A single straight punch slammed into his abdomen.
Tukwaaaaaang!!!
"Kh...heuk...!"
Kwaaaaaaang!!!
His body was sent flying and smashed into something, and a horrific pain surged through him, as if he were being crushed alive in a hydraulic press.
A trembling agony, like every inch of him had been electrocuted, swept through his entire body.
...His vision shook violently.
The focus of the world warped and blurred.
He felt a throbbing, stinging pain in his back, as if something had been driven into it.
...No. It really had pierced him.
A chunk of building debris that looked like rebar had gone straight through his back.
...Familiar.
At this point, something like this barely even counted as an injury.
Of course, it was still an unpleasant sensation.
All it really meant was that he had grown even farther from being human.
Right.
He could think about that later.
That wasn't important right now.
He forced himself to stay calm and focus.
Through the irritating ringing in his ears, he picked out the sound of something racing toward him at insane speed.
Where.
...There.
He still couldn't see clearly, but he used every sense he had.
He read the surroundings through smell and touch, identifying the enemy's speed, direction, and movement.
With his hearing gradually returning as the ringing faded, he could faintly gauge the distance.
Got it.
He yanked out the debris that had pierced his back.
Then.
As his vision returned to normal.
As it rushed in and collided with him.
He swung at the exact same moment.
Whoosh!
In an instant, the opponent's form vanished from sight, and the blood-soaked debris he had pulled free and swung only cut through empty air.
Kwaaaaaang!!!
As a result, one wall of the underground space split cleanly open in a bright straight line.
And through the blinding flash, a violet light leaped in.
[{Kahahahahahaha!!!}]
A monster let out an obnoxiously loud laugh and drove a fist down at him.
In response, he hurled the debris and tightened the muscles in his legs to their limit.
The monster's fist, which could turn debris to powder just by touching it, came right up to his face in an instant. He sprang upward like a coil snapping free,
condensed violet light at his fingertips, and fired it as a beam.
[Light Bullet]
-Laser Ver.
The beam, once bright yellow, had now turned a dull red.
It illuminated the dark surroundings with a blackish-red glow, and merely by revealing itself to the world, it dyed everything around it red, heated it up, and melted it into a soft, dripping mess.
Against that attack of his, the monster...
[{Pathetic....}]
planted both feet on the ground.
Then he bent both knees slightly forward.
And with both rotating arms thrust out in front of him, he touched the beam.
[Water Stream Rock Smashing Fist]
-Water Stream Formation.
Not a strike, but the sensation of gently pushing something away.
He translated that feeling into motion.
And bent the beam that had been surging forward with such force.
Kwaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!
"Guh...?!"
He could no longer use the special power that had once been within reach.
As a substitute, he had created something similar using psychic power.
Its efficiency was lower than before, but with all the points he had dumped into it, the power should have gone up.
And he had simply deflected it that easily?
He didn't even realize his own expression had changed in shock.
But the opponent noticed immediately.
The monster raised one arm, and the arm swelled grotesquely, like bread rising in an oven, until countless monster heads burst out of it.
Every single one of them had yellow light glowing in its mouth.
<<<<<<<Light Bullet>>>>>>>
PAPAPAPAPAPAPAPAPA!!!!
Each wide-open mouth fired a concentrated barrage of deadly light spheres at him.
He used [Instant Acceleration] to race through the slowed world and evade them.
But.
The barrage showed no sign of stopping, as if power had no limit.
Even in the slowed world, the monster was still fast.
Before he realized it, the creature had kicked off the ground, shot straight toward him from the front, and opened the mouths all over its body.
Almost at the same instant he sensed the ominous violet light leaking from them, he used [Warp] to dodge.
Kukwakwakwakwakwakwa!!!!!!!
"........!!"
A flash even more overwhelming than before filled the area.
The beam shot straight ahead and bored a hole.
In this deep underground space, whose depth could have been several kilometers.
Through the surface.
No, higher than that.
Until it pierced the clouds.
"...What kind of power is that...."
...There was clearly no luxury of time for panic in this situation.
He shook his head and clenched his teeth.
...If he couldn't bring this guy, Orochi, down now...
There was no doubt the monster would have no trouble sweeping away every living thing on Earth.
With power that was already overwhelming to begin with, some unknown, incomprehensible force had granted it even more strength.
Judging by the potential he could feel, he couldn't think of anyone left who could beat that thing anymore.
...But that was only if the monster were in perfect condition.
Maybe because it had revived from what had been nothing more than shredded meat, Orochi was clearly still not fully restored.
That was why they were even able to exchange blows at all.
He was overwhelmingly outmatched, but a low chance of victory was still not zero.
