Faith as a Path to Godhood?

He didn't know who Russell was, but he definitely recognized the man before him.

Although the U.S. Government had promptly launched an online crackdown, most people who cared to look had already seen the shocking video.

His men recognized Russell too. Some began backing away, some dropped their katanas, and some turned and ran.

Russell slowly raised a hand.

The man in front suddenly stopped. Not by choice—his legs had stopped obeying him.

No, more precisely, the molecules and atoms making up his body had stopped obeying him.

The iron in his blood, bones, and muscles—every iron atom in his body was seized at once by an irresistible force.

He froze where he stood like a puppet with its strings cut, unable to move.

"Did I say you could leave?" Russell asked coldly.

No one moved after that.

They didn't dare. They couldn't.

Everything on the street—the blood, the bones, the rebar beneath the asphalt, the iron pipes in the sewers, even the car parked farther down the road—was under Russell's control.

This wasn't Magneto's broad control through "attraction and repulsion." It was control at the atomic level, reaching inside every atom with godlike precision.

"I... I didn't know you were Lord Russell. Would you believe me if I said I have nothing against Mutants?"

Having recognized him as the terrifying killer from the video, the Nipponese leader sweated so heavily that his palm soaked the hilt of his sword.

"You're from Nippon?" Russell asked casually.

The leader's eyes darted. Then he puffed out his chest and nodded solemnly.

"Yes, I am."

Correct answer.

"Then you can die."

"No... You can't kill me. I'm with the Triad Gang, and the Triad Gang is part of The Hand—"

His voice cut off. Mouth still wide open, the leader crumbled to ash and blew away on the wind.

The Hand? That was an old name. Weren't its leaders called the Five Fingers?

Russell didn't dwell on it. He never regretted killing anyone.

Carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen—every element that made up a person was broken down into its most basic particles in seconds and returned to the atmosphere.

Russell watched the ash drift skyward. This was probably the most environmentally friendly way to kill someone.

No corpse, no blood, no crime scene to clean up. Just a small pinch of gray dust that vanished with the next gust of wind.

One lackey holding a katana happened to be standing downwind. The ash hit him full in the face, and his legs buckled. He dropped to his knees.

His pants darkened, and a small puddle spread across the asphalt beneath him.

This is terrifying. Can I still go home to Mom?

[Fear Emotion +1]

[Fear Emotion +1]

[Admiration Emotion +1]

...

"Are you all from Nippon?" Russell asked again, touching the badge on the front of his police cap.

The terrified Triad Gang lackeys found themselves facing a question with their lives at stake. They suppressed their fear and exchanged glances.

They had just seen their boss admit it and get reduced to ash. They knew answering "yes" meant death.

But would answering "no" save them?

One lackey who spent too much time watching short videos online let his imagination run wild.

"I'm from Nippon." "Good. You can die."

"I'm not from Nippon." "Too cunning to be left alive."

So while the others renounced their own nationality and answered no, he took a gamble and said:

"I'm a Mutant."

That was the last thing he said. Whatever they answered, Russell snapped his fingers and ended them all.

The correct answer was—there was no correct answer.

Russell had only asked to be polite. His super-hearing had already told him whether they were from Nippon.

A gang was one big family, wasn't it? Families ought to stay together.

He had once played a game centered on slaughter. Nothing survived in that one—not even a worm passing by without getting chopped in half.

A bespectacled young man who had yet to learn how harsh the world could be stared wide-eyed at the scene in the street.

"Murder... Someone's been murdered. Call the police..."

He muttered to himself, hands trembling as he reached for his pockets. Then he spotted two people in police uniforms up ahead, watching just as intently. They looked like salvation.

"Officers! Officers! Someone's been murdered..."

The bespectacled man hurried over. The two officers on duty exchanged a glance and answered in unison:

"We're not police officers."

With that, they left him standing there in a daze and walked away from the man at the center of the street.

Superman was beyond the police's jurisdiction.

"And you are...?" Russell looked toward a group of burly men in the alley to his right. At their head stood a powerful man in a black suit, holding an oversized hammer.

