Garou leaned against the rough bark of a towering pine, his breath hitching in his chest. Every inhale sent a sharp spike of agony through his ribs. He looked down at his hands. They were trembling. Not from fear—never from fear—but from exhaustion. The fight with Watchdog Man hadn't gone according to plan. That mascot-wearing freak hadn't used technique. He hadn't used martial arts. He had just been… a beast. Fast, strong, and completely unpredictable.
Animals, Garou thought, spitting a glob of blood onto the forest floor. I prepared for heroes. I prepared for styles and stances. I didn't prepare for a dog trying to shake my hand at Mach speed.
He pushed himself off the tree, stumbling slightly before correcting his balance. The woods outside Q-City were dense, the canopy thick enough to blot out the moon, leaving him in a gloom that suited his mood perfectly. He needed to recover. He needed to heal. Then, he would go back. He would tear that dog costume apart and find the human underneath.
He forced his legs to move, his mind drifting back to better fights to drown out the throbbing in his muscles. He thought of Tank Top Master. Now that had been a fight. That had been a lesson in the difference between brute strength and true power.
Garou smirked, the expression tugging at the split skin on his lip. He could still feel the memory of the contact—the way Tank Top Master's fist had come at him like a freight train. To a normal man, it was a death sentence. To Garou, it was a stream of water waiting to be redirected.
Flowing water crushing rock, Garou mused, visualizing the movement. He replayed the moment he had shattered the hero's spirit. He had taken all that kinetic energy, all that righteousness and muscle, and spun it right back into the man's face. It had been easy. It had been art. Tank Top Master was an S-Class hero, yet he had crumbled just like the rest of them.
"They rely too much on power," Garou whispered to the empty woods. "They think being strong is enough. Without technique, it's useless."
He took another step, but his foot didn't hit the ground the way he expected. The air pressure shifted. The hairs on the back of his neck, usually matted with sweat, stood straight up. It was a sensation he knew well. The feeling of eyes burning into him.
Someone was here.
Garou didn't turn around. He stopped moving, letting his breathing shallow out, expanding his senses. Was it a hero? Had the Hero Association sent a cleanup crew? Or maybe a monster looking to claim the bounty on his head?
Snap.
It wasn't a twig breaking. It was the sound of air being displaced violently.
Instinct took the wheel. Garou didn't think; he flowed. He spun on his heel, his hands coming up in a blur of motion.
A boulder the size of a minivan was hurtling toward him, tearing through the trees like they were made of paper. It was moving fast enough to turn a human into a red mist upon impact.
Garou didn't flinch. He stepped into the path of the projectile, his eyes tracing the uneven surface of the rock.
Water Stream Rock Smashing Fist.
His fingers grazed the rough stone. He didn't try to stop it. He guided it. With a fluid, circular motion, he redirected the boulder's momentum, sending it crashing harmlessly into the earth beside him. The ground shook with a thunderous thud, kicking up a cloud of dust and pine needles.
Garou exhaled slowly, dropping his hands but keeping his muscles coiled. He narrowed his yellow eyes, scanning the darkness.
"That wasn't a warning shot," Garou muttered. "That force… that speed..."
He did the math instantly. The size of the rock, the velocity, the silent approach. This wasn't a Tiger Level threat. This was, at the very minimum, Demon Level. Maybe higher.
Finally, Garou thought, a spark of excitement igniting in his gut, burning away the fatigue. Something worth fighting.
A low rumble echoed from the darkness ahead. Three more boulders ripped through the tree line, coming from different angles. They were faster this time. Much faster. Garou grinned, exposing his bloodstained teeth.
"That's more like it!" Garou exclaimed.
He launched himself forward. He didn't just dodge; he danced. He moved so fast the world around him seemed to blur into streaks of color. He punched the first boulder, shattering it into gravel with a precision strike to its structural weak point. He ducked under the second, feeling the wind of its passing ruffle his hair. The third one he caught with the side of his foot, spinning midair and kicking it back toward the source with twice the speed.
Boom!
