For the next three days, Levi vanished completely from the world.
He hovered high above the skies opposite the Grayson household, silently observing. Light warped around him as invisible forces redirected all electromagnetic waves, sound waves, and gravitational fluctuations away from his location, turning him into an absolute blind spot.
His gaze remained fixed on the teenager named Mark Grayson.
On the first day, Mark's life appeared utterly ordinary.
Backpack slung over his shoulder, riding a bicycle, politely greeting neighbors, working a boring part-time shift at a fast-food restaurant. Levi even watched him awkwardly try to strike up a conversation with a female classmate, only to blush bright red from embarrassment.
Aside from occasionally crushing locker doors by accident, he looked no different from any normal high school student.
On the second day, things changed after school.
Mark slipped into an abandoned alley, nervously checking his surroundings before bending his knees and kicking off the ground.
With a dull sonic boom, he shot skyward like a completely uncontrolled missile.
Levi raised an eyebrow.
That flying posture was an insult to aerodynamics.
His body was stiff as a plank while his arms flailed wildly for balance. His flight path zigzagged erratically like a drunk bird.
The landing was even worse.
Mark attempted to dive from three hundred meters above and land on the rooftop of an abandoned factory on the outskirts of town.
Instead, he massively overestimated his control and crashed straight through the concrete rooftop with a thunderous explosion, collapsing half of the two floors beneath it.
Watching the cloud of dust rising into the air, Levi's mouth twitched slightly.
On an interstellar battlefield, this kid probably wouldn't survive the first charge.
The third day brought a real test.
Without warning, several sickly green dimensional rifts split open across the sky above the city. Grotesque alien warships poured out like locusts. Sirens wailed throughout the city as extraterrestrial invaders descended from above, indiscriminately destroying streets and buildings with energy weapons.
"Mom, I have to go!"
Mark's face turned pale while watching the news broadcast, but his eyes were firm.
"No, Mark, it's too dangerous! Your father—"
Debbie Grayson grabbed her son's arm anxiously.
"Dad's not here. It has to be me!"
Mark shook free and rushed into his room.
Moments later, a teenager clad in a blue-and-yellow costume shot into the sky.
Levi floated five thousand meters overhead, arms folded across his chest like a god overlooking the battlefield below.
Mark's fighting style was simple, brutal, and almost tragic.
He hurled himself into groups of alien soldiers like a living cannonball, letting energy blasts hammer against his body with metallic clangs before smashing enemies apart with raw strength alone.
His power was sufficient.
His technique was practically nonexistent.
He saved a school bus from being overturned—only to crush the front end with excessive force.
He destroyed a low-flying attack craft—but failed to control its trajectory, sending the wreckage crashing toward a residential district.
Again and again, Levi quietly intervened behind the scenes, using invisible force fields to redirect debris and correct Mark's disastrous handling of his own power.
The kid was still far too inexperienced.
Levi wasn't interested in some half-baked hero relying solely on brute strength.
What he wanted to see was how much potential this unique hybrid could unleash under genuine life-and-death pressure.
At that moment, a massive alien commander carrying a gigantic battle axe leapt down from one of the motherships.
The creature displayed power far beyond the ordinary troops, cleaving an entire skyscraper apart with one swing.
Mark roared and charged forward.
The two clashed violently in the center of the city plaza.
Mark's strength and endurance were astonishing, but his lack of combat skill left him constantly disadvantaged.
Again and again, he was smashed away by the battle axe, crashing through walls, buried in rubble, then dragging himself back to his feet covered in dust before charging once more.
Finally, after exposing an opening, the alien commander's axe struck Mark squarely across the chest.
Though it failed to break his skin, the terrifying impact sent blood spraying from his mouth as he flew backward like a rag doll and slammed into the ground, unable to rise for several moments.
The alien commander raised its axe high overhead with a savage grin, aiming directly for Mark's skull.
Now.
Levi raised one hand and flicked a finger toward the battlefield.
An invisible ripple instantly spread across the entire plaza.
The air suddenly became thick like solidified glue.
The alien commander froze mid-swing.
The muscles on its face twisted violently under immense pressure.
Then—
CRACK.
Its hardened bones and alloy armor compressed together into a paper-thin slab. Blood and organs exploded outward in every direction.
Meanwhile, Mark also felt the terrifying pressure descend.
It was as though an invisible mountain had pinned him down completely. Every cell in his body screamed while each breath demanded immense effort.
"What… is… this…?"
Mark gritted his teeth, trying to stand, but his body refused to move.
The pressure intensified further.
His spine creaked under the strain as he was forced flat against the ground, cheek pressed against shattered stone.
What the hell was this?
Gravity?
Someone controlling gravity?
"What are you thinking about?"
A calm voice sounded beside him, as casual as discussing the weather.
Mark forced his eyes sideways with tremendous effort.
A black-haired man with dark eyes had somehow appeared next to him, dressed in a simple black coat with both hands in his pockets. He crouched down, studying Mark with obvious curiosity.
"…You?"
Mark forced the words out through clenched teeth. His lungs burned painfully.
"Yes," the man nodded calmly. "I've been observing you."
"Observing me?"
Mark felt like his eyeballs were about to burst from the pressure.
"You watched me get beaten half to death… just to observe me?"
"More or less."
The man admitted it openly.
