Helena Weaver I

Rylan did not go home after that ordeal. He wanted to but he decided against it after remembering something. Not because he was afraid of Ilona sending people to his house and risking collateral, not that she would do something like that since it would be too blatant. The reason Rylan chose not to go home was because of his family, which whom he did not get along with.

Rylan belonged to a family of four, including himself. His birth mother was no longer in the picture as a result of a divorce. His father remarried just a year after the divorce. As a result, Rylan now had a stepmother and a stepsister, in which the latter did not get along with him. As far as he knew, his stepsister hated men and that includes Rylan and his father too. She also hated her own mother for remarrying after being betrayed by her birth father.

His stepsister wasn't the only reason he didn't want to return home. His father was also part of the reason. Ever since Rylan's father got a huge promotion at work, his ego was also boosted and he started being stricter with Rylan. This is for your own good, Rylan's father would always say after a round of mental abuse. The old Rylan was conflicted about his father's ways but the new Rylan knew better. Whatever reason his father might have, lines were overstepped.

As for his stepmother, she was indifferent. She neither scorned Rylan's guts nor cared about his existence. She simply treated him as if he was air and his father said nothing of it. As far as Rylan was concerned, his father prioritised his new wife and daughter over his own flesh and blood.

So to say, his home couldn't be further from what one would think of a home. Even if he suddenly disappeared, he doubted any of them would even file a missing person report.

"Hmm, what should I do now?" Rylan mused while sitting down on a bench in the middle of the city. It was already late into the night but the city was still lively and bustling with energy and noise. After so many years of fighting and warring, all he wanted to do now is to rest and indulge in his desires but he didn't know where to start.

Finding a nice place to sleep certainly could be a good start but he didn't know where. Physically, he was still fine as he had an immense vitality and bottomless vigour but mentally, he was drained from the fight with the other gods that resulted in his defeat and banishment. Sleep would cure him of this mental fatigue.

Also, he wanted to take a hot shower or bath and also not because he was dirty. This was something influenced by his host's desire. He had long cleaned his own body and clothes using his magic but it just didn't feel the same as having a nice hot bath or shower after a long hard day of work.

Using the leftover power he had, Rylan knew it would be easy to solve his current conundrum but only for a short term and it would incur some hefty consequences in the future. Though this world was not as advanced in magic as the other worlds he used to govern, it was still a bad idea to flaunt his powers willy-nilly without having a good gauge of this world's power level. Also, he could risk attracting the attention of the gods if he used too much of his powers.

Rylan did not want to fight anymore. He had enough of that. He had been obsessed with war and conflict, engrossed in sowing chaos and wreaking havoc, but that was then. He still enjoyed them but he was no longer obsessed. Even if those had been his reason to be for the last thousands of years, time changes all. He was not a special case. There were plenty of other gods who got bored of their reasons to be and decided to live another life that was severely different to the life they had been leading or commit suicide.

While Rylan was rummaging through his host's memories to look for a place where he could stay for the night, a luxurious silver limousine pulled up right at the curb of the busy sidewalk near the bench where Rylan was sitting.

Four tall black-suited men in sunglasses exited the car first, followed by a gorgeous blonde woman, seemingly in her late thirties. She was wearing a beige two-piece office dress, complemented by a pair of high heels. Though the woman was in formal wear, it only accentuated her stunning hourglass figure and her bountiful bosom.

Rylan raised an eyebrow at the sight of the woman. He instantly recognised her as Helena Weaver. She was a retired superhero. Yes, there were superheroes in this world. Instead of being called hunters, cultivators, or mages, the superhumans were called superheroes or super for short. Helena Weaver was once one of the top ten superheroes in the world but she retired after getting married, or so that's how the story went.

Of course, there was a grading system for the superheroes' powers, starting from F-rank up to S-rank. Helena was an S-rank superhero. Normally, the world wouldn't have accepted the retirement of such a high-class superhero but it was only possible because there was already a replacement for her seat in the top ten. And so, she retired without any further issues. She was now the CEO and founder of the company named after herself, Weaver Corp. It was a company that manages superheroes.

Rylan couldn't help but commend his luck for bumping into such a prominent figure while loitering around on the street. It would be a different story if he was sitting in front of one of Weaver Corp's branch companies but the building in front of him was just one of the many five-star hotels in the city. There was no solid reason behind him choosing this bench out of all other benches.

Speaking of which, Ilona Rayne was a superhuman but not a superhero. She was not registered as a hero which means it was illegal for her to use her powers in public without a strict proper cause. Rylan wasn't afraid of any repercussions from her in spite of what he had done. She had committed a crime too after all and it was probably not her first rodeo. So to say, she had significantly more to lose if she told on him.

As for the men Rylan maimed, he left them to the discretion of Ilona.

