The crowd parted like a tide.
Accompanied by the shrill, electronic chanting of atonement scriptures from Servo-skulls, a gaunt man dressed in ornate yet macabre robes strode in.
He was draped in Purity Seals, parchment scrolls covered in prayers, and gilded finger-bone ornaments. His face was haggard, his eye sockets sunken, and his skin was as pale as a corpse. But in those bloodshot eyes burned a fanatical, neurotic, and extremely dangerous flame.
Clutched in his hand was an Inquisitorial Staff—a symbol of supreme authority—the skull atop it flickering with red light.
Inquisitor Varkas.
A madman of the Radical faction. In his creed, to eliminate a potential heretic, even executing an Exterminatus on an entire Hive City and burning hundreds of millions of civilians was a "necessary sacrifice" and the "Emperor's mercy."
Varkas's gaze swept across the scene like a venomous snake.
At a glance, he saw the pile of smoking daemonic remains—irrefutable evidence of Chaos.
Then, he saw the man hovering in mid-air (Clark's toes were just barely touching the ground), bare-chested and perfect, bearing no Imperial icons, and even standing protectively in front of a group of filthy civilians.
"I smell... the stench of heresy! The foul odor of the Warp!"
Varkas pointed at Clark, his withered finger trembling violently as if pointing at the most profane thing in the world.
"Inquisitor!"
Sergeant Titus stepped forward, his massive power-armored frame blocking Varkas's path like a wall. He clicked off the safety on his Bolter and barked:
"Lower your weapons! This individual is—"
"Silence, Astartes! Has your brain been clouded by the Warp?!"
Varkas shrieked, interrupting him, his voice breaking from extreme agitation like nails scratching a blackboard.
"You simple-minded giants! Open your eyes and look!"
The Inquisitor stared fixatedly at Clark's flawless face, jealousy and fear intertwining in his eyes.
"Look at him! No mechanical augmentations, no marks of holy blessing, yet he possesses the power to tear daemons apart with his bare hands! This is irrational! This is unscientific! How could mortal flesh achieve this?!"
Varkas waved his staff, spittle flying:
"The only explanation is—he is a trick of Tzeentch! He is a Daemonic Vessel disguised as a perfect human! He is using this skin to bewitch you! He is desecrating the Holy Human Form!"
"Enough!" Titus roared, killing intent boiling in his eyes. "You dare insult the Lord! You are profaning the Holy Bloodline! If you utter one more word..."
"I serve only the Holy Inquisition! Better to kill a thousand innocents than let one heretic go free!"
Varkas had gone completely mad. Fear overrode his reason. From beneath his voluminous robes, he suddenly drew a hideously designed pistol with a glowing, overheated barrel.
An Inferno Pistol.
This extremely rare weapon of the Inquisition could release a miniature fusion reaction at close range, instantaneously melting the armor of a main battle tank. It was a weapon designed specifically to execute heavily armored heretics and traitor Astartes.
He aimed the muzzle directly at Clark's heart.
"In the name of the Holy Emperor—FIRE! Execute the heretic!"
"NO!!!" Titus's eyes threatened to burst from their sockets. He moved to block the shot, but the highly-trained Stormtroopers reacted faster.
Zzzzt— Pew! Pew! Pew!
Dozens of high-energy Hellgun beams erupted instantly. A rain of red light, like a dense storm, completely submerged Clark's figure.
Simultaneously, Varkas pulled the trigger of the Inferno Pistol.
BOOM!
An incandescent beam of superheated energy, enough to warp the air itself and carrying temperatures of several thousand degrees, blasted straight toward Clark's unprotected chest.
Time seemed to stretch in that moment.
Old Jack screamed in despair from the ruins, Titus roared in fury, and the Stormtroopers pulled their triggers with cold efficiency.
At the center of the firestorm, Clark merely let out a soft sigh.
"Sigh."
That sigh was not loud, yet it clearly pierced through the cacophony of the battlefield, reaching everyone's ears.
It was a sigh of disappointment. A deep-seated disappointment toward the profound savagery and ignorance of this behemoth called the "Imperium."
Then, a scene occurred that made everyone question the nature of reality.
Sizzle—
The high-energy laser beams, capable of severing limbs and burning through flak armor, struck Clark's skin like flashlights shining on a mirror. Aside from making his bronze skin look more radiant and divine, they didn't even singe a single hair.
A few stray bolt shells exploded against him, engulfing him in fire, but the shockwaves of the explosions failed to displace even a single strand of his black, curly hair.
Across the surface of his worn work vest, a faint, nearly invisible transparent ripple shimmered—the automatic defense of his bio-field at a microscopic level, perfectly isolating all harm.
Most terrifying of all was the Melta beam.
That was an attack capable of turning Adamantium into molten slag!
It struck squarely against Clark's left pectoral muscle, right over the heart.
Zzzzt—
A scorched smell filled the air instantly.
But it wasn't the smell of burning meat; it was the smell of oxygen in the air being instantly incinerated.
The light faded.
Clark looked down at his chest. The Melta beam had left a tiny, smoking red dot, like a mosquito bite.
He reached out and casually brushed it.
