Hyuk remained unmoved.
She simply continued to raise her fist and hammer it down.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
Thousands of tons of raw force repeatedly slammed into the ground. No matter how reinforced the pavement was, it couldn't withstand such an onslaught. Massive fissures spiderwebbed outward as entire sections of the road collapsed into the hollow space beneath.
"Run! Get out of here!"
The catastrophic destruction and the bone-shaking tremors of the street left onlookers paralyzed with fear. They scrambled desperately to escape the area.
Residents in the flanking buildings peered down from their windows, only to see a massive crater where the road used to be. The surrounding high-rises groaned under the intensity of the vibrations.
"What's happening down there?"
"It looks like two people are doing something..."
A quick glance around the district revealed the scale of the carnage. Every nearby building had suffered damage; windows were shattered by sonic booms, and some towers had been punched clean through. It was a terrifying sight.
"ENOUGH!!"
Suddenly, a roar of pure fury erupted from beneath the collapsed road. It was followed by a violent surge of energy that felt like gravity had suddenly inverted, erupting upward like a geyser of force.
Bystanders felt their feet lift off the pavement as they began to float uncontrollably.
Immediately after, a colossal wave of invisible force shot into the sky, warping the very air around it. The blast sent Hyuk hurtling into the atmosphere. She dug her heels into the air, forcing her momentum to a grinding halt.
Even at this stage of the battle, other than some torn clothing and a few superficial scuffs, she didn't have a single real wound on her, let alone any blood.
Manager Bach, on the other hand, was a complete wreck.
He rose slowly from the debris of the collapsed street, blood streaming down his face. He had come within inches of losing consciousness under Hyuk's barrage. If not for that final, desperate surge of energy, he might have actually been beaten to death.
However, that desperate blast had drained his remaining stamina. Now, he was even weaker, and he knew he was no longer a match for Hyuk.
Breathing heavily, he bluffed, "You can't break my defense! Why keep wasting your time? I told you, there might be a misunderstanding regarding your parents' deaths. Why the hell won't you listen?!"
Hyuk's expression remained cold.
"Your power is telekinesis, isn't it?"
"..."
Manager Bach's expression stiffened. He offered no response.
The signs were too obvious.
Hyuk had already deduced Bach's weakness. "You can't block every single one of my attacks. Your pathetic state is proof enough of that. Once I beat you unconscious, I'll end your life."
Hearing her murderous, unwavering tone, Bach's blood boiled. Veins throbbed on his forehead. He had already explained there was a misunderstanding, but this girl just wouldn't believe him!
"Are you really going to force me into a mutually assured destruction scenario?!"
Bach hissed through gritted teeth.
Hyuk wasted no words. She let her actions speak for her. She lunged forward, accelerating instantly as visible shockwaves of a sonic boom rippled in her wake.
Windows in the surrounding buildings shattered en masse.
Manager Bach flinched. He spun around and fled, burning through his remaining telekinetic energy to generate as much distance as possible between him and Hyuk.
Using his telekinesis, he plucked a phone from a passerby's hand and frantically dialed a series of numbers.
"Little brother! Transfer every debt claim you have to my name! Now! Do it fast! I'm about to be beaten to death! Hurry, hurry, hurry!"
"Boss Kim! I want every debt claim in your portfolio! I'll pay double the market price! Buy them all now!"
"Lin, I'm offering triple for every claim you hold! Don't argue with me, the money will hit your account instantly! Just agree!"
Manager Bach was desperately squeezing every drop of potential from his body. His speed was incredible, and for the moment, Hyuk actually couldn't catch him as he led her on a chaotic chase across Jpscan City.
The cost was high: his slick black hair was turning white at a visible rate. Such a reckless overexertion of his potential carried catastrophic side effects, but he didn't care about the consequences right now.
Paying a price was better than being beaten to death on the spot.
Soon, Bach's speed began to flag. Hyuk rapidly closed the distance until she finally snatched him by the ankle, swinging him like a ragdoll and slamming him repeatedly into the side of a skyscraper.
"Pfft!"
Blood sprayed from his mouth.
