It was a convenience store with half of its rolling shutter torn off and glass shattered all over the floor.
Three men were smashing things inside, and one of them had a mass of black substance wrapped around his palm, which was constantly writhing.
He looked like a Supe capable of manipulating some kind of substance.
Moreover, the sound produced by the writhing substance sounded remarkably like crackling electricity.
His other two companions were just ordinary people, holding guns in their hands.
Behind the counter, a middle-aged couple huddled together.
A dozen or so passersby were gathered outside the door, holding their phones high, yet not a single one stepped forward to help.
They were all the type to watch the spectacle without fearing the consequences.
Lucas landed from the air.
The Bio-field automatically cushioned the impact of his landing.
Everyone around saw a tall man descend from the sky.
The commotion in the store stopped for a moment.
The thug with the gun reacted the fastest, turning the muzzle toward Lucas and pulling the trigger.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
After a few crisp sounds.
The bullets hit Lucas in the chest, the warheads striking the invisible Bio-field on his body surface and shattering instantly, with copper shell fragments bouncing off to the sides.
Not even a wrinkle appeared on Lucas’s shirt.
Lucas looked down at his chest.
"Seriously, you’re weak! Try firing two more shots and see what happens!"
The thug’s hand trembled, and he nearly dropped the gun.
The Supe finally reacted, shooting the black substance from his palm like a snake straight toward Lucas’s face.
Lucas raised his hand and grabbed it.
His five fingers gripped the mass of black substance, as if kneading a lump of mud.
Then, he squeezed with force.
Eight tons of grip strength.
The black substance shattered and dissipated in his palm, leaking through his fingers and turning to ash upon hitting the ground.
This level of substance manipulation was no different from child’s play in front of him.
The Supe was stunned, "You motherf..."
Lucas couldn’t be bothered to hear him finish.
He stepped right in front of him in one stride; even though he was just a clerk, he possessed the Viltrumite Bloodline, so his combat power was not inferior at all.
Using his subsonic flight ability for short-distance movement was no different from teleportation.
Lucas raised his hand and delivered a slap directly to the other guy’s face.
He controlled the force of this slap, probably only using... 5% of his full power?
Slap!
A dull thud.
The Supe flew sideways, knocking over three rows of shelves, rolled his eyes back, and was put to sleep on the spot.
Seeing their boss knocked out, the two armed thugs immediately turned their guns toward Lucas.
Lucas reached out with both hands, gripping each gun barrel.
With a slight application of force.
The barrels of the two handguns twisted like a pretzel, turning into scrap metal.
When the two thugs saw this, they nearly wet themselves.
One of them even started crying in fear on the spot.
"Don’t kill us... please don’t kill us..."
"My grandma is getting married... I’m the best man at her wedding..."
"Look at the pathetic state you’re in; why didn’t you think of this day when you were robbing the place?"
Lucas tossed the scrap metal to the ground, brushed the dust off his hands, and turned to look at the store owner and his wife, "Call the police; I’ll leave these people for you."
The store owner steadied himself against the counter and stood up, trembling for a long time before finally managing to squeeze out, "Th... thank you."
His wife was already in a daze, just nodding continuously.
The crowd watching outside the door fell silent for two seconds.
Then someone started clapping.
All the phone cameras were pointed at him.
"Holy crap, that’s awesome!"
"Bending gun barrels with bare hands... why did I suddenly clench my butt?"
"His muscles are so solid, I wonder if he likes men?"
...
A fifteen or sixteen-year-old Black kid squeezed to the front, holding his phone up to livestream, his voice trembling with excitement...
"Hey, bro, did you all see that! This guy flew down from the sky! He slapped a Supe away with one hit! Who is he? Does anyone know him?"
The popularity of the livestream surged from single digits to hundreds, and even broke into the thousands.
The numbers on the system panel began to jump.
[Collecting positive emotions from the masses...]
+42 +67 +38 +91 +55 +83 ...
This time total: +847
Current Evolution Points: 847 / 10,000
Over eight hundred.
A dozen passersby can contribute this much?
Just as Lucas was planning to accept an interview to expand his influence a bit more.
The system popped up a notification.
[Traces of key character activity detected nearby (blurred)]
[Suggestion: Actively contact key characters to obtain large amounts of Evolution Points]
Key character?
Who?
...
Twenty minutes later, at the monitoring center on the 72nd floor of the Vought International headquarters, an analyst stared at the data traffic marked in red on the screen, hesitated for only two seconds, and picked up the internal phone line.
"Ms. Madelyn, there is a situation you might need to look at."
"...A Supe of unknown origin has appeared in Brooklyn."
"According to video analysis, his power... is likely close to Homelander!"
...
Lucas stood at the entrance of the convenience store, looking at that notification on the panel.
[Traces of key character activity detected nearby (blurred)]
Blurred.
It means the person is nearby, but the system cannot pinpoint their location.
However, that wasn’t a big problem for Lucas.
