Kill Him, Clark

First the fire alarm went off, drenching everyone.

Now a guy with superpowers who can discharge electricity suddenly appears—it's not hard to see this is a meticulously planned massacre.

David raised an eyebrow at the figure in the doorway.

He'd long suspected the rumors floating around this town weren't baseless.

"It's likely Kryptonite radiation causing genetic mutations in some people."

After all, the rich rely on tech, the poor on mutations.

But he never expected a madman to pop up and try to kill nearly everyone in the town's high school.

"Ah!"

The crowd screamed in terror.

"What horror movie is this?"

Chloe and Pete trembled in fear.

Anyone with common sense knows what happens when a deadly current meets water.

That guy just needs to touch his hands to the ground, and he could kill the hundreds here in an instant.

"Raise your hands!"

It felt like hell was beckoning them. Some guys tried to rush forward and stop him.

But it was futile.

That devilish, gaunt figure slammed his electrified hands toward the ground at lightning speed.

In less than a second, across twenty or thirty meters, no one could possibly stop him in time.

In that split second, David frowned, about to act.

Not just because there were people he knew here—saving them was trivial.

"From another angle, if everyone here dies and only Clark and I survive, it'll be hard not to draw attention from those with ulterior motives."

"David? No!"

But someone beat him to it. Clark glanced at David, who seemed "in danger," his heart skipped a beat. His face twisted in shock, and with a low cry, he exploded with unprecedented speed, vanishing on the spot.

Zap!

In a flash, Jeremy's electric hands were less than ten centimeters from the ground.

But the next instant, he was suddenly grabbed around the waist and carried off.

"What happened?"

"Where'd that guy go?"

Some people screamed and shut their eyes in fear, but the searing pain from electrocution never came. They patted themselves down.

Opening their eyes, they looked at the doorway—the devil who tried to murder them was gone, leaving only a cold wind blowing in from outside, making them shiver.

"Was that an illusion?"

Had everything just now been a mass hallucination?

Some who'd even run toward Jeremy to stop him hadn't seen what happened either, because Clark's speed far exceeded what the human eye could capture.

They didn't even catch a blurry afterimage.

"When things went down, he didn't look at Lana first."

David slowly set down the snack in his hand, a hint of relief in his heart.

"Looks like there's still hope for you, Clark. You haven't completely fallen."

His big brother hadn't let a girl—one who had a boyfriend yet treated other guys differently—make him forget family for love.

"But..."

How are you going to handle this, Clark?

One wrong move, and this could bring trouble to the family.

David frowned, stepped back, and vanished from the spot.

The crowd, still shaken, looked around, wondering if this was some twisted prank.

"Where are David and Clark?"

Chloe patted her chest fearfully, searching for the two missing figures.

"They were just here." Pete looked back and forth. "Maybe they got bored and left while we were dancing?"

A flicker of doubt crossed Chloe's eyes.

But not long before it happened, she'd seen the two brothers right there. Had she remembered wrong?

"Who are you, and why did you do that?!"

On the road to the outskirts of town, Clark threw the madman off his shoulder and demanded angrily.

"Do you know there are hundreds of lives at stake there?"

"Why am I here?"

Jeremy stood up from the ground, shook his head, looked at his hands, then around him.

He was about to kill those sinners—how had he ended up on this suburban highway?

"Who are you?"

He stared at Clark, realizing this man had brought him here. His body tensed, on high alert.

So he wasn't the only special one in this world.

"It's you? I saw you at the bar!"

The next second, recognizing Clark's furious face, Jeremy placed him—someone who'd almost shared his fate.

"They nearly made you a scarecrow."

His face darkened, a sense of betrayal burning in his chest. Electricity surged in his hands, dazzling and terrifying under the dim yellow streetlights, the piercing screech like a flock of crows echoing far into the empty wilderness.

"And you want to protect them?!"

Those guys in the olive team uniforms—what made them different from the ones who'd nailed him to a cross over a decade ago?

Crackle!

He roared in accusation, and a fierce bolt of electricity sent Clark flying.

"You want to kill Whitney and the others? Absolutely not."

Clark tumbled seven or eight meters before landing, got up like nothing happened, and patted out the sparks burning on his clothes from the current. Hearing this, he realized the target and spoke urgently.

Even if Whitney was his rival in love, even if Whitney wanted to tie him to a cross, he didn't deserve death.

"God sent me back to the mortal world. I carry a special mission—to purify sin."

A strike that could easily char a man to ash hadn't even hurt the other guy. Jeremy was startled, then furious.

"You're favored by God too, yet you protect sinners!"

Electricity exploded from his hands, looking from afar like two small suns formed from crackling current.

"Protecting sinners—you don't deserve the power God gave you."

The arcing bolts struck the hard asphalt road beneath them, melting and burning it with a foul stench, like the sulfur of hell.

Zzzzzt!

"Die!"

Jeremy thrust his hands forward.

The electricity grew like a lightning tree in the air, splitting into branches, its thick trunk of current racing toward Clark faster than sound.

Unable to dodge in time, Clark raised his arms as a shield in front of him. The fabric on his sleeves turned to ash in an instant.

The powerful current even made him feel a sting of pain. He cried out.

Whoosh!

The next instant, Clark sidestepped, fast as a bullet from a chamber, appearing beside Jeremy. Time seemed to slow to a crawl as Jeremy, still glaring viciously ahead, sent electricity streaming from his palms, oblivious.

Clark looked at his own hands, then carefully shoved.

Boom!

The next second, time snapped back to normal. Jeremy's body was hit like a truck weighing a dozen tons, arcing over ten meters before crashing hard to the ground.

"Ah!"

Blood trickled from his lips, his face twisted in pain. He knew he'd broken at least a few ribs.

"I can't understand it—someone actually likes helping the people who bully them!"

Jeremy clutched his aching chest, glaring hatefully at Clark.

Why would Clark help those people who tormented him? That was betrayal.

"Your hands?"

Clark saw the gruesome scars on Jeremy's palms, like they'd been nailed through with steel spikes. His expression shifted as he slowly pieced it together.

He remembered chatting with Chloe during a break that day, when she'd mentioned a strange incident in town.

"Lately, people who used to be on the high school football team have been getting electrocuted one after another."

"You're the serial killer? You're taking revenge on the football team?"

"I'll kill you!"

Ignoring him, Jeremy forced himself up despite the searing pain, trying to attack.

"Don't get up again. I don't want to accidentally kill you."

Clark waved his hands, flustered.

He'd never really fought anyone before, and he was afraid another blow might kill the man.

But that only made Jeremy angrier. Even with his injuries, he staggered and struggled to rise.

"If he wants to kill you, then kill him, Clark!"

Just as Clark didn't know what to do, a cold voice rang out.