Confirming the current timeline had been easy enough. Media networks, news broadcasts, public records, everything painted a clear picture.
Simply put: the bald guy hadn't made his debut yet.
Saitama was probably still doing his training regimen somewhere, hair intact, breaking his limiter one push-up at a time. Meanwhile, the conflict between heroes and Mysterious Beings was already brewing beneath the surface. Monster attacks were escalating in frequency and intensity across every major city.
It was only going to get worse.
Jordan pulled his cap brim lower, jaw tight.
This is going to be such a pain in the ass.
A thunderous explosion shattered his thoughts.
Jordan's head snapped left. Black smoke billowed into the sky two streets over, thick and oily. Screams echoed through the morning air—panic, terror, the unmistakable sound of people dying.
"That's Senmu Commercial Street!"
His hand twisted the throttle. The scooter roared—completely out of character for its modest appearance—and shot forward like a bullet.
Five minutes later, Jordan killed the engine and dismounted.
The scene was hell.
Flames consumed both sides of the pedestrian street, an inferno that painted the office buildings in layers of black soot. Burning vehicles formed a barricade of twisted metal and broken glass. Tree branches, snapped and charred, jutted from the wreckage like skeletal fingers. Heat shimmered in waves, distorting the air.
Anyone still trapped inside that firestorm was already dead—or soon would be.
The surrounding area had evacuated. Smart. Saved him the trouble of crowd control.
Jordan loosened his tie, yanked it off, and tossed it into the scooter's storage compartment along with his cap and jacket. He rolled up his sleeves, cracked his neck once, twice.
Then he walked straight into the flames.
Behind him, a reporter who'd just arrived raised her camera on instinct, capturing the moment: a lone figure moving against the flow of destruction, silhouetted by fire.
She didn't see what happened next.
The instant the flames touched Jordan, blue fire erupted around him—spiritual flames, invisible to normal eyes, but almost tangible in their intensity. The Stand's energy formed a barrier, isolating him from the inferno's heat and the choking smoke that would've collapsed his lungs in seconds.
This world had done something interesting to his Stand. One-Punch Man's reality operated on different rules than JoJo's Bizarre Adventure. Psychic powers existed here—espers like Tatsumaki and Fubuki could reshape reality with their minds. The moment Jordan arrived, his Stand's spiritual energy had... adapted. Evolved into something that blurred the line between Stand abilities and telekinesis.
A month and a half of training. Seven accumulated Fate Draws he hadn't used yet. Spider-Sense. Telekinetic enhancement.
His combat power had grown considerably.
"Someone help me! Please!"
"Ahhh—no! No, stop! I'm dying, I'm—"
"Please don't kill me! I'll do anything, just—gurk—"
The screams cut off one by one.
Jordan stepped through the shattered remains of a floor-to-ceiling window, boots crunching on glass. A neon sign, broken in half, sparked weakly before dying completely. The air reeked of copper and burnt meat.
Blood. Everywhere.
His eyes swept the scene, expression hardening.
Bodies. Dozens of them. Men, women, civilians who'd been shopping or commuting or just existing when something turned them into prey.
Indiscriminate slaughter.
An explosion erupted from a pet store further down the street—steel rebar and concrete chunks blasted through the storefront across from it, punching through glass and filling the air with dust and debris.
THOOM. THOOM. THOOM.
Heavy footsteps. Slow. Deliberate.
A massive blue-black claw pierced through the smoke—reptilian, five-toed, each talon the length of a combat knife. The foot alone was over fifty centimeters long. It struck the cracked pavement with enough force to send vibrations through Jordan's bones.
The smoke cleared.
The thing stood over three meters tall. Thick, horn-plated skin covered its body like natural armor. Two powerful hind legs supported its upright posture, digitigrade stance giving it coiled spring tension. A tail as thick as a water barrel dragged behind it, carving a deep gouge in the concrete.
The creature's maw split wide, revealing rows of serrated teeth.
