Chapter 848: Meteoric Burst vs. Sixteen-Fold Kaio-Ken
"Mercenary Tao?"
"You Reincarnators truly are growing ever more... arrogant."
ROAR!
A terrifying draconic roar shook heaven and earth. Garou crossed both forearms before his chest, but the warped concussive shockwave still blasted him backward through the air.
His boots skidded across the atmosphere, burning twin incandescent white trails across the sky. Blood leaked from his quivering muscles, while his ears and eyes filled with ruptured capillaries.
Thanks to the brutal conditioning from that earlier monster, Garou possessed an extraordinary tolerance for incoming punishment. As he continually endured blows, he was actively analyzing the attack patterns.
Consequently, any technique he experienced once saw its efficacy against him drop precipitously.
Li Qingzi's irises shifted to a stark, silvery white, her straight black hair bleaching into pale ash that trailed behind her in the wind. Her frame elongated as she phased instantly into her demon form, coating her entire body in dense, unyielding Armament Haki as she pivoted to face the threat.
With a cold sneer, Dead of Night sank into the shadows beneath the rubble.
This operative from the Primordial Dragon Court was absurdly formidable—an undisputed [Madness-tier] entity. Aside from monsters like Mercenary Tao and Yoko, practically no other Reincarnator could hope to challenge him.
Yet she was not an operative who lost the will to resist when confronted by terror. On the contrary: the deeper the dread, the sharper her survival instincts became.
Though her scheme to tame Mahoraga using Garou as a crucible had collapsed, her secondary objective—cultivating Garou to a threshold that ordinary S-Class heroes could never hope to graze—had succeeded completely.
Dead of Night felt a twinge of regret. Had Mahoraga survived while continuously adapting, evolving, and trading blows with Garou, she might have vaulted to an apex height in a single stroke.
Still, the current outcome was far from a loss. Entering the fray alongside Eclipse not only secured immense prestige with Garou; as long as Garou achieved notable combat feats, they would harvest astronomical standing with the Hero Association and the surviving human factions.
With Saitama quarantined and Blast nowhere to be found, the entire Hero Association leaned on Tornado as their sole pinnacle combat asset.
Now that Tornado had been thrown out of the theater, whichever champion stepped forward to salvage the board would harvest the adoration and reverence of every survivor.
Though Dead of Night had reflexively assumed Mercenary Tao would be the one to step up after learning of his arrival, Li Qingzi had checked that assumption: as Reincarnators, they could never place their survival in the hands of another operative, even if that operative was Mercenary Tao.
Hence, the dual-acceleration gambit between Garou and Mahoraga had been set in motion.
Amidst these calculations, the earth heaved as though raked by a titan's plow. City A was reduced to total ruin, and the chaotic clash between the alien marauders and the defending heroes ground to an abrupt halt.
Those still standing were apex combatants in their own right.
Yusuke Godai lowered the arms guarding his chest, beholding the carnage. Dark thunder detonated, and he hurtled straight toward the primary culprit: the colossal black dragon blotting out the sky.
Hum—BANG!
Three spinning stellar particles slammed down like falling meteors, swatting the dark thunder from mid-air. Aurelion dusted off his shoulders as he rose from the rubble, largely unscathed.
A pureblood dragon's innate physical durability outstripped the hybrid bloodlines of most Reincarnators by leagues—a fundamental disparity in the biological vessel.
Aurelion pulled his gaze away from Makima, who remained impaled against the ventral hull of the colossal dreadnought above.
That woman had ultimately cast her lot with the Reincarnators and the Hero Association, a betrayal that stoked his inner fury.
He knew well that by the nature of the Control Devil, she held only two postures toward other beings:
Those weaker than herself, she dominated by instinct;
Those stronger than herself, she revered by instinct.
Within the vocabulary of the Control Devil, the concept of equality did not exist.
Therefore, even after witnessing the absolute might of Lord Deathwing and himself, and even with the Gun Devil instantly neutralized before her eyes, this Devil had still abandoned the Primordial Dragon Court.
In that woman's eyes, Lord Deathwing and the Dragon Court were the weaker faction!
As a stellar dragon, Aurelion processed data rapidly, yet the boiling draconic blood in his veins rose faster still.
ROAR!
Amidst a deafening bellow, swarms of dragon-beasts—seeded with ancestral blood across the city long ago—erupted from subterranean fissures. This campaign was not confined to a single city; the Dragon Court sought to execute what this world's native God had failed to achieve:
Cleanse humanity from the crust, and claim the ultimate mandate of the World's Will!
A planet-wide extinction event was officially unleashed upon the realm.
[Special Event: Extinction Dragon Calamity has been triggered]
[Event Description: The Primordial Dragon Court has resolved to purge human civilization from this world to secure the rewards of the World's Will. Stop them!]
[Victory Conditions: Maintain the world's distortion level below 90% and ensure human civilization's survival rate remains at or above 50% for 3 days. All participating Reincarnators will receive a minimum of an A-Rank Singularity Point * 1 and a random Ability of B-Rank or higher * 1.]
[Failure Penalty: None]
Whoosh—BANG!
