Dawnslight's messages are extremely creepy, with him begging for help through fortune cookies, and sending a lot of bizarre messages besides.
Obliteration's powers. He can teleport as soon as he is about to be hurt, can appear near you at any time, can suck out the heat from anything, and has melted three cities into nothing. Actually, most things about Obliteration count.
We finally hear an explanation of what the moral corruption is like, from an Epic's point of view. It's not a little voice whispering in your ear urging you to evil, it's a combination of a being very easily annoyed, completely self-centered, and just a tad too apathetic to think of any solution that doesn't sound like "kill the people who have inconvenienced me." If that doesn't sound terrifying, then stop and think about the fact that everyone feels this way sometimes. The source of all the super-powered evil in the world is just a few perfectly human emotions plus superpowers.
As an example, in Steelheart, a minor epic, Refractionary, killed a family in a car for accidentally cutting her off in traffic! Basically, all those thoughts you have in a moment when you're annoyed that would usually cause you to curse or shake your fist at the sky? They cause murders when you're an Epic because, why not?
Word of God actually states that his sudden anger at getting cut off in traffic is part of what inspired the series.
Obliteration melts half of David's body. David only survives because of the power that Prof gifted him, which reconstruct his body and brain within a second. It's an intensely disturbing experience.
The implications of this quote:
Growing up in the understreets of Newcago taught you a few things. The first was to jump the moment you thought someone was sneaking up on you. If you were lucky, it was just a mugger. If you were unlucky, you were dead.
