City A.
This super-metropolis with millions of people was originally a modern steel jungle.
Sunlight filtered through the clouds, spilling onto the mirrored glass curtain walls of the buildings, reflecting dazzling spots of light.
Office workers, briefcases in hand and earphones in their ears, scurried across crosswalks, rushing for the sake of a minute or two of traffic lights.
Right then.
That sound rang out.
It wasn’t an ordinary siren.
Nor was it the kind of ambulance wail that makes one numb after hearing it too often.
It was a sound so sharp it reached an extreme, a terrifying wave of sound as if someone were scraping a rusted, blunt knife ruthlessly against your eardrums.
“Wooo——!!!” “Wooo——!!!” This sound covered almost every corner of City A, penetrating soundproof glass and drilling into everyone’s mind.
The disaster alarm unique to the Hero Association.
Everyone’s movements froze in that instant.
Passersby who were just arguing over a taxi froze in place.
The salesman who was mid-pitch, spitting words to sell insurance to a client, shut his mouth.
Everyone looked up, eyes filled with a fear born of biological instinct, looking at the public screens on the street or pulling out their phones.
The image on the screen was a field of static, which then switched to a heavily shaking camera shot.
Even through the screen, one could feel how violently the hand of the person holding the camera was shaking.
In the center of the frame, was a purple nightmare.
It was a Monster.
If it had to be described, it was like some failed product from a Resident Evil lab, maliciously magnified several hundred times.
Its purple skin looked like a buildup of bruised blood, covered in disgusting vessel-like patterns that gave off a greasy sheen in the sunlight.
Two antennae stood upright on its head like aerials.
The Monster floated in mid-air, beneath it a commercial street that had already been turned into ruins.
Just moments ago, it had been a bustling pedestrian street, with shops selling milk tea, clothes, and young people playing guitars on the street corners.
Now, it was all gone.
Nothing remained but a giant crater still emitting black smoke, and half-shattered signs hanging from the surrounding rubble.
“I am the will of the Earth!” The Monster’s voice was like a heavy subwoofer, making the surrounding glass windows buzz and vibrate.
“Humans are the germs!” “Only by purging you all can Mother Earth be reborn!” Vaccine Man.
This Dragon-level Monster, who claimed to represent the Earth to eliminate humanity, was pronouncing the city’s death sentence.
Boom!
He raised his hand again.
Without seeing him exert much effort, a white ball of light that looked very bad instantly condensed on his fingertips.
With a casual toss, the light ball fell lightly onto a nearby office building like a pebble thrown by a mischievous child.
At the moment of contact, there was no sound.
That was because the explosive energy was too concentrated, instantly evaporating the air and forming a vacuum.
A fraction of a second later, “Booooom——!!!” The deafening sound of the explosion finally arrived late.
That entire thirty-plus story building looked as if someone had ruthlessly rubbed an eraser over a blueprint.
A huge section in the middle was simply gone.
The upper half of the building lost its support and, with a tooth-aching sound of twisting metal, slowly crashed toward the ground.
Dust billowed.
Countless people were screaming, crying, and running for their lives.
Hell.
This place had instantly turned into Hell.
“Where are the heroes?!
Where are the heroes?!” Someone shouted in despair.
“This damn Association!
Taking so much taxpayer money every year, where the Hell are they now!” Just as despair spread like a plague, two figures charged against the flow of fleeing people toward the source of the terror.
“Everyone, move!” “Don’t block the way!” They were two men.
One wore a tight suit adorned with lightning symbols, heavy-looking boots on his feet, and his slicked-back hair was meticulously combed.
The other had a large smiling face painted on his chest and swung a massive hammer that looked more like a toy than a weapon.
A-Class Hero Rank 19, Lightning Max.
A-Class Hero Rank 27, Smiling Superman.
They had arrived.
Carrying the confidence unique to professional heroes, or perhaps…
the blindness brought on by professional habit.
“Hey, you purple sweet potato!” Lightning Max leaped from the ruins of a building and landed steadily on top of a street lamp.
He adjusted his non-existent goggles and struck a pose he thought was cool.
“Vandalizing public property in broad daylight, your behavior has seriously violated City A’s public security regulations!” “Surrender peacefully, and perhaps you’ll suffer less physical pain!” Though he said this, Max’s palms were soaked with sweat.
As an A-Class Hero who lived on the edge of life and death, his intuition was screaming in alarm.
The guy in front of him was very strong.
That sense of pressure was something the screeching Demon-level Monsters he’d encountered before couldn’t even compare to.
But he couldn’t retreat.
Behind him were the civilians who hadn’t had time to evacuate.
There was also a little girl, clutching a dirty teddy bear, so terrified in the middle of the road that she didn’t even dare to cry out loud.
Vaccine Man slowly turned his head.
In those emotionless compound eyes, Max’s figure was reflected.
It was like an elephant looking at a suicidal ant.