Kaito Shirogane flicked his wrist, trading an empty-air concussive punch with Boros, who materialized like a beam of pure light. The sound of atmospheric friction was vanishingly faint; Boros was clearly mimicking Kaito's biomechanics and kinetic displacement.
He was adapting and evolving at terrifying speed.
Yet Kaito remained utterly unimpressed, casually reading the spatial notifications flickering across his interface with room to spare.
He had not yet become completely intoxicated by Boros's output.
Sensing that detachment, Boros took several paces back across the hull.
"Has the skirmish below distracted you?"
In truth, Boros had long lost interest in galactic pillaging; no true predator found sport in robbing ants.
Such pursuits held zero meaning.
Yet he extended unreserved respect and freedom to adversaries he recognized as equals.
If this human allowed outside interference to dilute the purity of their duel, it would only breed irritation.
Even without looking down, Boros's heightened senses caught the slaughter unfolding below.
A titanic dragon was laying waste to the city.
Humans were a herd species bound by collective ties; perhaps the warrior before him was similarly burdened by—
Kaito looked at Boros, who had abruptly broken off his assault, and shook his head with an indifferent sigh:
"Have you finally realized that at this output, you will never defeat me?"
Once freed from his armor, Boros's raw speed, mass, and energy projection vastly outstripped Kaito's baseline state. Even with the Four-Fold Kaio-Ken engaged, Boros commanded a massive statistical advantage.
Yet the divine realm of the Martial God's Ultimate Intent allowed Kaito's close-quarters combat mastery to transcend the physical ceilings of ordinary biology.
It was execution operating on an entirely separate plane.
Furthermore, Kaito had not stepped into that divine domain through a single hyper-specialized technique, unlike Mori-Summer's singular sword stroke.
Kaito embodied the complete form of a Martial God—a being who had pierced the foundational limits of mortal martial arts.
Boros's continuous adaptation was merely retracing the path Kaito had walked when he sat in ascetic meditation beneath the Sala Trees for seven days.
And in terms of pure martial talent, Boros fell noticeably short of Kaito's innate genius.
Kaito's sensory perception was vast, tracking every shift on the ground below with absolute clarity. But so what?
Beyond the newly arrived black dragon, the Primordial Dragon Court's vanguard was thoroughly unremarkable.
In the end, it was merely a brawl among weaklings.
"If you won't make the next move... then I'll begin."
Boros froze. This human was fundamentally different from what he had imagined. The next microsecond, Kaito's silhouette vanished completely from his cyclopean vision.
Whoosh!
A figure wrapped in flaring aura materialized inches from his chest, driving a fist forward. The atmosphere offered zero resistance, as though the strike were thrown from within the fabric of the void itself.
Boros brought his right hand up like a dropped animation frame to intercept the blow.
Yet Kaito's fist shifted into an open palm in a fraction of a millisecond, unleashing an unnatural, twisting vortex of kinetic force.
Local atmospheric pressure inverted as a corkscrew gale detonated point-blank.
Rakshasa's Palm!
This foundational technique, mastered in Kaito's earliest days, now carried the catastrophic destructive payload of a natural disaster.
BOOM!
A massive atmospheric maelstrom exploded across the superstructure of the dreadnought.
Boros staggered back two paces, his center of gravity broken, only to be yanked forward by an iron grip that materialized from thin air.
Before he could re-anchor his footing, a chilling, suffocating wave of murderous intent enveloped his senses, plunging reality into pitch darkness.
[Raging Demon: A Thousand Strikes in an Instant]!
Having thoroughly subjugated the Surge of Murderous Intent, Kaito deployed the Raging Demon at absolute whim, entirely stripped of preliminary telegraphs.
In a single instant, thousands of fist phantoms and kinetic shockwaves drowned Boros's frame.
Pfft-pfft-pfft—!
Boros's arms blurred in desperate defense, yet his parries buckled almost immediately, entirely submerged beneath the relentless barrage.
Crash!
The waters of the Underworld churned as dense, absolute Senra Intent of Death flooded the interface.
Boros snapped out of the trance in an instant.
"Aargh... HAH!"
Cataclysmic energy detonated from the roof of the dreadnought. Enveloped in blinding, incandescent energy, Boros tore free from the Raging Demon in an explosive dash.
Moving at a velocity that cleanly outpaced the residual kinetic force and death intent of the strike, he grazed past Kaito's flank. Before Kaito could dissolve into wind, Boros warped local space with an ungodly blow, hammering the martial artist backward.
CRACK!
Kaito's sternum caved inward as his AT Field was shredded by pure, unadulterated brute force. The astronomical energy tore through his surface Ki and Qilin scales in an instant.
His flawless internal closed loop was violently fractured.
Kaito's breathing hitched for an imperceptible fraction of a millisecond.
And in that singular gap, Boros crossed the distance in a state of pure, flowing luminescence, slamming dead-center into Kaito's chest.
BANG-BANG-BANG-BANG—!
Fused in a searing stream of incandescent white and magenta light, Boros burned through his internal reserves, unsealing his [Meteoric Burst] form!
