Sitting high up in the air, Robin and a few others overlook a small town with a population in the low thousands. More like a county than an actual town. It only had its own town hall because it was far enough between actual towns that it didn’t fall into either jurisdiction and had enough population to actually matter.
Robin looked out as his eyes zoomed like a hawk in the settlement.
“So explain again why we are in a rural town instead of a metropolis where the actual danger is?” Robin asked.
“There are different types of dangers and things heroes have to deal with. Corruption is naturally one form heroes need to deal with but before we move in on those, we need actual proof. Although the gamer space makes it easy to identify things, it can’t invade systems without using us like a link. Regardless, there are other kinds of dangers to deal with.” Puppeteer said.
“Aren’t we really far from the area that has the supercomputer? How are we still able to access the system?” Harold asked.
He was kneeling to control the giant book under them that floated at his command.
Although not very strong, Harold has gained a lot of skill with magic, especially since he can control books and use them in the place of wands. Writing out a spell in a book can allow him to project the spell at his whim making him a very good quick caster. Still his natural ability was still controlling books and it made for convenient mobility. They were almost a kilometer in the air and Robin was their lookout. This high up, normal people would never spot them.
“That is because the 15 gamer space center pieces are spread out in 15 regions. They’ve all individually opened their spaces. At this level of expansion the gamer space can remain open for roughly 2 months only and will need a month long cooldown if it exhausts the energy. It's quite demanding on the power pieces but it is more than enough time to do our jobs.
“So what are the dangers here?” Robin asked.
“We’ve confirmed some level of villainous interference but not how we typically see it.” Puppeteer scowled. “Unfortunately, there is a hazardous religious group in this town which preaches puritan extremism. Since the gamer space can only confirm actions based on the laws it’s identified but can’t look into the past we can only affirm based on things it has confirmed.”
“Puritan religion?! I thought those were outlawed worldwide?” Harold asked.
“They are but when things are extreme, they take everything to the extreme.” Puppeteer asked.
“So… what are they doing that is so extreme besides racism against mutant powers?” Robin asked.
Puppeteer frowned, “From what the system has said… They have caged up any and all children born with nonhuman mutations that alter their human appearance. This doesn’t include things like wings or such but changing racial features into animals, warped figures and more. They preach that anything that makes a person not human is a sinful abomination. We are here to imprison every member and confirm these speculations as well as rescue the children. Because they might really endanger the children, they sent us while Harold can use his ability to transport them out.” Puppeteer said.
“Wouldn’t that make him a big target?” Robin asked.
“No, after I gained mana, some things change with the full activation of my ability, I’ve actually even gotten minor blooming because I’m on the way to aether.” Herold smiled, “I’m able to affect external objects placed between books and warp the confines of the books so I’ve come up with this.” He said and took out a blank book and expanded it to over 3 meters in size and the first page opened showing a hollow space on one page.
“What is that?” Robin asked.
“I call it the Book jail. I’ve actually been researching based on internet superpowers and trying anything related to books. Bookkeeper was really helpful in this because there aren’t a lot of book related abilities. The primary function is to eventually turn this book into a viable jail cell and the people stored will have their information displayed on the left page.” Harold explained.
“So transporting them out would mean storing them away.” Robin said.
“Yes.” He nodded.
Robin smiled at how creative this type of thing was.
There were a few other books on Harold’s back, one was a pure metal book made of digimetal to be used as a shield while the book they were floating on was a normal blank book.
“So we know the danger, now we need you to help find the problems.” Puppeteer said.
Robin nodded, “I’ve not used Supernatural vision outside that much. In the digital world it strips the ‘illusion’ of the skin away besides on the actual people but out here it is quite different. I’m still getting used to it since it flexes my eyes strangely.” Robin said as he focused again and this time he felt a strange reflex and shockingly, his vision rushed forward into a wall and it slowly grew more transparent until the interior became visible.
He slowly looked about and noticed a basement and tried to look deeper and it slowly went until the ground and the basement was revealed.
It blinked a few times as his vision returned to normal and he rubbed his eyes.
“Something wrong?” Puppeteer asked.
“No, just the reflexes my vision is giving are all new. Shockingly, I can see through buildings.” Robin said.
