The fire alarm had gone off first, soaking everyone in the gymnasium with water. Now a man who could release electricity had suddenly appeared at the door. It didn't take a genius to realize what this meant. Someone had planned this massacre carefully.
Victor Kent stood among the drenched students, watching the thin figure at the entrance. His eyebrows lifted slightly as the pieces came together in his mind. For a long time, he had suspected that the strange rumors circulating around this small town weren't baseless.
"It's possible that radiation from kryptonite caused genetic mutations in some people," he thought calmly.
After all, the rich relied on technology, while the poor relied on mutation. That had always been the unspoken rule of strange accidents and miracles in the world.
Still, Victor hadn't expected a madman to suddenly show up at the school dance and try to slaughter almost everyone at Smallville High.
"Ahh!"
Panicked screams filled the gymnasium. Students stumbled over each other on the wet floor as fear spread like wildfire.
"What kind of horror movie is this?" someone shouted.
Chloe and Pete were trembling beside the snack table. Their faces had turned pale as sheets, their bodies stiff with fear. Anyone with basic common sense understood what electricity and water meant together.
If that man touched the ground with his hands, the current would spread instantly through the soaked floor.
Hundreds of students could die in seconds.
"Raise your hands!" the man shouted, his voice sharp and unhinged.
To many of the students, it felt like hell itself was calling to them. A few boys, desperate and foolishly brave, tried to rush forward to stop him.
It was pointless.
The skinny figure moved like a devil. Sparks crackled around his arms as he crouched slightly, preparing to slam his hands onto the water-covered floor.
Electric discharge gathered in his palms.
In less than a second, it would be over.
From twenty or thirty meters away, no one could possibly stop him in time.
Victor frowned.
He was just about to move.
Several people here were familiar to him. Saving them would require almost no effort. Besides, if everyone here died and only he and Clark walked out alive, that would attract a dangerous amount of attention.
Even worse, it might bring suspicion toward the Kent family.
But just as he prepared to act—
"Victor? No!"
Someone moved first.
Clark glanced at Victor standing nearby, his heart skipping violently. His expression changed as if struck by lightning itself.
He shouted in a low voice.
Then he disappeared.
Clark exploded forward with a speed far beyond anything human.
Stab!
For a split second, the electric current in Jerome's hands hovered less than ten centimeters above the wet ground.
Then Jerome vanished.
Clark had already grabbed him and carried him away.
"What happened?"
"Where did he go?!"
Several students screamed and shut their eyes, bracing for the agonizing pain of electrocution.
But the pain never came.
Slowly, trembling hands touched their own bodies.
They were still alive.
When they opened their eyes and looked toward the door, the devil who had nearly killed them was gone. Only a cold gust of wind blew through the open entrance, making everyone shiver.
"Was it… an illusion?"
Someone spoke the question aloud.
Had they all experienced some kind of mass hallucination?
Even the boys who had tried to rush Jerome hadn't seen anything. Clark had moved too fast, far beyond the limits of human vision.
They hadn't even seen a blur.
Victor slowly lowered the snack he had been holding. A trace of relief appeared in his eyes.
"When things went wrong, you didn't run straight to Lana," he thought.
"It seems you can still be saved, Clark."
At least his brother hadn't completely lost his head over a girl who already had a boyfriend.
But another thought quickly followed.
"How exactly are you going to handle this?"
If Clark handled the situation poorly, it could easily bring trouble to the Kent family.
Victor frowned slightly.
Then he stepped backward.
His body swayed once.
And vanished.
Back in the gymnasium, students were still looking around nervously. Many of them wondered if everything had been some twisted prank.
"Where are Victor and Clark?" Chloe asked, patting her chest as she tried to calm her breathing.
"They were just here," Pete said, glancing around. "Maybe they got bored and left while we were dancing."
Chloe frowned in confusion.
She could swear the two brothers had still been standing there moments before everything happened.
Had she remembered wrong?
…
Several miles away, on a lonely road leading toward the outskirts of town, Clark finally stopped.
He threw the man he had carried over his shoulder onto the ground.
"Who are you?" Clark demanded angrily. "Why would you do something like that?"
The man groaned as he rolled onto his back.
"Do you realize there were hundreds of people in there? You could have killed them all!"
Jerome slowly stood up, shaking his head as if trying to wake from a dream.
"Why am I here?" he muttered.
He stared at his hands, then looked around the empty road.
