One punch.
Another punch.
Yet another punch.
Standing beneath the waterfall, Hawk used his bare body to withstand the pounding water while resolutely throwing punch after punch against its resistance.
Whenever he threw a punch, the cross-section of water struck by his fist would pause for a fleeting instant.
But...
It was not enough!
He did not want the waterfall to pause for his fist.
He wanted the waterfall to tremble beneath his fist—perhaps even flow backward.
Hawk did not think he was asking for much.
After all, this was not Mount Lu Waterfall. Compared to Mount Lu Waterfall, it probably did not even possess a tenth of its grandeur.
So was that too much?
It was not.
But clearly, that thought had enraged the waterfall before him.
Who the hell did he think he was, asking it to flow backward?
Did he think he was Poseidon, King of the Sea?
And even Poseidon, King of the Sea, could not do it. He was the King of the Sea—he controlled seawater, so how the hell could he control a freshwater waterfall like this?
So...
The waterfall became enraged. Under Hawk's relentless barrage of punches, the speed of the water visibly intensified.
Hawk remained expressionless as he felt the waterfall's fury.
But within his Cosmo, the fully illuminated Phoenix constellation formed the silhouette of a fire phoenix, slowly revealing itself.
He had made up his mind.
He would leave only when the waterfall before him flowed backward.
Though only a few days remained until school started.
It did not matter.
As he had said before.
He was an orphan. Even if he did not go to school after it started, probably no one would care.
But that was fine.
No one cared about him, and he had no one he needed to care about.
So...
Battle intent blazed fiercely in Hawk's eyes.
"Come on!"
The waterfall was thoroughly enraged. Provoked by Hawk's challenge, its flow grew swifter and more violent once again.
"Rumble!"
"...Was that thunder?"
At the northernmost edge of Cunningham Falls Nature Reserve Park, Gwen, who had only just entered the protected forest, subconsciously looked up at the rumbling sound coming from afar.
But the towering ancient trees blocked out the sky. Only sunlight filtered through the gaps in the leaves, and the dappled patches of light added a touch of eeriness to the already quiet forest.
After realizing she could not see the sky, Gwen lowered her gaze.
Wearing a conspicuous white hiking jacket and a pair of outdoor shoes, Gwen took out her phone. After lighting up the screen, she looked at the location map displayed on it.
There, before her eyes.
Two faint dots, though far apart, could already be displayed on the same screen.
One marked Gwen's current location.
The other...
Gwen took a deep breath, gripped the trekking pole she had bought after arriving in Thurmont yesterday afternoon, silently encouraged herself, and started walking toward the other dot again.
At first, Gwen had assumed Hawk's phone had simply been stolen and had not thought much of it.
After all, she had been busy with her summer job as well.
But when Dr. Connors suddenly asked the next day whether she had given Hawk that gift, Gwen began to feel that something was strange. So after work, she went to Hawk's new apartment again.
The result...
The envelope she had placed on the sofa was still lying quietly there, untouched.
For some reason, Gwen suddenly felt her heart seize with panic at that moment.
She immediately called her father, George, hoping he could see whether the New York Police Department could locate Hawk.
George had not taken it seriously at first, but seeing Gwen's worried expression, he thought it over and contacted a colleague at the Queens Precinct.
His jurisdiction was in Manhattan. He could cross precinct lines to investigate a missing person, but he still had to notify his colleagues at the Queens Precinct.
The result was that there was no trace of him.
Hawk seemed to have vanished from the face of the earth.
And Hawk had no credit cards, no driver's license, and now no one even knew whether his phone had been stolen or had died. That made him even harder to find.
To put it bluntly, Hawk was like an invisible man living in the modern world.
No family.
No social life.
He did not even have a single friend. Even after the Queens Precinct opened a case, its officers had no idea where to begin investigating.
Because no one could provide the last place Hawk had been seen. Even when they asked several of Hawk's classmates, no one cared enough to ask what had happened to him.
Uh...
Except Gwen.
Until the day before yesterday, George had just returned home when he looked at his daughter, who had been coming home later than he did these past few days while searching everywhere for traces of Hawk. Finally, he could not hold back the question he had wanted to ask all along. "Gwen, have you fallen for this Hawk?"
Gwen, who had just returned from a cemetery somewhere in Queens, froze at George's question before giving him an answer.
"Dad, Hawk and I are just friends."
"..."
By the time George came back to his senses, Gwen had already run upstairs.
George blinked and could not help looking at his wife, Helen, who had remained silent beside him.
"Friends? Do you believe that?"
"Whether I believe it is not important."
Helen, who had always been a devoted wife and mother, smiled at Gwen's retreating figure before saying to George, "But I know you won't be able to keep your daughter here much longer."
George was dumbfounded.
Back in her room, Gwen threw herself onto the bed. As she thought about Hawk, who had been out of contact for more than ten days, an indescribable feeling rose within her when her phone suddenly rang.
Gwen casually lit up the screen and glanced at it.
The next second.
She abruptly sat up in bed.
It was not spam. It was another remote login notification from her mobile account.
Gwen quickly opened the link in the text message.
This time, the signal was no longer an approximate area. It pinpointed a precise location.
Maryland, Cunningham Falls Nature Reserve Park, beneath a waterfall.
That was why Gwen had come here.
Very soon.
As the sound of rushing water grew louder, Gwen, though drenched in sweat, became more alert than ever and even quickened her pace.
And beneath the waterfall.
After throwing his 9,999th punch, Hawk drew back his fist. At the moment he threw the final punch, the phoenix phantom behind him seemed almost solid.
The next second.
Hawk unleashed his 10,000th punch, and the fire phoenix phantom behind him spread its wings and soared!
"Cry!"
"Flow backward for me!"
"Boom!"
The waterfall before him was no longer a torrent plunging from the heavens. It was an enraged dragon raising its head, rolling the river of heaven backward!
At that moment, time seemed to freeze.
Yet an incomparably clear voice pierced through the frozen time and reached Hawk's ears.
A voice.
Clear.
Trembling.
"Hawk!!"
"..."
Before you continue