Boom!!
Thud-boom!!
Thud-kwa-boom!
Kwakakakakakakakaka!!!
Thud-kwaaaang!!!
Kwaaaaang!!!!
Red and black collided.
They were driven apart by the shockwaves, then charged back in and crashed together.
Another collision.
Fist and fist slammed into each other again, and the aftershocks of their power ground the entire area to pieces.
“Hmph!”
Gouketsu’s massive fist charged in like a steam locomotive.
The monster hunter answered in kind.
Like the flow of running water, he redirected the fist and sent it sliding past him, then lunged forward.
But Gouketsu, already guarding with a raised knee, responded at once.
Like a single enormous spear, his bent knee shot toward the monster hunter.
Then, like a snake coiling around a tree, the monster hunter climbed up the knee.
[Snake Bite Fist]
With a sharply raised forearm, he aimed for the empty-looking jaw.
It only looked empty.
Gouketsu pulled his body back at a speed that did not suit his size and brought his fist crashing down.
[Gouketsu Style]
Kongang Iron Hammer
A murderous strike that maximized the crushing force of his massive frame, bringing down all that weight in one blow.
It dropped, making the red even redder.
It missed.
When it slammed into the ground instead, the resulting quake caused the low buildings around them to collapse in heaps.
The monster hunter, moving even faster, sprang upward and spun as he fell from the air.
[Water Stream Rock Smashing Fist]
Instant Body Step
He adjusted.
Crushing Rock Flowing Leg
His downward kick, blended with smooth footwork, smashed into the back of Gouketsu’s head and drove it into the ground.
He tried to follow up immediately, but Gouketsu was not such an easy opponent.
Twisting his waist and legs, he yanked his head free in an instant with the recoil of that monstrous power and drove in low.
[Gouketsu Style]
Tiger-Driven Shattering Roar
Like the thunderous roar of a tiger, a point-blank uppercut shot up from below.
It fired a split second before the hunter could react.
The response was quick.
Judging that dodging or redirecting in this position and timing was impossible, he hardened his body at once.
[Hardened Body]
[Body Transformation]
[Density Control]
He raised his guard.
He bent his body as tightly as possible to minimize the damage.
He collided head-on and succeeded in blocking the punch.
The damage from the direct hit itself was almost nothing.
But the difference in their sheer mass sent him flying back.
Thud-kwaaaang!!!
Spinning through the air, he crashed into the upper wall of a high-rise building.
“Kgh….”
His body jerked.
Every part of him ached.
His joints creaked.
It wasn’t as if there had been no damage.
There were no obvious breaks or cracks, that much was true.
But the shock from that earlier blow was still circulating through every corner of his body.
He gritted his teeth against the pain gnawing at him from all sides.
That had definitely not been an ordinary straight punch.
Get up.
He steadied his mind, shook his head, and forced himself out of the shock.
But only for a moment.
Gouketsu, who had leaped dozens of meters into the air in one go, came crashing down with both arms raised.
His body reacted before his mind did.
He planted a foot against the building’s outer wall.
Then he contracted the muscles in his legs.
Compression, then more compression.
He coated his legs with psychic power.
Condensed it.
Focused it.
And then, at last.
The massive silhouette, black only because it stood against the sun, burned itself into his vision.
Without hesitation, he kicked off the spot where his foot had landed.
Feeling the upper floors of the building he had been standing on fly away in one piece, the red blur shot toward the black one.
He crossed both hands and thrust them out.
Gouketsu’s destructive downward smash struck first in midair.
[Gouketsu Style]
Kongang Star
The gathering of overwhelming power, falling like a single giant meteor.
Instead of dodging or blocking, he received the force with both hands and gently embraced it.
But there was no way it would damage him on contact.
He loosened his crossed arms and moved as smoothly as if accepting an impact.
He turned the direction of that destructive force toward his body as if stroking it.
Bent it.
Twisted it as gently as if soothing a child.
And finally, with a rough shove.
[Water Stream Rock Smashing Fist]
Water Flowing Formation
He sent it right back toward his opponent’s abdomen.
“Guhk!”
It didn’t land cleanly.
Just as the fist was about to drive into his abdomen, he gathered his strength and cut the damage by more than half.
Even so, he crashed to the ground, smashed through a building, and was buried somewhere inside it.
Somewhere around the middle floors of a relatively low building.
Even after literally grinding through about eight floors on the way down, Gouketsu got back up.
As if it were nothing, he cracked his shoulders and neck with a series of pops.
The savage hunter did not wait.
He immediately burst out, smashing through the floor and kicking several chairs from inside the room into the air before sending them flying with a spinning kick.
He answered.
Left leg forward.
Right leg back.
One hand extended wide open.
His right arm drew back, muscles coiling with ruthless force.
He pulled his center of gravity backward.
He gathered the waves of power flowing through his body.
And then.
He exhaled.
He leaned forward again.
Planting his left leg firmly as a support.
He thrust his right arm out.
[Gouketsu Style]
Kongang Collapsing Fist
Thud-kwaaaaaaaaaang!!!
The floor they had been on was swept away by the wind pressure created by that single strike.
Anything that had been left on that floor collapsed with it, and the building itself began to come down.
Through the collapse, the monster hunter’s sharp claws cut through the dust cloud and aimed for Gouketsu’s face.
Gouketsu twisted his head to evade and fired a straight punch.