Just moments ago he had been preparing to execute those criminals at the school. Now he was suddenly standing on a deserted suburban highway.
"Who are you?" Jerome asked coldly.
His eyes locked onto Clark.
His muscles tensed instantly.
Clearly, this young man had brought him here.
"So I'm not the only special person in the world," Jerome murmured.
Suddenly, his eyes widened.
"It's you!"
Recognition flashed across his face.
"I saw you in the bar!"
Clark stiffened slightly.
"You were almost treated like a scarecrow by those guys," Jerome continued, his voice turning dark.
Anger rose inside him like boiling water.
Electricity crackled around his hands again, bright and terrifying under the dim streetlights. The buzzing sound resembled a flock of crows screaming in the distance.
"You want to protect them?!"
What difference was there between those football players and the people who had crucified him years ago?
Stab!
The electric current surged violently.
Clark was blasted backward.
"You want to kill Whitney and the others?" Clark shouted as he rolled across the asphalt.
"That's not justice!"
He slid across the ground for seven or eight meters before finally stopping.
Clark slowly stood up again.
Aside from a few sparks burning on his clothes, he looked completely unharmed.
He brushed the charred fabric from his sleeve.
"Even if Whitney is my rival," Clark said anxiously, "and even if he once tried to tie me to a cross… that still doesn't mean he deserves to die."
Jerome froze.
Then his face twisted with fury.
"God allowed me to return to this world," he said through clenched teeth. "I was given a sacred mission—to cleanse sin."
His earlier attack had easily been powerful enough to turn a normal person into charcoal.
Yet Clark stood there unharmed.
Jerome's shock quickly turned into rage.
"You've been favored by God as well," he snarled. "But instead of punishing sinners, you protect them!"
Electricity exploded from both of his hands.
From a distance, the glowing currents looked like two miniature suns.
"To defend sinners… you don't deserve the power God gave you!"
The electricity slammed into the asphalt road.
The thick pavement instantly began to glow red, melting like wax.
A foul smell rose into the air, sharp and bitter like sulfur.
Tsk!
"Go to hell!"
Jerome thrust both hands forward.
The electric current burst outward like a tree of lightning growing in midair. Branches split and spread wildly from the central bolt.
In the blink of an eye, the attack shot toward Clark faster than the speed of sound.
There was no time to dodge.
Clark crossed his arms in front of his chest.
The lightning slammed into him.
His sleeves instantly burned to ashes.
Pain shot through his body.
For the first time in a long while, Clark actually felt it.
"Agh!"
He cried out involuntarily.
The next moment, he moved.
Clark vanished and reappeared beside Jerome like a fired bullet.
Time seemed to slow to a crawl.
Jerome was still staring forward, electricity pouring endlessly from his hands. His body hadn't even realized Clark had moved.
Clark looked at him for a brief moment.
Then he pushed forward with one hand.
Bang!
Time snapped back to normal.
Jerome's body flew through the air as if struck by a ten-ton truck.
He soared more than ten meters before crashing violently onto the ground.
"Ahh!"
Blood trickled from the corner of his mouth.
His face twisted in pain.
Several ribs were almost certainly broken.
"I'll never understand," Jerome gasped, clutching his chest as he glared at Clark. "Why would someone help the people who bullied him?"
To him, Clark's actions were betrayal.
When someone had suffered humiliation and cruelty, the only proper response was revenge.
"Your hands…"
Clark suddenly froze.
He had noticed the terrible scars on Jerome's palms. The wounds looked exactly like holes left behind by thick iron spikes.
Clark's expression changed slowly.
A memory surfaced.
Earlier that day, during class, Chloe had been gossiping about a strange series of incidents in town.
"Recently, former members of the high school football team have been electrocuted to death one after another," she had said.
Clark looked back at Jerome.
"You're the one responsible, aren't you?" he asked quietly. "The serial killer targeting those football players. You're taking revenge on them."
"I'm going to kill you!"
Jerome ignored Clark's words entirely.
Grinding his teeth through the pain, he forced himself to stand again.
"Don't get up," Clark said nervously, raising both hands. "I really don't want to accidentally kill you."
He had never truly fought anyone before.
The idea of killing someone terrified him.
But Jerome only grew angrier at those words.
Even with his injuries, he staggered upright.
"If he wants to kill you," a cold voice suddenly said from the darkness, "then kill him, Clark!"
....
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