Kaiser welcomed me in a large sports hall, surrounded by his subordinates. All his "comrades" were there, plus the Faultline Crew. Strangely, the mercenaries had rushed to Kaiser first in the morning, not to me, despite my clear demonstration of strength on my side.

"Welcome, 'Kaiser'" I emphasized his name, hinting that he wasn't human before me. Personally, facing such a crowd of capes would have made me uneasy, but as a "replicator projection" I remained calm and unruffled.

"Black Cloak!!!" - the demon roared, spitting saliva from behind his armor's visor. - "Who are you?!!" - Quite expressive.

"I am an envoy of Shub-Niggurath and his authorized representative" - I slightly embellished my authority. - "He sent me here to help you, cripples, not lose twenty games in a row, but at least win once."

"I don't care about the game! What did you do to the demoness who ended up in Taylor Hebert's body?"

"I ate her. Consumed her soul, leaving not a scrap behind."

"How dare you!!! She was my eternal wife. She was chosen! Unforgivable!!! I will destroy you, I will rip out your soul and give it to Nuhskransurah! I..."

"And I will devour your soul if you don't kneel before me" - I interrupted his outburst with a roar at a hundred decibels. - "I don't care about you, your bitch, or this Nuhskransurah. I am fulfilling Shub-Niggurath’s mission, and anyone who stands in my way will be destroyed. And all of you, know this: Kaiser won't save you. I am your only hope. Submit to me and you will live. Oppose me, and you will disappear forever!"

"Hah, you can't intimidate me or my slaves" - The leader of Empire suddenly calmed down. - "We've crossed thousands of worlds together, and they know my wrath is far more fearsome than the empty threats of some incomprehensible newcomer. Did you come here to call me to submission? Then witness the power of my wrath!"

With these words from Kaiser, a wave of force spread across the floor, covering it with a metallic film from which steel spikes grew. This attack quickly reached me and pierced through the replicator's body. I deliberately did not evade, demonstrating my superiority.

"And is that all you can do?" - my voice echoed from the nearly dismembered body. - "Now, it's time to die."

My "clone" extended a hand, clutching an automatic rifle. A burst of armor-piercing explosive rounds erupted from it, mowing down all the steel spikes in front of me from right to left. Most importantly, the bullets reached the capes, tearing their bodies apart. To my surprise, most demons survived.

Now before me stood twenty capes. Each had taken a bullet, but only five had any effect. Newter and Gregor the Snail from the Faultline Crew were the first casualties. Their abilities offered no protection against physical attacks, so a bullet to the forehead scrambled their brains. However, further attacks yielded no results after this success, as all the heroes before me became invulnerable. Bullets simply flattened against them, causing no harm.

Most likely, this was Othala's ability. While she could grant superpowers to others, she couldn't gain them herself, so a bullet to her throat completely decapitated her. Cricket attempted to shield Otala, but the replicator was faster. My weapon could fire at a rate of fifty rounds per second, leaving her no time to react.

The next two victims stood at the opposite end of the crowd before me: Crusader and Alabaster. Apparently, Otala hadn't had time to "enhance" them before her demise. Alabaster immediately "reformed" from a "pile of minced meat," utilizing his superpower. However, Crusader had no such abilities to boast of, so he died definitively and irreversibly.

That concluded my successes, as the villains attacked the poor replicator with everything they had. I hadn't expected it to survive this onslaught, so I simply ordered it to self-destruct. Afterward, all the "mini-MNT blocks" in the replicators detonated, literally vaporizing my puppet in microseconds. This molten plasma struck in all directions, vaporizing matter on contact and roasting it from a distance with infrared radiation.

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Unfortunately, this attack achieved little effect once again. Spitfire from the Faultline Crew managed to control the surrounding fire, minimizing damage. However, one cape did not survive this assault. Foolish Fog decided to assume his gaseous form, so the infrared radiation literally incinerated most of the cells in his body. What managed to regroup bore no resemblance to a human.

Thus, fifteen capes with various abilities now faced me. Well, if that's what they want, then I'll destroy them. Moreover, those who had just died were lucky because the demons continued to exist without bodies. However, I intended to personally finish off the rest as much as possible, consuming their souls along the way. Such a finale should serve as an excellent demonstration of my power.