The kicked boulder smashed into a tree, obliterating it. Garou landed in a crouch. He was breaking the sound barrier just by side-stepping. The pain in his body was gone, replaced by the searing heat of adrenaline.
"Is that all you've got?" Garou shouted into the gloom. He stood up, spreading his arms wide, inviting the attack. "You throw rocks like a frightened child! Come out! Stop hiding in the bushes like a coward!"
He waited. Silence.
"What's the matter?" Garou taunted, stepping over a fallen log. "Afraid of the Human Monster? You should be. Show yourself, and I might make it quick!"
The atmosphere changed. It wasn't a sound or a movement. It was a warping. The trees in front of him didn't bend; they twisted, their trunks spiraling like wet clay. The colors of the forest—the deep greens and browns—bled out, turning into a monochromatic gray.
From the center of the distortion, a figure emerged. Garou stopped, his brow furrowing. He had seen monsters. He had seen heroes. He had seen freaks of nature. But he had never seen anything quite like this.
It was humanoid, but that was where the similarities ended. It was pale, a stark, bone-white against the dark forest. It had no hair, no distinct muscle definition, just smooth, unnatural skin. It had no gender—nothing to suggest it was male or female. It was just… a blank slate. An emptiness given form.
Garou's instincts, usually screaming attack, were now caution.
"Who the hell are you?" Garou demanded, shifting his stance. He kept his center of gravity low, ready to spring.
The being floated a few inches off the ground. When it spoke, the voice didn't come from a mouth—it echoed from all directions at once.
"I am Alagard. I am the heir of the God of Reis." The being said.
Garou scoffed. "God of Reis? Fuck your god, Alagard. I'm going to hunt you."
Alagard tilted its head, its blank face unreadable. "You are damaged. Yet your energy output is rising. Fascinating. I entered this world to experiment. To purge the weak and construct the perfect race of the undead. My zombies require strong hosts. Perhaps you will qualify."
"Zombies?" Garou made a mocking laugh. "You want to turn me into a rotting puppet? You and every other freak in the Monster Association. You're all the same. Big talk, delusions of grandeur, and glass jaws."
"I am not a monster. I have the blood of gods." Alagard stated calmly.
Alagard raised a hand. The ground beneath Garou erupted.
Roots, thick as pythons and hard as iron, shot out of the dirt. Garou jumped, but the air above him solidified, slamming him back down. The environment itself was turning against him. The trees lashed out with their branches, wrapping around his arms and legs. The dirt rose up like quicksand, swallowing his boots.
"What is this?" Garou gritted his teeth, straining against the bindings. It wasn't psychic power like Fubuki or Tatsumaki. It felt more physical, like the world was being rewritten to crush him.
"Restraint," Alagard said, drifting closer. "Do not struggle. The integration process requires stillness."
Garou felt the pressure building on his chest. His ribs creaked. The pain from the Watchdog Man fight flared up, screaming at him to give in.
Stillness? Garou thought. To hell with that.
"Don't…" Garou growled, the veins in his neck bulging. "Look down… on me!"
CRACK.
A shockwave of pure physical force exploded from Garou's body. The iron-hard roots shattered into splinters. The solidified air shattered like glass. Garou tore his arms free, his roar shaking the remaining leaves off the trees.
He didn't wait. He lunged.
Flowing Water Rock Smashing Fist!
Garou closed the distance in a fraction of a second, his fingers trailing blue streaks of energy. He unleashed a barrage of strikes, testing Alagard's defenses. He aimed for the throat, the joints, the center of mass.
Alagard didn't block. It weaved. Its body seemed to lose solidity, bending around Garou's fists like smoke.
He's not dodging, Garou realized, his mind racing as he threw a flurry of punches. He's warping his own body shape to avoid contact. I need to predict where he'll be, not where he is.
Garou adjusted. He feinted a high kick, forcing Alagard to shift its torso left, then drove a palm strike into the space where Alagard was moving to.
Bam!
Contact. It felt like hitting a wall of dense steel. Alagard slid back a few feet, its feet carving trenches in the dirt.
