The Hero pulled back, her hands resting on Asm's shoulders with the kind of casual weight that could crush a tank. "From now on," she said, her voice dropping into a tone of mock-sweetness that made Asm's skin crawl, "you call me Big Sister."
It was a callback to the old days in the Detention School, a time when they were just two outcasts playing in the dirt. But now, it carried the heavy, suffocating authority of a goddess.
Asm's eyes glinted with a familiar, mischievous spark. He knew he couldn't beat her in a fight yet, so he went for the only weapon he had: being a nuisance. "Yes, Big Sis..." he started, leaning in with a smirk. "Can I fondle your boobs?"
WHAM.
The Hero's palm connected with the side of his head before he could even finish the sentence. The force was astronomical; Asm didn't just fall—he turned into a blurred streak of motion, splatting against the cracked floorboards like a dropped fruit.
The Hero let out a melodic laugh, shaking her head as she dusted off her gloves. "If you ever dare try that, little bro, I won't just slap you. I'll kill you."
Asm lay there for a second, his skull knitting back together with a wet, squelching sound. He sat up, wiping blood from his nose with a relaxed smile. "Yes, ma'am," he said, sounding perfectly obedient.
"How could you?!"
The scream came from Eli. The younger sister stood trembling, her finger pointing at the horrific remains of the lab. "Look at this place! The experiments, the bodies, the blood! And you're standing there laughing with a monster? You're a Hero! You're supposed to punish evil, not play house with it!"
The Hero turned slowly. Her eyes swept over the gore and the shattered glass with the same interest one might show a stained rug. "Who cares?" she said, her voice chillingly nonchalant. "The government will send a cleanup crew. They always do. I'm their strong, lovely Hero, after all. A few dead scientists won't change that."
Eli's face went pale. The realization hit her like a physical blow: her sister wasn't a savior; she was a predator who simply had a better publicist. "Fine!" Eli hissed, her hands glowing with a soft, pink light. "If you won't do your job, then I will."
Eli began to charge her Gift: Good Will. It was a complex power—one that could usually manipulate a villain's mind into feeling guilt. But she was pushing it now, condensing that mental energy into a physical form—a glowing, laser-like arrow aimed straight at Asm's heart.
Asm didn't move. Neither did the Hero. They both looked at the girl as if she were a fly buzzing around a dinner plate.
"I guess I'll have to do something about her," Asm muttered, his voice sounding exhausted.
Before he could even twitch a finger, the Hero moved. In a blur of golden light, she appeared behind Eli and delivered a sharp, precise strike to the back of her neck. Eli collapsed instantly, her "Good Will" arrow flickering out into nothingness as she hit the floor.
The Hero looked at Asm one last time, her expression softening into something unreadable. "Goodbye, little bro," she said.
"Goodbye, big sis," Asm replied, his voice flat. "Try not to have another tantrum."
"Yes, ma'am," he added as she disappeared into a pillar of light, taking her sister with her.
The silence that followed was suffocating. Asm stood tall, the playful mask falling away to reveal a face of cold, jagged stone.
"You can come out now, Brother," he said to the shadows.
From the darkness of a corner the Hero's light hadn't reached, Ravenor, the King of the Underworld, stepped forward. He was Asm's eldest brother, a man who looked like he was carved from obsidian. He had been watching everything—the hug, the slap, the indifference.
"It seems the Hero doesn't really care about human lives," Asm said, gesturing to the ruins.
"She doesn't," Ravenor replied, his voice like grinding tectonic plates. "She is a transmigrator. Because she has been reincarnated so many times, she has stopped seeing people as treasure. To her, this world is just a stage, and we are just NPCs."
The word hit Asm like a spark in a powder keg. Rage—pure, unadulterated fury—erupted in his chest. "NPC? I was humiliated again!" he roared. His fists clenched so hard the skin began to split, only to heal and split again. "How many times do I have to lose to her?! How many times do I have to be the 'little bro' she can just swat away?!"
The humiliation of being a "noob" in the face of her "Archive" power finally snapped something inside him. "I will kill her! I will kill her! I WILL KILL HER!"
With a scream of raw hate, Asm hammered both fists into the floor. He didn't use a gun. He didn't use a bomb. He used the raw, unfiltered pressure of his Creation Gift, imagining the very foundation of the building turning into dust.
BOOM.
The entire glass skyscraper didn't just fall—it disintegrated. The shockwave turned the remaining floors into a swirling mist of glass, concrete, and the blood of those who hadn't evacuated. The building vanished, leaving a massive, smoking crater in the middle of the city.
Asm stood in the center of the ruins, chest heaving, his eyes bloodshot. He looked over at Ravenor, who was standing perfectly still amidst the debris. "I went overboard again," Asm muttered, his voice cracking. Then he paused. "Why aren't you dead?"
Ravenor's eyes flickered with a deep, molten fire. "Because my body is made of the underworld's flames, Asm. Debris cannot crush what is already burning."
Asm's fists shook. He didn't care about his brother's power right now. He only cared about the golden light that had vanished into the sky.
"I will kill the Hero," he growled, the words vibrating in his throat like a death sentence. "And then the Demon Lord... someday, I'm going to make every single one of them suffer by my hands."