[Name: Terrifyingly Ferocious Lizard Monster]
[Alias: monster hunter]
[Disaster Level: dragon-level]
[Absorbing ???'s finger in progress]
[HP:17000/26000] +10000 (increasing)
[ST:15000/30000] +10000 (increasing)
[AP:9000/20000] +10000 (increasing)
[SP:16000/32000] +10000 (increasing)
[MP:10051/20102] +10000 (increasing)
[Allocatable Points:9504]
[Skills (23/25): [Super Instinct] LV9, [Quiet Footsteps] LV8, [Sharp Claws] LV9, [Tough Teeth] LV9, [Tail Severing] LV4, [Hardening] LV8, [Super Regeneration] LV9, [Concealment] LV6, [Impact Absorption] LV7, [Might] LV8, [Instant Acceleration] LV8, [Body Transformation] LV9, [Tracking] LV4, [Warp] LV7, [Strong Acidic Body Fluid] LV3, [Light Bullet] LV1, [Psychic Power] LV8, [Pressure of the Strong] LV1, [Density Control] LV2, [Unbreakable Will] LV1, [ㅁㅌㅇ릭 ㅂ스ㅌ (acquiring), [ㅂ성 ㅍㅎ포 (acquiring), [Resurrection] LV1 (NEW)]
…
……
………
{...So you came.}
A giant towering figure, twenty-seven meters tall, rises from the throne.
A body made from countless massive serpent faces and torsos shifts into motion.
Scales that seem to blend red and purple in perfect balance come into view.
Spikes like spearheads, lined up above its head like a crown, thrust upward.
This was the leader of the Monster Association.
The strongest dragon-level monster on Earth.
The Monster King, Orochi.
{Oh...}
A thunderous roar echoes.
Vibrations can be felt.
From above.
The presence of an incredible strong foe.
It was undoubtedly the monster hunter Gyorogyoro had mentioned before.
He had heard it was a ridiculous monster with a Demon body and dragon-level power, but... from the feel of it, even his body was dragon-level.
Only his power was abnormally strong.
More importantly... even now, he was growing stronger by the second through some unknown force.
{...............}
The power of Phoenix Man, who seemed to have evolved by overcoming death just like him, can be felt.
Right behind it, the monster hunter is closing in hard.
Judging by the movement of those two powers, it feels as if Phoenix Man is the one being pursued.
Phoenix Man is irrelevant.
He might be useful later, but the war against the heroes would be more than enough even without him.
Besides, Orochi himself was confident he could wipe out the heroes alone.
The one called the strongest being, the King who had just wiped out Elder Centipede in a single blow, was someone to be wary of... but if he distracted them with the cadres, they could always settle things with a final one-on-one battle.
But more than that, there was the monster hunter.
Orochi was certain.
That one was surely the proper sacrifice for my resurrection as a god.
He shaped one of his horns into an antenna and used telepathy in that form.
It was a power based on a principle slightly different from psychic power.
He imitated Gyorogyoro's voice as closely as possible and released the energy.
("Phoenix Man, good work. You brought the two hunters well.")
("This voice... Gyorogyoro!! You bastard, you really tried to send me to die by throwing me at some monstrous freak!!!")
("But you're alive, aren't you?")
("Don't screw with me! Help me right now... damn it! I'm carrying Garou!! More importantly, I've already died and come back four times now!!!")
("I've already prepared the interception. Just lead him this way.")
At once, the direction of those powers changed.
They were coming.
A strong foe worthy of becoming my sacrifice.
Come.
This way.
How long had he waited for this moment?
Only then did Gyorogyoro's telepathy reach him.
("Lord Orochi, it seems the intruder is heading your way. Please take care of it for me~ Ah, and please don't kill him.")
("...............")
He gave no reply.
He simply loosened the serpents that had been coiled together to form his right arm, and each opened its mouth.
Gyorogyoro.
No, Psykos.
Even the act of eating the insignificant sacrifices you brought and pretending to obey your brainwashing is nearing its end.
It was getting closer.