"Impressive," Alagard said. For the first time, it looked at a human with acknowledgment. "You're very strong for a human. You are damaged, exhausted and yet you are resisting the will of the environment. Are you really human?"
"I'm just getting started!" Garou yelled. He felt the heat in his blood. This was it. This was the thrill. He was learning. Every second he fought this thing, he was understanding its rhythm. He was evolving.
Garou dropped into a sprinter's stance, ready to blitz. "I've figured you out, Casper. You manipulate the surroundings, but your reaction time to physical trauma is shit. In other words, you're a coward who can't take a hit. You can't warp if I hit you faster than you can think!"
He launched himself.
But Alagard didn't warp. It didn't dodge.
Alagard pointed a finger.
There was no sound. No warning. Just a sudden, blinding flash of silver.
Garou's eyes widened. He tried to twist midair, to use the momentum to spin away, but he was too close.
Shkrrrtch.
Garou's momentum halted instantly. He looked down. A jagged beam of metal, thick as a large tree branch, had erupted from the ground and skewered him. It went straight through his stomach and out his back, suspending him in the air like a bug pinned to a board.
Garou coughed, a torrent of dark red blood splashing onto the metal beam. The pain was absolute. It was a white-hot star exploding in his gut.
"Disappointing, who's the coward now?" Alagard said, lowering its hand. "I overestimated your durability. The experiment is a failure."
Alagard turned away, the surrounding nature beginning to warp back to its twisted gray state.
Garou hung there, his vision swimming. The edges of his sight were going black. He should be dead. His organs were pulverized. His spine should be severed.
Failure?
The word echoed in his head.
The experiment… is a failure?
Garou's fingers twitched. He gripped the cold metal protruding from his chest.
"Hey…"
Alagard stopped. It turned back slowly.
Garou gripped the beam tighter. His muscles screamed. With a wet, tearing sound that made even the forest seem to cringe, Garou pulled himself backward. Inch by agonizing inch, he slid his body off the metal spike.
He hit the ground on his knees, panting, blood pouring from the hole in his center. But he didn't collapse. He stood up.
He was grinning. It was a horrific, blood-soaked grin that stretched from ear to ear.
"Who said…" Garou wheezed, wiping his chin, "…that the fight was over?"
His heart was beating differently now. It wasn't just adrenaline. It was something darker, heavier. The Monsterization. He could feel the fibers of his muscles knitting together, denser and stronger than before. The hole in his stomach was already clotting, the pain transforming into fuel.
"Your vital signs are critical," Alagard observed, though the curiosity was back. "Yet your combat potential is increasing. How?What are you?"
"It's hunting time." Garou said.
Garou stomped the ground. Huge slabs of bedrock were kicked up into the air, creating a chaotic wall of stone between him and Alagard. Alagard waved a hand, disintegrating the rocks, but Garou was already gone.
Faster, Garou told himself.
He wasn't running anymore; he was a phantom. He used the falling debris as stepping stones, bouncing off rocks in the air to change his trajectory in impossible angles.
Alagard's head snapped left, then right, trying to track the movement.
"Over here!" Garou yelled from the left, kicking a boulder straight at the entity.
Alagard blasted the rock to dust.
"Too slow!" Garou screamed from the right, launching another debris shower.
Alagard extended a shield of warped air, deflecting the attack.
"LOOK BEHIND YOU!"
Garou was there. He had used the chaos, the dust, and the noise to mask his true approach. He was directly behind Alagard, mid-spin, grinning. His leg was a blur, carrying the momentum of his speed, his anger, and his evolution.
"Tank Top Master taught me this one," Garou growled.
WHAM.
The kick connected cleanly with the side of Alagard's head. There was no warping this time. No tricks. Just raw, devastating impact.
Alagard was launched. The entity flew like a ragdoll, smashing through one tree, then two, before colliding with a mountain nearly a hundred yards away.
CRASH.
The side of the mountain shook. Dust and debris rained down, burying the pale figure.
Garou landed, skidding to a halt. He was heaving for breath, clutching his stomach. The wound was throbbing, but he felt… powerful. He felt invincible. He had taken a lethal blow and paid it back tenfold.
