Villain's Rising

The last thing Sam could remember was seeing a fist enveloped in a golden aura speeding toward his face.

Everything after that was a blur.

He lost consciousness, and his mind drifted into darkness.

Several hours passed like that with nothing happening. Sam tried calling out to the voice in his mind, but there was no response.

He knew this feeling. It was something he was all too familiar with.

He was dead.

However, he had never been dead for so long.

Usually, it would only take him a few seconds to get out of this darkness. All he had to do was think about it, and his body would start healing itself.

But right now, no matter how much he may think about getting out of his darkness, he couldn't seem to.

He was dead for real this time.

'I think I messed up,' Sam thought in his mind. 'Did I kill myself? Wow, that was even more pathetic than dying by Starsuper's hands.'

As if he'd lost his mind, Sam started hysterically laughing like a maniac.

What he tried to do was borderline impossible anyway.

He tried tempering with his genome to alter his DNA down to cellular levels.

In short, he tried to turn himself into a dragon. He tried to alter his basic biology.

He had never done that. Even when he turned himself into a dragon-human hybrid, he had only enhanced his physiology by injecting the dragon's DNA.

It was very different from what Sam tried to do to himself in his last moments.

For the sake of simplicity, he tried to turn silver into gold. Of course, being able to do such a thing was almost impossible.

Did he overestimate his power?

No, his power was definitely capable of doing so. He must've overestimated his capabilities of using his power.

Altering one's biology down to cellular levels isn't something a human should be capable of doing.

'Haa,' Sam let out a defeated sigh.

Since childhood, he had always thought of himself as some kind of god.

But the recent few events have made him realize he was not a god.

There was someone stronger than him, and there were some things he was incapable of achieving.

He was just a human who had turned himself into a god in order to mask his scars.

He was just broken. He was just a human.

-Thud!

Or was he?

The corner of Sam's lips curled up into a smirk.

In this darkness, where he was supposedly dead, he shouldn't be able to feel a thing.

Yet, he felt his heart start beating a moment ago around the area where his chest should be.

-Ba dump! -Ba dump! -Ba dump!

'It's true, I'm just a human,' finally acknowledging the reality in his mind, Sam nodded. 'And compared to me, Starsuper is a god. I can't defeat him.'

How can a human ever hope to defeat a god?

'So long as I stay a human, I won't be able to defeat a god.'

Then what must a human do in order to stand up to the strength of a god?

'All I have to do to defeat a god… is become one myself!'

A ray of light appeared in Sam's vision. In the endless sea of pitch-black darkness, a blinding beam of crepuscular light appeared.

For Sam, it looked like a light at the end of the tunnel.

In discomfort, he squinted his eyes but moved forward toward the light.

And when he opened his eyes, he found himself in an unfamiliar body.

'I did it,' were the first thoughts that appeared in his mind. 'I fucking did it!'

(Sam, you're back!)

The voice in Sam's mind welcomed him, but Sam was too happy to notice it.

He instantly inspected his body and found that it was exactly the body that he intended to create!

He was successfully able to alter his basic biological makeup!

He had done something that only a god should be capable of doing so!

However, before he could go on to celebrate his impossible achievement, the voice in Sam's mind yelled at him.

(Sam! Focus! The battle is yet to be over!)

'Huh?' Finally realizing that he was still in space, Sam scrutinized his surroundings.

He saw Starsuper a long distance away from him, accumulating a ridiculous amount of golden energy in his right hand.

It looked almost as if he was holding a mini sun.

Seeing that, Sam couldn't help but scowl.

He knew it was useless.

*

Heroes and Villains are divided into classes proportional to their power levels.

There are (E) class individuals who are the weakest, and there are (A) class individuals who are considered elites.

Of course, there are people who possess powers that transcend the level of human understanding. They range from (S) class to (SS) class.

However, there are some who go beyond even that. They are then not classified by the ranks of power that they possess but by the level of their threat.

(Calamity) class individuals are a force of nature. They are capable of turning cities into dust with their full strength.

An example of that is Medusa. A villain who recently killed hundreds of people just by summoning her power.

(Extinction) class individuals are capable of driving the human race to extinction if left unchecked.

Not many (Extinction) ranks have appeared in history. However, there is one that everyone remembers.

Kale Godhand, the Progenitor. The worst supervillain in history who almost brought humankind to the brink of extinction.

Above them, all are (God) class individuals. They are a planetary-level threat, capable of taking billions of lives and driving several species to extinction.

There has only been one in history to possess a (God) rank title. And that's, Starsuper.

Well, at least that was the case until a dragon bigger than the moon appeared out of nowhere a few thousand miles further from the earth's atmosphere.

It was the birth of another (God) class. The second one in history!

But Starsuper didn't falter. If anything, now was the time to move forward instead of backing down.

With all his strength backed up in his hand, Starsuper threw his right fist forward, intending to destroy the black dragon hovering in front of him.

-Kaboooooom!!

A bright golden light flashed throughout the entirety of the world, and it felt as if the space was starting to shake.

Following it, a shockwave, bigger than the one that had reduced more than half of the moon into chunks of floating rocks, swept forward.

For the people of the earth who were facing the golden light, it looked almost as if a sun had spawned in the evening sky.

After a few seconds passed, the golden light subsided, and the evening sky returned to normal.

'H…How?'

However, in space, things didn't end so easily.

A shockwave that was very capable of destroying a single Mars-sized planet did absolutely nothing to the giant black dragon.

'T…This is impossible!' With wide-shot eyes and trembling lips, Starsuper watched in horror as he witnessed his strength failing him for the first time.

The black dragon was still hovering on the spot where it was before. Not even a dent had appeared on its body.