He shook his head with mirth. "What a fool. She can forget about getting a district for her league. The kings have probably been changed already."
The three kings refused to grant Lady Dimitri's wish, so she killed one more. That was the straw that broke the camel's back.
Instead of capitulating to her blackmail and giving her what she wanted, they chose to attack her to kill her. This forced her to expose the identity of the remaining two kings.
But she is on the run currently. With the two kings having nothing to lose anymore, they began hunting her with all their might. There is even a large bounty on her head, so it wasn't only the Corpos hunting her; villains and heroes were too.
He chuckled and said, "Wrath would have loved to see this. Unfortunately, she didn't know what was good for her."
He chuckled for a while before he resumed his search for information on Rewind's location. But he was distracted by another headline.
The headline said, "New Justice League Director To Reform New London After The Disastrous Defeat At The Hands Of The Villains During The Last Super's War."
Such a headline wouldn't have drawn his attention if he hadn't recognized the new director from the image that was displayed under the headline.
The image was that of a young man with golden eyes. It was the young man who got an interview two years ago as one of the rehabilitated goons of the Patriarch.
Wrath had recognized the young man as the Patriarch. It meant he was in possession of the ring of the soul.
Seeing the Patriarch again made him serious. He took it so seriously that he stood up from his seat as he read the article.
The article contained a video of an interview with him on TV.
The anchor asked him, "Zero, how do you feel about becoming a director and returning to your home city?"
The young man replied with an excited face, "I am very excited and hopeful for the future."
"Many people are curious about your presence here. Can you tell us what your plans are?"
"I want to change New London for the better in order to prevent what happened to me from happening to other children. People like the Patriarch have to be eliminated at all costs."
The anchor asked, "That sounds like a wonderful goal. But it is not going to be easy. How do you plan to achieve it?"
Zero replied, "I plan to create a coalition between every hero society in New London to achieve that. I believe that we are capable of so much more. As long as we cooperate and work together, there is nothing we can't achieve."
"I also plan to train a team of specialized individuals whose job will be to patrol and safeguard the city. This will require a lot of manpower and funds, so I am calling on everyone to help."
"It doesn't matter if they are heroes or villains or just laymen. They can help the city become a better place with just a little assistance on their part."
The anchor said, "Those are ambitious plans. Especially the specialized team that you want to create. Where do you plan to source the manpower for such a team?"
Zero replied with a smile, "I intend to train unawakened children and turn them into a team similar to the junior heroes of the Justice League. They will be called The Teen Giants."
Kelvin's face fell when he heard this. He asked himself, "Isn't this the same thing he did as the Patriarch?"
He couldn't believe it. "He is returning to New London to do the same thing he did. Except this time he won't be kidnapping children. It is a legal work that he can even announce on TV."
He found it to be unbelievable. With this, it will be as if the Patriarch never left. Things will be much worse since he will have the support of other heroes.
"From goons to teen giants. Truly ambitious indeed."
Then he smiled and said, "This is good too. Now that he is within reach, I can get him."
But then he thought of something and stopped smiling. He said to himself, "Could this be a trap?"
He doesn't think that Raijin and the other demigods are after him as Kelvin or Augustus directly. But he finds it suspicious that they were willing to allow Patriarch to come out of the safety of the headquarters of the Justice League and return to his hometown.
He expects them to have made some preparations to protect Zero. Which means they must be prepared for whoever the paragon is to come after him.
"Let me make some preparations first. Anyways, I can always send my shadow to test things."
He stopped thinking about the matter of the ring of the soul and its possessor for the moment. Instead, he returned to searching for the location of Rewind.
He found the location soon. Rewind had formed a small group of young heroes. They had a headquarters that Rewind usually stayed at.
He smiled and said, "I should visit this headquarters soon. But first, I should create more space in the ring of paragon first."
It would be disrespectful to go to dinner with a full stomach and lack of appetite. So he decided to fuse the abilities he planned to fuse now to create space for Rewind's ability.
He sat back down and closed his eyes. Then he initiated the fusion.
What he feared did happen. He felt as if he was being ripped in two. His whole world became pain.
The pain was so much that it blinded him. It also threatened to make him unconscious.
As his body was shaking and spasming involuntarily, he tried to make light of his situation by saying, "I guess this is what the unlucky fellows that I steal their abilities feel when I do it. I now understand why would look at me with hatred."
The first ability he fused was Shape Shifter and Myriad Physique. The fusion of the two of them was successful and it led to the creation of the Solid Material Shifting ability.
He concentrated on the ability to find out what he does. What he found made him both happy and sad.
He said, "At least it saved me the time and effort needed to acquire Gem's ability myself."
The Solid Material Shifting ability is an Omega ability similar to that of the super called Gem.
Gem is known for his ability to shift into gems and metals. But this change is temporary, which is why he carries gems and little bits of metals around him.
With Solid Material Shifting, he won't have to go after Gems anymore. He too can copy other materials that he touches and turn his body into them.
It is a long way from when he needed to steal metal and diamond shape-shifting abilities in order to turn into them. Now he can find the material directly and turn into them without the need to steal the ability.
What's more is that the materials he changes into won't be forgotten. Unlike Gem's ability, solid material shape-shifting keeps a record of the materials he has copied before, so he can turn into them when those materials are not around for him to copy.
He is happy about this ability because he won't have to go hunting for Gem. He is sad because this was the ability he was expecting to acquire if he had fused Gem's ability with Myriad Physique.
He wondered to himself, "Maybe I should have waited until I fused Gem's ability with Myriad Physique before I added Shape Shift."
"It certainly didn't save me any game points."
Solid Material Shifting had cost him 20 game points and reduced his total game points to 1850. It is the same amount he would have spent had he acquired Gem's ability.
But there was nothing he could do about it now. Not that it was a bad thing. It had at least freed up one slot for him.
He could fill up the slot with the shape shift ability again, but he didn't do so because he needed the slot open for us.
In fact, he still has another slot planned to be opened. But he wanted to take a break to rest before he put himself through the pain required for the fusion.
During that time, he focused on the shadows he had sent to inspect the businesses of his subordinates.
They didn't know that he had returned from the foreign battlefield. They didn't even know that he went to the foreign battlefield, so it has been business as usual.
All they had noticed was that he wasn't replying to their mental messages. But even that was enough to give them some thoughts.
They were having thoughts of rebellion. But it is only thoughts for now. This is because they don't know that he is the one that put the marks in their mind. They believe that it is one of his hidden subordinates that is responsible for the marks.
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A/N: Bonus chapter for golden tickets goal.