Just as Manager Bach felt he was about to be beaten to death by Hyuk's bare hands, a surge of raw power flooded his body just in time, instantly revitalizing him.
BOOM!
A violent tide of telekinetic energy erupted outward, blasting Hyuk back.
Manager Bach's strength continued to climb. A Loanspawn's power was directly correlated to the number of debt claims they held, the more people owed them money, the more powerful they became.
That was exactly why Bach had been frantically buying up every debt claim he could find.
At this very moment, he felt his power surge to an unprecedented zenith, a raw, destructive force capable of leveling everything in its path. An eerie, pale light, born from condensed telekinetic energy, flickered within Manager Bach's eyes.
He was absolutely livid.
"Brat, since you're so hell-bent on dying, I'll grant your wish!"
He had intended to use his capital to loan to more people, but Hyuk had backed him into a corner, forcing him to buy up debt claims from others at an exorbitant premium. His heart bled at the financial loss.
As he roared, swirling telekinetic vortices formed high-density orbs around his body. They hummed with a pale blue glow, radiating immense energy.
Bach had finally realized that dispersed telekinesis was useless against her; her body was too dense, and ordinary attacks couldn't even scratch her skin.
Vrrr—
The air shivered.
Suddenly, the telekinetic orbs shot toward Hyuk like a rapid-fire bombardment. Hyuk dodged at high speed, but several spheres still managed to clip her. The searing, ultra-high temperature left her with a stinging sensation, like a flash burn, but once she realized they weren't a lethal threat, she stopped caring.
Ignoring the bombardment, she charged straight at him. However, that slight delay was all Bach needed. He had already retracted every ounce of telekinetic energy in his body for one final move.
He manifested a high-speed, rotating Telekinetic Spiral Javelin. Because it was an "all-out" strike fueled by his entire remaining reserve, it moved at a speed so blinding that even Hyuk couldn't evade it.
In the blink of an eye, a streak of pale blue light flashed through the air, skewering Hyuk's chest. To Bach's utter horror, even with a massive, gaping hole torn through her torso, Hyuk didn't slow down. She pounced with terrifying momentum.
Bach had exhausted his strength. He had no telekinesis left to defend himself. His body was so heavy with fatigue that he couldn't even twitch, forced to watch helplessly as Hyuk lunged into his personal space.
Her fist came down.
His fragile telekinetic barrier shattered like glass. The horrific, raw force slammed into Manager Bach's face, and in an instant, Hyuk's punch detonated his head.
BOOM!
Manager Bach's headless corpse plummeted to the earth.
The battle was over.
"Cough! Cough!"
Hyuk hovered in the air, spitting out a mouthful of blood. Every breath she took was accompanied by excruciating pain. Her right lung had been perforated by the spiral javelin; nearly the entire right side of her chest was now a hollow ruin. Fortunately, her heart had escaped a fatal blow. She wasn't going to die.
She was well aware of her own stubborn resilience, but this was the first time her chest had been punched clean through. She had no idea how long it would take for a wound of this magnitude to fully knit back together.
[ Infinite Overload · Potential Unleashed ]
[ Strength: 9,125 tons ⬆ ]
——
[ Infinite Overload · Ultimate Leap ]
[ Evolution Rate: 55% ⬆ ]
The moment the battle concluded, Hyuk felt the Infinite Overload talent kick in. A massive surge of raw power flooded her body, helping to dull the edge of her agonizing pain.
Her strength had skyrocketed from 6,005 tons to 9,125 tons, while her evolution rate jumped by 45%, reaching the 55% mark. It was a substantial gain, reflecting the fact that her injuries had been balanced right on the edge of being lethal.
Such a massive increase in power proved that Manager Bach was indeed a formidable opponent. In terms of pure energy output, his telekinesis had actually been superior to Hyuk's raw force.
However, his power was too dispersed. Hyuk was like a concentrated, unbreakable nail; her focused physical might was able to shatter Bach's telekinetic shell. It wasn't until Bach's final, desperate strike that he truly managed to wound her, yet her stubborn vitality allowed her to power through the injury and finish the job.
