After Lock cut down the Winged Man, he didn't bother finishing him off.
His eyes had already shifted toward the roaring Nomu herd below.
"Alright… time to get rid of you noisy things."
A faint, almost amused smile curved his lips.
Magic surged restlessly inside him—sparking, crackling, spreading across his entire body.
Lightning danced beneath his skin.
His black hair rose from the static, and in his eyes, molten light and electric arcs writhed together.
He beat his dragon wings once and rose even higher, the wind rippling the hem of his clothes.
"Is Lock going to—?"
Kōgūyami and the others outside the factory stared up in awe.
Lock's entire body was wrapped in golden light.
Electricity coiled around him like living armor—
an oppressive, majestic aura radiating from his silhouette.
For a moment, his young age was impossible to see.
He looked like someone carved from power itself—someone already a seasoned warrior.
Dark clouds gathered overhead, swallowing the moonlight and blanketing the factory in shadow.
Kōgūyami grits his teeth.
Yes… This was just like the day at the Dogukuchō seaside park—The day Lock's thunderclouds crushed the sky, and he couldn't even imagine surviving the lightning that fell.
No wonder.
No wonder Lock never took the Nomu seriously.
A complete, overwhelming difference in power.
Who would treat ants as opponents?
"Drink!"
Lock roared, thrusting both arms toward the heavens.
Lightning, which had wrapped around him like serpents, shot upward—
—piercing the black clouds.
In an instant, the entire sky churned.
Dark clouds became thunderclouds.
"Lightning Dragon's Raging Waves!"
A massive golden magic circle opened above Lock.
Thunder crackled.
Space itself seemed to tear as golden bolts exploded downward.
It was like the wrath of a thunder god.
Thunder crashed in a barrage—
impossible to count—
impossible to follow—
a continuous annihilation.
The night sky vanished in white-gold light.
Kōgūyami, Kamui Woods, Mandalay, and the others could only shut their eyes and cover their ears as the world shook.
BOOM.
BOOM—BOOM—BOOM.
The furious bombardment tore through everything—
walls, rusted conveyor lines, machines—flattening, twisting, and hurling them through the air.
Dust and smoke engulfed the factory, swallowing everything.
Only after a long, suffocating moment did the thunderclouds disperse and Lock's lightning fade.
The others slowly opened their eyes—
—and froze.
The abandoned factory was no longer a factory.
It was rubble.
A canyon sliced through the structure—dozens of meters long—splitting the grounds into three jagged segments.
Charred earth steamed where the lightning had fallen.
Ashes and molten debris glowed faintly as flames flickered across the ruin.
Sparks still crawled along scorched metal, and the air was so hot it rippled.
"…gulps."
Someone swallowed hard.
Something in their worldview shattered like glass.
A human being—
commanding the elements of the sky.
Not using them.
Commanding them.
Even All Might—Japan's greatest symbol—couldn't do this.
Lock descended slowly, inhaling a stream of flame and heat to recover a bit of his magic.
The immense magic expenditure still left his reserves heavily drained.
"Huh? You survived? Lucky you."
Lock scanned the destruction.
Every Nomu in the center of the blast had been erased—no bones, no ash, nothing left.
But at the edge of the battlefield, the Winged Man twitched weakly, sparks crawling across his body.
Probably survived only because he was barely within the outer radius.
Side effects of the enhancement potion might've hardened his bod, too.
Lock stepped over and kicked him lightly.
"You alive? If you don't answer, I'll grill you."
"I—I—hngh—I'm telling you… don't bully me too much…"
The Winged Man cracked open his eyes.
He tried to sound fierce, but the tremor in his voice ruined everything.
"Then what exactly are you gonna do if I bully you?" Lock asked, smiling.
The air froze.
The Winged Man shut his mouth.
Even breathing seemed dangerous.
"You won't be smug forever," he muttered weakly. "Someone from our Evolutionary group will kill you eventually!"
"Others?" Lock raised a brow and pulled a USB drive from his pocket.
"Funny. I killed all the white-coat researchers and took every bit of your data. And even though I've been standing here for ages, no one's come to help you."
The Winged Man's expression collapsed.
He recognized the USB immediately.
And he knew exactly what it meant.
He could only curse that bastard Ape Yamamoto in his heart.
They were supposed to inject the enhancement in emergencies and fight to the death, right?
But Yamamoto wasn't even wearing a white coat.
Lock's wording made it clear he had already "visited" him.
The Winged Man seethed.
And as he remembered he was going to die from the potion's side effects, his anger only worsened—
Then Lock spoke again.
"By the way, Iron Shark didn't die, right? That's how your hideout got exposed."
"So…?"
His voice was barely above a whisper.
"That was my doing too. So—what if I said I can stop the enhancement potion from killing you?"
"…"
The Winged Man's eyes flew open.
Hope surged where despair had been.
Lock watched him and—
for a moment—wondered how funny it would be if he said, Just kidding.
But he didn't.
He still needed answers.
A living hostage was more useful than a corpse.
"Surrender?"
"YES—YES, I SURRENDER!"
He nodded like a cheap bobblehead doll, absolutely desperate.
Lock sighed.
"A shame. You acted so tough just a minute ago."
"—I-I'm sorry! I thought I was going to die, so I was playing cool…"
Lock: "…"
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A/N: Advanced Chapters Have Been Uploaded On My Patreon
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