Tokyo: My Superpower Refreshes Every Week

The morning sky was a brilliant blue, with a few distinctly shaped white clouds drifting by.

The air was fresh, and the moisture on the ground was evidence of recent rainfall.

Aozawa circled the school one last time, stopping before a small copse of trees.

The tips of the grass blades were still wet with rainwater.

He glanced around, stepped forward, squatted, and used his Catalyst sensing ability to check that no other students were nearby.

As soon as Aozawa's right hand touched the ground, he activated Will-o'-the-wisp.

In an instant, he felt something rapidly radiating outward from his hand, like invisible ripples spreading across the ground in concentric circles.

In his perception, they extended farther and farther, eventually forming a massive circle that encompassed all of Japan.

It was at this moment that a topographical map appeared in his mind. He then understood how Will-o'-the-wisp was to be used: it was not to hypnotize people's senses but to directly hypnotize the world itself.

Take, for example, the main building of Brilliant High School.

Aozawa could hypnotize the world into believing that an entrance to an alien space was hidden within the school's restroom.

Under this hypnosis, the world would come to believe that such an entrance truly existed and would thus create it.

Anyone entering the restroom inside the main building would then pass into an alien space and encounter alien creatures there.

By creating places that didn't exist and simulating things that were not, he deceived the world. He then let the 'hallucinations' the world produced deceive everyone else.

This was the Will-o'-the-wisp Ability, with a range that covered Japan.

In other words, with just a thought, Aozawa could transform Japan into a land of demons.

But Aozawa wouldn't do that.

He decided to hypnotize certain areas into entrances to dangerous worlds, replicating scenes from comics or movies that did not exist in this world.

Since it was his first time using this ability to hypnotize the world, Aozawa decided to pick a place where it wouldn't matter if anyone died: a jail cell housing hardened criminals.

He searched the regions in his mind, quickly locked onto a prison, and began to hypnotize the physical space of its cells.

「...」

In Shinjuku, at the Central Building, lay the headquarters of the Special Intelligence Investigation Department.

A series of sophisticated instruments were arranged in the large office. Agents used these devices to listen in on calls, capturing those that mentioned supernatural topics, as well as related chats on websites and other sources.

Additionally, there was a large-scale radar.

This radar was intended to track Dio. Although it hadn't been of much use, Minister Jack had insisted on keeping it there, if only for peace of mind.

What if the radar detected unusual fluctuations when Dio approached the building?

Today, the normally quiet radar suddenly exhibited abnormal fluctuations; a large circle continuously pulsed at a certain coordinate.

"Minister Jack, there's something unusual with the monitoring radar!"

Upon receiving the message, Jack hurried out of his office and shouted, "Is Dio appearing here?"

"No, the location is Black Hive Prison!"

"Black Hive Prison?"

Jack frowned slightly; he was clearly unfamiliar with that prison.

An agent familiar with the prison explained, "Black Hive Prison is where hardened criminals are locked up. The people inside have committed all sorts of heinous crimes."

"Drug trafficking, human smuggling, murder, rape—anyone with a sentence of over twenty years was confined there, including those serving life sentences or awaiting execution on death row."

"Call them right away and find out what's happening!" Jack commanded, his gaze fixed on the beeping red dot on the radar.

Such signals typically indicated an approaching offensive weapon, like a launched missile nearing its target.

But could a prison have missiles? And it was also strange that it was flickering in place without moving at all.

Jack's brow furrowed.

"Minister Jack, the call isn't going through; it says it's out of the area."

"Are you kidding me? That place is within Tokyo, not some remote wilderness!"

Jack became increasingly convinced that something had happened there. In his eyes, any anomaly was related to Dio. He ordered, "Notify the special case team immediately, and have them send someone to investigate!"

"Understood."

No one present objected to this proposal.

Although they were all elites among elites, not everyone was like Robert, who enjoyed taking risks and investigating matters personally. They preferred to sit back and reap the rewards of others' labor, like Jack.

It must be said, it's very difficult for a leader to foster a spirited team. However, a leader can make a team lazy in a single day.

Ever since Jack had truly taken control of the Special Intelligence Investigation Department, the internal atmosphere was completely different from Robert's era. The agents preferred a slacking leader like Jack.

「...」

Black Hive Prison was an obscure facility, unknown to the public. It held no renown but housed hardened criminals from all over the country.

Some inmates were individuals whose existence could not be revealed to the outside world.

Ghost was one such inmate.

No one knew his real name, only that he called himself Ghost, after the character from Street Fighter, and had even dyed his hair blood-red to resemble him.