Nine thousand tons sounds terrifying, but in reality, it's roughly the weight of a small apartment building. Of course, Hyuk couldn't actually lift such a building; her small surface area meant she would simply punch through the structure rather than hoisting it. Only a telekinetic user like Bach had the ability to lift a skyscraper whole. Massive commercial towers, which usually start at hundreds of thousands of tons, were still beyond Hyuk's current lifting capacity, even if she could easily demolish them.
The dust slowly settled.
Hyuk drifted down from the sky, looking out over the shattered skyscrapers and fractured streets. Her ears were filled with the terrified screams and desperate pleas for help from the survivors. This single battle had inflicted catastrophic damage on Jpscan City.
Fzzzt—
An advertising screen near the commercial district flickered, and Type Zero's voice came through. "Dozens of lenses caught your face. I'm doing everything I can to delete the footage, but I can't guarantee I'll scrub it all perfectly."
"It's enough."
Hyuk had long ago accepted the consequences of her revenge. She was more than willing to be exposed if it meant she didn't lose the chance to kill her parents' murderer. Her resolve was unshakable.
Type Zero then suggested a possibility: "If Manager Bach was telling the truth, then he wasn't the one who personally killed your parents. That Vinespawn remains the primary lead."
Hyuk's philosophy was simple: better to kill the wrong man than to let the real culprit walk free.
Hyuk simply replied, "Just find me that Vinespawn."
"I'll do everything I can," Type Zero answered.
Afterward, Hyuk walked toward one of the collapsed sites. The civilians frantically searching for survivors there immediately recoiled in terror, scrambling to get away from her.
She was, after all, one of the primary architects of this catastrophe. That god-like capacity for destruction left them paralyzed with fear; how could they not be terrified?
Hyuk said nothing. She simply reached down and hoisted a massive slab of rubble. A survivor trapped beneath, who had been weeping in the dark, suddenly felt the warmth of daylight and looked up to see Hyuk lifting the weight off them.
Was it sanctimonious? Hypocritical?
For one of the catalysts of this disaster to suddenly play the savior seemed pathetically insincere, but Hyuk didn't care what others thought of her. As she had told Manager Bach, the debt between him and her parents was one thing, but the blood feud between her and Bach was another.
To eliminate Manager Bach, Hyuk had been willing to risk exposure and inflict severe damage on Jpscan City, and she was equally willing to accept responsibility for the aftermath.
The bystanders caught in the crossfire were innocent. Yet, if she were sent back to the moment before the fight, she would have made the exact same choice. Perfection doesn't exist in this world; choices must be made, and sacrifices are inevitable.
Those unable to make sacrifices gain nothing. With a blurred sense of morality and ethics, Hyuk was always prepared to make whatever choice benefited her most—even if it cost others their lives. If she had been crippled by hesitation and worry from the start, she never would have accomplished a single thing.
"You butcher!"
Seeing Hyuk begin to rescue victims, some of the more unhinged survivors suddenly found their courage, assuming she was driven by a strong moral compass. Insults, accusations, and attempts at moral extortion followed.
"Give me back my parents!"
One man, blinded by rage, lunged at her with a knife. Hyuk showed zero tolerance. She reached out, caught him by the throat, and hoisted him into the air.
"Let... let go..."
The man struggled frantically, his legs kicking at empty air. Hyuk didn't loosen her grip for a second, her expression remaining entirely indifferent.
At that sight, the crowd's jeering vanished instantly.
Hyuk didn't release her grip until the man's struggles ceased. She tossed him aside like trash. No one stepped forward to check on him, and no one knew for sure if she had actually killed him.
The survivors were too busy scrambling to get as far away from her as possible.
Hyuk only acknowledged the burdens she chose to carry; she would never accept responsibility thrust upon her by others, much less succumb to the weight of moral extortion.
...
That day, the Jpscan City Incident sent shockwaves across the globe. Before this, no one would have believed that beings of such overwhelming power truly walked the earth.
Two people. One battle.
The result: Jpscan City reduced to a landscape of rubble and ruin.