"We... we're here to give money to the homeless." Joseph, a ruthless killer skilled at smashing skulls, forced a kindly smile onto his face.

"I'm talking to you lot. What are you standing around for? Give them the money!"

The burly men behind him wanted to cry. They had heard someone nearby was handing out piles of cash to the homeless and had come to help themselves.

How had that turned into giving money away?

But when their eyes met the handsome man's, they all shuddered. They knew their boss was looking out for them, so they dug into their pockets and painfully handed their money to the homeless.

Most of the homeless people knew exactly what these men were. Bewildered, they accepted the crumpled small bills offered to them.

An elderly woman with diabetes didn't know. She thanked the gang lackey who helped her.

"You're a good man. May God bless you."

The lackey cursed inwardly, but all he could do was smile.

"Of course. Of course," he said through clenched teeth.

Russell pointed at the hammer. "And that hammer in your hand—"

"Oh, this? We're repairmen. It's perfectly normal for us to carry hammers." Joseph answered instantly, as though he had rehearsed the line a hundred times.

He didn't want to stay in this dangerous place. As soon as he finished answering, he called the men back into the alley.

Russell let them go.

Only after they had gone a long way did one lackey dare to speak. "Boss Joseph, in this world, the fiercer you are, the more people fear you.

"But now we've given all our money to the homeless. What do we do next?"

Joseph was already in a foul mood. He turned and kicked the rambling lackey in the thigh.

"Holy shit, can you shut that filthy mouth of yours?"

The lackey shakily climbed to his feet, still muttering under his breath.

"See? Told you. The fiercer you are, the more people fear you."

Joseph was speechless. He touched the dent in the back of his head and privately resolved to modify himself too, starting with his head.

Back on the street, the homeless people still crouched there, clutching the bills that had been stolen and returned to them. As they watched Russell, some began to cry, some knelt, and some prayed.

"God..." murmured an elderly woman with a six-year-old child. She clasped her hands together. "God really has shown himself..."

"Thank God for his grace. Thank God for sending Lord Russell down to save us."

To these homeless people, who had suffered real hardship and weren't on drugs, whether someone was a Mutant no longer mattered.

Whoever helped them was an incarnation sent by God.

[Casual Faith +1]

[Casual Faith +1]

...

Russell listened to the system notifications and looked at the new [Faith] entry on his panel, a little surprised.

But the word held little appeal for him. Gods needed Faith; he didn't.

He needed Emotion Points, proficiency, and the abilities that would unlock at the next level.

Was this thing trying to set me on a path to godhood through Faith? What could be more compelling than continuing to explore the microscopic world?

He walked over to Felicity and took out another stack of money.

"Keep handing it out. We'll talk when it's all gone."

Felicity took the money and nodded.

"Lord Russell," she asked softly, "are you going somewhere?"

Russell's gaze fell on the depths of the alley, where the group of "repairmen" had disappeared.

More precisely, he was looking much farther away, at a minor figure.

The man was crossing three streets, turning into an underground parking garage, and getting into a black car headed east.

"Good thing I was far away and didn't go with the others. I got lucky and survived."

"Damn Mutant. He dared cross the Triad Gang. I need to get back and tell Lord Okamoto at once."

"I have something to take care of." Russell took two steps, then stopped and looked back at Laura. "Protect her."

Laura nodded firmly. Russell turned and entered the alley. His figure disappeared into the shadows like a drop of water merging with the sea.

No one saw where he went, and no one dared ask.

Felicity crouched and handed a bill to the white-haired elderly woman at the front of the line.

The woman accepted it, clasped her hands, and murmured something under her breath.

"God bless him. God bless him..."

Felicity couldn't quite hear her, but she could feel it—that pure gratitude welling up from the bottom of the woman's heart, without a trace of anything else.

Since her Telepathy had reached its potential, she could distinguish the subtle differences between emotions more clearly.

Fear felt dark. Reverence burned a little. Gratitude was warm.

"God bless Russell..."

Felicity didn't correct her.

Perhaps God really was watching over Lord Russell.

