Kenji really, truly hated DC.
Okay, maybe not hate hate, but should you ever find yourself in a DC world, you'd hate it too. Why? Well, the count less world and the dark worlds that you could end up in, and let's not talk about all the changes that you'd barely be able to keep up with.
He hated the constant reboots, the retcons every Tuesday, and the chaotic nature of the multiverse that you couldn't even properly give a hierarchy because suddenly a writer felt bored or a sales figure dipped.
He hated how power levels were so inconsistent here, how a hero could move planets one week and be incapacitated by a well-placed kick the next, simply because the plot demanded it. But that was in all media, so he couldn't be upset much about that.
He sighed, his body moving on instinct as he twisted his torso sideways. A vampire, its jaw unhinged into a ruin of jagged fangs and clotted gore, rushed him from the blind spot behind his left shoulder.
With a casual, almost bored backhand, Kenji snapped his palm out. The impact didn't just break bone, it pulverized the creature's cervical spine.
The head left its shoulders with a wet, sickening crack, spinning into the darkness as the rest of the body dissolved into gray ash before it even touched the cracked pavement.
"Stay close, Sora," Kenji muttered, his voice cold and steady. He adjusted his gravity field, creating a dense, three-meter shell of high-pressure air that acted as an invisible cage for the trembling teenager. He nudged the boy behind him, effectively serving as a human shield against the tide of hungry vamps.
'Of course, it's this timeline,' he thought bitterly. 'DC vs. Vampires. Why not something like the Harley Quinn series or even Young Justice for god sake, why this world'.
Out of all the cursed, bleak variations of this world in this multiverse, the System could have chosen, it had dropped them into the one where the Justice League had been hollowed out from the inside.
He had read the comics back in his old world, well, parts of them. He'd dropped the series entirely after the narrative whiplash became too much to bear. Watching the "Bat-family" fall apart was one thing, but hearing that Batgirl had murdered Dick Grayson, the Vampire King, only to immediately pull a 180 and decide to rule as the Vampire Queen herself seemed like poor writing to force things to continue like that. The switch-up had come so far out of left field that he couldn't even bother to see how the "resistance" ended.
His attention snapped back to his teammates, checking on them as they fought. Erza was a blur of crimson and silver, moving with a lethality that far surpassed her anime counterpart.
She was a whirlwind of steel, her Heaven's Wheel armor glinting under the dim, sickly moon. Dozens of swords floated in a halo around her, dancing through the air like heat-seeking missiles.
Any vampire that lunged was shredded into gray dust, and those that tried to keep their distance found themselves skewered by blades that launched from her side with the force of ballista bolts. It was clear that all her "System Side Quests" had been helping her hone her skills more.
Then there was Vandalieu.
The "kid" was pure nightmare fuel. His left arm had elongated, stretching into a whip-like appendage that hardened at the edge into a jagged, obsidian-sharp blade. It moved with such blinding, fluid speed that the vampires were being bisected before their nervous systems could even register a threat, mouths, teeth, eyes, jaws, and everything in between growing on his body as he fought and killed everything that came close to him.
But it was the mana that truly disturbed Kenji. Vandalieu was manifesting extra limbs from his torso, each hand condensing mana into spheres that pulsed with a terrifying, heavy light.
Kenji had almost forgotten the sheer absurdity of the Death Mage. Vandalieu didn't just have potential, he had raw capacity in the billions. A single one of those mana balls contained enough energy to rival a High-Class Devil.
The only thing keeping the boy from being an existential threat to his world was a series of restrictive curses and a lack of specific elemental affinity, which was placed on him by the god that reincarnated him, and even then, Van had basically taken over an entire country and had 70 percent of a continent under him.
His power was just something else, to give you an idea just how absurd the kid was, he had more mana than Sirzechs Lucifer, the devil king himself.
The kid was that monstrous in mana to surpass one of the top 10 strongest beings in his world, he was a living battery of annihilation. If only he could use all that power freely. The vampires were just throwing themselves into a wood chipper.
"Fodder," Kenji scoffed as a fresh wave of a dozen poured from the ruined tenements.
He didn't even bother moving his arms. He simply expanded his gravity field. The field exploded outward, sending all the vamps flying. Those further out were blasted into the brickwork with enough pressure to liquify bone and organ alike.
"We need to leave here, now," Kenji said, his voice cutting through the sounds of the slaughter. "Lingering in one spot is an invitation for the 'Big Guns' to notice us. If those tougher guys started coming now, we're done."
As if the universe had been waiting for those words to leave his mouth to provide a specific challenge to prove its chaotic nature, his Danger Sense flared. Something was coming from the flank, fast. Faster than any of the feral, low-level vampires they had fought so far.
Kenji spun, his gravity field snapping into place, reinforced by his own mana, only to gasp in shock as the intruder passed through the distortion as if the laws of physics were a mere suggestion. A heavy mace slammed into his jaw with force enough to shift a mountain.
CRACK. BOOM.
