The setting sun dyed the abandoned town blood-red. Dragging his battered body, Damian walked toward the last room.
His machete was dulled, and with each step he took, he left dark red footprints in the sand.
Behind Damian was a burly, deformed man wearing a tattered police uniform. A cleaver was deeply embedded in his chest, and black, foul-smelling blood dripped from the tip of the blade.
Before Damian stood a deformed figure with vaguely feminine features. She clutched a small, deformed child with short, thick limbs and a strange, ugly face.
The burly man struggled to raise his head, and a pleading look appeared in his cloudy eyes.
"Giggle…"
With his last breath, he pointed at his wife and child and let out a muffled whimper.
Damian raised his machete expressionlessly and said in a calm, gentle voice:
"Don't worry. I won't kill women or children."
Hearing this, the burly man immediately sighed in relief.
Seeing his expression, Damian revealed a wicked, arrogant smile and added:
"But unfortunately… your wife isn't a child, and your son isn't a woman."
As soon as he finished speaking, the female figure sprang up, her fingernails slashing toward Damian's eyes like blades!
Damian dodged to the side, his machete slashing horizontally—
......
Meanwhile, three kilometers away, beside her RV, Brenda paced back and forth. Her revolver was fully loaded, and her eyes remained fixed on the town in the distance.
"Brenda, get in the car. Z might already be…"
Bob walked to his daughter's side, offering words of comfort with a sorrowful expression.
"Just ten more minutes—just ten more minutes, Dad!"
Brenda repeated the phrase for the fifth time, her fingers unconsciously stroking the gun's grip.
Doug was inspecting a line of military Humvees. They were lucky—the keys were still in the ignition, and the tanks were about half full. All they needed to do was change a flat tire.
In the back seat, Ethel held the sleeping Catherine in her arms, while little Bobby curled up beside her, his eyes red and swollen.
But just then, a dark figure staggered toward them on the horizon.
Everyone tensed instantly. Bob and Doug raised their shotguns and aimed at the distant silhouette.
Brenda narrowed her eyes—then her sullen expression lit up with surprise.
"Wait! That's… that's Z!"
The shadowy figure drew closer. In the dim light of the setting sun, they could clearly see the blood-soaked man.
Damian's T-shirt was no longer recognizable, his hair matted with blood, and his left leg dragged noticeably as he walked. Only his eyes remained bright and piercing.
Seeing his state, Doug gasped and muttered,
"God… how many monsters has he killed?"
Once they confirmed the figure was indeed Damian, Brenda dropped her gun and ran toward him.
When Damian saw her coming, he froze for a moment and stammered,
"Why are you still here? It's been three hours! You're still here? What's wrong—couldn't you find a car you liked out of all those?"
At his words, Brenda's tears welled up. She choked out,
"How could we possibly abandon our savior!"
As she spoke, she opened her arms to embrace him.
Damian immediately raised a hand to stop her.
"Stop! Don't come any closer! I'm all sticky, smelly, and filthy right now!"
He gestured wildly.
"Throw me into a haunted house, and visitors would call the police! Put me in a horror movie, and it'd be rated R! Leave me in front of a police station, and officers would call for backup! Slam me against a—"
Before he could finish, Brenda had already wrapped her arms tightly around him.
Even though the stench of blood and decay was overwhelming, she didn't care. She held him close.
Damian's blood-stained hand hung in mid-air, looking somewhat lost.
"Cough! Cough! Cough—!"
Bob stepped forward, nearly coughing up his lungs, before Brenda blushed and let go of his hand.
"There's still water over at the RV. Go wash up, kid," Bob said, pointing to the vehicle not far away.
Damian's eyes lit up immediately. He dragged his exhausted body and sprinted toward the dilapidated RV.
As he passed the Hummer, Bobby stared at him in awe and whispered,
"Are you a superhero?"
At that, Damian waved a hand and replied casually,
"No, I'm just a Kamen Rider passing through."
With that, he rushed into the RV's bathroom and eagerly tore off the blood-soaked clothes clinging to his body.
The figure in the mirror looked like a wraith—hair matted, face streaked with half-congealed blood, even his eyelashes speckled with foul-smelling droplets.
He turned on the tap, and icy water poured down.
Splash… splash… splash…
Blood swirled from his body onto the floor, forming pink eddies.
Damian closed his eyes, letting the clear water wash the grime from his face.
When he opened them again, the sight in the mirror sent a shiver down his spine—and then another.
There, hanging on his chest, the previously dull and lifeless Eye of God now glowed faintly purple.
As a water droplet slid across the gemstone's surface, the lightning-bolt pattern at its center became clearly visible, tiny arcs of electricity flickering within.
"I've… awakened the Eye of God?!"
Damian's trembling fingers brushed the amulet. A faint tingling sensation shot up from his fingertips.
In that moment, his thoughts drifted back to the battle not long ago.
By his own estimation, taking down the first five deformed creatures had already pushed him to his limit.
As for the dozen or so that came afterward—if he'd faced them with his normal strength, the fight would've taken him at least ten minutes.
And then… Damian became Damian-chan!
Even if he'd gotten lucky, he'd probably have ended up locked in a basement by that deformed woman, subjected to a transaction worth over 100 million yen—or more.
But instead, he'd felt like a completely different person: movements impossibly fast, strength great enough to flip a deformed creature with one hand, stamina vastly enhanced.
At the time, he'd chalked it up to adrenaline.
Now, looking back, it was almost certainly the Eye of God's blessing—the moment it awakened, it must have granted him a temporary boost.
After all, according to the lore, the Eye of God bestows its wielder with superhuman strength, speed, or endurance.
When Beidou awakened it, he gained explosive power capable of cleaving mountains and slaying sea monsters with his mortal body alone.
When Yura awakened it, her endurance surged—allowing her to perform her grueling sword dances for hours without rest, thanks to the enhanced core strength she'd previously lacked.
Compared to them, Damian—wielding two massive machetes, hacking his way from the east end of town to the west,
wiping out every last deformed creature in the abandoned settlement—wasn't too extraordinary. If anything, he'd been a bit underwhelming.
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