"IS THAT YOUR GOD! Is that your perfect race!"
He took a step forward, ready to finish it. He would drag Alagard out of the rubble and make it wish it were dead. But the dust cloud settled instantly. Alagard was standing there. There was no bruise on its face. No dirt on its pale skin. It looked exactly as it had when it arrived. The massive crater in the mountain behind it was the only evidence that Garou had hit him at all.
Garou's smile faltered. "You… you have regeneration?"
"I have complete control over my physical form," Alagard said. Its voice was colder now. Bored. "You have proven resilient, human. But you are tedious. I have collected the data I need. You are too volatile for the zombie project."
Alagard raised both hands.
Garou tensed, preparing to dodge another beam. He coiled his legs, ready to move.
But nothing shot out.
Instead, the space around Garou simply… opened.
A swirling vortex of black and purple energy manifested directly behind him. The suction was instantaneous and overwhelming. It wasn't pulling him; it was deleting the space he occupied and replacing it with the void.
"What—!" Garou dug his fingers into the ground, his boots scraping furrows in the earth. But there was nothing to hold onto. The gravity of the portal was too strong.
"Farewell," Alagard said, turning its back. "Go be a problem in another failure planet."
"YOU COWARD!" Garou screamed, the wind tearing the words from his mouth. "COME BACK HERE AND FIGHT ME! I'M NOT DONE! I'M NOT—"
His grip failed. The earth crumbled under his fingers.
Garou reached out one last time, his hand clawing at the air toward Alagard, before the darkness swallowed him whole. The portal snapped shut, leaving the woods silent, save for the settling dust and the bloody trail of a monster who refused to die.
2
Garou plummeted. The purple void vanished, replaced instantly by a sky the color of a bruised plum.
He was high up. The wind roared in his ears, whipping his silver hair into a frenzy. Below him, a city sprawled out like a broken circuit board. Buildings were gutted, streets were clogged with wrecked cars, and fires burned unchecked in the distance. It looked like Z-City on a bad day, but worse. It looked dead.
Garou narrowed his eyes against the wind, scanning the ground rushing up to meet him.
Movement. Everywhere.
Down in the streets, thousands of tiny figures swarmed. They were climbing over cars, clawing at walls, tearing into each other.
"More ants?" Garou shouted over the wind, a feral grin splitting his face. "Is this where you sent me, Alagard? To a playground?"
He wasn't scared. Fear was for the weak. This was just a change of scenery. A new hunting ground. Directly below him, a massive rectangular building loomed. It had a flat roof littered with HVAC units and debris. It looked like a shopping mall.
Garou didn't slow down. He didn't look for a soft landing. He tucked his knees to his chest, wrapping his arms around his shins, compacting his body into a dense ball of muscle and bone. He channeled the momentum, turning himself into a human meteor.
"Coming through!"
CRASH.
The impact was thunderous. Garou smashed through the roof like a bullet through wet cardboard. Concrete exploded. Rebar snapped.
He didn't stop at the top floor. He crashed through the ceiling of the fourth floor, shattering tile and glass. Then the third. Then the second.
BOOM. BOOM. BOOM.
Debris rained down around him as he punched a vertical tunnel through the heart of the building. The structural integrity of the mall groaned in protest, but Garou was moving too fast to care.
He hit the ground floor with enough force to crater the marble tiling. A shockwave of dust and pulverized stone blasted outward, shattering the storefront windows of a nearby jewelry shop and a food court.
Garou stood up slowly in the center of the crater, rolling his shoulders. A satisfying pop echoed from his neck. The wound in his stomach from Alagard's beam was just a dull ache now, a reminder that fueled his aggression.
"Is that it?" Garou scoffed, brushing concrete dust off his shoulder. "I expected harder floors."
A low, guttural moan answered him. Then a shriek. Then a thousand shrieks.
The dust cloud began to settle, revealing the nightmare surrounding him.
The mall was packed.