“Do you have x-ray vision?!” Harold asked.
“No, it literally just makes things transparent including people if they get in the way. Get your head out of the gutter.” Robin criticized. “We aren’t going to get anywhere with me going house by house. System, check the town for clues to hot spots to check and display it on a map by priority.” Robin said.
They waited a short moment before a map appeared and showed a few red areas.
“Let’s start with the places that are most likely to find something. Check the town hall and then check the main chapels and cathedrals.” Puppeteer said, pointing them out.
He orientated himself a moment before finding the town hall before going one floor at a time until he frowned as he started to notice a few hidden offices behind bookshelves. On the 1st basement floor his frown grew deeper as he found three whole passage ways which go off the side into a dark storage room with metal grates. After examining them he figured they were likely to be quick to build cages.
“Found something, there are three hidden passages to what looks like storage rooms for dismantled bar cages.” Robin said.
When he saw this, the information quickly started to update and he kept looking around but he wasn’t close enough for the system to do more than use his own eyes.
The reason it didn’t work is that the system could only work infiltrated if a person was granted access to the system. If you block someone, it unfortunately blocks the system’s capacity to infiltrate the technology around them. The only thing they can do is constantly monitor active conversations or visible information on the screens.
After that he went to check the religious centers.
“Cathedral has a storage room with a lot of archaic stuff. There are even storage bins filled with rounded out rocks in the basement.” Robin said.
“This doesn’t look good. Seems they might practice live linching without allowing it to get lethal.” Puppeteer said.
Robin began to check the other hot spots and that is when his scowl distorted his face.
“What is it?” Harold asked when he saw the change.
“There is a Center of Disability in this town and it’s being run like a jail to keep people with disabilities chained up like animals. Many of them look beaten and bruised. I think they might be using them as targets for practice and then put them there to heal for another round! There are even psychics who are gagged, with eyes and ears covered while they are strapped like they are in a mental hospital.” Robin spat out.
Instantly the faces transformed and Robin was about to burst down but his arm was grabbed.
“Take a deep breath, we have to confirm everything so we know who and what is going on. If you move in and save them, that will mean every person in this town will get out of this scot free because we don’t have proof. The system is constantly monitoring them and remember, it can display captured footage if you give it the time to. I know it is hard but all these people will be moved to the digital world, they will get the healing they deserve but we can’t allow these criminals to walk about freely.” he said.
Robin huffed deeply before taking a deep breath to calm himself.
He scowled down at the building and began to look through the entire hospital, drawing up a building plan, pointing out hidden areas that he could literally punch through as well as secret escape routes and labs with human experiments actively happening.
When he checked the normal hospital, it ran like a normal place and didn’t have any nefarious extras but he started going through every red spot on the map, confirming or rejecting the outright visible proof he could directly see.
Part way, he stopped and actually vomited off the side of the book.
“This place… is disgusting.” He managed to say through his vomit before he confirmed families with children chained to their beds at the arms and legs and skinny from clear malnutrition.
It was a disgusting display of humanity's dark side.
After he got over it, his glare was extremely cold and he made sure to check every house after that. He didn’t care for sleep for two days while they gathered information and on the day he finished, it was also the day of their Wednesday commute.
The system displayed from the vision of one of the people along with the sound they heard and it was utterly disgusting.
Robin was so disgusted that it even caused his divine spark to burn hot with anger. It was like he was listening to a violation against humanity. It was while watching this that his eyes shined and he felt his mind pull to the tree and all the sparks in his body were gathering thousands of fragments and he saw the reason why.
His eyes cleared and he scowled, “Make sure to tell everyone, these savage cults need to die even if we need to snap the necks of the people involved.” Robin said.
“What? That is drastic.” Puppeteer said.
“Not when they are participating in a religion dedicated to ‘him’. These teachings are 100% things he developed to cause normal people to antagonize mutants so they could gather them up with the ‘anger towards society’ this comes to a fever pitch 30 years from now, during the generation of children who grew up like this and have children who suffer just like them. He is developing generational trauma and creating a racial divide to amass an internal army that he could influence.” Robin said. “The end result is continuous racial or body mutant revolts constantly happening world wide to the point they gather and make nations and direct the same treatment on more human people.” Robin explained.
