Great update, amazing fight with a great antagonist. I hope we see more of Valravn going forward, he and his backstory were actually more important than people (at least in game) give it credit. Hell, stick him in that training module so he and MC can fight it out and MC can learn swordsmanship. I wonder how strong he was at his peak and who wrecked him to where he is now. And where did Deus get his fractured heart to begin with...
Anyway, HERO. Feels like they are being set up for a huge fall later on. In game everyone is fawning over them, the powers are amazing etc etc. But are they, at least when compared to the monsters? I'd argue that no, they are not. Bernhard has gone the elemental route and can control the atmosphere. Amazing, if you're fighting humans or a brick like the mountain monster. Danica's parent might be able to just shear him in half without any wind barrier helping. Nico's parent could just teleport him in vacuum and sodomize him there where he has no air to manipulate. Michael's parent has dominion over energy and might just straight up say "No." to any air being moved.
But even worse for humans is the rate of attrition and replenishment. It takes years and decades for superhumans to reach lvl 5 if they are even capable of it. This is from 20% who are even capable of becoming superhumans. Meaning loss of each high tier operative is a huge, even crippling blow to the entire HERO effort.
Monsters can shit out recruits from apparently anything that passes a certain intelligence threshold, which includes quite a few species that are not human. Now I don't know how strong Valravn was when he was just created, he might have started a scrub and gotten better in the centuries he was alive, but even then the conscript pool is so massively slanted towards the monsters it's not even a contest.
HERO are big fishes in a small pond, like Klaus and his gang were. The operatives are arrogant, the organization believes it can do no wrong. Only Xanthe feels like a man fueled by desperation, like he knows that their time is running out and they need every advantage they can get.
I predict for the next arc or 2 HERO will seem amazing and even unbeatable, with everyone dodging their top agents until something reaps those M-Corp agents like wheat in a bloody harvest and we see what true power looks like.