High-level officials immediately issued a total information blackout. Jpscan City was sealed off; no one in, no one out. Even the internet was physically severed at the source.
"The world isn't ready for the truth."
That was the justification. Once the existence of such superhuman power became public knowledge, society would undergo a cataclysmic upheaval. For the common citizen, such knowledge offered no benefit—only chaos.
On the other hand, a blackout did not mean inaction. The authorities were moving with every resource at their disposal; establishing specialized agencies and executing emergency protocols for Jpscan City.
The iron will of the state was channeled through the hierarchy, eventually reaching every individual in the city via schools, corporations, and community centers.
"On July 28th, Jpscan City suffered a meteor strike from deep space. The falling debris destroyed numerous structures and roadways, causing severe economic damage. Preliminary estimates place the losses at over a hundred billion..."
A natural disaster.
A meteor shower.
That was the official narrative.
The high command knew that with so many witnesses, the truth couldn't be buried forever. But as long as they officially denied it, people elsewhere would dismiss the eyewitness accounts as mere conspiracy theories.
They needed time.
Time to let the public gradually digest this new reality, and time to build the power necessary to control the coming storm.
As the architect of this disaster, Hyuk performed what she deemed her necessary duties and then vanished from Jpscan City. No one knew where she went.
However, the storm she had unleashed would not settle so easily. Her overwhelming might became a known factor among the elite, manifesting as top-tier classified dossiers landing on the desks of world leaders across the globe.
...
The roar of sonic booms was deafening. Glass panels from skyscrapers shattered, raining down as a figure was blasted out of the sky. He punched through several buildings in quick succession before cratering into the center of the road.
BOOM!
The resulting shockwave slammed Shenan onto the pavement. She was paralyzed with shock, convinced she was trapped in a nightmare, until a jagged shard of stone sliced into her arm. The gash was deep, and the blood flowed warm and heavy.
The pain was searingly clear.
This was real!
Then,
Standing on the fractured pavement, she watched as the young man in the white suit rose from the crater. With a roar of pure rage, he seemingly uprooted a nearby skyscraper and hurled the massive structure toward the figure hovering in the sky.
That terrifying image was burned into Shenan's memory forever. She would never forget the sheer, bone-chilling horror of that moment.
How could a single person lift a ten-thousand-ton building and toss it like a mere projectile? Shenan couldn't begin to fathom such impossible strength.
She felt a deep, existential dread.
In the face of such power, she had never felt smaller. In this war of titans, she was nothing more than an insignificant ant, invisible to the eye.
A single stray rock or a glancing shockwave would have ended her life in an instant.
The skyscraper hurled into the sky was punched clean through by the figure above. The man in the white suit was then pinned by the head and dragged along the street, carving a massive trench through the concrete. Shenan was tossed aside by the air pressure, but for a fleeting second, she caught a glimpse of the other figure's face.
She was young.
Around Shenan's own age, looking like a college student who had graduated only a couple of years ago.
"!!!"
Shenan jolted awake from her nightmare.
"Hah..."
She took a long, shuddering breath and wiped the cold sweat from her forehead. She stood up to grab a glass of water. The psychological shadow cast by that battle was so vast that she had dreamt of it every night for a week straight.
As Shenan lifted the water pitcher, she felt its weight clearly. Compared to those two monsters who treated buildings like toys and concrete like wet paper, her own strength was laughably pathetic.
Filled with deep anxiety for the future, she turned the doorknob to leave her room. But the moment she stepped out, she froze in her tracks. She felt an unexpected surge of warmth radiating from deep within her chest.
Then,
She raised her hand, her eyes widening in shock.
As she focused her mind, tiny specks of blue light began to coalesce in her palm. It was the color of a clear summer sky; vibrant, translucent, and pure.
...
A week later.
"Since the incident, we've begun a large-scale search for 'Awakened' individuals with superhuman talents. You aren't the first one we've found, but you are the first one from within the Jpscan City administration."
Because of this, Shenan had earned trust rapidly after demonstrating her talent to the high command. She was brought into the heart of the city to join a newly established, specialized agency.
The agency's codename was Star-Link.