Pain detonated across his face. Kenji was launched backward like a stray bullet, shattering through three layers of reinforced concrete and steel before embedding into the foundation of a collapsed skyscraper. The world rang with a high-pitched hum as debris buried him.
"Kenji!" Erza's scream echoed through the ruins.
'What the hell was that?' Kenji groaned, spitting out a mouthful of blood. His healing was already kicking in instantly, he could feel his body knitting his jaw back together. Thank gamer body, for this, as long as he had Hp, he'll heal.
He pushed the heavy rubble off him and stepped out, his eyes narrow and glowing with a dangerous golden hue, as he tried to see what, or rather who, it was that caught him off guard like that.
Standing in the center of the street was Hawkgirl. Her wings were spread wide, her eyes glowing with a feral, red hunger. In her hand, she clutched her mace.
'Right. Nth Metal,' Kenji thought, his mind racing through the implications. 'one of the substances in the DC universe that can negate fundamental forces like gravity and magic. My primary defense is useless against her weapon.'
"Who are you?" she demanded, her voice a hissed snarl of hunger and anger. She had never seen him before.
Kenji didn't answer. He was too busy staring at that mace with a predatory gaze of his own. A small, dark smile crept onto his face. He had wanted to stay low-key, to find a base and settle down for them to now plan what they were going to do and how they would accomplish their mission, but if he could get his hands on Nth Metal this early? It would be the ultimate upgrade for his own equipment.
He didn't bother to answer as he decided to attack her, while she didn't really know what he was capable of.
He tensed and vanished. He closed the distance in a blur, not Flash-level, but far beyond what the vampire-Hawkgirl expected.
Yet she still reacted in time and dodged him as she took to the air, her wings beating frantically as she swung the mace downward in a crushing arc. Guess when you've worked with someone like The Flash, your reflexes improve.
Kenji conjured a mana shield, but the Nth Metal shattered it like glass on impact. He felt the bone-jarring force ripple through his arm, but he had achieved his goal, he had her momentum.
He grabbed her wrist, twisted with enough force to shatter the radius, and slammed her into the pavement. The street cratered around her. Despite the sound of snapping bone, she didn't release the mace. She swept her leg under his feet, forcing him to jump, and used the opening to break her own arm further just to twist free and drive an elbow into his head.
They started to fight, and he could see why it was she was considered one of the stronger members of the Justice League, even if she was only a part of the B-team.
'She's better at hand-to-hand than I am,' Kenji realized as he hit the ground again, 'but I'm physically stronger and faster, and I'm getting better too.'
And he was as his skills leveled up.
"Kenji!" Erza yelled, having finished her own wave. She moved to intervene, but fate seemed to have had other plans.
BOOM.
A punch from behind sent Erza rocketing through a storefront. Kenji's eyes flicked over to see the newcomers. Wonder Girl had arrived, and she wasn't alone. Gorilla Grodd, his fur matted with blood, stood beside a tattooed man Kenji vaguely recognized as one of the many psycho-villains of the DC roster.
"This is getting very bad," Kenji muttered.
He surged forward, pressing Hawkgirl with a flurry of gravity-enhanced punches. He grabbed her head and delivered a brutal headbutt that cracked her skull open. She swung the mace up blindly, catching his chin and launching him skyward, but Kenji was done playing.
He summoned fire and lightning from the sky, raining magical devastation down. She raised the mace to block the energy, but while the Nth Metal was occupied, Kenji slammed his gravity back down. It held her for just a fraction of a second, long enough for him to compress a mana shield into a dense ball around his body and drop like a meteor.
She blocked with the mace, but the force was too much. Kenji's foot connected with her head, driving it into the ground. Her skull turned to paste instantly.
Kenji landed heavily, breathing hard. How was he having a harder time here than in his own world? Was it because most people back there didn't have gravity counter?
He knelt, pried the Nth Metal mace from her cooling corpse, and shoved it into his System inventory. 'Mine now.'
He turned to see Vandalieu standing over the corpses of Grodd and the tattooed man.
Erza and Wonder Girl were still clashing nearby, a ferocious display of sword versus fist. Wonder Girl had the Amazonian skill, the speed, and the training, but Erza was also adapting mid-fight, the girl was a scary one.
The fight ended when Wonder Girl mistook Erza's reach. She dodged a blade, only for Erza to manifest her Adamantine armor and launch a spear that blasted the girl blocks away.
"Are you okay, Sora?" Kenji asked the only member who couldn't fight.
"Ah-ah, yes... thank you," the boy said, looking like he was about to be sick.
"Let's go, before any mor—"
His Danger Sense exploded. His spatial awareness went into hyper-clarity. Time seemed to crawl, he immediately slammed gravity with full force on the area.
He turned his head to the left. Just in time to see a red and blue blur by the side of his head, fist incoming.
'Fucking Superman.'
Kenji barely had time to cross his arms and reinforce them with every ounce of gravity and mana he possessed before the fist connected. The world turned into a blur of white noise as Kenji was blasted through the city at Mach speeds.
———————————————————
If you want to read ahead and access 40 advanced chapters, check the patreon. $4 Dollars
Link:patreon/Phantomking785