I began observing the demons, devising ways to kill them all. Kaiser didn't believe they had managed to destroy me, so he decided to lure me into a "fair fight." To coax me out of hiding, as he put it, the Empire's leader ordered an attack on the city, killing everyone indiscriminately. He correctly guessed that the city meant a lot to me, so he decided to strike there.

If fifteen heroes had gone together, it would have been difficult for me to deal with them. However, they were so overconfident that they split into three groups and went in different directions. The first group included Kaiser himself, his unwavering lovers Fenja and Menja, his official wife Purity, and somehow, Stormtiger also ended up in this group. Possibly for the same reason. The second group consisted of Rune, Night, Hookwolf, Alabaster, and Crickeet. The last team included Victor, Krieg, Faultline, Spitfire, and Labyrinth.

I monitored the movements of these teams using replicators. The villains showed no restraint, indeed "slaughtering" everyone in sight, destroying ordinary city dwellers. Given that they were in the most "secure" part of the city, such lawlessness struck the nerves of the civilians most severely. In the Docks, people were long accustomed to cape showdowns, but such incidents were very rare in the elite districts.

I arrived at the scene, but I didn't rush, giving the opponents the chance to scatter further. I chose the Faultline Crew as my first target because it only had four capes capable of harming me. Besides her "invulnerability," Alabaster had no additional powers. However, two of this team were werewolves, so dealing with them was likely to be challenging. But sooner or later, I would have to confront the angels myself, so gaining experience now was worthwhile. And I needed to test how much I had managed to "power up" Lung's shard. Ah, where is my Chaos-infused shard? I could wipe out this whole crowd without leaving my couch.

After calculating the movement route of the Faultline Crew, I concluded that I could ambush their team. At this point, the street they were walking on ended at a highway running alongside the park. So, the chosen location was hidden from the enemy by houses. I jumped out of the car, led by a replicator, ran to a wide manhole cover on the roadway, and lifted it, placing it in the car. After that, my transport drove away, I jumped into the sewer, and another replicator pretended to be the manhole cover. I sat under this cover, trying not to breathe, because Cicada seemed capable of amplifying sounds. I had long ago read dossiers on all the capes, downloading information from the internet and the secret PRT database.

Five minutes later, the demon group reached the trap during an unhurried "walk." I calculated that in this way I could get Rune, who until then had walked in the middle of the street, but the first one to enter the "range of my aggression" was Cricket. She simply walked over the manhole, and I couldn't miss this opportunity.

When the Cricket's foot stepped on the manhole, my hand reached through the 'steel' cover and grabbed it. By then, I was already in my 'crocodile' form, so I had strength to spare. Once my 'paw' closed around her delicate limb, escape from me became impossible. With a sharp tug, I unexpectedly pulled the agile prey into the well, where I seized her tighter. To my surprise, I couldn't simply devour the demon's soul like that. She had some barrier tied to her bodily integrity. So, at first, I had to 'tear apart' Cicada a bit and singe her, only then did the defense weaken, giving me access to the 'tasty filling'. Though, honestly, all these souls taste like cardboard.

Cricket barely had time to scream before her life path was cut short. I was about to climb out of the well and deal with the remaining four when my plans were abruptly interrupted by a huge boulder crashing into the road right on top of the manhole. As a result, I was buried quite well under soil and concrete. Rune didn't stop there and began systematically pounding the ground with her stone 'club', apparently aiming to flatten me. How naive.

I heightened the manifestation of my shard's power, growing to three meters tall. In this state, I was nearly invulnerable to physical damage, plus my strength reached a new level. Shooting out of the ground like a blazing projectile, I dodged another heavy but slow stone and headed towards Night. Previously, she had a limitation that prevented her from assuming her 'combat form' if someone was looking at her. But now that limitation was overcome, and a wild jumble of something black, shiny, and multi-limbed rushed towards me.

We collided and began tearing each other apart, though without much success. My scales were tougher than steel, and Night's body, jelly-like in form, resisted my attempts to tear it apart, resulting only in minor splashes of her flesh. My fire burned Night's body, but sluggishly. It didn't seem like I would quickly kill her, so it was worth finding someone softer to handle.