That moment.
It was almost here.
He turned his head toward the approaching power.
He concentrated tremendous energy into each serpent head.
He waited, pouring out blinding light.
-Boom!!
"Gyorogyoro!! Over here!! Hurry and intercept this guy-"
-RIIIP!!
After dying and coming back so many times that he had nearly lost the shape of the mascot suit, Phoenix Man appears, grotesquely transformed, smashing through the wall.
Behind him, an alien figure drenched in monster guts and blood appears, having torn him clean in half from behind.
{Yes. So it was you.}
Indeed.
All the monster cells in his body were sensing it instinctively.
This was the one.
The one most suitable to become my sacrifice.
He wasn't very large. Just a little taller than an adult human.
With a height difference of nearly nine times, Orochi looked down on him.
His appearance was quite different from what he had heard.
The dense red scales were gone... no, perhaps it would be more accurate to say they had become skin.
Over that, armor-like white scales covered him.
And unlike the slim build he had been told about, he looked considerably bulked up.
But above all else, what stood out most was this:
Two red vertical pupils, wet with blood and sharpened by murderous intent, gleaming fiercely.
A being who had hunted countless monsters and, in a little over three weeks, grown from below Wolf to the upper ranks of dragon-level.
He had hunted stronger foes than himself, surviving death's edge again and again.
He had eaten.
Evolved.
Survived the monsters that came from beyond Earth.
Dueled Gouketsu and won with room to spare.
And now, guided by fate, he had reached even Orochi.
He was, in every sense, worthy of the alias "monster hunter."
With that assessment, Orochi unleashed his breath in unison.
-KWAHHHHHHH!!!!!!
-KWA-KWA-KWA-KWA-KWA-KWA-KWANG!!!!
For an instant.
Thunderous noise, heat, and brilliant white light dominated the surroundings.
Heat rays burst from five serpent heads, each revealing terrifying destructive power.
With just one volley, the association hideout trembled as if an earthquake had struck.
As the dust cloud began to clear, a massive hole appeared beyond it.
The destructive force of the heat rays had bored diagonally through to some faraway point deep underground.
Of course, he didn't think this would kill him.
That had only been a taste.
As expected, a white light drenched in magma shot up from the distant hole and came crashing down toward him with tremendous force.
[Water Stream Rock Smashing Fist]
-[Psychic Crushing Fist]
A fist technique that compresses vast psychic power into the fist and detonates it in one direction.
With a single glance, he understood everything: the movement of the muscles, their arrangement, the breathing.
And the martial art beneath it all.
He completely grasped the mechanism.
This was one of Orochi's most terrifying abilities.
His transcendent talent for martial arts, allowing him to fully understand a movement after seeing it once and make it his own.
He moved.
He perfectly applied the opponent's muscle movements to his own body.
He couldn't use psychic power, but he substituted it with the massive energy within him.
He gathered energy into his tightly clenched fist and struck at the falling white point.
[Water Stream Rock Smashing Fist]
-[Psychic Crushing Fist]
The enormous difference in scale between 3 meters and 27 meters collided.
-Beeeeeeep...
-...RUMBLE...
-KUGUGUGUGUGUGU...!!!
-KWA-KWA-KWA-KWA-KWA-KWA-KWA-KWA-KWA-KWANG!!!!
-KWAHHHHHHHHHHANG!!!!
All electronic devices on the surface of Z City lost power in an instant.
A large cliff collapsed in a landslide.
For any ordinary monster, just being near it would have torn its body apart, but a wave burst forth from between fist and fist and raged wildly.
Neither side gave ground.
Blow against blow, each carrying power on an entirely different level, collided.
The surroundings crumbled to pieces and turned into an open field, unleashing a visible tide of destruction.
"K-KGAAAH?!"
"W-What is this! Is this a hero raid!!"
"Did a nuke go off down there?!"
"Aaaaaah!!! Run!!!"
The wave surged outward, annihilating everything it touched.
With that one strike.
The Monster Association hideout was cut clean in half at the waist.
