"Did I… erase him?!"
After the last traces of energy Boros had poured out finally faded, he stared at the bones drifting in the vacuum of space and spoke to himself in his mind.
"Is this… another victory for me?!"
Boros questioned his own heart.
"No… I should say—of course I won again, didn't I?"
He laughed silently in the void.
"But at this point, I've burned through everything. With all my energy depleted, I can't keep living either."
Boros looked at the bones floating in the darkness, then at himself—drained, unable to move. He understood it clearly: in theory, this wasn't even a win or a loss. He had chased a prophecy all the way to Earth, met the foretold opponent, and the result was a draw. Two beings who had once stood at the peak of the known universe—now reduced to drifting space junk, ending miserably in silence.
A thousand years from now, who would ever know that this trash drifting through the cosmos had once been the two strongest existences in all of known space?
"Everything's over…"
Boros smiled faintly and closed his eyes. (Boros has an eye in the center of his chest—also his energy core. That's why Jovian kept pinning his strikes to Boros's chest.)
But right as Boros closed his eyes, a burst of light suddenly bloomed in front of him, illuminating the pitch-black universe.
"Too bright… it's stabbing through my eyelids."
Feeling the glare burn, Boros slowly opened his eyes.
"Boros… looks like this is where you stop~"
The moment Boros saw the man standing there—bare, muscular, radiating a kind of holy glow—his head instantly started throbbing.
"No—seriously? You STILL didn't die?"
"You're impossible to kill, you're disgusting, and you're boring. I'm done playing…"
Boros looked at the man bathed in radiant light, laughed once, then closed his eyes again.
He didn't want to look.
It hurt his eyes.
"Our game's only just beginning…"
"I'll have plenty of chances to make you play with me later."
The naked man drove one hand through Boros's chest and crushed the energy core inside.
The instant the core shattered, Boros's gaze dimmed. His cells began to wither rapidly.
Ding! "High-level organism genes detected. Absorb?"
"Yes."
Hearing the prompt, the man immediately chose yes. After absorbing Boros's genes, he didn't just stand there and watch Boros's body die. Instead, he injected thin strands of energy into the withering flesh, keeping it alive—keeping it "active."
Boros's species was extremely valuable. There were too many things worth studying.
And the man—Jovian—was not about to let Boros's body truly die before he squeezed every last ounce of value out of it.
At the same time…
During Boros's stellar-grade Collapsing Star Roaring Cannon, Jovian had died and regenerated over and over—dozens of cycles—until he finally pierced through that last thin barrier and stepped into a completely new realm.
Energy level: baseline stellar-class.
That was Jovian's level now—his normal state, without Asura Mode, Meteoric Burst, or any other cell-energy release methods.
"Hah…"
Jovian let out a slow breath.
"Now it's time to go back to Earth."
With that, Jovian took Boros's body and flew toward Earth.
A few days later…
The citizens of Earth—and the S-Class heroes—still hadn't forgotten the world-shaking battle from days ago. Whether it was the cosmic tyrant Boros who had tried to destroy the world, or Jovian, Earth's strongest hero… neither of them had returned.
But no one dared forget.
Satellite images captured in space showed the Moon and Venus in horrific condition—proof of just how brutal and dangerous that fight had been.
"Did you really die?"
Tatsumaki floated at the edge of the atmosphere, using her psychic power to scan everything around her. No matter how she searched, the result was always the same:
Not a single trace of Jovian.
"Idiot… dying that easily!"
"Embarrassing."
Cursing under her breath, Tatsumaki prepared to leave the atmosphere's edge. Today's search was over. She'd come back tomorrow.
She wouldn't stop until she found him.
That was just how stubborn she was.
Smack—
Right as Tatsumaki dropped back into the atmosphere—now a few thousand meters above the ground—she suddenly felt a familiar presence behind her.
"Y-you… you bastard…"
Her face flushed red as she whipped around.
"Wow, sorry~"
"When there's a nice drum right there and you don't give it a tap, it feels like you're disrespecting your own hand."
Behind Tatsumaki stood a man in a black-and-white skintight suit, a huge F on his chest—the symbol of "Freedom." He kept his hand raised mid-swing, casually greeting her like nothing happened.
"Hmph. Don't get cocky!"
"You think saving Earth and becoming the planet's hero means I'll just let you mess with me whenever you want?"
Tatsumaki snorted, but her shoulders loosened slightly. The tight knot in her chest finally eased.
"Haha…"
"Honestly, you might not believe this, but I wasn't trying to mess with you at all. That's just how people back home say hello."
Jovian explained, dead serious.
As the strongest Viltrumite alive now—and the future leader of the Viltrumites—adding a totally real "local custom" to his hometown wasn't too much, was it?
"Who says hello like THAT?!"
Tatsumaki glared, fuming. She felt like she'd been played.
"I do."
Jovian smiled at her.
"…"
Tatsumaki stared at the man grinning like bright sunshine and fell silent.
"Anyway, I came today to say goodbye."
After joking around, Jovian finally got to the point.
"Goodbye?!"
"Hmph. So you're leaving too?"
The word goodbye made Tatsumaki's body twitch. Even her tough tone wavered for a fraction of a second.
"Fastest is three days. Slowest is a week."
"I'll come pick you all up. When I do, I'm going to need your help…"
"And while 'Dad' is gone this week, don't go crying, okay?"
After saying that, Jovian stepped behind her, gave her another light pat, then vanished in a blur.
"Bastard! You'd better never—never show your face in front of me again!"
Tatsumaki rubbed her flat backside and shouted after him, furious.
But even while she cursed him out loud, hearing Jovian promise he'd be back in three days—or at most a week—made warmth spread quietly through her chest.
"…Wait."
"Pick us up? What do you mean 'us'?!"
As Tatsumaki tried to lock onto Jovian's trail with her psychic power, the detail finally hit her—hard.
He hadn't said "you."
He'd said "you all."
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