VILLAIN'S RISING

“I introduce myself to you as the current Progenitor. Nice to meet you.”

Before anyone could react to what Sam just said, Starsuper raised his hand, and everyone stopped right where they were.

The progenitor was a feared title throughout all history. It wasn’t just a title. It was a warning. Warning to his enemies.

Yet, even though one kid out of nowhere just declared himself to be the Progenitor, all it took to calm down the crowd of students was just Starsuper raising his hand.

Sam just smirked at the sight. This was the power he was aiming for. Undeniable and unchallengeable power.

No, when he is done with this world, he will have the power much greater than this.

“It’s an interesting name,” Starsuper spoke. “Samael Gracefell. Your name literally means an angel who fell from grace. Deserving of your title as the Progenitor.”

“Oh, are we having the heart-to-heart that villains and heroes do before the final fight?” Sam smirked.

Before Starsuper could reply to that, a voice came out from right behind Sam.

“S-Sam… This is a mistake, right?!”

It was Drake. Sam just turned his head slightly to see the shock and disbelief on his face.

He turned his head to the right and glanced at the line of the students who were done with the inspection.

He saw Robin. Her facial expressions were similar to Drake’s. And then he saw Kiara.

She was… terrified. As if she was feeling a sense of deja vu.

Without bothering to reply to Drake’s question, Sam faced Starsuper right in the eye._.

“What do you want?” Starsuper questioned, his eyes already starting to glow in golden light.

“What does any Supervillain want? To take over the world, of course!” Sam spoke in a ‘isn’t this obvious’ tone.

Starsuper simply stood there in silence before shooting another question, “Where is my daughter?”

“She is alive. I’ve learned that you folks don’t die easily,” with a shrug, Sam said. “You’re like cockroaches.”

The golden light emitting from his eyes only grew brighter as Starsuper tried to control his growing anger.

“Ahh, are you gonna hit me? Go ahead and try Starsuper! Try hitting me!” With a deranged look in his eyes, Sam challenged.

However, even with him acting like this, Starsuper couldn’t help but think about him being just a child.

Yes, he was standing in front of Starsuper as the Progenitor, but he wasn’t at fault here.

He was just a kid. He didn’t know how to differentiate between right and wrong! He was raised this way!

But there was no other option. Heya had already told him the prophecy that the Progenitor would win. And Sam had already turned god knows how many people into Demons already.

The odds weren’t with Starsuper this time. He couldn’t afford to get his feelings in the way.

However, he thought about giving him one last chance.

“Samael Gracefell, if you go against me, then you will lose. You’ll have to face the force of every Hero in the world. In fact, we’ve even established contact with Martians.” Starsuper threatened.

Martians were the name given to humans who had settled on Mars. They don’t interfere with the matters of Earth, but long ago, Starsuper did a favor to them.

So it wasn’t surprising that they were willing to meddle with the Earth’s business this time.

“Mars is being involved too? Great, two worlds to conquer then.” Sam had the audacity to joke around even at this moment.

Starsuper just inhaled a deep breath to calm himself down before continuing his words.

“You’ll be going against the full might of Earth and Mars. I’ll give you one chance to surrender yourself. I’m giving you a chance to change your destiny.”

Starsuper lied through his teeth about the destiny stuff. If anything, then it was their destiny which he was hoping to change.

Sam just smiled without replying to anything in answer. It was just a usual calm smile that filled his face.

“How weak can you be?”

“…What?” Not understanding what Sam meant by his words, Starsuper frowned.

With a smile still present on his face, Sam just shook his head.

“I have a vision of a perfect world, Starsuper. I’m ready to kill millions, even billions of people.

“And here you are, supposedly the strongest Hero of humanity, standing in front of the Progenitor himself, with such weak intentions?” Sam spoke in a disappointed tone.

“I may be a kid and despite what you think, I was born this way.” The disappointment slowly turned into hostility as Sam clenched his fists.

