Riley Ross-Chapter 189: The Strength of The Mightiest Hero

Perceptual latency.

It is the amount of time between the onset of a physical stimulus and the moment it reaches conscious awareness. In short, perceptual latency is the "mental lag" between something happening and your brain realizing it. 𝕗𝕣𝐞𝐞𝘄𝐞𝚋𝚗𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗹.𝚌𝕠𝚖

The average perceptual latency of a normal, average human being is 0.15 to 0.25 seconds. For a trained soldier, it is 0.12 to 0.18 seconds. And for a cat, it is 0.07 to 0.1 seconds.

A normal, average human. A trained soldier. And a cat.

Those were the creatures floating in the skies of New York right now.

That meant that no one and nothing knew that Megawoman had arrived.

And now, at 0.06 seconds, Megawoman caught the enlarging bombs, almost in that same exact time frame. She caught two with her right hand, and she caught three with her left. And one between her index and middle fingers.

At 0.065 seconds, she clasped her hands together, curling her fingers and trapping the bombs between her palms.

At 0.07 seconds, Megawoman's frame finally registered in the cat's brain. And at the same time, the bombs exploded. Dozens of chain reactions screamed between her palms, like a cry of several miniature suns.

And the only thing that bled out of her hands was whatever light managed to seep out from the cracks of her fingers.

And her hands didn't even shake or tremble. The only thing that shifted was her skin, which lightly rippled from the explosions of several weak nuclear bombs.

And once a second passed, everyone there finally noticed that Megawoman was within their midst—and the first to react was Kitty, who didn't even care at all about the ringing in her ears and the violent blast that rippled from Megawoman's clap.

"M-Megawoman!" she screamed. But even with her shock, she did not forget to pan her selfie stick toward her and Megawoman. "Y'all! Megawoman!"

She did not, however, know what to say at all and could only scream at the camera. Even her years of training disappeared due to her presence.

Megawoman glanced at her and then smiled. She then looked at all the people floating in the air, who still managed to pull out their phones and point them at her.

She didn't seem to care, however, and only sighed as she gazed down at the ruined Times Square. And when she saw the other superheroes and citizens helping each other, she nodded to herself and then finally turned her attention to Riley, who surprisingly took the initiative to fly toward her.

"It is you again, Megawoman," he said, his eyes subtly glancing at her clasped hands. The cat was actually not the first creature there to notice Megawoman's arrival, no.

The smaller a creature is, the lower its perceptual latency is.

Flies have a perceptual latency of five to fifteen milliseconds. There was a fly somewhere who saw her first. This was New York City, after all. But… there were several others who noticed her even earlier.

Anastasia, Riley's clones, and by extension, Riley himself.

But they didn't know exactly what they were looking at. For them, it was just a colossal shadow. Even at that size, it happened almost instantly for them, too.

What? — was Anastasia's last word before the hand covered them, and the bombs exploded. And she was right. The bombs managed to kill her and Riley's clones.

Yes. Anastasia Boyka, one of Russia's—no. One of the strongest supers in the world died just like that.

As for Riley, it wasn't until he saw Megawoman that he realized that the shadow that suddenly appeared was hers. Everything happened almost instantly, but since he had a dozen clones and due to the nature of Anastasia's abilities, he still had a sense of what had happened.

He felt it all. The way Megawoman just appeared, and the way she casually caught the enlarging bombs.

In truth, when he received Anastasia's abilities, he thought that he had at least reached a point where he could finally have a fighting chance against the mightiest superhero of Earth.

But now?

…I am slowly realizing why Sister and the others idolize you, Megawoman. Humans tend to either fear or idolize what they cannot understand, and the more I am learning about your strength, the less I know about you. You are very, very… interesting.

A tiny hint of a smile crept on Riley's face, but it didn't fully realize itself when another thought surfaced in his mind.

Megawoman felt that expanding microscopic bomb explode? Does that mean that she also felt Anastasia… and my clones? Perhaps she heard us? But that would be impossible—did she see us? Does she know that I was fighting Anastasia in our own microscopic battlefield?

He turned to look at Megawoman's face, only to look away when he realized she was staring right at his eyes.

"It's me again, huh?" Megawoman slightly smirked. "People are usually happy to see me. You sound annoyed."

"Not at all, Megawoman." Riley shook his head.

"In fact, I am more than exalted that you have arrived," he said with the most monotonous tone he could.

"Wow, say that with less enthusiasm." She giggled before glancing at Kitty and the other people. "Can you drop these people for now? Gently, on the ground, I mean."

"Okay."

"W-wait!" Kitty wanted to plead, but she felt herself slowly descending to the ruined ground of Times Square. "You—you seem to be appearing much frequently again, Megawoman! Are you coming out of retirement?!"

Her inquiry, however, was completely ignored by Megawoman, as her entire focus was on Riley.

"Can you wait here for a moment?" she said before disappearing up into the sky, the clouds above blown away from the skirt of wind that formed around her waist.

Riley squinted at her fading silhouette before looking somewhere on the horizon, where a clump of clouds also had a circular hole in them.

She flew from there. But… from where? How fast did you fly, Megawoman? Are you faster than Uncle Joseph? Faster than the fastest man alive?

"Oh, how perceptive of you," Megawoman slowly descended, her eyes also at the rippled clouds Riley was looking at. Her hands were no longer clasped together, and she was brushing them on her skirt. "Curious where I came from?"

"Since you told everyone you retired, Megawoman. I am assuming that you were not already dressed in your uniform," Riley said, blinking as he looked at Megawoman from head to toe. "And so, that meant that you had time to get dressed before you even flew here. Or, perhaps you were already on your way here since you saw Times Square being destroyed."

"A woman never reveals her secrets." Megawoman shrugged. "But what was that explosion, anyway?"

Riley blinked, glancing at Megawoman's eyes again before looking away.

Is she pretending not to know that Anastasia triggered it? Or is she actually really only aware of the explosion? Interesting, Megawoman. Interesting.

"It was Anastasia, Megawoman," Riley answered. "She was going to blow herself up because she wanted revenge for her lover, whom I killed."

"Oh, I heard about that." Megawoman placed her hand on her chin. "You were fighting with her, huh?"

"Yes, Megawoman."

"Then why were you all the way there…" Megawoman pointed at the space where Riley was pretending to fight Anastasia.

"...And not here where the explosion happened?"