The receptionist pushed open the massive doors to the briefing room.
"Instructor, she's here."
"Good."
Shenan took her seat. She was the final person to arrive.
The Instructor was a high-ranking official sent to establish the Star-Link branch and lead its members' operations. He was a middle-aged man in a crisp white shirt and slacks, radiating an aura of steady reliability.
"As for why you're here and what kind of organization this is, I trust you all have some basic understanding. I won't waste time on pleasantries. Let's get straight to business."
With that, the Instructor activated the projector. The screen filled with photographs of the devastation in Jpscan City, along with raw mobile footage captured at the scene.
The video showed two figures warring in the sky. At their extreme speeds, all that could be discerned were repeated sonic booms and high-rises being hollowed out like paper. The figures themselves were blurs, nearly impossible to track.
Chunks of concrete rained down as terrified civilians scrambled below. The footage was shaky and chaotic.
"Perhaps some of you didn't witness this in person, but it is an undeniable reality. Two individuals. One battle. They reduced Jpscan City to a wasteland, and no one could stop them."
Those in the meeting who were seeing this footage for the first time held their breath. The raw, primal power radiating from the screen was overwhelming; it was a vision of pure despair.
The Instructor turned to Shenan.
"Shenan, you probably have the most direct perspective on their capabilities. According to your report, you witnessed the clash from a very close distance."
Every eye in the room pivoted toward her.
Shenan stiffened.
She nodded slowly. "Yes. I was nearly killed by flying shrapnel. Right before my eyes, the man in the white suit uprooted a whole building and hurled it into the air. Then, the other figure simply pinned him down. The shockwaves from their movements threw me across the pavement. I was completely helpless."
Even hearing her description, the sense of powerlessness made the others shiver.
Another Star-Link member, a red-haired young man, took a sharp breath, struggling to comprehend it. "Hurling a whole building... how much raw power does that even take?"
"I'll address that point in a moment."
The Instructor shifted the slide to an image of a young woman in a black hooded jacket. "Blair Hyuk. Twenty-four years old. Graduated from university two years ago. She was one of the combatants in that fight. She's remarkably young."
The image shifted to Manager Bach.
"As for this individual, unfortunately, we haven't found a single trace of his history. It's as if he appeared out of thin air. We've codenamed him the 'White Man'."
The Instructor continued. A specialized team of experts had been assembled immediately to analyze the combat capabilities of the two individuals, and the Instructor now had their findings.
"Hyuk's talent manifests as flight and an overwhelming physical constitution. Her overall physical attributes are far beyond normal human limits; her skin is harder than diamond, surpassing any material currently known to science on Earth. Based on the patterns of destruction left at the scene, the analysis team estimates her punching force to be upwards of 3,000 tons. In theory, she could pull a fully loaded freight train with a single hand."
Three thousand tons.
The number was absolutely staggering.
The Instructor turned his gaze toward a slightly chubby young man in the group.
"Chubbs, you have a strength-type talent. What was your maximum test result?"
Chubbs scratched his head, looking a bit bashful.
"Ten tons."
The gap was a literal world of difference.
And this was only a baseline estimate for Hyuk. In reality, everyone in the room knew her true strength was likely far beyond a mere 3,000 tons.
On top of that, she could fly; with speeds easily pushing past Mach 2.
That made her even more terrifying.
"As for the White Man, his talent is most likely a form of telekinesis. Based on his performance, the expert group estimates his output to be between 6,000 and 8,000 tons. With his balanced offense and defense plus the ability to fly, he possesses an incredibly versatile skill set."
"Instructor, who came out on top?"
Chubbs raised his hand.
The Instructor didn't hold back.
"Hyuk. She pulverized the White Man's head. Even though she was heavily injured, it seems that having her chest blown open was nothing more than a minor flesh wound to her. Her vitality is staggeringly tenacious."
After laying it all out, the Instructor wanted one thing to be crystal clear to every member of the Star-Link squad.
"Everyone, these are the kinds of enemies you will be facing. They are so powerful that nothing short of a nuclear strike can take them down. That is exactly why we need your strength."