A landslide-like roar of screams erupted from the crowd.
Fear materialized into the most visceral bloodshed.
"No... No..."
Another female hero with short-range teleportation abilities, "Phase Walker," turned deathly pale as she looked at the puddle of flesh and blood.
Her companion, the typically reckless yet courageous "Comet," was just gone like that.
"He must have a weakness... As long as I can get close..."
She told herself, also trying to encourage the remaining heroes around her.
She didn't believe The Deconstructionist was that powerful! She had to see it for herself!
"Amy! Don't go!"
Someone shouted from behind.
But she had already made up her mind.
The next second, her figure vanished from the spot, her spatial ability activated, and she teleported directly into the upper levels of the building!
Just three seconds later, half of her body was thrown out from the top of the building in a gruesome manner.
Half of her body still maintained its human flesh form.
The other half had completely fused with the steel and concrete of the building.
It had become a terrifying relief hanging in mid-air, half-human and half-building, forever unable to fall.
Hope was completely shattered.
Those self-appointed street heroes had proven their powerlessness in the most tragic way.
The crowd's shouts changed from cheering for these grassroots heroes to pleading for another name.
"Vought! Where is Vought?!"
"Bring out Vi! Bring out the Paladin!"
"Save us! Please, we beg you!"
The public's fear transformed into total submission and a desperate longing for supreme power.
They no longer believed in free will; they only wanted a savior who could end this nightmare.
And that savior could only be Vought.
Just as the despair beneath the Empire State Building was about to consume everything.
The crowd seemed to be sliced open by a blade, parting to both sides.
A figure walked out unhurriedly from the path that had been cleared.
He wore a wide bamboo hat that covered most of his face.
His worn-out, faded clothes swayed slightly in the cold wind of New York.
At his waist hung a long sword and a wine gourd.
His appearance was completely out of place with the surrounding steel, concrete, camera flashes, and the hysterical modern society.
"It... It's him!"
"The Unforgiven! It's the legendary The Unforgiven!"
An unbelievable exclamation erupted from the crowd.
This man who only existed in legends!
This powerful and mysterious lone wolf had actually appeared here!
For a moment, that hope which had just been extinguished was forcibly reignited, even more fiercely than before.
Yasuo ignored the surrounding gazes and discussions.
He raised his head, and beneath the shadow of his bamboo hat, a pair of eyes pierced through nearly four hundred meters of distance, landing on the spire of the Empire State Building.
There, a lonely figure stood at the top of the World, bathing in the pain of the entire city.
Yasuo let out a soft sigh.
The sigh was very light, but it carried the weight of the wind, causing the surrounding clamor to fall silent.
He did not walk toward the door that had swallowed countless lives.
He walked to the base of the Empire State Building, and the next second, under the gaze of tens of thousands of people and recorded by countless cameras, he did something that completely overturned everyone's perception.
He started running.
Along the outer wall of the skyscraper, which was at a ninety-degree angle to the ground, he ran vertically!
Just like that, he rushed toward the clouds as if walking on flat ground.
"My God..."
A reporter distractedly lowered the camera in their hands, muttering to themselves.
This scene was more shocking than all the previous horror and death.
The spire of the Empire State Building.
The wind howled, and The Deconstructionist closed his eyes, greedily enjoying the symphony of pain that he had personally composed and that swept through the entire city.
A slight sound of footsteps interrupted his intoxication.
He opened his eyes and saw the man standing opposite him, one hand pressing down on his bamboo hat.
"Another bug that has intruded into my gallery?"
Yasuo did not look at him, but instead looked down at the city groaning beneath his feet.
"Your painting is very clumsy."
The Deconstructionist was stunned, then let out a piercing, manic laugh.
"Clumsy? You don't understand! You don't understand anything!"
"This is the true face of pain! This is the most real color of the World! I am just displaying it!"
Yasuo took off his bamboo hat and threw it into the distance, finally revealing his true face.
"Pain should be severed. It should not be framed and hung on a wall for people to admire."
"You... have desecrated pain."
Communication had ended at the very first sentence.
In The Deconstructionist's eyes, there was only the crazy rage of being offended.
"Then let you also become a part of my collection!"
He pointed a finger!
The entire spire platform beneath Yasuo's feet began to disintegrate!
The steel and concrete that made up the platform transformed into countless gray torrents, winding toward Yasuo from all directions.
Yasuo did not draw his sword.
He just stood there, and a tornado reaching for the sky swirled around him.
Those material torrents that attempted to approach him were even more thoroughly decomposed upon touching this wall of wind, turning into the most primal dust.
"Impossible!"
The Deconstructionist let out an incredulous roar.
For the first time, he discovered that his "command" had failed.
He tried to deconstruct Yasuo's body and the long sword at his waist.
But all his will was neutralized by an invisible yet omnipresent "order" within three feet of the man.
Yasuo's domain is wind.
In the wind, everything has its trajectory.
He took a step, and his figure disappeared into the violent tornado.
When he appeared, he was already standing in front of The Deconstructionist.
He did not draw his sword.
He just extended his index and middle fingers, joined them into a sword, and lightly tapped The Deconstructionist's chest.
"Hum—!"
There was no earth-shattering explosion, only a light hum emitted after the air was compressed to the extreme.
The sharply condensed wind pressure penetrated his body.
The black aura composed of negative emotions that constantly surrounded The Deconstructionist burst and dissipated like a popped balloon.
His entire body was struck as if by lightning; after retreating several steps, he slumped to his knees on the ground.
The power within him, that will originating from sorrow and destruction, had been completely severed at its root by this one finger.
He raised his head, looking at the man standing in front of him.
The madness and hatred in his eyes receded, and he seemed to see, through Yasuo's calm eyes, the silent scene from many years ago at the opera house inauguration—that sunny afternoon, his wife leaning on him, his daughter sleeping in his arms... a silent scene.
That "peace" he had forgotten, and even hated.
So, this was what he had lost, the most precious thing.
His art pursued the extreme of clamor, while the art of the man before him... was silence.
Using extreme clamor to set off extreme silence.
He smiled, a smile uglier than crying, tears mixing with dust sliding down his face.
"My work... is finally complete."
"It needs a... perfect period."
As his voice fell, a black dagger materialized in his hand, and without the slightest hesitation, he stabbed the dagger fiercely into his own heart.
In the last moment of his life, his body did not fall, but instead turned into black dust that filled the sky, blown away by the strong wind at the top of the tower, completely returning to nothingness.
Yasuo stood silently in place, watching as the last of the dust also vanished into the horizon.
He felt no joy of victory, nor the relief of ending the battle.
On his face, there was only an eternal, unchanging calm.
Just at this moment.
In his ear, a slight crackle of static came from a micro-communicator that was integrated with his skin.
A calm female voice rang out clearly.
"The show is over, the target has been eliminated."
"The Unforgiven, return to base."
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