Reckless Clark

Bang! Bang! Bang!

Rhythmic, measured pounding echoed through the room.

Wood chips flew everywhere. Jino moved so fast that Gerry, clutched in his hand, had become little more than an afterimage.

Bang!

Another violent impact sent Gerry sprawling across the shattered boards, his face bruised and swollen, blood trickling from the corner of his mouth.

"To be honest, you disgust me."

Jino extended one foot and lightly ground it back and forth over Gerry's face.

Clark remained silent, but there was something familiar in the way he looked at Jino. He had seen that expression by the bridge before.

"Your mother raised you for eighteen years, only for you to repay her by killing her." Jino sneered down at Gerry, grabbing him by the collar and raising his fist before his terrified eyes.

Crack. Crack.

Jino clenched his fist. The immense power contained in his arm made the veins along it bulge.

An unprovoked terror rose in Gerry's heart. If that fist hit his head, he would definitely die!

"Die." Jino uttered the two words, passing judgment on Gerry's fate.

He could have kept Gerry alive and handed him over to Lex, letting Lex lock him in the dark, deep underground experimental facility beneath his factory. But Jino did not want something like this to keep living.

Whoosh!

The massive fist gradually filled Gerry's vision, drawing closer and closer.

"Don't—don't kill me!" Gerry screamed.

Just as the fist was about to strike Gerry's cheek—

Smack!

A hand strained to stop Jino's fist.

The collision of fist and palm unleashed a huge blast of air that swept outward in all directions.

The scorching gale made Gerry squint involuntarily.

When he opened his eyes, he discovered that the one who had saved him was Clark.

He had no idea why this fool was stopping his friend, but that did not stop him from preparing to escape.

"Wait, Jino. We can't kill him. We should hand him over to the law for judgment." Clark stared seriously at Jino. He could not watch a living person die before his eyes.

Jino shifted his gaze and fixed it coldly on Clark.

"Clark, I'll only say this once. Let go."

Clark's heart tightened as he looked into Jino's icy eyes, but he still forced himself to lift his chin. "We're just ordinary citizens. We have no right to decide whether he lives or dies."

"Heh."

Jino smiled and shook his head. "Then what do you think will happen to him if we hand him over to the police?"

Ignoring Clark's hesitation, Jino continued, "He'll be secretly locked away in a military experimental facility. They'll study every change in his body, and in the end, he'll die on an operating table. After that, this town will never know peace again."

"The military will do everything they can to uncover this town's secrets."

"So if I kill him now, it's for his own good, and for everyone else's." Jino smiled as though he were truly considering others. "So don't stop me."

"No. You can't kill people." Clark did not back down, opening his mouth to argue with Jino.

But just as Clark was about to speak, Gerry, who had been lying on the floor with his eyes half closed as though he were on the verge of death, suddenly sprang up.

He jumped incredibly high, leaping onto Clark's head.

"Ha, you two idiots!"

Gerry let out a mocking laugh. If Clark had not bought him time, he would not have had enough time to alter his body structure and complete his escape plan.

Gerry spread his hands, and the black jacket draped over him fluttered despite the lack of wind.

Then his body abruptly exploded, turning into a chaotic swarm of buzzing flies that rushed toward the second floor and escaped through the shattered window.

Everything had happened in less than a second.

Faced with the swarm made up of hundreds of flies, Jino had no way to stop it. He could only watch as it flew away and disappeared into the night.

"He... he got away?"

Clark looked as if he had seen a ghost. He clearly had not expected Gerry to turn into a swarm of insects and escape.

"Yeah, thanks to you."

Shaking off Clark's hand, Jino sneered, "Thanks to your help, who knows how many more innocent people will die at his hands."

To be honest, Clark was a good friend—kind, shy, gentle—but he was far too merciful about certain things.

"Mercy toward an enemy is cruelty toward yourself."

"I..."

Before Clark could finish, Jino saw the guilt on his face and could no longer suppress the anger in his heart. He raised his fist and threw it forward with explosive speed—

Thud!

The fist landed squarely on Clark's face, making him stagger back as blood seeped from the corner of his mouth.

Negative Emotions from Clark +100...

The blow made Clark's cheek burn with pain.

But when you were wrong, you had to admit it. If you took a beating, you stood straight.

He had let Gerry escape and put everyone in danger.

So Clark's lips moved, but in the end, he said nothing. He merely lowered his head in dejection.

"Are... are you two okay?"

Lana Lang hugged a pillow to her chest, looking anxiously at her wrecked living room. She was distressed at the thought that her aunt would definitely kill her when she came back.

But none of that mattered. Lana Lang pressed her lips together and asked, "Did you catch him? I just saw a swarm of flies fly out of my room."

Jino said nothing. He only looked up at the large hole in the ceiling.

Unable to bear the silence, and ashamed by how foolish he had acted that night, Clark's teenage pride got the better of him. He lowered his head and muttered, "I'll take responsibility for this."

With that, Clark rushed blindly out of the house, moving so fast that he became an afterimage.

"What!?" Lana Lang could hardly believe her eyes. "How could Clark be so fast...?"

"You don't need to know. Just remember to keep it secret." Jino gave Lana Lang an indifferent glance, then took out his phone and made a call. "Hello, Lex. I need your help."

Twenty minutes later.

Lana Lang hugged her pillow and watched a construction crew go in and out of her house.

Fortunately, Lana Lang's aunt had gone to preside over Mrs. Ted's funeral that night. Otherwise, Lana Lang felt certain her ears would have suffered terribly.

Sigh.

Lana Lang sighed inwardly, then turned her gaze toward the figure standing beneath the crooked tree in the distance.

"So, you want the chemical plant to produce some insecticide?" Lex's expression was strange.

Jino shook his head and stated his requirement.

"Not ordinary insecticide. Make it highly concentrated and potent enough to ensure every insect within a hundred-meter radius dies."

"It's a little troublesome, but not a big problem." Lex rubbed his chin. "Just remember not to forget to leave that guy's corpse for me. My experiment is starting to show some promise."

Jino knew Lex was referring to the laboratory and nodded in agreement.

"So what are you planning to do next?" Lex pulled a cigarette from his pocket and lit it. In only a few seconds, his clever mind had already figured out how to make an "insecticide."