-KUKWAKWAKWAKWA!!!
-KUGUGUNG!!
The floor Orochi had been standing on could not hold and collapsed.
Beneath it, a bottomless darkness was revealed.
It was a hole Orochi had dug long ago, deep into the Earth's interior.
-RUMBLE...
The giant body of Orochi began to fall, and the monster hunter chased after it.
Orochi immediately noticed this and extended several horns from his head, firing them sharply at the monster hunter.
He tried to redirect the horns in midair with [Water Stream Rock Smashing Fist], but at a glance he could tell each horn was moving with the same fluidity as [Water Stream Rock Smashing Fist] itself.
He couldn't deflect them all at once.
But.
He handled it easily, as if that were enough.
Two more pairs of arms sprouted from the monster hunter's body and thrust out at the right timing.
Six hands touched six horns and twisted the direction of their charge.
The horns that had been sent flying into the air bent back smoothly all at once and shot out again at high speed.
Twisting his body flexibly, he dodged two of them, grabbed one with both hands, and used it like the crossbar of a swing to spin his body forward.
Using the rotational force in his feet, he knocked away another horn, then struck down the horn he was holding to neutralize the last one.
Immediately after, he kicked off the air from below and charged downward at high speed.
He reached the very top of Orochi's falling head in an instant, then spun his body forward again and raised his right leg.
Horns shot up from above to intercept him, but he was a little faster.
[Water Stream Rock Smashing Fist]
-[Instant Acceleration]
Arrange.
-[Crushing Rock Flowing Leg]
-KWAHHHANG!!
{...............!!}
The downward kick, loaded with rotational force and weight, slammed into the head.
With that one blow, shockwaves burst in all directions and Orochi's massive body staggered.
A crack appeared in the mask on his head.
But then one of Orochi's horns moved with eerie flexibility and reproduced the very strike his true body had just taken, aiming it at the monster hunter floating in midair.
[Water Stream Rock Smashing Fist]
-[Instant Acceleration]
Arrange.
-[Crushing Rock Flowing Leg]
-BOOM!!!
"Kuh...!!"
The monster hunter was blasted back so fast he left an afterimage, crashing into the face of a rocky wall.
It had slipped through his guard like flowing water and landed squarely in his abdomen.
He could feel the ribs and organs inside being blown apart and crushed.
But.
The caved-in abdomen was restored in an instant.
And before even one second had passed since he was slammed into the wall, he charged back along the edge of the opening.
Orochi saw that brief instant clearly.
This time, he reformed his right hand and released his left.
The arm divided into multiple serpents surged toward the monster hunter.
[Water Stream Rock Smashing Fist]
[Water Stream Rock Smashing Fist]
[Water Stream Rock Smashing Fist]
[Water Stream Rock Smashing Fist]
[Water Stream Rock Smashing Fist]
Each serpent wrapped its hand in the smooth blue current unique to [Water Stream Rock Smashing Fist] and rushed him.
"Tch..."
Surprise flickered across the monster hunter's face.
But.
He quickly regained his composure and responded.
He extended two more arms, bringing the total to eight, and stretched them long.
He spun them.
And then.
He drove them into the center of each serpent.
[Dark Body Fist]
[Dark Body Fist]
[Dark Body Fist]
[Dark Body Fist]
[Dark Body Fist]
The fist techniques crashed brutally into one another all at once.
Within the instant of blinding light, three of Orochi's serpents broke through the wall of fist techniques with eerie flexibility and surged upward.
One was [Water Stream Rock Smashing Fist].
Another was [Dark Body Fist].
The third was [Gouketsu Style].
Attacks from three different schools, each perfected to the extreme, flew at the monster hunter.
In response, the monster hunter created two more hands, brought them together, and spun them.
[Water Stream Rock Smashing Fist] in his right hand.
[Whirlwind Iron Cutting Fist] in his left.
He reproduced with a single body the combined technique he had felt so painfully through his own flesh.
[Roaring Aura Sky Splitter Fist]
The three consecutive strikes, launched with different martial arts, exploded as the serpents charged in.