Or perhaps he didn't need God's protection at all.

Hell's Kitchen. The Triad Gang's headquarters.

From outside, the building looked like an abandoned warehouse, with dingy brick walls, a rusted iron door, and windows boarded shut.

But beneath it lay a sprawling complex. The Triad Gang had operated here for over a decade, excavating five underground levels, each serving a different purpose.

The first held a casino, the second the loan sharks' accounts office. The third, fourth, and fifth were closed to outsiders. Even within the Triad Gang, only a few people knew what illicit deals took place there.

When the fleeing lackey got out of his car, his legs were still weak.

Leaning against the wall, he inched into the warehouse, past the packed casino and the heavily guarded accounts office, then down to the third level.

The aluminum-alloy door was thick and required both fingerprint and iris verification. He pressed his trembling hand against the scanner, and it opened.

Okamoto Taichi sat in a grand wooden armchair at the far end of the room. He was in his sixties, with graying hair and wrinkles that looked carved into his face.

He wore a dark gray kimono and held a closed folding fan across his knees. No guards stood on either side of him.

He was confident that no outsider could pass through the first and second levels without being detected.

He did not look at the lackey. His gaze rested on the calligraphy hanging on the wall: "Endure."

"Endure" embodied the ninja way he followed, and it was the rule Okamoto Taichi constantly reminded himself to obey.

"You came down here in a hurry. If I'm not mistaken, you've run into trouble." His voice was quiet, yet the whole room seemed to tremble.

"Where's Kameda? Why didn't he come to see me himself?"

The lackey knelt with his forehead against the floor and stammered out what had happened.

His boss, Kameda Jiro, was dead. All his brothers were dead. He alone had escaped by luck.

That Mutant was too strong. Bullets couldn't pierce him, and he could turn people to ash without lifting a finger.

He embellished the story as he went, painting Russell as a Demon that had crawled out of Hell.

Okamoto Taichi listened without any change in expression. For a long time, he said nothing.

Then he opened his folding fan. Two characters were written on it: "Endure and conceal," echoing the "Endure" on the wall.

"Baka. Damned Mutant." He delivered the curse as calmly as though reciting poetry.

"Lord Okamoto, what should we do? Should we gather everyone, call in The Hand's elite fighters, arm ourselves, and go after that brat—"

"Shut up." Okamoto Taichi did not raise his voice, but the lackey fell silent at once.

Okamoto Taichi rose and walked to the wall. He studied the word "Endure" for a long time, as though looking at a painting—or into a mirror.

"Do you know why I'm still alive today, while none of my predecessors lasted even a year?" he asked.

The lackey shook his head. All he knew was that the Five Fingers, The Hand's five leaders, had appointed Lord Okamoto to command their finest people.

"Because I know when to strike and when not to." Okamoto Taichi turned toward the kneeling lackey.

"I know the Mutant you're talking about. How many soldiers did he kill in that video? Too many to count. There was a Sentry, too, and even a military Hound.

"How many men do we have? A little over two hundred. How many guns? A few hundred at most. How many minutes do you think that would keep him busy?"

The lackey kept his head down and said nothing.

"Not enough," Okamoto Taichi answered for him. "It wouldn't last him three minutes. So we won't rush, and we won't trouble the lords of The Hand.

"We wait. We wait until that Mutant leaves New York, or until the military sends someone stronger to deal with him, or until another faction ties him down. Then we strike.

"When the enemy is strong, you stay out of his way. When he's at the end of his rope, you finish him off. That's how you survive."

He returned to his armchair, sat down, closed the fan, and laid it across his knees.

"Go. Tell our men outside not to cause trouble for the next few days."

Just as Okamoto Taichi ordered them to lie low, an untimely voice sounded.

"You must be part turtle. At this point, you might as well become one."

"What's wrong with being a turtle..." Okamoto Taichi answered reflexively, then realized something was wrong.

That voice...

The lackey, who had been about to ask whether the Mutant might come looking for them, stared at the handsome man who had appeared out of thin air. He wanted to die.

I made it all the way back to headquarters, and I'm still not safe.