Sitch took a deep breath and nodded to the staff member behind him.
The large screen at the front of the meeting room lit up.
Footage, clearly from a surveillance camera, began to play.
In the center of the frame was the black-haired youth calling himself 'No.17'.
"Isn't this the clown who claimed he was going to destroy Earth?" Puri-Puri Prisoner, ranked No.17th, laughed. "What, are you paying attention to him too?"
Sitch didn't respond, and the footage continued.
No.17 stood with his hands in his jacket pockets, expressionless as he faced the camera: "A week has passed. Everyone who came to challenge me was just scum with combat power under a hundred."
"It seems my declaration was taken as a joke?"
"Very well," No.17 slowly raised his right hand, pointing a finger at the sky. "Then I will take action myself and give you a warning."
Light gathered at his fingertip, and he flicked it gently.
Whoosh!
A white energy sphere, no larger than a ping-pong ball, shot silently into the sky, quickly disappearing above the clouds.
In the footage, No.17 lowered his hand and looked coldly at the camera: "Now that you understand I'm not joking, hurry up and save yourselves. One year isn't that long."
The recording ended.
The meeting room was silent.
After a few seconds, Tanktop Master was the first to laugh, slapping the table as he rocked back and forth.
"What is this guy doing? This is what you call an 'annihilation crisis'?"
Metal Bat waved his hand impatiently: "Captain Sitch, if you called us here urgently just to watch this kind of comedy, I'm leaving. J-City is waiting for me!"
"No, I initially thought he was bluffing too, until..." Sitch's voice was dry. "Sigh. Play the second recording."
The screen lit up again.
This time, the image was of space.
Against a pitch-black backdrop, a gray-white, cratered planet floated silently.
Then, a tiny point of white light appeared from the edge of the frame, slowly drifting toward the planet.
As that point of light touched the planet's surface, the entire planet, like a pencil drawing being erased by a rubber, silently vanished from the point of contact.
Leaving behind only a void darker than the surrounding cosmos.
The meeting room was deathly silent.
Everyone's eyes were wide open, as if struck by a paralysis spell, frozen in place.
Their gazes were locked onto the empty space on the screen, their minds completely crashed.
'A planet had just disappeared like that?'
Atomic Samurai, ranked 4th, spoke with a dry voice: "That wasn't the moon, was it?"
"It was the moon." Sitch nodded heavily. "We've confirmed it over a hundred times. All observatories, satellites, probes... every observation points to the same fact: the moon has indeed vanished!"
His voice trembled: "It's currently daytime, so most people haven't noticed, but when night falls..."
"When everyone around the world looks up and sees no moon, global panic will be unavoidable!"
The humans of this world all lived on one massive continent. Though there was a gradient of daylight, it wasn't as stark as half the world being dark while the other was light.
At least at this moment, all twenty-six human cities were still in daylight.
Silence lasted a full minute.
Then, like a volcanic eruption.
"What the hell?" Metal Bat shot up, slamming his fist on the conference table. The hard alloy surface instantly dented where his fist struck.
"The moon? That's the moon! How could something so small destroy it?"
"No wonder..." Pig God had stopped eating, murmuring blankly. "No wonder the tides changed so dramatically. So the moon is gone."
"The disappearance of the moon affects more than just tides," Child Emperor, ranked 5th, said in a grave tone. "Earth's rotational axis, orbital path, climate system... all will be impacted..."
"This is no longer at the level of a 'disaster'," Tanktop Master said, his voice no longer booming, instead carrying a faint tremor. "This is a planetary-scale cataclysm!"
Everyone understood the gravity of the situation. If they couldn't defeat this No.17, Earth would truly be destroyed!
But what good was understanding?
That man had casually pointed a finger and destroyed the moon.
If he fought with all his strength, how powerful would he be?
They didn't dare imagine it, feeling only a suffocating weight.
Just then, Tatsumaki suddenly asked, "Sitch, where is No.17 now?"
"He's still at the arena in A-City," Sitch answered immediately. "He's been there since his warning a week ago."
"Based on our monitoring, he seems to have no need for food, rest, or excretion."
Tatsumaki spoke in a low tone: "I'll go defeat him now."
"Wait, Tatsumaki-san!" Sitch hurriedly tried to stop her. "His strength is unfathomable. Going alone is too dangerous!"
"We should formulate a detailed battle plan first. Send other Heroes to probe, gather intelligence. You should be our ultimate trump card—"
"Shut up!" Tatsumaki said coldly. "Who do you think I am? I might be able to destroy the moon myself!"
Sitch's eyes lit up: "Has your power reached new heights, Tatsumaki-san?"
"No breakthrough. It's simply that besides Blast, no one has ever forced me to use my full power!" As she finished, the green aura around her suddenly exploded.
Boom!
The meeting room's ceiling was torn apart by the terrifying psychic power.
Tatsumaki turned into a green meteor, crashing through layer after layer of the building, speeding toward A-City at dozens of times the speed of sound.
Sitch sighed helplessly, then took a deep breath and looked at the gathered S-Class Heroes: "Everyone, Earth's hope rests on you!"
...
Panic spread across the globe like a plague overnight.
As night fell, billions of humans looked up at the sky as usual.
What they saw was a heart-stopping, pure darkness.
The moon was gone!
"The moon... the moon is gone!"
"Observatories have confirmed! The moon has indeed vanished! It's not hidden by clouds. It's completely gone!"
"Armageddon! This is Armageddon!"
Panic spread through every city. Communication networks were overloaded. Social media platforms were flooded with despair and wild speculation. Cults seized the opportunity to spread doomsday theories.
Soon, some clever individuals connected the 'disappearance of the moon' with the globally broadcast 'arena declaration' from a week ago.
Around the ruins of A-City, the arena.
By now, the area was packed with global media who had rushed to the scene and countless fearless civilians.
Camera lenses were pointed at the black-haired youth in the center of the arena, still standing with his hands in his pockets, eyes closed.
Finally, a brave reporter asked in a trembling voice: "M-Mr. No.17! Ex-excuse me... the disappearance of the moon... was... was it your doing?"
Whoosh!
All cameras focused instantly.
No.17 slowly opened his eyes and nodded calmly: "Yes."
A single word, yet it struck like thunder in the ears of every viewer watching the live broadcast around the world.
'He admitted it!'
'It really was him!'
The reporter's legs gave out, nearly collapsing, but he forced himself to stand, using his last ounce of courage, his voice choked with tears:
"Wh-why would you do something so... excessive? The moon... the moon is..."
No.17 looked into the camera and replied coldly: "I saw a video on your internet. When Deep Sea King attacked J-City, many Heroes resisted with all their might but still failed."
"In the end, Deep Sea King was defeated by a C-Class Hero, and some people mocked the Heroes who had sacrificed themselves, ridiculed their weakness."
"In your eyes, being protected seems like something taken for granted."
"Heroes must win, must be perfect, must save everyone without breaking a sweat."
"If they lose, they become failures in your hearts."
"A world this pathetic doesn't deserve Heroes to protect it!"
No.17 continued: "So, I'm giving you a trial. I want to know, when no Hero can save the world, when true despair arrives..."
"Will you again hysterically curse the Heroes who risked their lives, just like last time?"