The two grew serious.
They watched and waited a full week, making sure every possible day was properly analyzed in case there are people who can’t go during the week and all the people who participated were identified along with the talks they had.
They also discovered the practices, using the mutant children or the disabled they would do paddle whipping rituals, rock linching and other cruel and tortuous rituals leaving them barely alive before, shockingly, using pills that Milo discovered to heal their vitality. The flesh vitality pill was actually used to force them to remain alive and heal.
It should be mentioned that the pill was not meant for people, at least it had no indication that anything besides the bone pill and supplement was viable to a living mortal.
Everything they did, said or planned was documented and each and every house was marked, all the evidence was categorized and filed as each person’s alignment rapidly dropped and once it was time to put these thousands to trial, they would face the harsh punishment and impartialness that came with a court system backed by images coming from the person’s own eyes.
At long last, they moved, they were quiet and appeared in the houses of the children that were locked, any people that reacted, Robin savagely crushed under gravity and used the gags they were using to tie them up.
The victims were put in one book to transport them while the families were handcuffed and imprisoned.
They made sure to rescue every child prisoner before they saved the disabled. All of them were moved out until the last before they finally gave the military the order to move in.
All roads were closed and the army moved in from the outside in. With everyone asleep, Robin, Puppeteer and Harold took the strongest and most dangerous individuals out without them able to react under either Robin’s gravity or puppeteers mana threads.
The army, instead, moved out against the general population, smashing in doors and imprisoning children, adult or elderly who participated.
Children would be sent to correctional facilities to assess the degree of religious brainwashing and slowly correct the mistakes in their childhood and be placed with people who cared while the rest were arrested and taken to a mass security containment facility in the digital world until it was time to properly put them on trial.
Of the roughly 3,000 people, only about 500 actually had nothing to do with them and most of these were farmers who didn’t live in the town. Robin had checked all those houses as well and obviously he checked if there was anything deep underground but no secret lairs or bases were in such a mediocre town.
All over, within 15 regions, the same reaction was happening in thousands of towns where these kinds of anti-mutant religion or racist groups were dismantled from the top down.
It was extremely heavy handed but it was a response to the growing concern towards mutant civilians. With the system to correct body distortions, even if the natural form doesn’t change with improper powers, it will slowly improve into a stable shape.
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The army and the civilian army class were all hard at work. The army itself had swelled over the last year because of the vigilante and strongman that had to work under them now.
That was how they had the manpower for such a massive military movement.
The end result after three weeks of deep cleaning racist puritan cults resulted in the jailed count being nearly in the millions.
Among these places, some actual villains were hiding out and needed backup once their location was identified and stronger members moved in to support the efforts.
Robin helped put all the children in the many hospitals and disability clinics.
“Those fucking bastards. Even the disabled were beaten. Thankfully some areas weren’t as bad as others.” Robin said but even the least bad rural clinic still had bruises and psychics were bound up.
With the missions and quests, money and crystals were piled up and they began quickly. The census was the same, 10 levels and made sure all the stats were at least 10 all around. For psychics they had to make sure the wisdom properly handled the intelligence before boosting the rest.
They spent a day getting all of the rescues healed and stable but the ensuing rage was palpable even for the 9th graders who were seeing their first internship.
None of the teachers or braveman were happy either and in the other academies, the heroes looked at all the movement with a frown. There was an extremely dangerous aura coming off everyone like a barrel about to explode.
One of them eventually asked because even the less sensitive students were actually feeling a strong danger that made their heart rate increase and it was then that they learned about the process the Americans were going through.
It lit an anger in the other continent’s heroes because they were making plans for next year despite moving already to avert the crisis that Robin had pointed out and already dealt with several of them and were laying traps for the others.
The massive purge the American union was doing was something for the end of the year once they’ve had time to adapt to the gamer system.
The news still passed and everyone soon understood the anger radiating off from the American hero academy.
Once the rescues were healed, the academy and the braveman moved on into the large towns and cities where the bulk of the state populations concentrated.
Two weeks was plenty of time for the heroes and braveman to watch the flow of criminals and to build the database based on the existing data and rapidly find the underground structure.
When Robin was being briefed Chasm Might pointed out one of the lairs which also had a Braveman.