They were everywhere. Shuffling things with rotting skin hanging off their faces. Fast, twitchy things crawling on the walls like geckos. Massive, bloated things that looked like bodybuilders gone wrong.
Zombies. An army of them.
Hundreds of milky, dead eyes fixed on Garou. They smelled the fresh blood on his clothes. They sensed the life radiating from him.
A pack of runners—creatures with elongated limbs and exposed muscle—screeched and scrambled over the railing of the second floor, diving toward him.
Garou didn't flinch. He smiled. It wasn't a hero's smile. It was the smile of a wolf that had just found a sheep pen with the gate left open.
"Come on then!" Garou roared. "Let's see what you're made of!"
He didn't wait for them to land. He met them in the air.
Garou launched himself upward, his movement a blur. His fist connected with the first runner's head. There was no resistance. The skull evaporated in a mist of black fluid and bone fragments.
Pop. Crack. Splat.
He spun midair, a whirlwind of violence. A backhand decapitated a second one. A knee to the chest of a third sent it rocketing back into the ceiling with enough force to stick it there.
Garou landed lightly on his feet, but the horde was already closing in. The walkers were slow, shambling masses, but the sheer number of them was suffocating. The big ones—hulking brutes with skin like gray leather—were charging through the crowd, tossing smaller zombies aside like ragdolls.
"Quantity over quality," Garou muttered, flowing into his stance. "Boring."
He stepped forward, right into the teeth of the swarm.
A massive zombie, easily eight feet tall, swung a fist the size of a microwave at Garou's head.
Garou didn't even blink. He caught the fist with one hand. The force of the zombie's punch dissipated instantly, redirected by the subtle motion of Garou's wrist.
Water Stream Rock Smashing Fist.
Garou twisted his hips and drove his other fist into the creature's gut. The impact sounded like a cannon shot. The giant zombie folded in half, its spine snapping with a wet crunch, and flew backward, bowling over twenty other zombies like pins.
"Next!" Garou laughed.
He became a storm. He wasn't defending himself; he was hunting. He moved through the mall atrium like a natural disaster. He bounced off the walls, using the environment to build speed. Every step cracked the floor tiles. Every punch created a vacuum of air that ripped the rotting flesh from their bones.
He grabbed a jumper out of the air by its ankle and used it as a flail, smashing it into a group of walkers until there was nothing left of the creature but a leg.
He vaulted over a kiosk, grabbing a metal bench bolted to the floor. With a grunt of effort, he ripped the bolts straight out of the concrete and hurled the bench like a frisbee. It sliced through the air, decapitating a line of zombies before embedding itself in a wall.
"Is this the best this world has to offer?" Garou shouted, his voice echoing off the glass ceiling. "You're slow! You're weak! You're nothing!"
He was running now, sprinting laps around the ground floor, gathering a train of sprinting zombies behind him. He led them toward the main support pillars of the atrium.
Garou drifted around a pillar, his sneakers screeching on the polished floor. As the horde followed, he spun around and unleashed a flurry of strikes on the concrete column.
Dadadadadadada!
The concrete pulverized under his knuckles. The rebar twisted. The pillar groaned and buckled.
Garou didn't stop. He sprinted to the next pillar. Smash. Buckle.
He was laughing maniacally now, the adrenaline singing in his veins. The destruction was total. He was tearing the building down from the inside out just to see if he could.
"Catch me if you can, uglies!"
He saw the daylight streaming through the main entrance—massive double glass doors blocked by a pile of barricades.
Garou didn't slow down. He accelerated.
He hit the barricade at Mach speed. Wood, metal, and glass exploded outward. Garou burst out of the mall and onto the street, skidding to a halt on the asphalt.
Behind him, the mall gave up.
With a sound like the earth cracking open, the support pillars failed. The roof caved in. The upper floors pancaked onto the lower ones. A massive cloud of dust and debris billowed out, swallowing the thousands of zombies inside. The screeching was silenced instantly, replaced by the roar of collapsing infrastructure.
Garou stood there, chest heaving, watching the destruction. He wiped a smear of black zombie blood from his cheek and spat on the ground.
