Pov Narrator.
Isagi did not respond immediately. His eyes remained open, staring fixedly at the sky of the alley. The clouds moved slowly above him, almost with an insulting calm for what had just happened.
His chest began to rise and fall again. A clear sign that he was alive. But for a few seconds he had been dead. Or at least in some kind of limbo, because during that brief instant in which he had no head, his mind had simply ceased to exist.
The world had disappeared. Then it returned.
—I think I saw God in the eyes He told me that Peruvians do not exist and that Veracruz is key.
The comment came out so naturally that for a moment it completely broke the tension of the atmosphere. Had it been a joke? Maybe. Isagi had the bad habit of saying stupid things in the most absurd moments. Sometimes it was his way of hiding what he was really thinking, other times it was simply his way of dealing with messed up situations.
Slowly, he sat up until he was sitting on the ground. He raised a hand and touched his head. His fingers ran through his hair. It was still there. With the same messy shape as always, similar to that of a sea urchin. He let out a sigh.
—Son of a bitch… —he muttered with annoyance. —How dare you damage my beautiful face carved by the angels themselves? —He turned his head to look directly at the demon, clenching his fists with irritation.
It had been damn painful. And, even worse… incredibly strange. Not having a head for a few seconds was not exactly a pleasant experience. Although, to be fair, it had been less terrible than he imagined. His regeneration had acted absurdly fast, rebuilding everything in a matter of seconds.
But even so Those were, without a doubt, the strangest and most painful seconds of his life. Isagi remained silent for a moment longer, processing what had happened. Then his expression changed. His eyes hardened.
—I swear I will kill you. And I will hang your body on my wall as a trophy. —He stood up from the ground calmly, brushing a little dust off his coat.
Now that he knew how the demon's ability worked, he was not going to make the same mistake again. His eyes fixed on the demon's hands.
—Wait, my Windows is still loading.
Isagi raised a finger in front of him, as if he could really stop the fight with a simple gesture. His brain was still "loading the data from the cloud", or at least that was how it felt after having recovered his head just a few seconds ago. A second later, Isagi's eyes focused.
—Ready.
In the next moment he disappeared. Using Quicksilver, his speed shot up by 30%, and the ground beneath his feet creaked as he propelled himself forward. His figure crossed the street like a black gust.
The explosion demon, who had not yet finished recovering from the previous beating, barely had time to lift his gaze.
He only managed to see Isagi appear in front of him. The fist was already in motion. Covered in cursed energy, the blow struck directly against the demon's chest. At the exact instant of contact, the air vibrated violently.
The crackling of lightning filled the street And then it exploded. A storm of black lightning surged from Isagi's fist, twisting like dark bolts that tore through the space around the impact.
—BLACK FLASH! —Isagi shouted with a gaze full of fury.
The entire right side of the demon was destroyed in an instant, disintegrating into fragments while the cursed energy passed through his body. The shockwave expanded through the whole street while Isagi stepped back several steps to stabilize himself.
The explosion demon was still standing. Barely. A huge hole occupied his entire side, revealing the destroyed interior of his rocky body. His bright yellow blood dripped slowly onto the ground.
—Still… not… —the demon muttered while a mouthful of blood escaped from his mouth. His yellow eyes shone again with a mixture of madness and admiration. —Well if I die… I'll take you with me!. —The demon began to laugh, a rough and unhinged laugh. —I ADMIT IT! —he shouted with manic enthusiasm—. YOU ARE INCREDIBLE FOR A HUMAN! It is an interesting ability! But it will be of no use to you! You must have a limit to the wounds you can heal! And now I will test that limit! LET'S SEE IF YOU CAN REGENERATE FROM THIS!
Isagi's eyes widened suddenly when he realized what the demon was about to do. A bad feeling ran through his body.
—Stop! —he shouted raising one hand—. Stop! Don't do it, explosion demon!
While the demon spoke, the temperature of the place began to rise rapidly. At first it was something slight, as if the air became heavier. But in a matter of seconds the heat increased until it became suffocating. The asphalt began to crack under that brutal increase of energy.
The demon was releasing all his strength. With a crazed smile, he brought one of his hands toward his own chest.
—Heh…
Then he touched himself. His body began to shine. A spark. then like a flame, finally like a small sun that burned. The explosion demon had turned himself into a bomb.
The air trembled from the intensity of the energy. The asphalt began to melt, the metal poles creaked and everything nearby began to deform under that absurd temperature.
With all his strength, the demon lunged forward. Before Isagi could react, the demon grabbed him with one arm in a brutal embrace, squeezing him against his own burning body.
—No, let me go, you bastard! —Isagi shouted struggling while trying to break free—. I don't like contact! I'm allergic to hugs!
Inside the demon's body, a colossal explosion began to form. The energy kept growing, compressing itself more and more until an impossible point.
—AAAHHHH!
Isagi could only scream when he saw the blinding glow that surrounded them while he tried to cover himself with his arms. But the heat was too much.
The explosion began to calcine his flesh, burning it into ash in a matter of seconds. His skin disappeared, the muscles were consumed and for an instant only the bones remained. In the middle of the unbearable pain, Isagi could only shout one last thing:
—Aaaaahhh! I'm being swept away like the SNK-Verse!
The explosion detonated. A sphere of concentrated energy expanded violently in all directions, sweeping away everything in its path.
The asphalt was torn from the ground. Cars, light poles, stop signs and trash were thrown away while the shockwave consumed everything. Nothing survived within the radius of destruction.
The burning sphere reached almost fifty meters in diameter before collapsing in on itself and detonating with a thunderous roar that shook the entire area.
The glass of the nearby buildings shattered at the same time, even in those that had not been directly hit by the explosion. For a few seconds, only the roar of the echo running through the streets remained.
A huge black cloud rose from the place of impact, darkening the sky while columns of smoke slowly rose upward. From different points of the city, people could see it.
Half the city watched that gigantic column of smoke that marked the place where, seconds earlier, the explosion had occurred.
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End of the chapter.
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I apologize, but I'm not sure if we reached the goal I mentioned, since I was away those days. But it doesn't matter; I usually only translate and upload chapters of 1000 or 1200 words.
But now I'll be uploading chapters of 1400 or 1800 words. Also, the author of the original version updated the Chainsaw story today, and I brought it to you as quickly as I could.