One hour later.
Every bunker in Tel Aviv had fallen silent, leaving behind rows of people whose physical forms had aged drastically in a short span of time.
Naoki had not wasted a single minute ensuring that every reserve of vitality in those protection facilities was transferred into himself. To him, those still wandering the city streets or hiding in ordinary buildings were merely small remnants not worth the effort. He let them live not out of mercy, but because he had already obtained a sufficient amount to fulfill his stock.
Outside, his clone was still hard at work fending off the aerial onslaught.
The United States continued to send fighter jet squadrons from various military bases around the region, attempting to suppress Naoki with massive numbers. However, the result was a financial and moral disaster for the superpower. Every reinforcement that appeared was immediately destroyed before it could fire a meaningful shot, leaving billions of dollars worth of scrap metal scattered across the land and sea.
After ensuring there were no more bunkers left to harvest, Naoki stood atop one of the skyscrapers still standing in Tel Aviv. From that height, he observed the remains of the destruction below. His eyes were fixed on his clone, which raised its leg and released the purple shockwave of «Amplitude», possessing the power of a nuclear bomb. In an instant, an American aircraft carrier deemed invincible was shattered and sunk, as if a mountain had just been leveled in the middle of the sea.
"Being attacked and not retaliating isn't my style. Should I strike the White House?" Naoki murmured softly.
He weighed the possibility. The thousands of kilometers between Israel and Washington D.C. were no issue for him at all. Naoki recalled records of Yamashiro Ren, who had once fired a shockwave from America that reached Japan. With the abilities he possessed now, there was no reason he couldn't do the same and level the seat of the United States government from where he stood.
He paused for a moment to consider the pros and cons of such an action. After a quick mental analysis, he finally decided to veto the idea.
"Forget it. If I actually do that, the world will descend into chaos."
Naoki fully realized the horrific consequences that would follow if the U.S. government center fell instantly.
First would be the total paralysis of global command. With the line of leadership succession severed at the White House, generals at military bases worldwide would be trapped in a vacuum of nuclear authority. Paranoia would force them to raise status to DEFCON 1, a state of war readiness so dangerous because there would be no head of state left to issue a ceasefire order.
It wouldn't stop there; Naoki realized his actions would destroy the pillars of the economy. Without a government to guarantee the value of the Dollar, the world's reserve currency would lose its value in an instant, triggering unprecedented hyperinflation. Global stock markets would freeze, liquidity would stall completely, and the world economy would collapse more severely than the Great Depression.
Global geopolitics would also shift radically and bloodily. Without the power of America acting as the "world's police" nations that had long sheltered under its protection would become easy prey for their regional enemies. New powers would scramble to fill the power vacuum, triggering armed conflicts everywhere.
Worse yet, the law of the jungle would emerge among a panicked populace. Mass fear would cause people to lose faith in any government system proven to be helpless. This would trigger a ruthless worldwide hunt for anyone suspected of being a superhuman. They would be viewed as an existential threat to be exterminated because no law or military could guarantee civilian safety against a force like Naoki.
In conclusion, the instant destruction of the U.S. government center would not just destroy a building, but drag the entire world into a New Dark Age. In that era, international law would no longer apply, and only boundary-transcending individuals like Naoki would dictate the course of history.
"Even though this isn't my world and I have no one precious here, I am not a Demon King who brings calamity without reason." Naoki muttered to himself. "I only took what I needed for my long life."
He took a deep breath, feeling the overflowing surge of vitality in his chest. To him, today's visit to Israel was merely an efficient business transaction.
"Alright. It's time to go. This place has nothing left for me."
With a casual snap of his fingers, Naoki dispelled his clones hovering in the air. Those shadows of himself faded into purple light particles before vanishing completely.
*WHOOSH!*
Without waiting another second, his figure shot forward, breaking the silence of the sky with a sonic boom as he flew back toward Japan.
The echoes of the destruction left in Israel immediately triggered a mass panic that spread across the globe within minutes. Satellite footage and live broadcasts capturing the moment the American aircraft carrier sank and dozens of advanced fighter jets fell became a haunting spectacle for billions of eyes through their screens.
In the digital world, topics regarding the "mysterious man" and the "Israel tragedy" dominated global trending columns. Heated debates broke out on every platform, where millions of people tried to guess who exactly the white-haired figure was that could make the world's strongest military look like plastic toys. Blurry amateur videos were re-uploaded thousands of times, analyzed frame by frame by curious and terrified netizens.
Television stations from various countries broadcast emergency news non-stop. Military experts and political observers were brought in to dissect every movement of the figure, movements considered to transcend all laws of physics. Because his true identity remained a massive mystery to the public, conspiracy theories sprouted like mushrooms after a rain. Some accused him of being a secret biological weapon of a hidden faction, while religious groups began to view him as a sign of the end times.
Civilians across the world were enveloped in a gripping fear. They witnessed how the sovereignty of a superpower could be toppled in hours by a single individual, triggering the bitter realization that the security they had bragged about was merely an illusion.
Behind the scenes, the intelligence agencies of major nations operated at full capacity. Underground rooms in the Pentagon, the Kremlin, and other intelligence headquarters were filled with analysts working overtime. They mobilized every technological resource to track the origins of the mysterious figure, combing through global census databases and monitoring every energy anomaly on the Earth's surface. Their ambition was clear: to find individuals with similar powers to use as weapons or to find a way to neutralize this new threat.
However, all these efforts were destined for a dead end. This world had no historical record of superpowers or supernatural energy of any kind. All their research and searching was an exercise in futility, for Naoki was a lone visitor from another world. The aspirations of major nations to create their own super-soldiers were nothing but empty dreams.
The mysterious figure remained the sole anomaly in a world that was supposed to function normally, leaving human civilization in a state of confusion and mass paranoia over the arrival of a new era that truly had no foundation in their world.