"Holy shit! Holy fucking shit!"
"Isn’t that the Defense Minister?! Why is he attacking Adam?!"
The crowd was doing either of two things: running or operating their drone to stream what was happening, and what was happening was...
It was fortunate that most, if not all, the people in the plaza were Heroes. All the debris flying around would be deadly for the normal population, but the people in the plaza were either just tanking all the debris or outrunning the fragnts.
John was dragging Adam across the ground, treating the pavent like it was sand and leaving crevices in their wake.
Well, for so of the weaker Heroes, the only thing they could see was a blue streak of light flashing through the plaza and moving at a speed they couldn’t track at all. One second, the light was in front of them, and the next, it was at the edge of the plaza.
Their sentints were correct—Heroes whose abilities centered around speed were almost always the hardest to deal with. This was why Carn, the Berserk Fairy, who was only previously an A-tier Hero, managed to climb from A-tier to S-tier, a feat no one had ever done before, and no one would probably ever do again.
...Aside from Adam, of course.
Right now, however, Adam was being dragged everywhere by John—no. He was letting himself be dragged. There was a reason why John wasn’t stopping at all, despite the damage that had already been done to their surroundings.
Most of the plaza was already ruined—unfortunately, that included the shops, the restaurants, and the famous park where Heroes recuperate, rest, and gather. John didn’t seem to care at all and kept going at full strength, his body leaning more than forty-five degrees to make sure most of Adam’s body was in the ground.
How could he not? When even after all of this, the person he was dragging... was looking up right at him?
Adam’s eyes didn’t even twitch, not even a single milliter. He was just staring at him with a look John had rarely been the receiving side of—disappointnt.
Disappointnt... him?
Ever since John was little, he’d excelled at everything he’d done. His parents were a large part of it, as they were incredibly strict on him. Strict to the point that his entire day was already set before he even woke up—no.
Unfortunately, his parents were just one of many who were blinded by their... religion.
He found it strange now that he was older, but how could a couple, who clearly knew they lived in a world where a baby could get summoned into a death ga, even conjure up a schedule for his entire life?
When he eats, how he eats, what he eats—these were the easiest ones, as the als were already prepared for him. He never truly wanted for anything; freedom, perhaps... but who didn’t want that?
And so, instead of going against his parents, he embraced their plan and beca the mold they shaped him to be... even after they were killed by the sudden appearance of a Leak in their neighborhood.
A few years after that, he was summoned to the Ga... where he tasted freedom for the first ti. Chaos, everywhere. All the rules, the law, the etiquette, and basic human decency... all gone.
They didn’t matter because everyone was free to do whatever they wanted. He tasted freedom for the first ti...
...and it was disgusting.
Humans without order are worse than animals, and right there and then, he made a promise that if he survived the Ga, it would an that he was chosen by Him to spread his word and bring order to the lost sheep.
He climbed through the ranks, through life, and managed to be the youngest person to beco the country’s Secretary of Defense. He thought that was it, that he would have the chance to bring order...
...but order will never be achieved because of the existence known as the X-tier Heroes. Or, as he’d proposed to call them, Calamity Class Individuals. Beings of unimaginable strength that even he, as one of the strongest people in the world... had to bow down to.
What sort of ridiculous notion was that? They shouldn’t exist, at the very least, not in the way they’re existing now—and Adam was the worst of them.
The other X-tier Heroes are content in living in their own worlds, not bothering anyone at all. If anything, they were more like mythological beings that could only be seen once every five years.
But Adam... Adam would always be on his radar almost every single day, and it wasn’t only because he was Arican, no. But because Adam had sothing the other X-tier Heroes didn’t have.
Absolute influence. And the worst part of it all... was that he was doing nothing about it. That sort of power, if John had it, he wouldn’t put it to waste.
"What’s on your mind?"
John’s eyes widened, realizing that it was Adam who snapped him out of his stupor. He was confused at first and quickly looked at his hand. But Adam was still there, still casually staring at him.
"So... why are you doing this?" Adam spoke again. His voice was muffled, but his words were still loud and clear in John’s ears. "I’m going to assu this isn’t part of the governnt’s plan? It—"
"Silence!" The light around John’s arm beca violent, like a torrent dancing wildly as he hamred Adam’s head repeatedly against the ground.
The people who were still streaming the battle started retreating as the entire plaza began to quake—and it wasn’t only they who were feeling it.
Those who were intoxicated by gambling also noticed their chips quaking. All of them. All of Las Vegas.
John was reshaping the entire plaza using the back of Adam’s head.
"I think that’s enough... boy."
All of a sudden, however, this quaking just stopped—but it was replaced by the sound of an even louder boom that blasted away all the dust and debris before they could even create a haze around the plaza.
From the satellites that were already watching them, it was a pulse.
For John, he found himself suddenly in the air, feeling a tightness in his stomach and the urge to curl and puke.
...How? — he thought as he saw the ruined plaza from the sky. He was... in the sky?
"Wh—" Before John could settle his thoughts, he felt a pressure on the back of his head. He glanced up, only to see Adam look above him in the air.
"This will hurt a little."
"W—" Once again, John couldn’t say anything as he felt his entire body shift. As a speedster, his perception of speed was at a point that bullets looked like they were standing still—and yet, right now, Adam just threw him down at a speed he was familiar with.
Was... Adam actually as fast as him?
That was the end of John’s contemplations, however, as his body slamd violently on the ground—causing the crater they’d already made to cave in even larger and completely obliterating what was left of the plaza.
The only thing that was still standing there was the Leak.
"G...kh..." John gritted his teeth, blood oozing from his nose as he got up. "Ha..."
He breathed hard, wiping the blood from his face as he watched as Adam landed right in front of him—and aside from his long, voluminous hair being disheveled, there was not even a single hint of blood on him.
"The... reports were all right," John said, using his blood to slick his hair back. "Adam the Endless has the ability to grow stronger. You were not this strong eighteen years ago. If you were...
...my parents would still be alive."
"...Your parents?" Adam blinked, gazing down for a mont before turning his focus back to John. "Eighteen years ago. The Bellethers. You were there...?"
"We were all there. You could have asked them all to go ho." John furrowed. "Just a minute of your ti. You could have asked the entire congregation of the CoA to go ho."
"They... wouldn’t have listened to ."
"They are called the Church of Adam! That is you!" John’s composure shattered. "All of those deaths are on you."
"I know," Adam answered, not hesitating at all.
"You know..." John scoffed. "...And now, even almost twenty years later, you have done nothing. You are capable of so much more. And what? Fifty years later, a hundred years later—would you still do nothing, Adam the Endless? Your immortality is wasted on you."
"Hm..." Adam sighed. He couldn’t count how many tis he’d heard that from Katherine and the other people around him.
"You—"
"You seem to be misunderstanding sothing here, General." Adam cut John off. The general was about to talk over him, too... but he stopped as soon as he realized Adam was no longer looking at him in the sa calm manner.
"What I’ve learned over the past several years is that I can’t save everyone," he whispered, and yet his words pierced John’s ears once more.
"So, I save those whom I can; those in front of , those who I can reach, or those who actually want to be saved. John, your parents..."
Adam paused, the depth in his eyes even... emptier now.
"...I am truly sorry, but they weren’t my responsibility."
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