“Two more bugs seeking death.” “Since you’re so eager to die, then as representatives of the inferior human species, go to Hell first.” As soon as he finished speaking, Vaccine Man’s figure vanished into thin air.
No.
He didn’t vanish.
It was because his movement speed was too fast, reaching the limit of the human eye’s capture.
Max only felt a blur before his eyes, and a foul wind carrying a strong smell of sulfur rushed at his face.
“Max!
Watch out above!” Smiling Superman’s distorted roar came from the side.
Max looked up sharply.
A large purple face was almost pressed against his nose.
“What?!” Max’s pupils instantly shrank to the size of pinheads.
Too fast!
Is this…
the strength of this Monster?
But he was a battle-hardened A-Class Hero after all.
In this critical moment, his body reacted before his brain.
“Lightning Kick!” He let out a loud roar.
The mechanism in his heels was instantly triggered.
The highly concentrated gunpowder pre-loaded in those special gunpowder boots exploded at this moment.
Bang!
Fire erupted at his heels.
The massive reaction force pushed his right leg, which kicked ruthlessly toward Vaccine Man’s chin with a whistling sound that broke the air.
This kick could flip even a tank weighing dozens of tons.
It could kick through even a wall made of poured steel.
This was Lightning Max’s proudest ultimate move!
Thud!
A dull sound.
No sound of bones shattering.
No sound of flesh colliding.
It was more like taking a piece of undercooked noodle and whipping it hard against granite.
Max felt as if his leg bone was about to split.
The counter-shock traveled from his calf all the way to the top of his head, making his brain buzz.
And Vaccine Man, used only a single finger.
That’s right, a single finger, used as casually as if he were picking his nose.
He lightly blocked the sole of the boot.
He didn’t retreat even a single millimeter.
Even that finger didn’t wobble once.
“This…
this is impossible…” The expression on Max’s face changed from shock to terror.
His full-power strike was simply a joke in front of this Monster.
“Too weak.” Vaccine Man’s voice was full of disdain.
“So weak that I don’t even want to kill you.” “This is the so-called protector of humanity?
It’s simply an insult to the word ‘power’.” After saying that, Vaccine Man’s finger curved slightly.
He gave it a light flick.
Snap!
Just like how we flick away an annoying fly in the summer.
But this seemingly casual flick contained destructive power.
Max didn’t even have time to let out a scream.
His entire body was like a baseball hit for a home run, instantly flying backward.
He drew an afterimage in the air.
Bang bang bang bang!
He crashed through the concrete walls of three consecutive buildings behind him.
Finally, like a ruined painting, he was deeply embedded into a billboard several hundred meters away.
His life or death was unknown.
“Max!” Smiling Superman’s eyes turned red as he watched his companion be cleared away like trash.
Anger overrode fear.
He let out a roar, swung the massive smiling iron hammer in his hand, and charged forward.
“Giant Hammer Storm!” He spun wildly on the spot.
Using centrifugal force, the iron hammer smashed toward Vaccine Man’s head with a whistle that tore through the air.
This strike carried all his hope.
If only he could block him for a bit…
Even if just for a second…
“Boring struggle.” Vaccine Man didn’t even look at the whistling iron hammer.
He simply opened his mouth, facing Smiling Superman’s direction.
He wasn’t spitting.
Instead—— Boom!
A purple energy orb erupted from his mouth.
Its speed was ten times faster than a bullet.
It accurately struck the spinning iron hammer.
Crack!
The hard alloy hammer was like tofu in front of the energy orb, instantly exploding into fragments.
The shockwave from the explosion flipped Smiling Superman onto the ground.
He was charred all over, and the clown suit he usually wore to bring laughter to children had been burned to tatters.
He just lay there on the ground, vomiting large amounts of blood, without even the strength to crawl back up.
It was over.
Completely over.
A-Class Heroes, the backbone of human combat power, couldn’t even last a single move before this Monster.
Was this…
the despair of a Dragon Level?
The light in the eyes of those who hadn’t run far yet went out.
All that remained was despair as deep as an abyss.
If even the heroes lost, then who else could save them?
Vaccine Man floated in mid-air.
He enjoyed this feeling of being surrounded by fear.
“Listen, this is the truest voice of you humans.” “Cry out, despair.” “This is nature’s judgment upon you!” He raised both hands high above his head.
This time, it wasn’t a small ball of light.
Countless purple energies began to converge in his palms.
A massive energy orb, a full ten-plus meters in diameter, appeared in the sky above City A like a second sun.
It emitted an aura that could destroy everything.
If this thing were to crash down, let alone this block, a small half of City A would likely be wiped off the map.
The little girl was still clutching her teddy bear, sitting in the middle of the road.
She stared blankly at the purple sun that was constantly growing larger in the sky.
It was too bright.
It made her eyes sting with pain.
“Mama…” She called out in a small voice.
But her mother had already been separated from her by the crowd of fleeing people earlier.
No one could save her.
And no one could save this city.
Except for— that man.