The hunter’s legs, having been knocked airborne by the dodge, bent like snakes and twisted the straight punch off course.
Gouketsu’s huge hand grabbed that leg and hurled him toward the floor below.
Thud-kwang!!
He crashed through three floors on the way down.
Then Gouketsu came falling after him, knees drawn in toward his body.
He began to spin.
He twisted his body.
As Gouketsu’s massive frame rotated and his leg extended, it became a giant drill that would crush everything in front of it.
The monster hunter rode up along the side of the stabbing leg, turning with the spin.
He reversed the rotation, climbed against it, and sprang upward, bringing his hand down on Gouketsu’s head.
Gouketsu’s drill-like body crashed into the ground, pulverizing the remaining floors beneath it.
Several of the surrounding high-rises seemed to bend like taffy from the impact, then collapsed in pieces with a dense shockwave.
Before the dust cloud had even cleared, the hunter, having pinpointed his opponent’s location with a skill, thrust a forearm toward Gouketsu’s head.
But Gouketsu burst out, legs still buried, tearing the ground apart in two as he spread them wide to either side.
The forearm sliced through empty air, and Gouketsu’s straight punch, having shifted position in an instant, came flying in.
With terrifying reflexes, the hunter caught it and threw out a side kick.
Kwaaaaang!!!
The clash of overwhelming force sent another shockwave sweeping through the area, and both of them were driven back from each other.
They charged again.
Gouketsu kicked off the ground.
The hunter kicked off a psychic foothold.
Gouketsu’s huge fist struck his cheek, and the hunter’s own fist stretched out to strike Gouketsu’s cheek as well, forming a cross counter.
They both hesitated for a split second, then corrected their stances and began unleashing a barrage.
Hands that seemed to be dozens strong slashed through the air and poured down at impossible speed.
Fists collided wildly amid deafening blasts.
Colorless, formless destruction ran rampant.
With every blow that landed, the already ruined battlefield was ground down further.
Thud-tatatatatatatatatatata!!!
Kwakakakakakakakakakakakakakaka!!!
Acceleration.
Again, acceleration.
Amid the barrage of strikes and counters, they accelerated even further.
The hands that had looked like dozens gradually became hundreds, then finally reached the point where they could not be seen at all.
Then, all at once.
Two fists collided too hard, and both sides were thrown back.
They both lost their balance and fell, rolling across the battlefield.
Stone and concrete had all been ground down into fine dirt.
On the now completely flat battlefield, they rose again.
Gouketsu, who got to his feet a little earlier, grinned.
“Khah… Not bad!”
“...Right back at you.”
Both sides had taken similar damage.
They had also finished assessing each other’s strengths, weaknesses, advantages, and disadvantages.
Speed favored the hunter, while defense favored Gouketsu.
Their attack power was almost perfectly equal.
Gouketsu’s technical refinement was probably a little higher, but the hunter had the edge in adaptability and the variety that came from it.
“I’m not lying. How can a body at mere demon level produce power on par with me, a dragon-level? I’m genuinely curious about the principle… Well, it doesn’t matter now.”
Gouketsu gave up on taking him alive.
It was difficult enough already.
He could tell from the look in the man’s eyes.
Those were the eyes of someone who would rise a million and one times before his opponent went down, even if he had to fall a million times first.
He judged that knocking him out while winning would be impossible.
But that wasn’t all.
Even if he captured him here, the man would surely rampage unless Lord Orochi himself stepped in.
He would end it here.
And then.
Above all else.
His long-forgotten fighting spirit began to surge.
He didn’t know why, but his body was heating up.
It was the moment his reason, which had remained ironclad even after becoming a monster, finally began to waver after a very long time.
That kind of emotional surge was rare.
“Kuuuuuuuh…!”
Gouketsu inhaled.
Using a special breathing method he had never used before.
[Gouketsu Style]
Demon Breath
He exhaled what he had taken in.
As if a shackle had been released, his momentum changed in an instant.
His muscles swelled once, then compressed again, and the quality of his flowing power changed.
He drew up the power stored in his body and fully released the invisible pressure he had been restraining until now.
His 7-meter frame shrank to 3 meters, and his brutish body compressed inward.
As his whole body lightened, even his emotions seemed to rise a little.
Gouketsu casually rolled his neck.
“Hoo… It’s been a while since I used this power. I perfected it after becoming a monster, and even Gyorogyoro and Lord Orochi knew nothing about it… but I’ve decided. I’ll use it here and now.”
“...Then I will too.”
He drew up the psychic power that had been lying dormant within him.
The surrounding air vibrated as if exploding, and objects warped.
Then all of it concentrated into a single point within his body, and a red haze wrapped around him as it rose from within.
“Haa… huu…”
“...So now you’re circulating psychic power inside your body too. With power like that, plus psychic power… if I left you alone, you’d become a real monster. Are you sure you still won’t join the Monster Association?”
“Unfortunately, I’ve given up on being human, but becoming a monster is one thing I’ll pass on.”
“That’s too bad. Then die!”
“You’re the one who’s going to die!”
Fists packed with highly refined techniques surged toward each other.
Amplified power collided once more.
The ground, flattened into a plain, began to tremble again.
In a struggle with no room for even a single inch of compromise, they pushed against each other, and the earth split once more in the aftermath.
Twisting the ruined landscape, the battle of dragons continued.
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