Of course... that also meant this:
If he failed to stop it here, then once it recovered, it would become far stronger than it was now. On an entirely different level.
So.
He had to defeat it here and now.
...But.
Kwaaaaaang!!!
"Kuh!"
He blocked the incoming fist with a guard formed from his raised arm, but his body couldn't withstand it and was blasted backward.
No, was that all?
He had blocked it, yes, but his guard had been completely crushed in the exact shape of the monster's fist.
...Disastrous.
He wrapped his body in psychic power to keep from slamming into the wall, flew upward, and forcibly reset and regenerated his arms, which had been shattered and bent at bizarre angles.
The gap in raw power was simply too enormous.
And it wasn't just physical strength and speed that had improved.
The monster's martial arts, already at a monstrous level, had also risen dramatically.
At this rate.
Defeat was almost certain.
Even as he thought that, he sprang toward Orochi as it leaped up and came crashing down.
Kwaaaang!!!
Their fists collided, each trying to crush the other.
Amid the torrent of destructive force tearing the surroundings apart, one side was clearly pushed back.
"Ugh..."
As he started to fall to the ground again, he used psychic power to stop himself and hovered in place.
His outstretched hand tingled.
Even after wrapping it in several layers of psychic barriers, his guard had been shattered completely, and his hand was swollen red all over.
He shook his head and charged at the monster again.
The low sweeping hand strike he threw was easily dodged as the creature jumped upward, then it spun forward and unleashed an even stronger heel drop than before.
He stared straight at the crushing force coming down and rolled to the side, evading the attack that had reached a speed approaching light itself.
The shockwave shook the earth again.
Rising into the air amid that quake, he kicked off the empty space and rushed at the monster, which had lost its balance for a moment.
He drove a psychic-charged fist into its now defenseless face.
Tukwaaaaaaaang!!!!
Direct hit.
That single blow sent the monster flying, carving out a massive crater as its head slammed into the wall.
Not missing the timing, he sprinted low like a slithering snake and prepared one more, even stronger strike in a world that had finally entered the realm of light speed.
He dislocated his shoulder and wrist.
Then he spun the air in his hand as freely as if he were controlling the wind itself.
He poured that supple, flexible motion into the strike he was about to unleash.
And fired it with psychic power and hardening.
["Super Spin Screw Punch"]
Enhanced Ver.
Just by advancing, it shredded everything around it, and that terrifying force raced toward Orochi, who was still embedded in the wall.
But this fist would never land.
Crack.
Snap, creak, creak.
With sounds that were familiar, yet somehow even more chilling, all the bones in the monster's legs separated and began rotating at different speeds and in different directions.
Kwa...rrrrrrrrr!!!
Kwaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!
Then its waist began to rotate as well, and between the two legs spinning like propellers, a violet storm of wind began to rage.
["Super Spin Screw Punch"]
[Sakyokwon]
[Iron-Cutting Whirlwind Fist]
Arrange.
[{God's Sandstorm}]
An oppressive pressure that seemed enormous pressed down on him.
With a deafening roar, wind and wind collided all at once, forming a vacuum of overwhelming destruction in the space between them.
A violet storm like a sandstorm of interlocking gears, and a single artificial stream of wind where red and white coexisted.
Of course, the storm that shredded everything didn't take long to swallow the fragile wind whole.
But he used that moment to slip inside it.
With both feet firmly planted on the ground, intent on tearing apart the connection between the rotating legs, he grabbed the spinning axes.
The waist still tried to rotate, but he reinforced his body with psychic power and held on, then pulled hard as if he meant to rip it apart right there.
But.
At that very moment, the upper body buried in the wall burst out, shattering the ground itself.
He thought, damn it, and tried to lift the hand that was gripping the legs, but his body froze in place.
Glancing over, he saw that the two legs, split into countless snakes, had wrapped around his forearm and up past his hand.
And while his guard was immobilized.
The monster struck at his neck with both hands in a knife-hand blow.
[Thunder Cross Split Attack]
Seeing the lightning-like force wrapped around both hands, he was a little shocked inwardly.
It wasn't psychic power.
And the more he felt the difference in its foundation, the more certain he was of that.
But he knew exactly what that power was.
Energy similar to Light Bullet.
In other words.
An application of the force that thing had "given" him, the thing that had told him it would give him power.
It was an application on a completely different level from the Light Bullet he could use, which only condensed power and fired it off.
He didn't even know what that obnoxious, incomprehensible existence really was, but for now, that power was... yes.
He could call it pseudo-psychic power.
But.
That kind of trick wouldn't work.
