Inside the town's largest two-story supermarket, a fierce battle was raging.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
The store was packed with people—adults, children, and the elderly alike.
They were all cramd behind makeshift barricades built inside the supermarket. Husbands held their wives tightly, wives covered their children's eyes and ears, and every face was pale with fear.
Every pair of eyes was fixed anxiously on the supermarket entrance.
At the front, behind the temporary defensive line near the doors, several n from different walks of life gripped their weapons and fired continuously outside. Muzzle flashes lit up their tense, furious faces.
"John, I'm out of ammo! Cover for —I need to reload!"
"Don't let that thing get close to the door!"
"Activate the traps!"
The shouts and frantic communication turned the supermarket entrance into a battlefield.
And in truth, that was exactly what it was.
More than a hundred ard people had ford a defensive line. Hundreds of guns were aid at a single opponent.
On the road ahead, bullets poured down like a storm.
And facing all of it… was only one person.
A black-haired woman with a stunning figure, exquisite features, and an alluring, almost sinful beauty.
Yet this breathtakingly seductive woman—one who could make any man's heart race—wore a smile on her face as she casually allowed bullets to strike her body.
Her pale, delicate-looking skin was harder than steel itself.
So bullets shattered the mont they touched her, bursting into sparks.
Others were simply deflected, ricocheting away and punching holes into the ground, nearby vehicles, and the surrounding walls.
Step by step, she advanced toward the supermarket entrance, moving neither quickly nor slowly, as though she were taking a leisurely walk under the suppressive storm of gunfire.
In those beautiful, charming eyes was a greed so terrifying it chilled the soul.
If one stared too long, it almost seed as if endless wailing spirits could be seen inside them—screaming, shrieking, clawing in despair.
Closer and closer she ca.
Fifty ters.
Forty.
Thirty.
The traps they had prepared beforehand were utterly useless.
Flas engulfed her body, but only managed to burn away part of her clothes.
Steel bear traps snapped shut around her ankles, yet they couldn't even slow her down.
Sharp tal pipes launched by spring chanisms pierced into her body, but at most they made her steps pause for a brief mont.
Grenades and landmines detonated around her, their explosions roaring through the street, but even that failed to pose any real threat.
She was like a devil.
A devil immune to bullets and blades, toying freely with the "food" before her.
She wanted these people to live in fear every single day, because flesh and souls nurtured by terror were, to her, the most delicious delicacy in the human world.
And she had succeeded.
As people watched this beautiful yet bloodthirsty demon walk forward through their gunfire, wearing that radiant, almost enchanting smile, the overwhelming contrast between her beauty and her monstrous power crushed what little hope they had left.
Despair spread through the crowd like a plague.
Every step Jennifer took forward felt like Death himself tolling a funeral bell.
Fear and despair spread through every heart.
Many people's faces had twisted from overwhelming terror, and whatever morale they had left was rapidly collapsing.
Near the supermarket entrance, hidden behind the n holding the line, stood an ordinary-looking young girl. Through the gaps between the crowd, she stared at Jennifer—the woman advancing through a storm of bullets without slowing—and pain filled her acne-marked face.
"Jennifer…"
Needy had no idea how things had turned into this.
The friend she had once been so close to had beco a man-eating monster.
Her heart was filled with anguish.
She grieved for her best friend, who had turned into this horrifying creature, and she grieved for her hotown—for the people she had known, the familiar faces she had grown up seeing, all devoured by Jennifer one by one.
That pain and tornt were enough to drive her mad.
"Oh God, please show rcy and destroy this demon,"
All Needy could do was pray silently.
She had never been a devout believer, but now she was powerless. All she could do was place her hopes in so distant, intangible God and pray that divine salvation might descend upon this cursed town.
She knew how slim that hope was.
But what else could she do?
Beg that damned monster to show rcy?
Just as everyone was sinking deeper into despair, Jennifer suddenly stopped.
The beautiful smile on her face vanished instantly, replaced by cold, sharp hostility.
She slowly lifted her head.
Her pupils contracted violently, reflecting a single image—
a foot blazing with brilliant golden light, rapidly growing larger in her vision.
BOOM!!
A kick carrying overwhelming, unmatched force slamd brutally into Jennifer's face.
The body that had walked unhard through concentrated gunfire was sent flying backward like a cannonball.
Rumble—!!
Trailing a long golden tail of light, Jennifer was launched who knew how far, smashing through countless buildings and trees along the way. Dust, rubble, and shattered debris exploded into the air across an entire straight-line path, and even the ground trembled beneath the impact.
The sudden reversal left everyone who witnessed it completely stunned.
Many people unconsciously loosened their fingers from their triggers. Only a few scattered bullets still fired, but when they struck that figure, they passed straight through him as though hitting empty air.
"W-What is that?"
A police officer in uniform stared ahead in disbelief at the tall figure standing there.
He wore a black coat, jeans, and white sneakers. His coat hem and black hair swayed gently in the rising wind.
What had he just seen?
This man—who had appeared without anyone noticing—had kicked that damned monster away with a single strike.
Judging from the destruction Jennifer caused when she was sent flying, was that even a power a human could possess?
Was he an angel sent to destroy demons?
A god?
For a mont, complete silence fell.
Every eye focused on that lone figure.
Slowly, he turned his head, revealing a young, handso face frad by black hair. There was sothing unique about him—sothing impossible to describe.
It wasn't just confidence.
It was a strange sense of reassurance, as if simply standing near him made people feel safer.
And beneath that, there was an unspoken dominance—an overwhelming natural authority.
The person who had arrived was Matthew.
"Mankind's greatest trait really is sticking together."
Matthew glanced at the stunned, terrified people behind him, then looked over the massive supermarket that had been fortified to the point it almost resembled a military bunker.
As his Observation Haki spread outward, he could clearly sense the dense cluster of life inside. He could also easily perceive the chaotic storm of emotions filling everyone's hearts.
Among them, the strongest emotion by far… was fear.
Fear was contagious.
And it spread faster than almost anything else.
Under fear, people rarely stayed rational. So collapsed into despair, while others were driven into madness.
When humanity faced an external threat, they would always instinctively huddle together for warmth.
It was written into their genes.
It was instinct.
...
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