddenly exploded, sending steel rebars and rubble flying.
The debris smashed through the display window of a clothing store opposite, instantly filling the air with dust and smoke.
Thud, thud, thud…
Heavy, slow footsteps rang out.
A dark, greenish-black, five-toed claw belonging to a reptilian creature pierced through the smoke.
The foot, over fifty centimeters long, stepped onto the cracked pavement, emitting a terrifying, vibrating thud.
The smoke gradually cleared, revealing the true form of a towering monster over three meters tall.
It had thick, keratinous skin and walked upright on two massive hind legs.
A tail as thick as a water barrel swung behind it, plowing a deep trench into the concrete road.
“I am the Lizard Monster, mutated because I looked too much like a lizard!
Hiss, hiss, hiss…” The Lizard Monster laughed maniacally, baring its teeth.
A long, forked tongue hung from its massive maw, dripping thick, foul-smelling green saliva that corroded the ground into smoking pits.
“Stupid humans, you will finally pay the price for mocking me…
Ah!!!” Bang!
A pistol bullet, carrying kinetic energy far exceeding the norm, accurately drilled into the giant lizard’s left eye socket.
It pierced the keratinous eyelid, which was tough enough to defend against ordinary firearms, and churned the lens inside into a bloody paste.
Roar!
The now one-eyed Lizard Monster bellowed in rage, “Who is it?!
Who is it?!
Who dares to ambush me?!” Bang, bang, bang, bang!
The response it received was a continuous barrage of gunfire.
If another esper were present, they would have seen that every bullet was coated in a layer of azure energy flames, multiplying the pistol’s firepower.
Pfft, pfft, pfft, pfft!
The facial scales, boasting a defense comparable to armor plating, were as fragile as A4 paper against the telekinetic bullets.
Over a dozen bloody holes were torn open in succession.
However, due to its massive size, the Lizard Monster merely cried out in pain.
The muscles around the facial wounds were already writhing, squeezing the bullets out.
The actual damage taken was minimal.
Even the eye that had been blown out was actively dying and regenerating.
By the looks of it, growing a brand-new eye was only a matter of time.
This was the terrifying vitality of a monster.
“Tough as a monster…
What a pain,” Kenji muttered.
He holstered his empty service pistol and stepped out of the shadows.
Planting his feet firmly, he directly confronted the vicious monster, which was comparable to a dinosaur in size.
The vertical pupils unique to reptiles instantly focused, locking onto the seemingly defenseless human figure.
The Lizard Monster spun around fiercely, its giant tail whipping out a blur that snapped a decorative light pole in half.
Its hideous head twisted into a very human-like, sinister smirk.
“You actually dare to show yourself!” Boom, boom, boom!!
Bricks exploded and scattered.
In just three strides, the cold-blooded reptilian hunter crossed a distance of thirty meters, opening its bloody maw wide to bite down.
In its mind, the Lizard Monster was already picturing the beautiful scene of this wretched human, bitten in half, crawling on the ground and struggling in agony.
Facing the incoming razor-sharp teeth and foul stench, Kenji suddenly looked up, a cold, ruthless smile pulling at the corners of his mouth.
Za Warudo!
At this moment, the world ground to a halt.
Only the Lizard Monster’s amber eye reflected a fist wreathed in blue flames, growing larger and larger.
Ora!
Ora Ora Ora Ora Ora!
Ora Ora Ora Ora Ora!!
The flow of time returned to normal.
Having eaten countless iron fists before it could even react, the giant lizard head, which was terrifying just a second ago, was now completely deformed.
Its swollen eyes and crooked mouth formed a giant, comical mess.
“Phew.” The Ora barrage finished.
The massive Lizard Monster was blasted onto its back by a heavy, full-body hook.
The certain police officer who threw the punch let out a breath of stale air and simultaneously snapped his fingers.
Snap!
Stand ability activated!
An ordinary-looking N-tier card instantly materialized.
As it bloomed with intense light, Kenji flicked it high into the air.
The next second, a heavy shadow blotted out the sun, plummeting from the sky!
On the ground, the Lizard Monster’s barely opened eye abruptly contracted, as if it had seen the most terrifying thing in the world!
A heavy, yellow-painted road roller had appeared out of nowhere right above its head.
Propelled by the combined force of mother gravity and azure spiritual flames, it turned into an advancing steel beast.
Road Roller Da!
“Oh my god!
No!” Bang!
