At the beginning, Yusaku Kudo was all smiles. He seemed to have acquired an incredible, world-shifting connection with Cliff's awakening as the Baron Lionheart.
Then, his smile vanished.
He was formally invited to a secure government meeting room by the Governor of California. Chief Gray was also invited. But as soon as the door closed, the two men noticed a lingering sense of disbelief and profound shock plastered on the Governor's pale face.
After a brief, tense exchange of political pleasantries, the three of them understood the new dynamic. They were all essentially the same—mere mortals. None of them were unfathomable mages or warriors. They had just peeked behind the curtain of reality and were terrified of what they saw.
Except…
"Hahn…" The Governor murmured the surname almost silently, rolling the word around in his mouth. He nervously stroked his balding head, his eyes darting around the room.
Why wasn't Hahn Cliff here? The Governor distinctly remembered specifically inviting the dockworker along with the detective.
A "superhuman" who could communicate directly with God… a man who could summon God's apostle and bring along apocalyptic backup—the Governor couldn't be more concerned with appeasing that kind of power. Therefore, Cliff's "lack of respect" in ignoring a direct summons made the Governor very uneasy.
'Did the Baron dislike me?' the Governor thought frantically. 'Can't superhumans be contacted by the secular government? Or rather... should I have visited him in person, rather than arrogant enough to invite him here?'
While this internal political struggle raged in the Governor's mind, Yusaku gave a rather nonchalant, calculated answer to ease the tension.
"Cliff needs to patrol the realms of the Gods," Yusaku said smoothly, adjusting his glasses. "As the current Baron Lionheart, he has much to do. He is very busy."
This was the absolute truth. The forest, the sea, the volcano, and monitoring the rise of Human Evil—all of these domains required Cliff's constant psychic protection and surveillance now. Only Cliff, wielding the authority of the Lionheart, had this ability.
Just like Old Bert of the Longleaf Pine Forest.
Thinking of Old Bert, Yusaku sighed heavily. Old Bert's tactical deduction was terrifyingly right. Yusaku couldn't condemn the old caretaker's vengeance as purely evil. Rather, in the face of corporate destruction, revenge was inherently a sacred, protective act.
Old Bert, for the sake of his beloved forest, had willingly become a sacrificial vessel for Human Evil, allowing the dark mist to consume him and turn him into a werewolf. In that monstrous form, he single-handedly slaughtered over five hundred corporate thugs.
But in the end, Old Bert had also brilliantly outmaneuvered the very Human Evil that possessed him. Because Old Bert knew from the psychic vision that the Baron Lionheart was rushing to the Longleaf Pine Forest.
Furthermore, Old Bert's violent sacrifice forced the manifestation of Human Evil to enter the fray prematurely, catching the dark entity unprepared before it could fully gestate into something world-ending. This was precisely why God's colossal apostle was able to crush the manifestation so easily in its palm.
Truly...
"A pathetic, yet deeply respectable old man..." The Governor sighed, taking a deep drag on his expensive cigarette. A heavy hint of unease crept over him regarding the extraordinary and secretive knowledge he had just acquired.
"What a bunch of sons of bitches in Washington..." the Governor cursed softly. There was no way the federal higher-ups and the CIA wouldn't have known about the existence of the supernatural, yet they had deliberately kept it a total secret from the state levels. Even he, the Governor of one of the most powerful regions in the world, had been completely baffled by the truth.
He smoked, remaining silent for a long time. After his frayed emotions finally calmed down, the Governor leaned forward to exchange classified information.
"Do you two have any idea how vast this disaster almost was...?"
How vast?
An entire state.
Yes. An entire American state. And an entire state in the US is roughly the size of a medium European country.
And that wasn't all. This catastrophic atmospheric upheaval had covered California and actively threatened to affect several neighboring large states. According to the meteorological and geological information the Governor had secretly gathered from panicked military satellites, if the divine disaster hadn't been contained by Cliff's oath, Los Angeles would have literally sunk to the bottom of the Pacific Ocean in a very short time due to tectonic shifts. Other large states would also have been transformed into a fiery "purgatory" unsuitable for human habitation under the extreme harm of the celestial phenomena.
It's important to understand that celestial and tectonic changes are generally interconnected. If the West Coast fell, it wouldn't just be the US that suffered, but potentially the entire global climate.
In other words… God doesn't even need to appear personally; the mere descending presence of a single Apostle is enough to trigger the geographical destruction of humanity.
Upon hearing this grim, scientific deduction, the three men in the meeting room fell instantly silent.
