Hyper-Dense Muscle

An ink-black night had always been prime time for crime and illicit deeds. Generally speaking, American citizens with any survival instinct stayed indoors at this hour. Even if they had business, they sped by in cars rather than walking the streets alone in the dead of night. Aside from those harboring sinister motives, the only people who dared to do so were fearless superheroes. King Kong staggered drunkenly down the desolate street. Whenever shady figures caught sight of him from afar, they instinctively shrank deeper into the shadows. There were also a few who thought they had some rapport with him and stepped forward to greet him like a buddy, only to be met with a barking "Get lost!" that sent them scrambling away in terror. Lord King Kong was in an exceedingly foul mood. If some blind idiot truly provoked him, he wouldn't mind playing the real superhero for once. After a while, King Kong habitually turned onto his nightly patrol route, steadily drifting further away from the main thoroughfare. "About time." Qi Li swept his gaze across the surroundings one last time, and his figure blurred into motion. Boom— Before the bleary-eyed King Kong could react, his throat was seized in a vice-like grip. His feet lifted off the ground against his will, and a suffocating darkness slammed into his head. He snapped awake instantly, eyes bulging as he desperately looked down, only to realize someone had locked him in a deadly chokehold from behind. The strength was terrifying. A superhuman! Bronze! Glancing out of the corner of his eye, King Kong caught sight of the distinct pale hand clamped around his throat and immediately recognized his ambusher. Rage flared within him in an instant. As the victim, he hadn't even had the chance to take revenge on Bronze, yet the damned bastard had come to kill him first, not even waiting a single day. Where the hell was the justice in that? "Aargh—!" Consumed by fury and indignation, King Kong locked both hands onto Qi Li's arm, pulling outward with all his might. Behind him, Qi Li remained eerily calm, his body utterly motionless. Only the soil beneath his boots steadily sank under the immense downward force. In contrast, as an ethnic Southeast Asian, King Kong was naturally short. Hauled into the air by Qi Li, his legs kicked futilely in empty space. He wanted to unleash his full strength, but he had no leverage whatsoever. "Hah!" In this dire crisis, King Kong activated his superpower without a second thought. His muscles swelled violently. In the blink of an eye, his previously scrawny frame expanded several sizes larger. Because of his short legs and long arms, he genuinely bore some resemblance to King Kong at first glance. Yet to Qi Li... "Isn't that just a monkey?" he chuckled softly. King Kong felt deeply humiliated. Still clamped in Qi Li's grip, his bulging muscles strained to break free as he roared at the top of his lungs: "It's King Kong! It's King Kong!" Qi Li's expression shifted slightly. If what he held before had felt like an adult dog, it was now an adult lion. For superheroes who lived in the limelight, superpowers were never a secret. King Kong's superpower manifested as an instantaneous surge in muscle density, reaching 380 percent of an ordinary superhuman's. The reason his physique bulged and expanded whenever he used it was simply that his skin, fascia, and bones couldn't keep pace with the sheer strength of his muscles. Qi Li made a quiet comparison. In terms of raw power, King Kong was fully on par with superhumans who possessed super strength. Of course, even among those with super strength, power levels varied widely. Had this been back when Qi Li was still fighting crime in Los Angeles, King Kong might have managed to break free. Now, however, after slaughtering Steelclaw Man, Shuttle, Derek, and Lucy in succession, though he had channeled most of the acquired power into super defense, his super strength had naturally scaled up alongside his overall physical resilience. The more strength King Kong unleashed, the firmer Qi Li's hold became. Seeing that he still couldn't budge Qi Li, shock filled King Kong's eyes, quickly followed by a flash of panic. Bang! Bang! Bang! In desperation, he recklessly drove his elbow backward into Qi Li's chest. Yet elbow strikes capable of flipping a fully loaded semi crashed into Qi Li with only dull, muffled thuds—as if colliding not with flesh and blood, but with the hardest substance on Earth. At most, the impacts sent dirt flying behind Qi Li's feet, cracking the overstrained soil beneath them. Qi Li even had the composure to remark casually by his ear, "The first *King Kong* movie came out in 1933, followed by endless sequels and remakes. You're sitting on such a massive IP, yet instead of blowing up, you ended up a fourth- or fifth-rate scrub. You claim you're King Kong, but everyone thinks the same thing I do: you're just a monkey!" King Kong didn't pale at Qi Li's unyielding might, but at those words, he went completely silent. The truth always cut the deepest. Unable to stomach it, King Kong yelled stubbornly, "Fuck you! That's just you and those white bastards being racist! They just can't stand seeing someone who looks like me carrying the name 'King Kong'!" As a slur-riddled "jungle boy," someone like King Kong undeniably sat at the bottom of the pecking order. Qi Li nodded in agreement. "Yeah, which is why you're a monkey." He wasn't wrong. King Kong stopped talking. He merely fought and thrashed like a madman. Yet the harder he struggled, the tighter the hand around his throat clamped down. In the end, he could hold on no longer. His eyes rolled back, and he blacked out completely. Qi Li didn't follow through by snapping his neck this time. He dropped him to the ground first and set about clearing any traces from the scene. King Kong was actually quite strong; in a serious comparison, he was more capable in combat than many superheroes far more famous than him. But that was how this world worked. What good was being able to fight? Someone like King Kong wasn't easy on the eyes, cursed with coarse Southeast Asian features. His skin was dark, yet nowhere near the pure complexion of a Black man. He was short, lacked education and emotional intelligence, and was too stingy to hire a professional PR team. All told, he had zero audience appeal. Making it as a fourth- or fifth-tier hero was his absolute ceiling. Soon, the traces at the scene were thoroughly cleaned. Qi Li hoisted the unconscious King Kong, sped toward the riverbank, and shoved his head deep into the water. King Kong getting drunk and accidentally drowning in the river was an outcome everyone would find convenient. Partway through, King Kong sputtered awake, but under the immovable, mountain-like press of Qi Li's hand, thrashing proved entirely futile. He held out longer than an ordinary person would, but eventually, he drowned. A familiar rush of new power surged into Qi Li's body. Unlike before, this time he acquired a brand-new superpower. Hyper-dense muscle.