"I am the Lizard Monster!" Its voice was a hissing rasp, forked tongue lolling between fangs. "I mutated because people said I looked too much like a lizard! Hssssss—"
Thick, foul-smelling saliva dripped from its jaws—viscous green liquid that hit the ground and sizzled, eating through concrete like acid.
"Foolish humans! You will all pay the price for mocking—GYAAAAH!"
CRACK.
A single pistol round, wrapped in blue psychic energy, punched through the monster's left eye socket.
The keratinous eyelid—tough enough to deflect normal firearms—might as well have been tissue paper. The bullet penetrated deep, turning the lens inside into pulp.
The Lizard Monster's roar shook the street. "WHO?! WHO DARES—"
Six more shots answered.
Jordan's pistol barked in rapid succession, each round telekinetically enhanced. To a normal observer, they were just bullets. To anyone with psychic sight, each projectile blazed with blue fire, kinetic force multiplied exponentially.
Thwip thwip thwip thwip thwip thwip—
The facial scales—armor-plate density—shredded like paper. Bullet holes blossomed across the creature's snout and jaw, spraying dark blood.
The Lizard Monster staggered, bellowing in pain.
But it didn't fall.
Its muscles writhed, contracting around the wounds. One by one, the bullets were squeezed out, clattering to the ground. The injuries closed—not fully, but enough. Even the ruined eye socket was already regenerating, withered tissue sloughing off as fresh cells proliferated.
Mysterious Being vitality, Jordan thought, holstering his empty pistol. Just like the briefings said. Regeneration, enhanced durability, the works.
He stepped out of the shadows, standing in full view.
"Troublesome."
The Lizard Monster's remaining vertical pupil contracted, locking onto him. The creature's lips peeled back in a grotesque parody of a human smile.
"You dare to show yourself?!"
BOOM. BOOM. BOOM.
Brick shattered. Pavement exploded. In three massive strides, the creature crossed thirty meters, jaws gaping wide to bite him in half.
The Lizard Monster could already picture it: the human torn apart, upper body crawling on the ground, screaming—
Jordan looked up. His lips curved into a cold smile.
"My turn."
Spider-Time.
The world froze.
Sound stretched into distorted bass. The Lizard Monster's lunge slowed to a crawl, jaws opening in glacial increments. Dust particles hung suspended in the air like stars.
Jordan's perception accelerated into overdrive. His fist, wreathed in blue flames, drew back.
Time snapped forward.
"Ora ora ora ora ora ora ora ORA ORA ORA ORA ORA!"
Jordan's Stand-enhanced fists became a blur.
Each punch landed with sledgehammer force—jaw, snout, orbital bone, temple. The Lizard Monster's head snapped left, right, back, forward, unable to process the barrage. Its eye swelled shut. Its jaw went crooked. Teeth cracked and flew like shrapnel.
The creature's expression twisted into something almost comical—swollen face, asymmetrical features, complete incomprehension.
Jordan's final punch wasn't fancy.
Just everything he had—Stand power, telekinesis, momentum—focused into one point.
Impact.
The Lizard Monster's feet left the ground. It crashed backward through a storefront, tumbling through mannequins and display racks before slamming into the back wall hard enough to crack concrete.
Jordan exhaled slowly, shaking out his fists. Then he raised one hand and snapped his fingers.
Blue flames ignited in his palm.
Stand ability: Card Mastery.
An N-rank card materialized in the air, spinning lazily. Jordan caught it, grinned, and hurled it skyward.
The card shattered mid-flight.
Reality rippled.
A massive shadow fell across the street.
The Lizard Monster's remaining eye struggled open—and widened in primal terror.
A road roller materialized above it.
Yellow-painted. Industrial-grade. Easily ten tons of solid steel and momentum, enhanced by blue Stand flames and Mother Earth's gravity working in beautiful synchronization.
The creature opened its mouth to scream—
WRYYYYYYYYYY—!
The heavy roller at the front of the vehicle came down like the hammer of God.
CRUNCH.
Spine. Chest cavity. Ribcage. Most of the torso—all of it compressed into the pavement in one catastrophic instant. Blood sprayed in a wide radius. The concrete cratered three feet deep.