To make matters worse, shockwaves traveled through the serpent bodies with their heads blown apart and began reaching the main body.
Then the other serpents immediately bit down on those bodies and tore them off whole before the shockwaves could reach them, gathering back together into the shape of arms.
No, split apart further, they became two arms.
Immediately after, the monster hunter also spun as if merging together.
He mixed blue and red currents together.
Combined them into one.
[Roaring Aura Sky Splitter Fist]
When the murderous straight punch containing that technique was fired, the monster hunter answered once again.
[Tail Severing]
In the thick cloud of dust, it looked as though a long tail had been cut off, then changed shape and taken on the monster hunter's form.
At once, he regenerated the tail, used [Concealment], kicked off the fake body below him, and slipped into the dust cloud to hide.
The fake took the full force of the straight punch and burst apart.
But from within it, strong acidic body fluid poured out and corroded Orochi's hands.
It only melted a little of the scales on the surface.
It wasn't even a meaningful hit, so he shook his hand and flung off the acid.
Immediately after, the monster hunter rushed in from Orochi's flank.
Was the acid just meant to draw attention?
But he had already detected it.
Within that brief instant, the horns that had returned to their original positions all shot out at once.
Sharp, piercing attacks flew with perfect precision toward a single target.
The monster hunter flinched at the horns' speed, faster than expected, but his response was swift.
He recalled how he had dealt with Grolibers before.
He pictured the flowing movement of a slightly thinner liquid.
He reflected that movement in his body.
He lowered his body's density to somewhere between solid and liquid.
Twisting his arms.
Bringing his legs together.
And straightening his head in a single line.
[Water Stream Rock Smashing Fist]
Arrange.
-[Weak Hands Gain Strength, Lose Water]
He slipped through the charging horns like a liquid and passed between them.
The moment Orochi's defenseless head came into view, his softened body restored itself to normal.
Aiming for the pressure points that could paralyze the whole body with a single strike, he drove in a piercing blow.
But.
Orochi's upper jaw curled open as if unfolding, and from within it, layers of monster jaws burst out and spread wide as though they were about to swallow the hunter whole.
In an instant, they snapped shut with a sickening clack.
Then they returned to normal, chewing only empty air.
The monster hunter, having evaded the attack by floating with psychic power, closed the distance again.
And just as they were about to collide once more.
At last, Orochi reached a certain floor.
-KUKWAAAAAAANG!!!
As the massive body fell several kilometers, a tremendous tremor rang out.
A place known only to Orochi himself, unknown even to Psykos.
"...What is this place?"
Ah, yes.
This was it.
The stage where I would surpass the ultimate life form and be reborn as a god.
{Long ago, I had grown tired of the sacrifices Psykos brought me. So I dug down here to absorb the Earth's energy directly. And then I found a mural.}
[Our god shall be reborn on the surface after a long span of time]
[By a worthy sacrifice]
[Offered to this altar]
So then.
{This is where your end will be written, monster hunter.}
The serpents began to gather and intertwine.
They twisted and contorted, transforming into a new shape.
From his former human-like form.
His upper body became engulfed in flames, his eyes blazing.
The tips of the horns on his head changed into the shape of a dragon's head, and he fully transformed into a battle form.
{And before that, shall we take a little look...}
Aside from using him as a sacrifice.
Orochi had become interested in the monster hunter.
No.
It would be more accurate to call it fighting spirit.
Almost equal talent.
Overwhelming force that, no matter how many times they clashed, neither side could easily push back.
A clear rival, one he had never had before.
He was convinced through the exchanges that followed.
This kind of rising excitement, this surging emotional high... it had been a long time.
{I wonder how much your power, which will serve as a sacrifice for my advance toward godhood, can truly do against me, the ultimate being who has reached the pinnacle of strength...}
Magma began to boil violently and fill the floor.
The darkness that had been pitch-black gradually lifted.
The ancient temple buried deep underground revealed itself.
{I, the Monster King Orochi, will test you.}
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