He himself was also a crazed martial artist who regarded the law as meaningless and had once served as a clandestine enforcer for the powerful, always seeking even greater thrills.

He had slaughtered a Hokkaido legislator's entire family, dismembering them with incredibly brutal methods, which angered the influential locals.

They dispatched numerous people to capture Ghost. After a fierce battle that lasted ten days and nights, an exhausted Ghost was arrested by the police in the mountains.

Because of his terrifying combat prowess, the higher-ups considered that he might be of some use in the future. So, Ghost wasn't killed but was sentenced to life imprisonment and confined in Black Hive Prison. He had been there for five years.

Inside Black Hive Prison, Ghost was not required to perform any labor. His limbs, including his waist, were all bound by heavy shackles.

Thick chains, thicker than his own arms, connected the shackles to the metal floor, ensuring Ghost couldn't escape.

But Ghost hadn't given up hope. He treated these shackles as training weights, exercising daily to hone his Martial Arts.

His goal was to build enough strength to break free from these shackles before he turned forty-five.

Then, he would leave this prison and continue to challenge the country, hoping to break through to a higher realm of Martial Arts.

"1301, 1302."

Ghost was exercising as usual when a sudden, inexplicable sense of crisis arose within him.

Inside Black Hive Prison, who could pose a threat to me?

He was puzzled. The sensation beneath his hands suddenly felt odd; it was no longer hard metal ground but soft soil.

What's going on?

Ghost's rugged, beast-like face showed a hint of confusion. He looked down. The shackles and chains on his body were still there, but the prison cell had vanished.

Surrounding him was a thatched cottage, resembling a commoner's dwelling from the Edo Period.

Ghost pinched the soil with his right hand, certain it was real. He brought it to his nose and sniffed; he could smell the scent of earth. It didn't seem like he had been dosed with any hallucinogenic drugs.

Could this be some new kind of hallucinogenic gas developed by the government? Current technology shouldn't be so preposterous.

A flicker of doubt crossed Ghost's eyes. Clearly, the answers he sought weren't inside the cottage.

He stood up and, dragging his chains, walked towards the door, pushing it open.

A dull sky came into view. Below it lay a desolate land where corpses, dried by the wind, hung by ropes around their necks from barren, leafless trees.

The scene was particularly bleak, and a single glance was enough to understand what kind of world this was.

Ghost was stunned at first, then an immense joy erupted from deep within his heart.

He loved this kind of uncivilized, barbaric land where he could fight to his heart's content.

Nothing was more exhilarating than a battle where anything goes.

"What a fine world indeed," Ghost said, his voice full of satisfaction.

"AH!"

A scream came from his right.

Ghost turned his head, his pupils suddenly dilating. What monster is this?!

Tens of meters to his right, in front of a similar thatched cottage, stood a creature taller than the building itself, at least four or five meters high. It had large, curved water buffalo horns on its head, its face resembled an angry lion, and its body, covered in pitch-black fur that couldn't conceal its robust muscles, sported a pair of giant, bat-like membranous wings.

"ROAR!"

With a single swipe of its claws, human bodies were torn apart like paper, blood and organs scattering everywhere.

The person screaming was right beside a victim, intestines splattered onto his face. The warm, bloody sensation made him scream in terror before he too was shredded by the monster.

"A monster?!"

"Hell, we're in Hell!!"

Ghost watched the panicking crowd, a flicker of disdain in his eyes, but he chose not to act. It wouldn't be wise to engage such a creature without understanding the situation. I need to assess things, or let others wear down that Lion Bull Monster's strength first.

Ghost also possessed the strength to easily rip a human body apart, but he knew that wasn't the Lion Bull Monster's limit. He had to observe more. The biggest difference between humans and beasts is that humans know how to use techniques and tools. I need to target the Lion Bull Monster's weak spots.

With this in mind, Ghost fled along with the other prisoners. However, he noticed that everyone here was a prisoner; he hadn't seen any of the guards. Could it be as that person just said? Is this the Hell where evildoers are destined to go? Interesting. In that case, I might as well become the king of this Hell!

Excitement surged through Ghost.

As he was running, a skinny old man swiftly approached him, shouting, "Hey, Ghost! This situation is pretty bad. Should we team up?"

Ghost looked down. The old man was small and skinny, like a monkey, with a white beard and hair. However, his eyes held a sharpness that belied his age, lacking the cloudiness common in the elderly.

"I will not team up with anyone!" Ghost replied coldly.

The skinny old man didn't insist and quickly darted away from him, presumably to find another partner.