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This was a convenience store with half its rolling shutter torn away and glass shattered all over the floor.

Three men were inside, smashing things up. One of them had a mass of black substance coiled around his palm, constantly writhing.

He was a superhuman capable of manipulating some kind of matter.

Moreover, the sound emitted by the writhing substance sounded remarkably like electrical interference.

His two companions were merely ordinary men, holding guns in their hands.

Behind the counter, a middle-aged couple huddled together in a ball.

Outside the door, over a dozen passersby stood watching, their phones held high, yet not a single one stepped forward to help.

They were all the type to watch the chaos without fearing it would grow too large.

Lu Heng descended from the air.

His bio-field automatically cushioned the impact of his landing.

Everyone in the vicinity saw a tall man drop from the sky.

The commotion inside the store paused for a moment.

The thug with the gun reacted the fastest, turning his muzzle toward Lu Heng and pulling the trigger.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

After a few crisp reports, the bullets struck Lu Heng's chest, hitting the invisible bio-field on his skin and shattering instantly, the copper casing fragments bouncing off to the sides.

Lu Heng's shirt didn't even develop a wrinkle.

Lu Heng looked down at his chest.

"Seriously, you're weak! Try a couple more shots and see how that feels!"

The thug's hand trembled, and he nearly dropped his gun.

The superhuman finally reacted, shooting the black substance from his palm like a snake straight toward Lu Heng's face.

Lu Heng raised his hand and grabbed it.

His five fingers clamped onto the black mass as if squeezing a lump of mud.

Then, he exerted force.

Eight tons of grip strength.

The black substance shattered and dissipated in his palm, leaking through his fingers and turning to ash the moment it hit the ground.

This level of matter manipulation was no different from playing house in front of him.

The superhuman was stunned. "You motherf—"

Lu Heng couldn't be bothered to hear him finish.

He stepped in front of him in a single stride. Despite being a clerk, he possessed Viltrumite blood, and his combat prowess was in no way inferior.

Using his subsonic flight ability for short-distance movement was no different from teleportation.

Lu Heng raised his hand and delivered a massive slap directly to the man's face.

He controlled his strength for this blow, using only about... 5% of his full power?

With a dull thud, the superhuman flew sideways, knocking over three rows of shelves, rolling his eyes back, and being put to sleep on the spot.

Seeing their boss slapped unconscious, the two armed thugs immediately turned their muzzles toward Lu Heng.

Lu Heng reached out with both hands, gripping each gun barrel.

With a slight exertion of force, the rifling of the two pistols twisted like a pretzel, turning them into scrap metal.

When the two thugs saw this, they nearly wet themselves.

One of them even started crying on the spot.

"Don't kill us... please, don't kill us..."

"My grandma is getting married... I'm still waiting to attend the wedding..."

"Look at the state of you two; why didn't you think this day would come when you were robbing the place?" Lu Heng tossed the scrap metal to the ground, brushed the dust off his hands, and turned back to the store owners. "Call the police; I'll leave them here for you."

The store owner stood up, leaning on the counter, and after trembling for a long time, managed to choke out, "Th... thank you."

His wife was already in a daze, simply nodding repeatedly.

The crowd of onlookers outside the door fell silent for two seconds.

Then, someone started to applaud.

All the phone cameras were aimed directly at him.

"Holy shit, that's awesome!"

"Bare-handed, he bent the gun barrel... why did my crotch just tighten up!"

"His muscles are so solid, I wonder if he likes guys?"

A Black kid, maybe fifteen or sixteen, squeezed to the front, holding up his phone to livestream, his voice trembling with excitement...

"Hey, bro, did you all see that! This guy flew down from the sky! He slapped a supe away with one hand! Who is he? Does anyone know him?"

The livestream's viewer count surged from single digits to hundreds, even breaking a thousand.

The numbers on the system panel began to jump.

[Collecting positive emotions from the crowd...]

+42 +67 +38 +91 +55 +83 +44 +76 +51 +89 +62 +48 +96...

Total this time: +847

Current Ability Points: 847 / 10,000

Over eight hundred.

A dozen passersby could contribute this much?

Just as Lu Heng was planning to accept a few interviews to further expand his influence, the system popped up a notification.

[Traces of a key character's activity detected nearby (vague)]

[Suggestion: Proactively contact the key character to obtain a large amount of Ability Points]

A key character?

Twenty minutes later, in the surveillance center on the 72nd floor of Vought International headquarters, an analyst stared at the red-flagged data traffic on the screen. After hesitating for only two seconds, he picked up the internal phone.

"Ms. Madelyn, there is a situation you might need to look at."

"...An unidentified supe has appeared in Brooklyn."

"According to video analysis, his abilities... are very likely close to Homelander's!"

Lu Heng stood at the entrance of a convenience store, looking at that notification on his panel.

[Traces of a key character's activity detected nearby (vague)]

Vague.

It meant the person was nearby, but the system couldn't pinpoint their exact location.

However, that wasn't much of a problem for Lu Heng.