“Robin… I’ll leave this one for you. Your first infiltration you were able to succeed so we need the same. Reach the main frame to extract the information and once you get everything, deal with the head, permanently.” Robin said.
Robin nodded as he looked at his target and then started to get the required information.
***
With a tiny thunk, a metal ball came down through a vent and stopped very calmly. A small gap opened and a tiny swarm of nanites swarmed out and very quickly began to invade the camera system no different from what had happened the first time.
As the cameras fall under his control, the ball changes and Robin’s head pops out. His head was covered with the holographic helmet fully blocking the enemy from seeing his face but he saw clearly outwards.
When he saw the coast was clear he unfurled himself from the ball shape he was in and like a tiny bug, he nearly vanished at his absurd speeds, appearing at the door and carefully opening it to let the nanites out.
He was significantly smaller than his original first attempt and his armor had no trouble following him as long as he was actively controlling that aspect. It kept the natural functions instead of losing them as well.
His eyes moved rapidly and with a slight flex, his vision began to pierce through the walls. He was limited by 7 surfaces, so his vision crossed only 7 walls. As for looking through solid earth, he could look through about 20 meters before his eyes could not penetrate further.
He was very clear that it was because he was still growing into his new abilities since they were still only level 10. He spotted people through the walls and wasn’t merciful like his first time. After taking command of the cameras, he would enter the rooms and savagely twist the necks of the men with intense gravity and then compress the bodies into a pulp.
His anger towards the children and diseased were fully and unhesitantly vented on these people and he gave them no chance of reacting.
No sound, no trace.
Probably because of his death sparing, the prospect of death and killing might have become a tad bit warped but Robin knew the responsibility of what they were doing. It would definitely cause the war 4 years from then to be just that much more intense but he didn’t care. He wanted the map of the union to be bright blue and the presence of the underground to be gone.
His path of destruction soon led him to the first security room where the guards were wiped out and the main security system of the area taken over and he started to get more information on the structure.
At the same time, the nanites tried to use this as a place to start hacking for information.
Once he made sure they could progress freely he moved on and circled around and claimed the other security areas. His eyes constantly moved to all sides as he searched for the leader.
Eventually he found him once the majority of the compound was almost cleared out and the people dead.
He was at the main lab without even a single shadow of doubt that things were running smoothly.
“Supercharge, a half cyborg at this point with an explosive lightning discharge ability that was often a liability to himself. The last recorded time he was said to only have a few laser beams and his left arm was cybernetic but it seems he has progressed. Seems he has also added electrical stabilizers to his head to shield his brain from the overload.” Robin thought as he saw the guy's left arm and both legs were mechanized.
As he examined him, the man in question felt a feeling of danger run down his spine. Being cautious and wary made him very prone to sense danger coming his way.
“Someone, contact the security team and get an update.” He ordered.
Robin looked at the others and noticed his movement and knew the guy must be cautious so he waited while the audio capture of the main area was fed to him.
“Ah… ah…” Robin began to mutter as his voice, shockingly, changed until it matched several different men he had killed. “This is security zone 1, all things clear.” He said through the comms and changed. “Security zone 2 clear.”
He did this through all the checks once the call for an update came.
Supercharged still felt something wrong. He rarely felt danger this keen, it was like a predator was breathing down his neck. He went to a panel and extended a mechanical uplink and Robin quickly found a vent to hide in and made sure the nanites showed the active film.
At the same time, these same Nanites were projecting holograms of the patrols and guards.
Supercharge spent almost five minutes and truly found nothing wrong while Robin levitated as he used the vents to move around and approach until he finally reached the central area.
He narrowed his eyes as he looked around and at the pedestal. He had noticed that most networks in this base were connected to them and clearly he had more than a few brain implants added to interface with it. Until he disconnected he would be a danger since Robin was sure he would need to be physical with him.
Robin did make sure to keep an eye on the information flow that the nanites network had slowly uncovered.
After ten minutes connected, he finally had to concede that he might just be feeling paranoid and disconnected.
It was when he walked back to his place that Robin attacked.
All Supercharge heard was a sickening crunching sound as the heads of the minions were savagely spun 360 degrees and plopped on the ground.