The red dot vanished instantly, revealing skin that was still as smooth as jade, without even a speck of black ash remaining.
[SOL: Attack intensity detected: Weak (Tickle-level). Shield depletion: 0%. Host heart rate rising... You are angry, Kal.]
"They do need an education."
Clark raised his head.
In his memory, that rainy night, the sound of a similar gunshot, and the image of Jonathan falling in a pool of blood overlapped with the fanatical executioners before him.
Eight years.
He had been enduring.
But today, he didn't want to endure anymore.
Braving the rain of lasers, Clark walked toward the Inquisitor step by step.
THUD.
First step. The Adamantium floor beneath his feet emitted a dull tremor. The hands of the Stormtroopers began to shake; their firing rhythm broke.
THUD.
Second step. Clark emerged from the smoke. His azure eyes were now devoid of ripples—no killing intent, no fury, only a calm more terrifying than the abyss.
THUD.
Third step. He stood directly in front of Varkas.
The Inquisitor, who had been so insufferable moments ago, was now like a terrified quail. He frantically pulled the trigger of the Inferno Pistol, but the overheated relic had already locked up and malfunctioned, its body glowing red like a branding iron, yet unable to harm the man in front of him in the slightest.
"You... what are you? Why... why does the Emperor's fire not burn you?"
Varkas's teeth chattered violently. He retreated several steps until his back hit the ruined wall.
Clark did not answer.
He simply reached out two fingers, moving as slowly as if picking a flower, and lightly pinched the barrel of the Inferno Pistol aimed at his chest.
CRACK.
It was like pinching modeling clay.
The barrel, forged from high-temperature ceramics and Adamantium, was instantly deformed, flattened, and crushed under Clark's fingertips, turning into a hunk of twisted scrap metal.
With a casual flick, the ruined gun flew from the Inquisitor's hand, embedding itself deep into the nearby Adamantium wall until the grip was no longer visible.
"I can understand you aiming your gun at an enemy."
Clark looked down at the fanatic, who was a head shorter than him. His voice was not loud, yet it carried an indisputable sense of judgment. Every word hit Varkas's heart like a heavy hammer:
"But you aim your guns at the person who just saved you, and at these innocent, unarmed civilians..."
Clark pointed at Old Jack and the others behind him, who were unharmed. A flash of sorrow crossed his eyes—the shadow of Jonathan Kent.
"Is this the 'Justice' of the Imperium? If it is, then today, I shall teach you what the real rules are."
"Heresy! This is blasphemy! I am of the Inquisition—"
The Inquisitor tried to use a roar to hide his inner terror, attempting to use the ID badge that represented infinite power to overwhelm the monster before him.
But he was wrong.
Before this man, so-called power was nothing but dust.
HUM!
Clark's pupils contracted sharply.
This time, there was no Heat Vision.
What erupted was the full-power pressure of his Bio-Field.
It was the gaze of a Kryptonian apex predator, the downward look of a God Among Men toward a mortal—the absolute suppression of a higher-dimensional lifeform over a lower-dimensional being.
BOOM!
In Varkas's psychic vision, the material world vanished.
The handsome man before him vanished.
In his place was an angry, burning red star that occupied his entire field of vision. That terrifying heat and light instantaneously vaporized all his mental defenses. It was an existence more violent, more direct, and more overbearing than the Emperor's light he had felt in the temples.
"Kneel."
A voice exploded directly in the depths of his soul, unavoidable and absolute.
"AAAAAAAAHHH—!!!"
The Inquisitor let out a blood-curdling scream. His mental defenses collapsed entirely. His eyes rolled back, and blood began to seep from his nostrils and ears.
THUD.
His knees buckled, and he collapsed directly onto the floor before Clark.
A warm liquid flowed down his pant leg, pooling on the floor in a puddle that smelled of urine. His staff fell to the ground with a CLANG, and his entire body slumped like a pile of mud, foaming at the mouth and twitching uncontrollably.
Total silence.
The Stormtroopers were so terrified that their Hellguns dropped from their hands, their faces beneath their masks as white as paper. They looked at the man who had terrified an Inquisitor into a coma with just a look as if they were looking at a living, walking God of War.
Clark withdrew his gaze.
The red glow in his eyes faded, and the pressure that had nearly solidified the air vanished instantly. He returned to being that gentle farm boy (though in the eyes of everyone else, this was more terrifying than before).
He reached back and adjusted his red cape, then turned to look at Sergeant Titus, who was standing by, dumbfounded.
"Let's go, big guy."
Clark's tone was flat, as if he had just swatted a fly rather than incapacitated an Imperial Inquisitor.
"Take me to the person in charge. I don't like this man. The air here is bad."
Titus looked at the slumped, incontinent Inquisitor, then back at the calm and collected Clark. His Adam's apple bobbed with difficulty.
In his mind, only one voice echoed frantically—the burning fire of fanatical faith:
This is the majesty of a Primarch! Authority without anger! Even the mad dogs of the Inquisition tremble before him!
Praise the Emperor! We have truly found a living God! Only a God can judge the Inquisition!
"Yes! My Lord! This way!"
Titus straightened his back like the most loyal of Royal Guards and strode forward to clear the path for Clark.