Starsuper couldn’t help but sigh at the outcome. Not only because his hope to make Sam surrender was crushed but also because Sam was correct.

Most challenging choices require the toughest of will.

He can’t let his feelings hinder him right now. The boy in front of him might not have chosen this path, but that’s not to say that he wasn’t given any chances to reform.

He was doing this with his will. And as the strongest Hero, Starsuper had to fight him. All-out war was inevitable.

“Fine then,” Starsuper just nodded once and activated his heat vision. “Everyone, back off!”

At that command, panic broke out among the crowd of students. They all started running for the back gate.

Drake, who was unwilling to back off at first, was grabbed away by Robin.

Starsuper readied his laser eyes, but before he could accomplish anything with them, the bald professor standing beside him dived on him.

Starsuper, who for one second completely forgot about this guy, swung to his right and jammed his fist into his head—instantly killing him.

“No more mercy,” he said before turning to face Sam.

But Sam had already disappeared from his line of sight. Sensing someone above him, Starsuper looked up only to find Sam about to jump on him.

Taking this chance, Starsuper activated his laser eyes and blasted a hole in Sam’s head in a wink.

-Thud

With a low thud sound, Sam’s body fell down, seemingly limp and dead.

But no way it could’ve been that easy. Starsuper activated his Divine Sight on the dead body, and the status screen that appeared shocked him.

===

Error

This body appears to be a clone. Find the main body and try inspecting again.

===

Those words were written on the golden screen that was hovering over the dead body.

A clone! Of course! That’s why Sam revealed his identity and didn’t give Starsuper a chance to use his sight on him!

-“Arghhhh!”

-“Kyaaa!”

Just right then, Starsuper heard multiple screams coming from his front.

He looked ahead to see that the students who had ran off earlier were starting to stumble and fall to the ground.

“What’s happening…?” With a bit of fear and confusion, Starsuper questioned these words out loud.

Just then, a sudden realization hit Starsuper. He turned to look at the podium and found quite a few empty energy drink bottles there near the trash bin.

“Oh, come oh! Fuck!” He cursed out loud as the understanding of what was happening became apparent.

Sam only needs a tiny amount of Willburn’s DNA to make an enhanced Demon.

He must’ve turned the professor to be able to temper with the drinks. In short, the energy drinks contained Willburn DNA, and now Sam just had to turn everyone into Demon.

“Isn’t that a great sight?”

Before Starsuper could move to help the kids, he heard a familiar voice coming from his back.

He turned around and found it to be Sam. Sam’s clone, to be precise. He was sure to use his Divine Sight this time.

“Stop it!” Furious beyond comparison, Starsuper yelled. “Stop converting them!”

“Nah, I can’t fight you with a bunch of clones. I need some help.” Sam just playful shook his head. “Besides, I can’t stop the transformation mid-conversion even if I want to.”

After delivering a classic, “I can’t even if I want to” dialogue, Sam rushed head first at the man in the golden cape.

Starsuper’s expression turned even more furious. He shot a pair of lasers at the incoming black-haired boy and blasted a hole in his chest this time —killing him in an instant.

-“Arghhhhhaahahaha!”

The screams of pain started turning rougher and hoarsely until they resembled a bunch of beasts screaming in their departing moments.

Starsuper gritted his teeth. He couldn’t stop the transformation, so he had to do what it took. He had to kill them.

With that in mind, Starsuper prepared his Heat Vision.

But before he could shoot his lasers, an invisible force akin to a moving train hit him and sent his body flying a few meters to the side.

But he performed a flip in mid-air and activated his Flight ability as soon as he got to the standing position.

Why does he need to regain his footing on the ground when he could just fly?

He hovered in the air and looked in the direction where he felt the invisible force coming.

“Just come and fight me with your real body, you cowardly bastard!” Seeing that it was another one of Sam’s clones, Starsuper roared in resentment.

“And die without being able to conquer the world? Yeah, no, thank you.” With his signature deranged smile, Sam spoke.