When his mind was still trying to process, the vent burst and Robin shot out and expanded right in front of him. His full power charged already and holding the gauntlet primed.
He just had time to cross his arms and clench his teeth before the fist connected and everything exploded.
His arms exploded and bent inwards before his face was warped before Robin forced gravity to pull his body down and unleash all the power into the ground and his face.
“Gah!” Supercharged groans moments before his entire body erupted with electricity trying to zap Robin out but that didn’t work since he was made of rubber. The attack was also to fry every console and Robin knew that. Chasm Might had thought very carefully on this choice and Robin was sent specifically for this.
The electricity surged into every wall and computer but besides a heavy static nothing exploded and that was because Robin had isolated everything by infusing the metal bodies of all the electronic parts as well as the walls and floors with his rubber property effectively nullifying his ability. It also kept the entire compound from exploding under Robin’s explosive punch.
When Supercharged bounced back from the warped ground he coughed as his broken teeth flew out.
“W-what…” He exclaimed as his body discharged unhesitantly but started to die out. “What did you do?!” He asked.
“Nothing that you need to know.” Robin said and finished him off by trapping him in a gravity barrier he couldn’t escape from and condensing a ball of gravity and pushing it in with him and allowing it to explode.
He couldn’t react as everything was shredded to bits, leaving nothing else and effectively killing him without a chance for revival.
When it was finally done, he did a 360 in case he missed any person and finally had the nanites come and access information. Access to the information directly was significantly faster to upload to the system database and as the information appeared it was copied and transmitted directly to the hero database while the system rapidly helped organize everything.
“It’s done.” Robin said, reporting to the hero.
“Good job… It was a very clean execution. This guy has been a very annoying thorn but make sure to check all sides, there is a possibility that he has a clone or something. You never know what bizarre abilities have been used in secret.” Chasm Might said through the comms.
Robin nodded and focused on the ground and after examining both above and below, he found his way to the outermost shell of the compound and circled it in hopes of finding any secret areas but it was completely clear.
With the total clear, the army moved in and began to occupy and bring in earth manipulators and people who formed lower dantian mana which allows shot range elemental control.
They set up bombs to break the structural integrity and then the manipulators would crush the compound by raising and lowering the earth.
Every last compound was being crushed and destroyed while the power source, if it could be removed, was removed. If it wasn’t able to, they would deactivate it and destroy it if it was possible otherwise only the generator would remain for the support class students to come to dismantle it.
Going in alone like a force of nature, unless mentioned explicitly, Robin entered any area like a member of the execution bureau and enemies would not be left standing.
Lola was similarly given kill jobs against braveman level threats while extracting the information from every facility.
The reason why the cultists were imprisoned but these criminals were outright killed is because one was manipulated and the other was causing genuine damage on behalf of the world's source of danger.
When the final criminal compound was raided they finally turned to the police and political sphere and the FBI moved in with the heroes to secure everything based on the information gathered leaving no chance or time to react.
If one were to compare it to anything, it would almost look like a military intervention, when the army takes command of the entire political structure for the safety of the civilian when the political circle has gotten too corrupt to allow it to remain anymore.
The sweep was exceptionally brutal and refilling the police posts with the national guard members was just as intense. Of course, unlike the criminals, the politically corrupt were arrested to be put on trial.
It took no more than three weeks from start to finish to steamroll the first 15 regions before the process began again in 15 new regions. Clearing out the towns was like adding rocket fuel to a raging fire because it just made the anger more apparent.
Nothing was publicly revealed, everything going on was explained only as a military movement to combat criminal organizations within the union.
They spent two weeks preparing the towns and monitoring the cities and once the towns were cleared out the cities were once more rolled through.
It continued into south america where the puritan cultism wasn’t as intense but that didn’t mean such a thing didn’t exist.
Sad to say, South America had a larger criminal population despite all the efforts to improve and develop.
It naturally took longer and during that time, everyone was both training as well as learning on the field.
The only good thing was that eight regions were already cleared the year prior so it would be less work.
Only as the snow fell on the northern hemisphere did the last cleaning finish and setting up the replacement state government did news finally hit the world as well as the total number of prisoners and rescues.