"Is this fate?" Rylan mused quietly to himself as his gaze followed the exquisite woman that was Helena like everyone else was. A lot of people on the sidewalk also instantly recognised who Helena was and a great deal of them stopped to gaze at her.

Just then, something outside of Rylan's vision knocked on his heightened senses. He turned in his seat and found a man in a hoodie, all covered up, rapidly approaching Helena, who had just gotten off the limo and was heading towards the hotel with four of her bodyguards. The shady man was blatantly holding a knife but no one seemed to notice. This was due to his power, Rylan gathered. He had turned himself invisible.

Rylan saw the delirious look on the man's face and heard his faint mumblings that sounded like intense cursing directed at Helena. From what he could understand, Helena had ruined the man's life by exposing how he had abused his power. Rylan remembered seeing this story on the news. Apparently, he had sexually assaulted many women and girls using his invisibility power.

The strangest thing of all, Rylan heard on the news this man was supposed to be in jail but he had somehow escaped. From what Rylan knew, there were special prisons for rogue superheroes, or supervillains, escaping from such prisons was not an easy task. Yet, this man was here, gunning for the life of the woman who exposed him.

Rylan chuckled under his breath and simply stuck out his foot. The shady man tripped and fell. His invisibility came undone as soon as he hit the ground and the knife slid across the pavement until it hit the shoes of one of the bodyguards. Just like that, everyone's attention was on the man in the hoodies, including Helena.

Rylan didn't actually need to do anything. The bodyguards were enough to deal with the shady man. Hell, Helena probably didn't need any bodyguards at all considering who she was but Rylan understood why she had them. Just because someone could do something, it didn't necessarily mean they should.

Be that as it may, Rylan was feeling mischievous and he had an inkling something good would happen if he did so. It was his hunch that he had developed over thousands of years.

The shady man glared briefly at Rylan for tripping him but he quickly scrambled to his feet and broke into a sprint. However, he had only taken a single step before his body completely stopped moving, as if time had stopped exclusively for him.

"Oh?" Rylan muttered faintly in wonder. This was not his doing but he knew whose doing it was. There could be no one else but Helena Weaver. To the public, her superpower was revealed to be telekinesis but Rylan knew the truth. As he squinted his eyes, he could see a veil of aura, invisible to the naked eyes, encapsulating the shady man's body and preventing him from moving even a finger. Her so-called telekinesis was actually just her using her unseen aura to move things around.

"What are you idiots waiting for?" Helena scoffed loudly. "Seize that man already!"

At her harsh words, the four bodyguards immediately rushed over to the unmoving man. They twisted his arms behind his body and pinned him on the ground while one of the bodyguards called the cops.

Rylan was just watching how everything was unfolding along with the forming crowd. People were already taking out their smartphones and recording everything. Most of the people were pointing their cameras at Helena instead of the fool who attacked her and was currently being apprehended by four besuited men.

Helena tutted audibly for everyone to hear as she lightly waved her hand. In an instant, everyone's phone screen began to shudder with static and white noises. She didn't erase what had been recorded as it was impossible to do so unless one crashed the entire net. She merely prevented them from recording any further.

Rylan let out a small whisper of awe as he was the only one who could see how her power works. It was a spectacular sight with her gentle blue shimmering aura permeating the area as if it was lightly snowing. Though he was the Demon God, he was still an enjoyer of the little and finer things in life. After all, it was only fun if he acknowledged the meaning behind the things he destroyed or ruined.

In his marvelling, Rylan fell into Helena's sight and her eyes narrowed into slits. She frowned at first but it was only for a split second. No one saw it but they did see her lips curving into a smile. "You there, boy," Helena pointed at him.

Rylan restrained himself from grinning. He shook his head, as if breaking himself out of a trance, returned a polite smile. "Me?" he asked, pointing at himself.

"Yes, you. Come with me."

Only a second after, the crowd erupted into a wave of gossip. They immediately began to speculate the reason as to why the infamous Helena had graced a seemingly nobody with her attention.

"Can I say no?" Rylan retorted.

The crowd gasped in disbelief. By now, everyone in the crowd knew who Helena was even if they didn't initially. They couldn't believe someone would dare to refute the great Helena.

"You cannot," Helena answered with her arms crossed.

Rylan wanted to chuckle but he stopped himself. He shrugged, rose from the bench, and walked towards Helena. Three of the bodyguards moved to seize him but he swiftly evaded their capture and ambled right up to Helena.

"Since the lady insists, I will happily oblige," Rylan said.

The bodyguards, red with indignation, were about to lunge at Rylan after recovering from their failure when Helena stopped them with a single gesture. She then motioned for them to take care of the man in the hoodie before turning around and walking to the hotel.

Rylan followed closely behind her as the crowd's gazes of disbelief trailed after him.