The heavy, solid steel drum at the front of the vehicle crashed down mercilessly, instantly crushing the Lizard Monster’s spine, chest cavity, and more than half of its body!
A spray of crimson mosaic erupted, and the massive lizard head rolled far away, making a sickening squelching sound.
Screech!
A piercing sound of metal scraping echoed from nearby.
The lizard head struggled to turn its remaining eye, and then its pupil violently shrank!
The upper half of the light pole it had previously swept down with its tail had somehow been sheared into a razor-sharp point.
It looked like a giant lance used by medieval knights in a charge.
The cold light reflecting off the severed edge seemed capable of cutting someone just by looking at it.
And this meter-long light pole was floating like a javelin right above the right hand of that terrifying human, who was unhurriedly walking step by step toward it.
Tap, tap, tap…
Bloodcurdling footsteps echoed, and an unspeakable terror spread through the air.
“Ya…
Yamete!!
Ahh!” Driving the pole through the remaining eye and pinning the Lizard Monster dead to the pavement, Kenji patted his pockets, pulled out a pack of cigarettes, and silently lit one for himself.
“Huu…” Within the exhaled smoke, a faint blue spiritual light rose, condensing into a clawing, snarling lizard that let out a resentful roar at Kenji.
“Still showing arrogance?” Kenji coldly snorted.
The spiritual lizard, still ascending in mid-air, froze its expression.
You can see me?!
Stand ability activated.
A blank card appeared between Kenji’s fingers.
The lizard spirit, which was using both hands and feet, even employing a breaststroke motion to accelerate its ascent to heaven, stalled in mid-air.
Like cooking smoke encountering an extractor hood, it was rapidly sucked backward.
Losing its original form, it turned into a spiritual vortex and plunged into the card below.
“Yamete…” The next second, the blank surface of the card sketched out an upright lizard with a terrified expression.
As multiple nodes and patterns lit up on the white card, the border color gradually shifted to a deep blue.
Demon-level: Lizard Monster.
Defeated.
Sealing complete.
At the same time, his Stand provided feedback in Kenji’s mind.
[Destiny Draw count +1.] [Current Destiny Draw count: 9.] Wee-woo, wee-woo…
Police sirens wailed in the distance.
Kenji glanced at the Lizard Monster’s mangled corpse and recalled his murder weapon, the battle-hardened road roller, back into a card.
A moment later, the belated police officers and firefighters extinguished the heavy blaze at the entrance with water hoses and rushed into the pedestrian street.
A familiar police officer recognized Kenji, who had blended into the crowd.
“Kenji, you’re here too!” “Yeah, just arrived,” Kenji said, wiping his intentionally soot-blackened face as he looked at the devastated pedestrian street.
“Hurry up and save people!” “Right!
Those damn monsters!” More and more police forces were deployed for search and rescue.
Soon, the riot police pushing the frontline discovered the massive corpse of the monster.
“Huh?” “The monster has already been killed!!” “What?
That’s great!” “Hiss…
What kind of attack did this guy get hit by?!
A meteor?!” …
Meanwhile.
A faint breathing sound came from under a collapsed wall.
Kenji glanced around, exerted force with both hands, and completely flipped over a massive piece of debris.
From the blood-stained rubble, he carefully lifted out a little girl covered in bruises.
“Big brother, I saw it…” Kenji froze for a moment as the little girl gently hugged his arm.
“You defeated the monster.
Are you a hero?” A hero?
Maybe.
Hearing the little girl’s question, an image flashed before Kenji’s eyes: a bald man in a red-and-yellow skintight suit, a cape fluttering behind him.
He scanned the blood-soaked pile of rubble once more.
Within his telekinetic field of vision, the lifeless bodies of a man and a woman were outlined.
They were the little girl’s parents.
Touched deep in his heart, Kenji’s voice softened.
“Big brother is a police officer.
Go to sleep.
Everything will be fine when you wake up.” “Thank you…
brother…” He gently channeled his telekinesis to soothe the little girl’s fluctuating emotions.
She tightly gripped Kenji’s collar and fell into a deep slumber in his arms.
…
[Fantasy Card: Roadside Road Roller] [Card Type: Item Card] [Rarity: N] [Introduction: A scrapped road roller.
Its weight, volume, and handling feel are absolutely perfect.] [Effect 1: Road Roller Attack] [Summons a falling road roller from mid-air while shouting: Road Roller Da!]