"Too easy," he said, turning his back on the rubble.
He looked up at the strange, purple sky. He raised a fist, pointing a finger at the heavens.
"HEY! ALAGARD!" he screamed, his voice raw and powerful. "YOU SEE THAT? YOU CAN'T RUN FOREVER! I'LL TEAR THIS WHOLE DAMN DIMENSION APART BRICK BY BRICK UNTIL I FIND YOU!"
Silence answered him. Just the wind and the distant fires.
Garou lowered his hand, his eyes scanning the street. The noise of the collapse had attracted attention. From the alleyways and side streets, more zombies were emerging. Shamblers. Runners.
Garou cracked his knuckles. "Fine. Round two."
He took a step forward, ready to tear into the new wave.
Sshhhwing.
It was a sharp, whistling sound. Too high-pitched for a normal blade.
Suddenly, the zombies in front of him—about a dozen of them—stopped moving.
For a split second, nothing happened.
Then, they fell apart.
Cleanly.
Heads slid off necks. Torsos separated from hips. Arms dropped to the pavement. It was like they had been passed through a laser grid. The cuts were precise, surgical, and invisible.
Sshhhwing. Sshhhwing.
More cuts. The brick wall of the building next to the zombies developed deep, diagonal gashes. A streetlamp was sliced in half, the top part clattering to the ground.
Garou froze. He hadn't thrown those punches.
He looked around, his instincts screaming. The invisible slashes were tearing up the street, dissecting the zombies before they could even get close to him. But strangely, none of the cuts came near him. It was a circle of death, and he was in the safe zone.
"Show yourself!" Garou barked, dropping into a defensive crouch. "I don't need help!"
"Help?" a voice giggled. It was light and playfu. "Oh, honey, I wasn't helping. I was just cleaning up the trash so I could get a better look."
Garou snapped his head up.
Perched on top of an overturned delivery truck, casually crossing her legs, was a woman.
Or… something like a woman.
She had wings—leathery, bat-like wings that twitched behind her. Her hair was a cascading waterfall of rich brunette waves. Her skin was crimson, but flushed with life, unlike the rotting things he had just pulped.
She was wearing a wedding dress. Or what used to be a wedding dress. It was tattered, ripped at the hem to show off her legs, and absolutely drenched in dried blood. It looked like she had gotten married in a slaughterhouse.
In her hand, she held a sword that looked too big for her, resting it casually on her shoulder.
She leaned forward, her eyes—bright and mischievous—locking onto Garou. She flashed a smile that revealed sharp, predatory fangs.
"My, my," she purred, looking him up and down like he was a piece of prime steak in a window display. "Aren't you a delicious surprise? I saw the building come down and thought, 'Oh, a big strong monster.' But you…"
She hopped off the truck, her wings fluttering to slow her descent. She landed softly, a few yards away from him.
"You look like a human," she said, tilting her head. "But you smell like… trouble." She winked. "And you are definitely a hottie. That hair? The scars? The brooding intensity? Mama likes."
Garou stared at her. He didn't relax. His muscles tightened. This wasn't a zombie. This was something intelligent. Something fast. Those cuts were faster than he could follow.
"Who are you?" Garou demanded, shifting his feet to get better traction. "Another one of Alagard's puppets?"
"Alagard? Who's that?" She waved her hand dismissively. "Never heard of him. Sounds boring."
She took a step closer, twirling the sword effortlessly in her hand. "The question is, what are you? A human? A demon? Or just lost?"
Garou narrowed his eyes. She was mocking him. Just like the heroes. They always talked too much before they got crushed.
"I'm the hunter," Garou said, his voice low and dangerous. He raised his hands, palms open, flowing like water. "And you're in my way."
The woman blinked, then burst out laughing. "Oh, he's feisty too! Even better!"
She pointed her sword at him, but her expression was more flirtatious than threatening. "Come on then, Hottie. Show me what those hands can do. Unless you're scared of a girl in a dress?"
Garou's brow twitched. Scared?
"You've just been added to my hunt list." Garou said.