The entire room was deathly still. Only the uncontrollable, rapid pounding of their hearts was deafening in their ears. Their rough breathing was filled with a chilling, lingering fear of the abyss they had just skirted. A terrifying sense of relief, like surviving a nuclear catastrophe by mere inches, made their scalps tingle and their spines go cold, leaving absolutely no room for actual comfort.
Simultaneously, all three powerful men cursed the already deceased Environmental Girl in their hearts.
'That bitch deserved to be torn apart…' the Governor thought venomously.
Although she was physically dead, it wasn't like she couldn't "die" again politically. Didn't she still have millions of online fans mourning her martyrdom? Then the Governor would make sure her legacy became a complete, radioactive pariah…
Knowing he almost became a casualty of her corporate stunt, the Governor's hand holding the cigarette trembled slightly. He had absolutely no doubt about the apocalyptic power of God's apostles.
Finally, there was one more logistical thing that troubled the Governor greatly.
After exchanging information, the three men knew that only those "in the know" could witness the truth of that scene of boundless divine power. Those who were spiritually unaware could only perceive the changes in the mundane celestial phenomena and the shaking of the earthquake. The colossal wooden Buddha had been invisible to the general public.
This made it incredibly difficult for the Governor to report the incident upwards to Washington.
More than five hundred people had been slaughtered in the Longleaf Pine Forest. More than five hundred American citizens! And most of them were highly publicized, extreme environmentalists. Did he really want to try and make those ignorant bureaucratic fools in D.C. bear this responsibility with a ridiculous excuse about a "mass bear attack" or a "cult suicide"?
Don't dream… they'd throw me under the bus instantly.
"Governor, I've noticed you don't seem too worried about the political fallout of the massacre?" Yusaku looked at the seemingly relaxed politician with a strange, calculating expression.
"Yes, you guessed right, Kudo," the Governor smiled thinly, leaning back in his leather chair. "In fact, if you think about the map carefully; the specific sector of the Longleaf Pine Forest where the massacre occurred is technically federal reserve land. It is not under my State jurisdiction."
Hearing this, Yusaku and Chief Gray exchanged a glance and gave the Governor a slow thumbs-up.
Brilliant. A typical politician.
This shameless jurisdictional maneuver to pass the buck to the federal government was truly slick. Let Washington deal with the five hundred shredded corpses.
The three men tacitly exchanged their private, secure contact information and temporarily formed an alliance of the "Knowing."
Afterwards, the Governor rubbed his hands together awkwardly. He still desperately wanted Hahn Cliff's direct contact information. Although the government could easily access a dockworker's phone records, obtaining the number legitimately from Kudo demonstrated their sincerity and submission, didn't it?
A few days later.
Yusaku Kudo and Chief Gray arrived once again at Cliff's house in the remote, decaying rural town.
Cliff wasn't there—he was out patrolling the coastline—so the two men decided to drive back toward the commercial street to wait for him.
However, halfway down the dirt road, they discovered several local thugs harassing a young brother and sister walking home from school.
"Hey! Did that bastard Hahn find your crazy homeless father yet?" the skinny thug sneered, blocking the teenagers' path. "If not, how about I become your new father, little girl?"
These vile words instantly chilled the expressions of Yusaku and Gray in the car. Especially Chief Gray.
Gray was deeply impressed by the Hahn family and held profound admiration for the scene of old Hahn Rasford's heroic, generational sacrifice. Seeing the heirs of the Lionheart Baron being bullied by local trash made his blood boil.
Gray stopped the car, immediately pulled open his jacket to reveal his heavy police-issue Glock, and strode aggressively forward, grabbing the skinny harlot by the collar and lifting him off his feet.
"I've heard of you," Gray growled, his face inches from the terrified thug's. "You're the loudmouth they call 'Harlot,' right?"
"You… what the hell—"
Before the thug's larger accomplices could utter a word of protest, they noticed Gray's high-ranking LAPD badge clipped to his belt and the cold steel of the gun. They were instantly speechless, raising their hands defensively.
These kinds of cowardly rural thugs were most afraid of big-city police officers who clearly didn't care about local jurisdiction.
They were about to offer a few stuttering words of pleading, but Chief Gray instead turned to look directly at the Harlot's burly accomplices.
"I'll be watching you. The LAPD will always be watching you," Gray threatened, his voice deadly calm. "So right now, as a favor to the Hahn family... I want you boys to drag this loudmouth into that barn over there and teach him some manners."
Upon hearing this, the Harlot's already pale face turned deathly white with terror.
Before the skinny thug could scream or say anything, several of his own accomplices gave Chief Gray fawning, terrified smiles, grabbed the Harlot by the arms, and dragged him kicking and screaming toward the abandoned farm.
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