His hearing far exceeded that of an ordinary person; he could clearly capture any movement within a two-kilometer radius.

He closed his eyes, filtering out the noisy crowd, the sounds of city traffic, and the rumble of the subway tracks...

Found it!

To the northeast, about a kilometer away.

Someone was talking.

A man and a woman.

The woman's voice carried a hint of teasing: "Hughie, are you really going to work at the electronics store for the rest of your life?"

The man feigned dissatisfaction: "That thing is called stability, Robin, stability, get it?"

"You call a monthly salary of twenty-three hundred stability?"

"...At least it's a steady paycheck!"

Hughie, Robin.

Lu Heng opened his eyes.

Found them.

The opening event of the first season, where Robin gets smashed into heroic fragments by A-Train.

It was precisely this scene that had made Lu Heng binge-watch all three seasons overnight, only for Starlight to look weirder and weirder as the show went on.

Should he save her?

This question lingered in Lu Heng's mind for only half a second.

Of course he would save her.

It wasn't that he, Lu, was particularly kind-hearted, but saving Robin would bring plenty of benefits.

As a key character, Hughie's fate would be rewritten, which would surely bring in a significant amount of Ability Points.

Just as Lu Heng was about to set off, a rush of hurried footsteps came from behind him.

"Hey! Hey, hey, hey! Wait up!"

The Black kid who had been livestreaming caught up, shoving his phone into Lu Heng's face, the chat in the livestream scrolling wildly on the screen.

"Brother! What's your name? Which company are you with? Vought or..."

"I'm not affiliated with any company, just a superhuman for fun."

"An independent hero? Man, do you have any idea how cool that was? You slapped a superhuman away! My stream is blowing up!"

The kid turned his phone screen around to show him; the number of live viewers had already broken three thousand and was still climbing.

The chat was filled with:

[Who the hell is this damn Asian guy???]

[Bullets couldn't pierce him! He came flying in! A new hero?]

[Great body, smash, I think I can.]

[Keep it in your pants, upstairs.]

[Never seen this trope before, did Vought change their writers?]

[Name please, name please, name please!]

Three thousand people.

Lu Heng glanced at the system panel. Ability points were ticking up at an extremely slow pace. The emotional feedback from online viewers was much weaker than those on the scene, but the sheer volume of internet traffic made up for it—every little bit helped.

+3 +2 +5 +2 +3 +4...

Even a mosquito's leg is meat.

"My codename is... Guardian, I suppose!" Lu Heng said casually.

"Guardian! Did you hear that, brothers! He's called Guardian!" The kid jumped up and down in excitement. "Guardian, can you perform something for the guys in the stream? Fly a bit? Please!"

Lu Heng glanced at him.

Over three thousand people were watching the stream. If he flew a lap and the video spread, the buzz tonight would at least double.

He was still over nine thousand points away from the next level.

Life isn't easy, even for a superhuman busking for attention!

"Fine, watch closely."

Lu Heng tapped his toes against the ground.

BOOM—

A blur almost too fast for the naked eye shot straight into the night sky. The surrounding pedestrians stumbled back from the gust of wind, nearly dropping their phones.

By the time they looked up, Lu Heng was already hovering at the height of about thirty stories.

The night wind whistled past his ears, and all of Brooklyn lay beneath his feet like a dense circuit board.

The Manhattan skyline was brightly lit, and the spire of Vought Tower was vaguely visible.

He looked down; the people on the ground were as small as ants.

But he could clearly hear the Black kid shouting, "Did you see that! He flew! He actually flew!!!"

The chat in the stream went completely wild.

The number of online viewers jumped from three thousand to five thousand, then to eight thousand.

The system panel...

+7 +12 +9 +15 +8 +11 +6 +14...

Still not fast enough. The emotional feedback from online viewers was too weak, and the quantity wasn't high enough yet.

A true explosion would have to wait until these videos spread to mainstream social media, which wouldn't happen until tomorrow at the earliest.

Lu Heng wasn't in a hurry.

He turned in mid-air. Robin wasn't dead yet, so it seemed A-Train hadn't hit anyone today.

He noted a general direction; he would go find her tomorrow.

Tonight... he would sweep through Brooklyn first.

The density of superhuman crime in this place was incredibly high; you could run into one every few steps, just like being in Gotham.

Lu Heng chose a direction in the sky where a crime was currently taking place.

However, he suddenly stopped in mid-air.

He looked down; the crowd in front of the convenience store hadn't dispersed, and that Black kid was still holding his phone up, yelling at the sky.

The stream had twelve thousand viewers.

And it was still rising.

A blur streaked across the Brooklyn night sky and vanished between the buildings.

On the ground, the Black kid finally lowered his phone, took a deep breath, and spoke to the camera, his face flushed with excitement:

"Brothers, that guy is so down-to-earth! His name is Guardian, remember that name! From now on, this account will exclusively update with videos related to Guardian, so make sure to hit that follow button!"

"I'll bet a bag of spicy strips that this guy is going to be even more famous than Homelander sooner or later."