The head of the SMD had sent out a missive earlier telling the agents to prepare to meet with a ’high-profile’ individual. But even though the head didn’t mention the name of this ’high profile’ individual, it was obvious to everyone exactly who it was!

Ding!

The sound of the elevator doors opening echoed throughout the room, and many agents quickly turned in shock to see the Director of the SMD branch in Riverdale standing there, along with three other members of the SMD executive arm! Liam James had a hard look on his face as he looked around at all the idle agents, and that one look from him was enough to force the agents to move again as they hurried to do what they were meant to do! Liam walked out of the elevator with an authoritative aura around him. After more than two months as the head of the SMD in Riverdale, Liam had finally gained the knowledge and confidence that came with being a Director, and even though he didn’t change that much physically, anyone who saw him now would easily sense the difference between the Liam of two months ago and this one!

Liam was wearing a clean black suit with a long grey coat over it. Beside him, some of the members of his executive group were walking quickly while making calls and sending documents to other agencies. One of them was a woman named Rosalina, who was the new head of Superhuman Relations in the SMD, and the other person was a man named Trent, who was the head of the Battle Division in the SMD!

Ring~

As Liam walked, he suddenly got a call on his personal phone, and he grabbed it to see that it was Florence, his rival from New Jersey, who was currently trying to gain the seat of Director of the SMD over there. Liam didn’t need to be a genius to know exactly why she was calling, and he picked up the phone and waited calmly for Florence to speak. Florence only asked one question.

[Is it true?]

There was a deep sense of disbelief present in Florence’s voice, but Liam could also easily sense the sheer desperation and hope in there! There wasn’t a single person in America who hadn’t felt the absence of Jason over the past few months! Even though Jason’s guild had stepped up and taken care of many of the gates that appeared over those months, it had still been a big blow for them to lose their most powerful superhuman without any warning at all. When Liam had first gotten a strange message from a man named Cersei telling him that Jason would be away from Earth for a while, Liam thought it was just a lie! Liam had literally just seen Jason a few days before Jason left, and Liam didn’t hear Jason saying anything about needing to vanish for months! So when Liam didn’t hear anything else about Jason in all that time, Liam became genuinely terrified! Not only was Liam terrified because America had just lost its strongest superhuman without any warning, but Liam had also been terrified that there was something out there that managed to make Jason of all people go on the run! Liam knew just how powerful Jason was! So if there was something out there that was powerful enough to make Jason leave Earth like this, then what hope would the rest of them have if they were ever attacked while Jason was gone!?

But thankfully, they were never attacked by anything that the Monarch Guild couldn’t handle, and now, nearly three months after he left them behind, Jason was finally returning! Liam couldn’t stop the excited grin appearing on his face as he answered Florence’s question.

"Yeah, I think it’s true."

[You think?]

"Yeah, it’s not a hundred percent confirmed. But one of my agents was on the ground when someone came to give the news to Mira. They say the woman’s power was greater than what Jason had when he left two months ago. And they searched the superhuman database and didn’t find any indication of her."

On the other side of the phone, Florence blinked in shock, and she quickly understood exactly what Liam was talking about!

[So you’re saying she might not be from Earth?]

"Yeah, most likely. And someone with that much power wouldn’t need to resort to lies if they were our enemy. She was powerful enough to kill every single person there, but she was respectful to Mira and gave her the news of Jason’s arrival. That woman called herself a servant of the Marc household, so we can only guess she met Jason sometime after he left this world. Like I said, it’s not a hundred percent certain—"

[But it’s good enough.]

Florence let out a harsh breath as she finished Liam’s sentence for him, and Florence frowned for a moment before she quickly spoke.

[I’ll gather a major accompaniment and teleport to Riverdale in the next few minutes. We need to be there when Jason arrives as well. Just keep me posted about your location so we can set the teleportation coordinates.]

"Alright."

Liam cut off the phone just as he walked out of the SMD building, and he looked down the road at the long convoy of cars that had already parked there to wait for him! There were more than twenty black Mercedes, and each of them held five agents who were all going to follow after Liam just to meet with Jason! For anyone else, bringing this many agents just for a greeting would look like overkill, but for Jason, Liam was worried that it actually wasn’t enough! Liam would fill an entire street with agents if he could, but Liam didn’t want there to be too much of a crowd close to Mira’s restaurant, so he decided that just a hundred agents would be enough! One of the agents stepped forward and opened the door for Liam to get in, and Liam nodded as he got in. The two executive members who were following him, Rosalina and Trent, entered the front of the car, with Trent driving, and Liam let out a small breath to calm himself before he spoke.

"Let’s go."

Vroom~!

The convoy of twenty cars pulled out from the street and began making their way towards the Marc Restaurant!

....

[Russia]

Knock! Knock! Knock!

"Master Stragga. I have an urgent message for you!"

In a dark room within a large mansion in Russia, a buff dark-skinned man with long dreadlocked hair slowly opened his eyes with a small frown and groaned as he felt the light hit his eyes! The man was lying in a large king-size bed that had soft cotton sheets scattered across it! The man was named Yulev Stragga, and he was the man hailed by the entire world as the strongest superhuman to ever exist! The most powerful member of the Five Rulers who had gone into the Green Gate all those years ago to save the world from the threat of the Primordials!

Or at least, he used to be the strongest!

Over the past few months, Stragga’s identity as the strongest had started to diminish, and people were no longer in a hurry to hail him as the most powerful man to ever live, and the reason for this was all because of one person! Jason Marc! Stragga let out a low groan, and he moved his arm to the side to shift a woman who was lying on him away. The woman let out a small whine as she lost Stragga’s body heat, and she shifted to hug another naked woman by her side to try to warm her body up!