He had been provoked by the look in this human's eyes moments ago.
In that fraction of a second, he had seen his own reflection:
The cold, hollow disappointment of a warrior weary of finding no worthy challenge.
"Aaargh!"
Thud-thud-thud—!
Kaito's irises quivered violently as the Limit-Break Spiral behind his back spun at operational limits. Yet in Meteoric Burst, Boros moved at a velocity that defied biological tracking.
The instant Kaito's senses registered the trajectory, the impact had already connected.
Counter-attacking was physically impossible.
Kaito felt the atmosphere disintegrate, the heavy hull plating of the dreadnought buckle and tear, and the earth groan beneath them as Boros's barrage drove him straight from the upper atmosphere down into the planetary mantle!
Finally, as his AT Field fractured into dust, his Physique of the Primordial Man was crushed under the load.
Pfft!
A massive cloud of blood mist detonated in the deep subterranean hollow where molten core magma was already beginning to seep.
Dropping out of his luminescent state, Boros heaved ragged, agonizing breaths. Over-burning his cellular reserves caused caustic fluids to leak from the corners of his eye and mouth.
Staring at the drifting cloud of blood, he slowly emerged from the euphoric haze of battle.
Dead...?
The destined rival I spent my entire life searching for... ends just like this?!
Boros turned his back, an overwhelming, suffocating loneliness settling over his chest.
Hearing the draconic roars echoing from the surface far above, an intense irritation seized him. He resolved to clean up the battlefield on Mercenary Tao's behalf—to settle the debt of this duel by personally sweeping this world clean.
Squelch—crack.
The wet, rhythmic sound of biological resurrection echoed through the cavern. Boros froze mid-step, slowly turning around.
The vast mist of blood was condensing back into human form.
Long black hair cascaded down his back. Across that tranquil face, the corners of the eyes and mouth pulled upward in tandem, finally carving into an unbridled, manic grin.
The pure, predatory visage of a beast thoroughly intoxicated by the thrill of slaughter.
Boros widened his eye, pure euphoria flooding his senses.
The next second, he clenched both fists, reigniting his cellular furnace.
"Hah!"
Meteoric Burst: Re-engaged!
Yet before he could cross the distance, a wave of Ki several times denser than anything previously recorded detonated outward with cataclysmic fury!
The planetary core buckled under the shockwave, threatened with being snuffed out by the ambient kinetic displacement.
The continental crust groaned as it fractured into floating plates. A warped, suffocating presence rose directly before Boros's eye.
[Sixteen-Fold Kaio-Ken], engage!
Kaito Shirogane had finally unleashed his foundational trump card. Boros shared an undeniable kinship with him: once both engaged their ultimate stances, they commanded statistical parameters that rendered ordinary combatants incapable of mounting an exchange.
Before that raw numerical output, even the finesse of the Martial God's Ultimate Intent had struggled to bridge the gap.
Kaito exhaled, unleashing the Earth-Shattering Thunder Roar once more.
"HAH!"
BOOM!
Under the Sixteen-Fold Kaio-Ken, the concussive yield of Kaito's single roar was cataclysmic.
City A detonated directly from the subterranean bedrock!
An apocalyptic pillar of energy mushroomed outward, engulfing the entire municipal radius in a blinding blast furnace.
Facing a strike that seemed capable of cleansing the entire planet, Boros questioned for a fractured microsecond which of them was the authentic galactic pillager.
Yet the next second, unadulterated battle lust consumed his mind.
He condensed an immense energy wave between his cupped hands, thrusting it forward to meet the omnidirectional shockwave of the Thunder Roar head-on.
Hum!
Twin energetic payloads capable of easily sanitizing continental plates collided within the subterranean abyss. Boros pushed forward, shifting into pure luminescence to plunge straight through the blast path!
For the first time, Kaito registered an adversary violently piercing clean through the full detonation of his Thunder Roar. A brutal knee strike drove straight toward his chest—only to be caught in the palm of an ascending hand!
Under the Martial God's Ultimate Intent, Kaito's operational mechanics bore zero structural flaws. Parrying the crushing impact with a single palm, his other hand snapped out like an iron vise, locking around Boros's shoulder.
Locked together, the two titans rode the concussive eruption of thermal energy, punching straight through the continental crust of City A!
A city-scale geyser of apocalyptic plasma erupted into the heavens.
That singular discharge vaporized the remaining geographic footprint of City A off the face of the planet.
ROAR!
Deathwing let out an enraged roar. Reverting to his hybrid form, he snapped his wings back, an edge of his membrane charred away by the ascending plasma plume.
Having narrowly evaded the subterranean eruption, Aurelion watched the intertwined streams of magenta and golden radiance shoot straight toward the stars, blinding white shockwaves detonating across the stratosphere without pause.
The exchange between those two had completely surpassed the visual comprehension of Fourth Sequence combatants; he could sense only that the stray aftershocks of every collision shook his very heart.
Creak~
An incandescent emerald glow ignited across Aurelion's scales. The dragon froze in terror, only to find his neck muscles paralyzed, completely unable to turn his head.