His hearing was far superior to that of an ordinary person; he could clearly capture any movement within a two-kilometer radius.
He closed his eyes, filtering out the noise of the onlookers, as well as the city traffic and the rumble of the subway tracks...
Found it!
Northeast direction, about a kilometer away.
Someone is talking.
A man and a woman.
The woman’s voice carried a hint of teasing: "Hughie, are you really going to work at that electronics store for the rest of your life?"
The man pretended to be dissatisfied: "That’s called stability, Robin, stability, get it?"
"You call a monthly salary of 2,300 stability? And you still have to pay taxes!"
"...Uh!"
Hughie, Robin.
Lucas opened his eyes.
Found them.
The opening event of the first season, Robin gets hit by A-Train and turned into hero fragments.
It was this exact scene that made Lucas binge-watch all three seasons overnight, only to find that Starlight looked weirder and weirder later on.
Save or not?
This question only stayed in Lucas’s mind for 0.5 seconds.
Of course save her.
It wasn’t that Lucas was particularly kind-hearted, but saving Robin would bring many benefits.
As a key character, Hughie’s fate would be rewritten, which would surely bring in quite a few Evolution Points.
Just as Lucas was about to leave, a rush of hurried footsteps came from behind.
"Hey! Hey, hey, hey! Wait a second!"
That Black kid who was livestreaming caught up, shoving his phone into Lucas’s face, the comments on the livestream screen scrolling frantically.
"Bro! What’s your name? Which company are you with? Vought International or..."
"I don’t belong to any company, just a Supe doing this for fun."
"An independent hero? Bro, do you know how cool you were just now? You slapped a Supe away with one hit! My livestream is blowing up!"
The kid turned the phone screen around to show him; the number of online viewers had already exceeded three thousand and was still rising.
The comments were all:
[Who the hell is this damn new Handsome guy???]
[Bullets can’t pierce him! He flew here! A new hero?]
[Great body, is he gay? I think I can]
[Keep it down, upstairs]
[Never seen this trope before, did Vought International change their writers?]
[Name, name, name!]
Three thousand people.
Lucas glanced at the system panel; the Evolution Points were jumping up at an extremely slow speed. The emotional feedback from online viewers was much weaker than on-site, but the advantage was the massive internet traffic, accumulating little by little.
+3 +2 +5 +2 +3 +4 ...
Even mosquito meat is still meat.
"My codename is... Guardian!" Lucas said casually.
"Guardian! Did you hear that, brothers! He’s called Guardian!" The kid jumped up and down in excitement, "Guardian, can you perform something for the brothers in the livestream? Fly a bit? Please!"
Lucas looked at him.
Over three thousand people were watching the livestream. If he flew a circle and this video spread, the popularity tonight could at least double several times over.
He was still over nine thousand short of the next level.
Life is hard, even Supes have to perform!
"Alright, watch closely."
Lucas tapped his toes on the ground.
Boom—
An afterimage, almost too fast for the naked eye to follow, shot straight into the night sky. The surrounding passersby were blown back, stumbling by the air current, and their phones nearly flew out of their hands.
By the time they looked up, Lucas was already hovering at the height of about thirty stories.
The night wind whistled in his ears, with all of Brooklyn laid out beneath his feet like a dense circuit board.
The Manhattan skyline was brightly lit, and he could vaguely see the spire of the Vought Tower.
He looked down; the people on the ground were as small as ants.
But he could clearly hear that Black kid howling: "Did you see that! He flew up! He really flew!!!"
The comments on the livestream went completely crazy.
The number of online viewers jumped from three thousand to five thousand, then from five thousand to eight thousand.
The system panel...
+7 +12 +9 +15 +8 +11 +6 +14 ...
Still not fast enough; the emotional feedback from online viewers was too weak, and the quantity wasn’t enough yet.
The real explosion would have to wait until these videos spread to mainstream social media, which would at least take until tomorrow.
Lucas wasn’t in a rush.
He turned around in the air. Robin wasn’t dead yet, so it seemed A-Train hitting her wasn’t today.
He noted the general direction and would go find her tomorrow.
Tonight... he would sweep this street in Brooklyn first.
The density of Supe crime in this place was quite high; you could bump into one every two steps, just like going to Gotham.
Lucas chose a direction in the air, where a crime was currently taking place.
However, he suddenly stopped in mid-air.
He looked down; the crowd at the convenience store entrance hadn’t dispersed, and that Black kid was still holding his phone, howling at the sky.
The livestream had 12,000 online viewers.
And still rising.
An afterimage streaked across the night sky of Brooklyn, disappearing between the buildings.
On the ground, the Black kid finally lowered his phone, took a deep breath, and said to the camera, full of excitement:
"Brothers, that guy is so down-to-earth! His name is Guardian, remember that name! From now on, this account will specialize in updating videos related to Guardian, everyone please click follow!"
"I bet you a pack of spicy strips that this guy will be more popular than Homelander sooner or later."
...