I saw his fist aiming at my abdomen, charged with green light. However, I couldn’t give up the death grip I had on his hair.

[You have used Gaia’s Will.]

Smash!

The punch was like a blade thrusting into my stomach, and I endured it by clenching my teeth. I pulled his hair with all my strength towards the floor, and his head slammed against the tiles. One of my hands was now free and I socked him in the back of his neck.

BANG.

I felt his spine crumble, and I could actually see it with my naked eyes. His skin burst and sprayed blood. When I was about to land the final hit, the dust clouded up and I fell on broken concrete. The First Evil had disappeared. All that remained was copper light which meant he escaped using the F-class Teleport Insignia.

“What the fuck is going on?”

A black man, a resident downstairs, came rushing into the washroom at the noise. He looked at his collapsed washroom ceiling and me alternately. Since I had a mask on, he had brought a baseball bat. However, he began to shout out the names of his family members instead of approaching me. Then, two masked faces appeared above the ceiling hole, and I shouted my orders.

“He is within a sixty feet radius and must have not gone far away. One of you, go to the rooftop, and another one, go to the basement! I’ll go to the street. Hurry up!”

I stood up, clutching my stomach. In the beginning, only the area he punched felt like it was burning, but now the pain was radiating around. I took out a bundle of a hundred dollars from my pocket and threw it at the black man.

“If you keep your mouth shut, it’s all yours. Get out of the way.”

My body felt heavy as the poison was spreading through it. The man hurriedly plastered himself on the wall as I walked by, and his family members didn’t dare to approach me either.

On the street outside the villa, some neighbors were checking on an unconscious agent. When someone tried to take off the agent’s mask, a man in the same mask ran up and took him away. People stepped back as they saw blood, which was the last I saw of them. I had to search through the surrounding alleys while grasping my throbbing stomach.

***

The rest were still searching and only John was waiting for me. We both had taken off our masks since we couldn’t walk around wearing them in front of New York police officers. Now, the First Evil’s Man Who Overcomes Adversity must have ended.

“...What are you guys?”

John was trying to be as calm as possible, but he looked like a pig surrounded by butchers.

“How many people can you call immediately?” I ignored his question.

“Thirty.”

His voice was small and looked like he was about to break soon.

“That’s not enough.”

“I can bring in non-combatants,” he replied.

He flinched as I raised my arm, and I put my hand on his shoulder.

“He must be unconscious somewhere. Extend the search radius to the distance where one can go in five minutes by car. Search everywhere including hospitals, buildings and residential areas.”

“O..kay…” he answered.

He spent the night calling his subordinates while I searched for the First Evil in the alleys.

The next morning, I noticed some suspicious people. They were all bulky, dressed in casual clothes, and wore comfortable shoes. They walked in two’s and looked exactly like street cops. They eyed me with suspicion.

Meanwhile, the poison had stopped spreading in my chest. It hindered me from moving freely, but it would disappear over time. I headed to the address sent by John, and it was a shabby house with a narrow yard.

“We’re using this as our temporary headquarters,” John explained.

“Let’s fill our stomachs first. Is there anything to eat? If not, let’s go to a nearby restaurant,” I said.

“There is.”

We went into the house, and it seemed to have been abandoned since the subprime crisis. Tiboy was standing still there, and it was the first time I had seen him since last night. The muscular guy gulped at seeing me. Although all of these men are used to violence in their daily lives, last night’s brutality was from another world. It was more powerful and destructive. The First Evil only stumbled after being shot by three bullets.

I saw piles of fake ID cards in boxes on the table, ranging from LYPD, DEA, and FBI to government institutions like the Internal Revenue Service. John’s people were fast. We finished our meal in silence, and I moved to the room where the dead agent was. There was no need for an autopsy as the cause of death was internal bleeding in the abdomen. Even if he hadn’t died instantly, he would have been dead from the poison. The corpse's eyes were wide open in shock as we had been too late. I covered the body while asking John a question.

“What’s his name?”

“Brown,” John answered.

“Does he have a family?” I questioned.

John looked at Tiboy, and Tiboy stuttered as if he had a chicken bone stuck in his throat.

“One…one daughter...His ex-wife left her with him after the divorce.”

I nodded.

“I’ll set up a trust fund company for your team after this wraps up. So for now, do your best to kill him. Let’s talk about the next plan afterward.”

***

However, the deadline passed. We had searched for him in Brooklyn for a week. If he had occupied the Revival trait, he would have been able to move with his injured body within a few days like Woo Yeon-Hee. However, I identified him and made him use two C and F-class insignias. All he had left was the E-class Space Control Insignia. My mind was calmer than ever because the First Evil would be bitter about losing the 13,500 points the insignias were worth.

I met John again at a restaurant in Brooklyn. He seemed a lot more organized about the things that they could and could not do in the future. Therefore, he didn’t mention a single word about that night but only reported he had done what I had asked. He handed over the key and explained the location of the warehouse. He had moved every piece of furniture and junk the First Evil possessed from his villa. I said while putting the key in my pocket, “You should have a proper organization first. Do you need help with that?”

“No.” John raised his head.

“How do we catch the cat? Can we actually do it?” he asked.

“Your top priority is to report to me as soon as you find him. Keep an eye on him like before without approaching him, and don’t miss his whereabouts until I get there,” I explained.

However, things didn’t always go according to plan as they may have to act sometimes.

“He becomes stronger over time, and after a while, we won’t be able to deal with him even with more people. But, if we are fast enough, we can catch him.”

John’s eyes grew fierce.

“Forget about what you saw that night. The guns should work next time, but you’ll need more focused and, if necessary, explosive methods if I haven’t gotten there yet. Don’t forget to pack enough ammo to sustain those methods,” I continued.

“Anyway, reporting to me is the top priority and is an absolute rule you must follow. No matter who kills him, you’ll receive a billion dollars in the end as long as he dies,” I added.

John wasn’t happy yet as the astronomical number that fell out of my mouth was still a fantasy. He needed to complete the mission to receive money. For now, he had to finish making his new organization thoroughly with determination.

“Report regularly. I’ll set aside a hundred million dollars in advance for you and the same amount for the trust firm for your team. I’ll leave it entirely up to you regarding how you use the money, and that’s it.” I patted him on the shoulder and left.

I arrived at the container warehouse and saw that the First Evil had not owned much. What he was writing wasn’t a big deal. He had been writing an anonymous letter to the prosecutor to threaten his life, cleverly worded in such a way it couldn’t be used to investigate and prosecute the sender. It was a bad sign as the letter proved a high degree of legal expertise and the cunning to exploit the loopholes in the criminal code.

According to the prosecutor, the victim was a twenty-eight-year-old man who lived in another state and met the First Evil through an Internet messenger while playing games. But, was the victim another pre-Awakened? Maybe…

When I put the letter down, a small thing got caught in and fell down. It was a small badge, the size of a pinky nail. The moment I picked it up, a message popped up.

[The Badge of the Sensitive (Item)

Effect: Increases Sense by one class.

Class: F]

Gosh! He had one of the best items someone could get from a bronze box.

[Your Sense class has changed.

Change: F → E]

There was no description like ‘temporary,’ ‘duration’ or ‘cooldown time.’ It wasn’t something that could be simply calculated into three hundred points since it was a rare item. Although it was limited to a single class upgrade due to the class limit, I could strengthen it to make full use of it until I became stronger. It would be the best one I can find in my current state.