High in the sky, Jovian watched the headless corpse falling from above with a perfectly calm expression.
He kept his eyes on it until it crashed into the ground and sent dirt flying everywhere. Only then did he unleash a sonic boom in midair and shoot off toward his next destination.
The Amazon rainforest...
This was the largest primeval forest in the world.
A forbidden zone for humanity, packed with countless wild creatures that could kill a person. In the water, in the trees, in the grass, in the rivers, in the sky, beneath the earth—any overlooked corner could hide some hunter capable of taking a life.
And yet, in a place so desolate, so ruled by the most primitive laws of the jungle, wisps of cooking smoke occasionally rose into the air.
A closer look revealed something surprising: a human village hidden in the rainforest.
This was not a settlement of primitive tribesmen. The place was full of science.
In this town of several hundred people—old and young, men and women alike—a man in a blue robe, his face stern and solemn, walked among the crowd.
Whenever the villagers at work spotted him, they immediately stopped what they were doing and bowed respectfully, offering him their highest reverence.
"Mm."
Faced with the villagers' reverence, the stern man merely nodded lightly, as though this was only natural, as though such respect was exactly what he was owed.
His name was Druig, one of the Eternals Arishem had sent to Earth.
Ever since he parted ways with the other Eternals, he had settled here, rescuing plenty of people who got lost while exploring the jungle. Over time, those lost souls began to revere him as a sage. They refused to leave him, and he never drove them away. Instead, he gave them protection.
As the years passed, that led to this village being built in the middle of the Amazon.
A twisted village centered around the Eternal Druig, with countless villagers lacking any sense of security gathering around him for shelter, forming a warped arrangement of mutual salvation.
"..."
After circling the village once, Druig entered the church.
His expression was cold, as though nothing in the world interested him. With his power of mind control, Druig had long since lost interest in other living beings. He could easily sense what others were thinking and just as easily see through a person's true nature. After seeing too much of that nature, he had grown increasingly disgusted with talking to anyone at all.
In his eyes, living beings were nothing more than petty creatures who acted one way to someone's face and another behind their back. There was no point in speaking with them.
Ten thousand meters above the ground.
A broad man dressed in a black-and-white battle suit had locked onto Druig inside the church.
"Mind control, huh? Then let's see what's faster—your mind control, or my speed."
That man was Jovian.
Floating in the sky, he seemed to be making his final preparations.
Jovian knew what Druig's power was. It was very similar to Professor X's—mind control—but weaker.
Even so, weaker than Professor X did not mean Druig couldn't control him.
Jovian had no intention of gambling on that.
So he planned to accelerate himself to near-light speed and smash Druig to pieces in an instant.
At this moment, Druig had no idea what kind of fate was about to descend on him.
He sat in the church, perfectly at ease.
Boom!
Suddenly, Druig's incredibly sharp senses seemed to pick up a thunderous roar—the sound of something tearing through the air.
The instant Druig heard it and raised his head, he saw a gigantic fist.
And by the time the wind pressure forced his eyes shut, it was already over.
Boom!
With a deafening explosion, the church, which covered hundreds of square meters, blew apart instantly. Everything inside was annihilated.
The immense shockwave sent nearby guards flying.
Endless dust swallowed the whole village.
By the time the villagers, clutching hunting rifles, made their way toward the church, all that remained on the ground was a corpse missing half its body, lying completely motionless.
"No, this can't be real!"
The villagers recognized the owner of that body from the clothes it wore.
It was their sage, Druig.
But now their sage had been slapped to death by a descending palm strike from the sky.
The sage had fallen, and the villagers wailed.
Meanwhile, high above them, the figure who had erased Druig adjusted his direction and flew off into the distance.
Australia...
Boom!
With another sonic boom, a figure appeared above a barren stretch of land, and the instant he landed, a violent gale swept out in every direction.
The man casually waved one arm, scattering the dust around him, then brushed the dirt from his clothes and stepped out of the massive crater his landing had created.
Tap. Tap.
As he kept walking forward, a small hut came into view.
Inside, a massively built man with a broad, round face was hard at work, his hands moving constantly between the stove and the oven. He looked a little rushed, but his movements were so practiced that it was obvious his cooking had been refined through endless years of repetition.
Jingle jingle jingle...
Just as the big man kept working, the man who had descended from the sky stepped up behind him and shook the little metal bell tied to the wooden door with a piece of string, the sort of decoration that looked entirely pointless.
"..."
Hearing the ringing behind him, the big man slowly turned around.
The moment he saw the man in the black-and-white battle suit, he seemed to realize something.
"Please wait a moment. My family is inside waiting to eat what I made."
The big man explained himself to the visitor behind him.
"I'm not in a hurry."
The man in the black-and-white battle suit turned out to be unexpectedly reasonable. He nodded and indicated that he could wait.
"Thank you."
After receiving that answer, the big man smiled and nodded back, then got to work even faster. Before long, he finished the meal for the day.
Fried rice with pumpkin pie.
A strange combination.
"Want some?"
The big man offered some to the person behind him.
"No, thanks."
The man in the black-and-white suit waved it off. He had no interest in their meal.
"That's a shame. My fried rice is unmatched in all of Australia."
The big man shook his head, looking slightly disappointed. Maybe the thought of not being able to show off the cooking skill he had honed over seven thousand years really did make him feel a little regretful.
