"...
Silence. Utter silence.
The room hung thick with it—nothing else remained.
“That guy’s not human! He planted explosives, didn’t he?!”
A man in a white lab coat grabbed his subordinate—hunched over a monitor—and roared into his face.
“TELL ME! Did he use some trick I don’t know about? Hide bombs in the institute beforehand?!”
“B-boss… I don’t know either!”
“Then explain what the hell just happened!”
Before him, several monitors had gone dark—the ones covering the other half of the research facility. Bai Ming’s actions had shattered his imagination.
He’d never seen it. Never even considered it… How could just a human shatter an entire building in less than… one second?
Notably, that half of the institute wasn’t *collapsed*. It was *shattered*. Like countless explosives had detonated from within, blowing it to pieces.
Undetected. Almost simultaneous with his own breath.
“What did that man do?! What *is* he?!”
From that moment, the man in the white coat had to reassess Bai Ming’s identity. He’d investigated him—name: Bai Ming; age 23; virgin; currently living alone in a single-room apartment on E-District’s outskirts—but now, he needed to reevaluate before proceeding with his experiments.
“B-boss! He’s heading this way!”
As he gripped his subordinate, Bai Ming’s figure flickered onto a surviving monitor. True enough, after obliterating half the building, he strode straight toward the intact section.
Panic flickered in the white-coated man’s eyes.
His body trembled. His fingers unconsciously slipped into his mouth as he staggered back several steps.
He no longer recognized the man before him. If he couldn’t even grasp how half the massive institute had been destroyed in an instant, how could he guess his identity?
“Just capture him alive. Simple as grabbing his sister.”
Leaning against the monitoring room’s doorway, a man in a black trench coat spoke casually. Head bowed, he cradled a sleek, pitch-black rifle.
“Atark.”
The white-coated man spun around, voice low and grave.
“Yeah, Boss. Or do you want his corpse instead?”
“Don’t rush. He’s dangerous. More dangerous than any we’ve faced. Bringing him here was my mistake. Stand your ground—”
“Hmph. Then I’m *eager* to see.”
Atark bared sharp fangs.
“How dangerous can one human be? You know even the Hero Association can’t touch us. And this civilian? You kidnapped his sister just because he *happened* to beat Li Scar. If you want to test his power… I’m perfect for the job.”
Atark lifted his head. He twirled the rifle twice, then slung it over his shoulder and turned away.
“Wish me luck, Boss.”
Without looking back, he strode out toward Bai Ming.
“Can’t stop him anyway…”
Watching Atark leave, the man in the white coat sighed softly. He turned, walked to his subordinate, and patted his shoulder gently.
“Mobilize the Wolf Unit. Red alert.”
“Y-yes, sir!”
The subordinate stared back, terror in his eyes. His boss’s weathered, resolute face told him the situation was dire.
Without hesitation, the man opened a box on the console and slammed the red button inside.
Alarms blared."