"I wanted to see what kind of interesting changes would occur when you were pushed to your true limits."
Rage exploded inside Mark like a volcano.
He thought of the ruined city.
The screaming civilians.
His own helplessness despite trying his hardest.
And to this mysterious man, all of it had merely been an entertaining experiment.
"I'LL—KILL—YOU!"
With a roar barely human, Mark exploded.
His muscles swelled visibly. Veins bulged beneath his skin like coiling dragons. A primal force buried deep within his life essence awakened violently.
The invisible mountain pressing down on him was slowly forced upward.
He flipped to his feet and threw a punch filled with every ounce of his fury.
The air tore apart.
But the fist stopped one centimeter before the man's nose.
Not because it was blocked.
Because Mark himself stopped.
Because he saw the man's eyes.
There was no fear.
No surprise.
Not even the slightest ripple of emotion.
Only something akin to satisfaction and appreciation—as though a scholar had just discovered a new law of nature.
"Excellent."
The man stood up and casually dusted off his coat.
"Adrenaline spiking. Heart rate exceeding three hundred beats per minute. Violent electrical stimulation in the emotional centers of the cerebral cortex…"
"These physiological responses acted as catalysts, increasing the activity of your Smart Atoms by thirty-seven percent instantly."
He looked directly at Mark.
"That's a miracle impossible for pure-blooded Viltrumites."
Mark froze.
The rage on his face was replaced by stunned disbelief.
Smart Atoms.
He had heard a completely unfamiliar term his father had never once mentioned.
"How… do you know that?"
At that moment, a blue portal suddenly appeared nearby and rapidly expanded with crackling electrical sounds—the precursor to teleportation activation.
Inside the underground command center of the Global Defense Agency, Cecil Stedman stared tensely at the screen.
The appearance of the black-haired man filled him with unprecedented dread.
"Activate emergency transport. Bring Invincible back immediately!"
Levi merely glanced at the portal with faint amusement.
He raised one hand, extending two fingers before flicking lightly toward it.
BZZT—
The blue portal flickered violently twice before abruptly dying out like a light bulb losing power.
Inside the command center, every screen went black simultaneously.
"Sir! All signals lost! Our satellites—they've all been shut down!"
The technician's voice trembled with panic.
Cecil slowly leaned back into his chair as ice-cold fear crawled up his spine.
He stared at the frozen final image of that calm face for a long time before quietly giving the order:
"Abort contact."
"Switch to maximum surveillance."
"I want to know everything about him."
"But he must never know we're watching."
Back in the ruined plaza, Mark stared at the vanished portal.
"What was that?"
"One of your government's little toys," Levi replied calmly. "They wanted to invite you for tea. But I wasn't finished talking."
Mark's expression grew increasingly complicated.
He knew about the GDA.
But he never imagined someone could casually disable all of their advanced technology so effortlessly.
"Who are you?" Mark asked again, now filled with caution.
"Someone who understands your body better than your father does."
Levi turned around and traced a line through the air.
Golden light flowed from his fingertips, forming an incredibly complex sequence of symbols suspended between them.
It was a dynamic projection of a genetic structure.
"This is your cellular composition," Levi explained, pointing toward several constantly flashing nodes.
"These are Smart Atoms—the source of Viltrumite power."
"In your father, they're stable. Like machines operating forever at fixed output."
He paused and looked directly into Mark's eyes.
"But inside you…"
"They're alive."
Mark couldn't understand the symbols.
But he understood the meaning behind Levi's words.
"To put it simply—"
Levi waved away the projection.
"Your father's strength has limits."
"You don't."
"Your emotions. Your survival instinct. Every time you struggle on the edge of death…"
"They make you stronger."
He spoke slowly.
"That's the greatest gift your mother's genes ever gave you."
Mother…
Mark fell silent.
He remembered his mother cooking in the kitchen.
Bandaging his wounds.
Holding him whenever he felt defeated.
That ordinary, seemingly fragile human woman…
The greatest thing within him actually came from her.
A flood of guilt, pride, and love overwhelmed him instantly.
"So what do you want?" Mark asked quietly, his voice rough.
"Your power is a drawn blade," Levi replied calmly. "But you have no sheath. No technique for wielding it."
"Your father taught you how to throw punches."
"He never taught you how to control them."
Levi looked at him steadily.
"I can."
Mark lowered his gaze to his own hands.
He remembered the crashing warship debris.
Remembered how effortlessly this man had fixed everything.
"I… need time to think."
"Of course."
Levi nodded, unsurprised.
"But there's something you should know."
He turned his back toward Mark, looking at the retreating alien ships.
"Their homeworld experiences time differently from Earth. A few minutes for us could mean years for them."
"When they return, they'll bring more advanced technology."
"And weapons specifically designed to kill people like you."
Levi glanced sideways at him meaningfully.
"Will you be ready?"
Before Mark could answer, Levi's body dissolved into the air like smoke, vanishing completely as though he had never existed.
Mark stood alone amid the ruins.
In the distance, police sirens wailed closer and closer.
He stared blankly at his own hands, mind in complete chaos.
Smart Atoms.
Unlimited potential.
A gift from his mother.
That mysterious man.
And his warning about the future.
The career of the young hero had only just begun—
And already, it had veered completely off the path he thought it would follow.
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