"Brat, hand over this month's protection fee."
"Hurry up. If you can't even cough up ten thousand yen, then forget about going to school."
In a Tokyo alley, a few delinquent teens with garish "shamate" hairstyles were surrounding and beating a short student.
The student's face was bruised and swollen, blood on his lips, yet the punks showed no sign of stopping.
Suddenly, a fierce wind rose in the sky. Scraps of paper and all kinds of trash flew upward.
It was as if a giant vacuum cleaner had appeared overhead, devouring the air around them and whipping up gales.
When everyone opened their eyes, a young man suddenly slammed into the ground, making it tremble.
"Looks like I biffed it again. Pinpointing a moving coordinate is really hard—nearly overshot right off the planet. Mastering the Other Dimension precisely is tough. I need more practice."
"That Seiya kid keeps running around. He's way too hard to lock onto."
"Does that brat have ADHD?"
The young man muttered to himself, then looked at the delinquents ahead. "Hey, you shamates, where is this?"
"Mind your own business, foreigner, or I'll smash your face in."
The leader strutted forward, sheer arrogance in every step.
"Nosy? Foreigner? I'm not blond and blue-eyed—why call me a foreigner?"
"Is my Japanese that bad?"
The young man walked closer, letting them see his looks and build.
His body was all corded muscle, powerfully built. Though his hair and eyes were black, his nose bridge was high, his features a bit Eurasian.
"Cut the crap!"
Lacking any sense, the shamate punk swaggered forward, swung his baseball bat, and charged.
Crack!
But the bat stopped in midair, frozen. No matter how hard he strained, it wouldn't budge an inch.
The shamate punk was suddenly flipped by an invisible force and left hanging from a utility pole.
The remaining two shamate teens looked like they'd seen a ghost and bolted.
"Oh, kid, you're badly hurt."
The young man walked to the student and shook his head slightly.
"It's fine. This is pretty light for me. Thanks for saving me."
The student wiped his nosebleed, gazing gratefully at the strapping young man.
"Kid, where does Miss Saori Kido live?"
The young man asked again.
"Saori Kido? The heiress of Asia's top foundation?"
The student looked up at him. "That young lady is famous. She should be living at the Kido Grand Hotel in Tokyo's upscale district."
"We're in Shinjuku."
"You need to head toward Tokyo's business district."
"Thanks!"
The young man said goodbye, and another gust roared. In the blink of an eye, he vanished without a trace.
The student was left gaping, too shocked to speak.
Teleportation? A psychic?
Did I just see a real-life superhuman?
.
In the Other Dimension.
Damian sat cross-legged in the void, carefully feeling for the ripples of space, trying to catch something.
As a profound spatial art, the Other Dimension had great potential for development.
Within it were many overlapping spatial rifts, stacked together.
If he traversed these rifts, he could end up anywhere on Earth.
And possibly in the cold unknown of outer space.
To freely shuttle through space, Damian had tried many times.
He discovered that the most important thing was a coordinate.
That coordinate could be a Cosmo or mind power. As long as he locked it in, he could find the exact bearing in the Other Dimension, full of spatial turbulence.
Easy to say, hard to do, because planting a coordinate required leaving mind power and Cosmo behind.
Simply put, he had to have gone there before. Only then could he rely on that coordinate to jump accurately.
Otherwise, he might pop out somewhere else.
Mainly, Seiya—the human coordinate—moved way too much.
In a strange land like Japan, better to use his feet.
After a few tries, Damian temporarily gave up crossing the Other Dimension and returned to the living world.
Leg power is best!
The next instant, he appeared on a highway.
Screech...
A sudden brake squealed.
A bright red Ferrari slammed to a stop behind him.
"Kid, you got a death wish?"
"One tap on the gas and I'll splatter you!"
The young man in sunglasses in the car barked at him.
Beside him sat a woman in a fiery red dress.
"Excuse me, is Tokyo in this direction?"
Damian asked.
"Yeah, jerk."
The sunglasses guy answered and floored it, the Ferrari roaring away.
"What a nut. Standing on a highway to get hit by a car—begging to die."
He kept grumbling.
"I don't know if my eyes fooled me, but that guy looked like he appeared out of thin air on the highway."
The woman frowned, thinking back.
"Forget that jerk. Just enjoy my new Ferrari."
The man pressed the gas with one hand and put his other on the woman.
He began demonstrating the rich man's party trick—one-handed Ferrari driving.
He was getting into it when a voice sounded in his ear:
"Drive safe. One-handed Ferrari driving ups your crash odds and messes with traffic."
The sunglasses guy was annoyed at the interruption. "Who the hell are you?"
He glanced back and saw someone right alongside the car—the same young man from the highway.
He widened his eyes. "Mind your own business."
Hold it!
He kept flooring it, but the Ferrari wasn't shaking the guy.
Only then did he realize his foot was already mashed to the floor.
He glanced at the speedometer, eyes going wide.
His brand-new Ferrari was doing 200 kilometers per hour.
How was the guy keeping up?
And he looked so relaxed—running so easily—it was maddening.
Was this guy even human?
"Bye now. Drive safe!"
The man said that and accelerated, turning into a streak of light and vanishing before their eyes.
The two of them were stunned stupid.
Did we just see the Flash?
As a Saint who had awakened his Cosmo, even a Bronze Saint's movement speed could reach—or exceed—the speed of sound.
A Silver Saint's speed was several times the speed of sound, even dozens of times.
A Gold Saint's speed could reach the speed of light.
Damian didn't run at light speed, because the kinetic energy generated would be too great and destroy surrounding buildings.
Moving too fast isn't ideal. If he couldn't brake in time, a light-speed dash would be disastrous.
Clipping flowers and shrubs was one thing; if he hit a person, there'd be nothing left of them.
Damian simply traveled at triple the speed of sound. Before long, a gale in his wake, he entered Greater Tokyo and found the Kido Building.
All because the tower was too conspicuous.
The moment he arrived, a squall rose and flipped countless skirts, setting off shrieks all around...
"Can't feel Seiya's Cosmo."
"The kid isn't here at all?"
"Then Saori Kido isn't here either."
Damian frowned. When he parted from Seiya, he had planted a mind-coordinate on him.
"No, I can feel the mind-coordinate—in Mount Fuji's direction."
He relocked his target and vanished under everyone's eyes.
The next moment, he landed on a huge, soft bed.
"So soft. Compared to before, I guess this counts as a safe landing."
Looking around, Damian realized he seemed to have entered a luxurious master bedroom.
And in the most prominent place hung a portrait of a woman.
She had long purple hair and a lovely, pure face, with an impressive figure in a white dress—wasn't she the longed-for goddess Athena?
Hold on, is this Athena's room?
(End of Chapter)
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