***
A pair of eyes was seeing red, the entire area within many kilometers could feel the rage.
Those more sensitive felt their skin tighten or their hair stand on ends as they watched the world wide announcement.
“First the failed plans for all the other unions, counter traps hitting us hard and now the entire American union… utterly cleaned out.” One of them said as he rubbed his hand over his arm to try and push down the air and goosebumps as he looked towards the massive building that was the HQ. “No wonder the boss's anger was nearly exploding. No matter what, even if we send all our available war potential, we don’t have enough hero level potential to fight them without leaving ourselves open to attack.” he whispered.
“Shh, don’t talk or you will become the boss’s target to vent. That is not a good prospect.” Another person whispered and the only thing filling the place was shushing.
“AHH!”
Suddenly the entire top half of the HQ exploded and the clouds rapidly closed in around the place and everyone instantly began to run because it was getting too dangerous within close proximity.
Regardless of him being their leader, he commanded them by fear and power, nothing more. Respect did not work on him, only utility and that is why the army did not retreat with the death of the villains because they would have died more painful deaths.
At the top, ‘he’ floated there huffing with immense anger as his demonic energy bellowed from his body, hiding it from the sun and casting clouds and shadow upon the earth.
“If those few irritations did not exist to intervene, I would have gone to wring their necks personally!” he growled in anger.
The greatest hate was that he truly no longer felt any of his bones left and all doors were closed to his freedom while the union constantly kept the only divine signatures hidden. They appear only momentarily before they vanish, clearly already knowing how to hide their presence and he can’t even identify any domains.
“Those bastards, they had best hope the Demigod of hell and the demigod of death are not born and I get my hands on them. I will show them what true fear looks like if they are foolish enough to create such a creature.” he said before looking in one particular direction.
He was in thought before closing his eyes and gritting as his arm felt an immense pain as he forced power to gather beyond what his mortal shell could nearly handle and he punched the air.
It sounded like a gong which made a very thin crack but the aura of death came from it followed by a voice. It was raspy and pained, “What…”
“Your defeat has weakened you.” ‘he’ said.
“I have not weakened… I simply exist in the realm between the land of death and my life force cannot move. I am stuck but I am much stronger.” A weak, hoarse and dry laugh came.
“What needs to be done?” he asked.
The voice laughed again, “Close my escape rift and I can escape this jail.” The voice replied.
“You know I am unable.” he said.
“Of course but the one you seek to unlock your true power can. So… should it close, it means it is born.” it said.
The voice chuckled because of the genius but painful plan the two had come up with. The voice was none other than Tartarus, a person born with natural world power and death energy bellowing from his body.
“Oh right… leaving will bring great disaster, I have evolved and achieved a great new power. I simply cannot leave this chaos.” He said.
“Can you keep it open for 4 years if they try to close it?” he asked.
“I’ve little sense of time here. 4 years can be 4 hours for all I know. How long has it been since I opened it? Two, three decades?” Tartarous asked.
“Just a decade this year.” He said.
“Only… it feels like it has been decades already.” he replied and chuckled, “Interesting, it would seem I gained time. However, I cannot make this crack to you. Unless you watch it and inform me…” He said.
‘He’ thought and snorted, “Then it does not matter, if your new power is so strong then you can escape as the old bag has retired from old age. There are no heroes that can survive the front of such bellowing death energy except Blue Phoenix and you know how that worked out.” he said.
“Yes, the pestering bird was a great annoyance but not a true hindrance without sacrificing himself. Without the old turd, there is no true danger, even that bitch paraded as the strongest hero.” he said.
The crack slowly sealed as ‘his’ power let go. “Should you escape, return because the american union has angered me thoroughly and bring the demigod of death with you.” He said.
A dry chuckle came as the crack sealed and the clouds slowly got penetrated and an intense pain filled ‘his’ arm as cracks from energy burn appeared. His human body could not even move half of the tiny bit of power he possessed much less the full brunt of the sealed power within.
To unseal and make sure he could survive, he needed the divinity of both demigods. The divinity that will give him immortality in undeath and the divinity of hell, the realm he tried to take control of all those years ago before being sealed.
The arm trembled as healing powers he had implanted within himself took effect to start fixing his arm but he knew it would take a while.