"Heh..."
Jovian merely chuckled softly.
"The lady inside looks like she's already starving. If you keep delaying, I'm afraid she'll come out here and kill someone."
Jovian raised a finger and pointed at the house behind the big man, speaking in a half-joking tone.
"Heh, I kind of like you."
The big man laughed after hearing that, then carried the steaming food into the house.
"Who's outside?"
Inside the hut, an incredibly sexy woman asked the big man as he came in.
"Someone I know. He came to see me about going fishing. I'll be right back. Stay here, don't run around, and don't be picky."
The big man set the food down in front of the stunning woman and carefully instructed her.
After living together for thousands of years, it felt less like he was playing the role of a husband and more like he was playing the role of a father. He found it a little helpless, but there was nothing he could do. After all, the woman he loved so dearly had ended up with that strange illness.
"Oh..."
The moment she heard she wasn't allowed to be picky, the woman looked immediately distressed. She pouted those sexy lips of hers and looked up at the big man with a weak, pitiful expression.
"Be good."
The big man gave the beautiful woman another helpless reminder.
"Fine, I got it."
The woman frowned deeply and began forcing herself to eat, enduring the weird taste of ingredients like carrots mixed into the fried rice as she pushed each bite into her mouth.
Crunch. Crunch.
As she chewed, sweat began to bead on her forehead as though she were facing a mortal enemy.
"Heh..."
The big man watched the woman eat with big mouthfuls, then warmly stepped back outside.
"Come back early."
The woman looked at the big man as he walked out and gave him a quiet reminder.
"Got it."
The big man felt a warmth in his chest. He left behind a soft answer before stepping out of the hut and returning to stand in front of Jovian.
"Sorry to keep you waiting."
The big man looked at Jovian with a trace of apology on his face.
"There's no need to apologize."
Jovian folded his arms in front of his chest. A man who could care for the woman he loved day after day was absolutely worthy of being called a real man.
Jovian could only say that this guy truly lived up to being the one and only Gilgamesh.
"Hah..."
Gilgamesh, the Eternal with the greatest physical strength, slowly let out a breath as he looked at Jovian.
"Let's go somewhere farther away to fight."
Gilgamesh's gaze gradually sharpened.
"Oh? So you've already figured out why I came here?"
"Interesting. Then tell me—how did you realize I came here looking for a fight?"
Jovian hadn't expected Gilgamesh to see through his purpose so quickly, and sounded a little surprised.
"Your eyes."
Gilgamesh raised two fingers of his right hand, gesturing first toward his own eyes and then toward Jovian's.
"I've seen that kind of killing intent in someone's eyes far too many times. I'm guessing you just killed someone before you came here, and now you've come to kill me too. No—more accurately..."
"Your eyes?"
"Interesting..."
It was the first time Jovian had heard such a fresh explanation.
"You're too interesting."
"So interesting that I almost don't want to kill you anymore. Fine, I'll give you a chance. Since I'm feeling an unusual flicker of mercy today, if you willingly give up your power, I can absorb all the Eternal power from both you and the woman inside. Then you can live out your last few decades as ordinary humans, free of pain and sorrow. How about it?"
A rare trace of mercy had actually appeared in Jovian's heart.
He was willing to spare this real man.
"Your hands..."
"They're already stained with the blood of more than one Eternal, aren't they?"
Gilgamesh shook his head and spread his stance into a combat posture.
"Sigh..."
"It looks like you picked the worst possible road."
Looking at Gilgamesh's stance, Jovian knew that even though Gilgamesh had not said much, he had already said everything he needed to say.
"Sorry to waste your good intentions, but..."
"As a warrior, I can never allow someone to slaughter my own kind. And I definitely can't bow my head to someone who's already slaughtered them."
The plain cloth clothes on Gilgamesh's body vanished completely, replaced by a fitted battle suit covered in flickering golden light that made him look radiant.
"Interesting."
Jovian's eyes lit up at the sight of Gilgamesh's armor. The earlier Eternals had either enraged him so badly that he lost his cool, or died before even entering combat mode, so he had never paid attention. But now that he saw it properly, their outfits actually looked pretty stylish. At the very least, all that golden brilliance really did give them the air of gods.
With a thought, Jovian triggered the power he had absorbed.
In the next second, a dazzling golden glow erupted across his body, and his black-and-white battle suit gained a layer of gold effects as well.
"You're one of the Eternals too?!"
Gilgamesh's eyes widened in shock as he looked at the gold-lit Jovian. The possibility that Jovian was one of his own kind had never even crossed his mind.
Hum—
Before Gilgamesh could recover from that shock, golden light was already gathering around Jovian's right hand.
He strode up to Gilgamesh and planted a savage slap right across that round head.
Boom!
With dust exploding into the air, Gilgamesh was sent flying by that single slap, turning into a shooting star that vanished into the sky.
Watching the one-slap wonder get launched away, Jovian curled his lips into a smile.
Then he rose into the air and began unloading a relentless chain of slaps onto that big round pancake face.
Today, the slaps were all-you-can-eat.
Slap slap slap slap...
Gilgamesh's face swelled red under the endless barrage.
He admitted defeat.
It was the first time in his life he had been beaten by his own move—
His strongest finishing technique.
Serious Slap.
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