The purple rain was all I could focus on. The pressure from that high of a distance speeding down had plugged my ears. All I could hear was ringing, and everything else was muffled for the moment.
The young lady's scream began to fade in as she fell backward in horror. The screaming quickly turned into crying and then straight-up sobbing. I could hear everything normally at this point. Her cries probably helped unclog my ears.
"Hey… miss? It's fine now. The monster's dead…" I said as I walked toward her, trying to comfort, though I was awkward. I extended my hand, still bloodied with purple. "Let's get you out of here."
She looked at my hand and then slowly brought up her head to meet my eyes. I thought that finally she had calmed down. But her eyes widened, and she began to let out another horrified scream.
Was it me? I mean, come on, lady, I knew I was bloodied up, but had she seen herself? Though I supposed it was my fault she looked that way now. I didn't anticipate her being there when I had planned to jump this monster from the skyscraper next to us.
It took me a minute to notice that while she was screaming, she was inching away from me to the point where our eyes no longer met. She was looking past me.
I stood there, still facing her, when I realized…
"Oh, fuck."
The shattered corpse of the monster I disintegrated began floating midair as if on puppet strings. The decimated pieces of it made up the figure of the creature that once was. It was putting itself back together.
It continued to do so until it somewhat looked as it did before—except the spot where my fist had landed could not be mended and left a large gaping hole in its chest.
"What the hell?" I said out loud. The young lady behind me finally ran away.
A limb or tentacle of some sort flew out from the back of the creature and jetted toward her. Before it caught up to her, I grabbed it and crushed it with my grip. The end piece of the tentacle limb met with the severed half that I had crushed and mended back together.
Pieced whole again, it wrapped around me completely and snarled loudly to my face. I looked back slightly to see if she was still there, but she managed to escape around the corner where she originally came from.
Looking back at the creature before me, caught in its grasp, I said, "I see… so you really are a Grade 3, huh?"
Classic Havoc, misjudging the situation. Or maybe he didn't and just wanted to get out of fighting. He was known to find creative ways to get himself out of situations he did not want to be a part of. Times like this had me questioning if he truly was a genius or just stupid… Perhaps it was the latter.
"Thanks, buddy! I really do got this on my own, don't I!" I yelled, mocking him if he could hear me somehow. I wasn't even sure if he was in the area or still atop the skyscraper we were just on.
Thing was, he might have been wrong about the class of this monster, but he wasn't wrong about me taking this thing on my own.
The creature's body rippled as it mended the last of itself to completion. Its grip tightened around me, attempting to crush my bones. Something like this would have crushed a normal person into juices by now, but for some reason, it wasn't enough to crush me.
I flexed, and the same black coating that covered my arm earlier shrouded my whole body. The tentacle limb shredded into pieces as I swung my arms outward.
Those pieces didn't restore themselves.
I took my jacket off and threw it across this now-battlefield, leaving me in a white tank shirt.
The black coating covered me up to my jawline and stopped, just before a team of large, sharp fangs lay exposed on my face and wrapped around the sides of my head.
I don't know why this was my form when I transformed or manifested this power, but that was just what I had to work with all this time. And the power worked many times over for me, especially in situations like this.
The monster roared and took its giant, heavy left arm and swung down on me like a hammer. I stayed in place, not even trying to dodge it, and caught it as it slammed down—cratering the ground even more than it already was.
It was heavy but not unbearable. I threw its abnormal arm back so hard it dislocated, smashing the ground behind it.
Exposed now, I darted to its torso and gave it a barrage of punches with enough power behind each hit that it could not regenerate fast enough.
Desperate, the creature ripped its large, dislocated arm off with a couple of those tentacle limbs it used earlier and jumped a distance away from me.
Though the punches were hard, they didn't pierce. I wanted to test a theory…
The beast, a ways away from me now, mended the deep holes in its chest and morphed its body—though not fully regenerating the spots I hit.
It would come back for the arm later, too, since I technically didn't destroy it yet.
In fact, the areas where my attacks did make contact were never restored—just mended around to fill the spaces. The gaping hole in its chest, however, was proof that it could not regenerate the larger wounds I inflicted. Like the one I struck it down with from the sky. The sheer force of the plunge was what shattered it, but no contact was made to fully immobilize it.
So, it got me thinking…
What if I just completely obliterated this thing head-to-toe with my fists? Would it get back up then?
Such a muscle-headed idea, but it was all I could think of to keep this thing down. I wasn't even sure why this creature couldn't regenerate the parts of itself I managed to hit. But the answer didn't matter now. I acted on it anyway.
I knew it would reel in its severed arm on the ground next to me, and I wasn't bothered by that. I'll use it as bait.
The creature jumped around the distance between us in a half-circular pathway in an attempt to distract me from its severed arm. I remained in place, watching its every move.
It jumped high up into the sky above me and reached out with the stump of a limb where its arm used to be. Then those tentacles again shot out from the severed part and rained down toward me… or at least, that's how it made it seem.
Monsters Grade 3 and above were different from those in lower Grades 4 or 5 types. These monsters could actually develop thought and strategy—to the best of their Graded ability, of course. The higher the Grade, the higher its intelligence.
So, this attack wasn't aimed at me. It was going for the arm, just as I thought.
I quickly shot over to the giant arm on the ground and lifted it with ease over my head, the tentacles closing in. I aimed and fired it past the tentacles—directly to its main body. The claws of the arm were so sharp that when it made impact on the creature's body, it utterly skewered it right in the middle, just above that gaping hole I gave it.
The creature, struck, distracted, and most likely confused, kept its descent of tentacles toward me.
I then readied my stance, squatting. Fist to the gravel, I pushed off the ground like a trampoline. Blowing past the tentacles and destroying them instantly. Zero chance of recovery, fully pieced together, discombobulated, and with nowhere to run—we were in the sky, and it was trapped with me.
I didn't do a piercing shot this time because it would just regenerate. So my Gatling of punches started from its silhouette and made its way to its center, where the gaping hole was in its chest.
Punch after punch was landed on the creature, not being able to regenerate—only its head remained. And with one final swing, I shattered it completely, yelling out a battle cry signaling my imminent victory.
No debris. No chunks of monster meat. Completely and utterly obliterated to nothingness.
The blood even evaporated. And that was usually a sign that a monster had been beaten. I landed on the rummaged plaza, slowly getting up from my crouched position, watching it all disintegrate and flutter up into the air, into the ethers.
The black coating covering my body disappeared.
"Alright. Time for the mission rewards." As I said this, a group of World Magistral Army officers came flooding in from all directions to the scene. Just in time to witness only me and the rummaged plaza of a battlefield, and the monster entirely gone…
"Sup, guys! I defeated the—"
"Put your hands up! By order of the W.M.A., you're under arrest."