"Biological instinct…?"
Igarashi Masata narrowed his eyes as he stared at the monster that hesitated to attack him.
"Can it tell that I'm strong?"
The thought carried a trace of self-satisfaction, but Masata immediately pushed it aside. This was not the time to waste energy on idle thoughts. The shrill siren from earlier, combined with the distant roars echoing through the cave, made his instincts scream danger.
"I'll finish you in one strike!"
Magma erupted from his arm, instantly wrapping it in blazing crimson. Masata lunged forward, closing the distance in a blink as he swung his arm at the creature.
But the monster reacted faster than expected.
Driven by survival instinct—and an innate fear of extreme heat as a carbon-based lifeform—the lizard-like creature moved with shocking speed. All eight of its thick legs pushed off at once, and its massive body slid sideways like a bolt of lightning.
"So fast?!"
Despite its huge size, its speed was anything but clumsy. Movements like this were completely unnatural.
Having avoided Masata's attack, the monster immediately counterattacked.
Its mouth opened wide, revealing two rows of sharp white teeth as it lunged forward. A wave of foul stench rushed toward Masata's face. Even though he could have avoided the bite by elementalizing, Masata had no intention of experiencing what it felt like to be inside that thing's mouth.
He kicked off the ground, barely slipping past the snapping jaws.
Seeing that it had failed to land a decisive blow, the monster didn't pursue him. Instead, it froze in place, as if preparing something.
Masata's eyes sharpened.
The grotesque "tumor" on the monster's back began to pulse violently. Its throat bulged, as if something inside was being forced upward.
In the next instant, the creature spat out a cluster of white streaks toward Masata.
Although launched from its mouth, the projectiles were terrifyingly fast—nearly comparable to bullets.
Masata had already started dodging the moment he sensed danger, but the distance was too close. One of the white streaks grazed his arm.
"What the hell is this—so disgusting!"
A sticky sensation spread across his skin. Instinctively, Masata shook his arm, trying to fling the substance away—but it was useless.
The white mucus clung to him like industrial adhesive.
Looking more closely, Masata realized the truth. The white substance wasn't just stuck to him—it was splattered across the cave walls as well.
"Lizard… and spider?"
A realization struck him.
Eight legs.
Extreme speed.
Sticky, silk-like secretion.
"A hybrid…"
Masata's expression darkened.
"A genetically spliced creature. So this is one of the hidden dangers the doctor left behind. I didn't expect to run into something like this on a deserted island."
In Masata's understanding, the only ones capable of creating monsters were All For One and that mysterious doctor. But All For One's creations relied on Quirk fusion—not biological hybridization like this.
Which meant there was only one explanation.
The doctor.
Flames surged from Masata's arm. The white, web-like substance instantly blackened under the heat, crumbling into ash. He shook off the remaining magma, and his arm returned to its glowing crimson state.
In a confined space like this cave, it would have been far more effective to flood the area with magma or unleash a wide-range attack. But there were six girls behind him.
He couldn't afford to lose control.
"I'll have to rely on precision attacks."
Masata bent his knees slightly.
"If you're fast," he said calmly, "then I just need to be faster."
His body exploded forward like a cheetah.
After his intense battle with All Might, Masata's speed had undergone a subtle but undeniable breakthrough. At this moment, ordinary people wouldn't even be able to track his movements with their eyes.
Lowering his center of gravity, Masata surged toward the monster again—but the creature wasn't helpless. It inherited a lizard's extreme sensitivity to movement.
At the last moment, its massive tail whipped around, cutting across Masata's attack path like a steel club.
"So you're counterattacking with your tail?"
Masata's eyes lit up instead of showing fear.
"Perfect."
What he feared most was a prolonged battle of speed. A frontal clash?
That was exactly what he excelled at.
The monster's tail was covered in a thick, horn-like layer, swinging down with crushing force.
Masata raised his fist.
At the instant their attacks collided, magma erupted violently from his arm.
"Heaven Dog!"
A terrifying force surged forward.
The monster's strength was astonishing—it actually matched Masata's blow for a split second.
But strength wasn't Masata's most frightening weapon.
The magma was.
In less than a second, the contact point turned pitch black under the extreme heat. The monster's tail charred, cracked, and then snapped clean off as magma swallowed it whole.
"ROAR—!"
With part of its body destroyed, the monster lost its balance. It staggered backward, its movements sloppy and uncoordinated, before crashing heavily to the ground.
Masata didn't hesitate.
He leapt onto the creature's back, pinned its neck, and drove his magma-formed arm straight through.
The monster's once-proud, hardened scales offered no resistance. After a few violent spasms, the creature went completely still.
Masata withdrew his arm, kicked the corpse aside, and confirmed there was no sign of life.
Then he turned sharply toward the girls.
"Hurry! This place is almost certainly an experimental base!" he said urgently.
"I don't know how many more creatures like this are here—or whether the next ones will be even worse!"
Right now, protecting everyone's safety was the priority. If it came down to it, Masata could escape alone by fully elementalizing and retreating at full speed.
But—
It seemed he was already too late.