Rather, he felt his mind go cold as he created two arms from his chest and thrust them out.
What he pictured was the movement the monster had shown earlier.
He applied to himself the way it had sent the laser from bottom to top, smoothly diverting it with the force of a wave flowing in reverse.
[Water Stream Rock Smashing Fist]
-Water Stream Formation.
Kwaaaaaang!!
Kwakwaaaang!!!!
He could clearly hear the sound of something like sword energy, born from the knife-hand strikes that had sliced through the air, wrecking his back into a pulp.
But,
the monster had opened a gap.
Ignoring it, he used body transformation to break free from the restraint binding his arms and slipped in with a movement like a surging current of water.
[Water Stream Rock Smashing Fist]
-Fang-Piercing Finger.
Pwoooaaak!!!
[{K...uh...?!}]
At last, he had pierced the chest.
Immediately, he extended tiny arms like branches from inside the monster's body and attacked from within all at once.
He slammed in every martial art he had learned so far, all at once, right here.
He used psychic power.
"..............."
Thud.
Thud.
Thud.
...Clutching the hole in its abdomen, the monster staggered backward.
The blood pouring out showed no sign of stopping.
[{Heh heh.... That may have been dangerous. Your growth rate was at a transcendent level, not far behind this body, which has awakened as a god... but it seems this side was a little more... fundamentally superior....}]
The monster shed its split shell.
Those attacks should have completely destroyed its insides.
The force had been more than enough.
While fighting Orochi, he had finished absorbing the finger.
[Name: Terrifyingly Ferocious Lizard Monster]
[Alias: Monster Hunter]
[Disaster Level: Dragon]
[Absorption of the finger of Boros, the conqueror of the universe, complete.]
[HP: 4/100000]
[ST: 5/100000]
[AP: 9/100000]
[SP: 10/100000]
[MP: 0/100000]
[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, [Meteoric Burst] NEW, [Roaring Aura Sky Splitter Fist] NEW, [Resurrection] LV1]
Now he, too, had become monstrously powerful.
He was no longer even remotely comparable to how he had been at the beginning.
However.
The problem was that the monster had already noticed it.
[{I offer you my respect, Monster Hunter... You have shown splendid power to this body, which has awakened as a god....}]
...Dangerous.
He barely managed to regenerate the body that had, several times already, been almost entirely vaporized and blown away without a trace.
...No.
He couldn't regenerate.
Only the bones and muscles in his limbs were barely holding together as he staggered.
And then he collapsed.
Even though he hadn't used [Instant Acceleration], the world seemed to slow down.
The floor rushing up toward him seemed to grow larger and larger.
Thud.
...His vision was fading.
His stamina and strength had already both hit bottom.
He had tried to hold on by forcibly locking his stats in place with the [Unbreakable Will] skill, but...
Was it impossible?
[{I shall erase you completely as you are....}]
Everything was growing darker.
It didn't hurt, and he couldn't feel anything, which was strangely comforting.
...This was the first time.
Was this what death felt like?
The intervals between breaths grew longer.
His heartbeat slowed.
His mind turned white.
So this was the end.
Yeah.
In the end.
He was going to end as a monster.
He had many regrets.
But.
There was no turning back.
If there had been someone who would have run to him in this moment of desperate crisis, just for him.
That person would surely have been someone worthy of being called a hero.
Step.
Step.
Step.
[{...?... What are you....}]
"...........?"
...A human?
...Why.
No. More importantly, how?
This place was already deeper than the temple.
During the battle, they had fallen all the way down into the depths of the mantle.
No ordinary human could withstand this pressure.
Just who...
"I'm a person who works as a pro hero."
"...Ah."
...So that was it.
That voice.
That way of speaking.
He remembered it.
He really did.
So vividly.
[{...A hero?}]
"Yeah. My name's Saitama. I'm an A-Class hero."
Without meaning to.
A small laugh slipped out.
He couldn't say he had known him for long, or seen him often.
But he knew a few things, really.
"So those insane earthquakes that kept happening were your fault after all. And... huh? What, you're that lizard monster... gack, are you okay?!"
"...I'm on the verge of dying, but somehow... I'm fine."
"No, no, you can't call someone on the verge of dying fine!"
He was.
The strongest.
[{...You withstand the pressure and heat at this depth... You don't seem to be some uncivilized being that can simply be ignored....}]
"...So that state of yours is his doing too, right?"
Good. Maybe he should step in.
And then...
"And make sure you apologize to your grandpa later. You came to my place and stayed there for an hour, droning on and on about your troubles with this gloomy face!"
"..............."
...Grandpa? I don't know anyone like that.
Who is that supposed to be?
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