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The two Skullcrawlers—their heads completely obliterated, brain matter visibly squirming inside their shattered skulls—were sent flying backward, crashing into the thick yellow fog.
The three remaining Skullcrawlers, who had been attempting to gang up on Kong three-on-one, watched as their two comrades met their brutal end. One of them—easily twenty meters long—let out a furious shriek, then immediately changed targets.
The Skullcrawler locked onto the black silhouette charging in from outside and angrily launched its barbed crimson tongue.
The next second—
A metallic clang echoed through the canyon.
The Skullcrawler, feeling its tongue wrap around something, immediately shrieked and began reeling it in—planning to swallow the tiny speck called Hawk in one gulp.
Hawk, wrapped in the Skullcrawler's tongue, was rapidly pulled toward its gaping maw.
But just as he was about to be swallowed whole...
His Cosmo ignited.
"BANG!"
"SCREEEEE!"
The moment Hawk's limbs exploded with power, the Skullcrawler's tongue detonated into shredded meat. Hawk hovered calmly in mid-air, completely unscathed.
The Skullcrawler shrieked, but showed no sign of feeling pain from its destroyed tongue—like a mindless monster with no emotions. It simply bit off the exposed stump of its own tongue and lunged at Hawk in the air.
"Sonic Fist!"
"WHAM!"
The Skullcrawler's head snapped to the side. At the same moment, its long, barbed tail—like a steel whip—lashed out toward Hawk.
Hawk threw another punch, sending this Skullcrawler—clearly tougher than the first two, at least strong enough to survive one of his hits without dying instantly—crashing back to the ground.
The Skullcrawler hit the canyon floor, shook its head, and in less than a blink, adjusted its stance and charged at Hawk again.
"Lightning!"
"Sonic Fist!"
"BOOM, BOOM, BOOM!!!"
Under the storm of fist strikes, the Skullcrawler was first slammed into the ground. Then, with a piercing shriek, it pressed all four limbs flat against the cracking earth, trying to brace itself. Dust exploded upward—and under the relentless barrage of a hundred punches per second, the Skullcrawler's head finally shattered completely.
In the endless cloud of yellow dust, the Skullcrawler lay motionless, its skull obliterated, strange yellowish blood pooling beneath it.
...
Not far away, Kong had grabbed one of the remaining Skullcrawlers. With his mountain-sized hands gripping its head, he bared his fangs and—ignoring the creature's shrieking—bit down hard, tearing open its skull.
With a sickening, wet tearing sound, Kong ripped off half the Skullcrawler's head in one savage bite.
He then hurled the dying creature at the last Skullcrawler charging toward him. The moment it instinctively dodged, Kong seized its tail with both hands.
In an instant—
SLAM!
Left. Right. Left. Right.
BOOM, BOOM, BOOM, BOOM!
The final Skullcrawler—still gripped by Kong's hands—was repeatedly smashed into the ground on alternating sides. Its head visibly cracked and split apart until, with a final sickening crunch, it exploded completely.
Kong dropped the corpse, turned toward the tunnel still belching yellow smoke, spread his arms wide, beat his chest with both fists, and let out a roar filled with rage.
As if to say—
Come on!
You want some more?!
The tunnel didn't respond. But the flow of yellow smoke visibly thinned.
Just then, Kong's peripheral vision caught Hawk flying toward the tunnel entrance.
His roar became short and urgent.
It sounded like a warning—danger ahead, don't get closer.
"ROAR!"
"...Don't worry. I'm just taking a look."
Hawk recognized Kong's roar was directed at him. He glanced back with a smile, then landed at the edge of the tunnel—about ten meters in diameter. The moment he leaned over to look inside, the Phoenix Cloth's visor materialized over his face, and he peered down into the depths.
But—
He couldn't see anything. Absolutely nothing.
"Down there..."
"Could this already lead to the so-called Hollow Earth?"
Hawk felt his gaze unable to penetrate the thick yellow fog below. His mind immediately went to the Hollow Earth that existed in the Kong universe.
He suppressed the urge to jump down, pulled back, and turned to look at Kong—who had been watching him the entire time.
Kong saw Hawk turn around and let out another urgent roar, as if to say: The Skullcrawlers' nest is down there. It's dangerous. Don't go.
Hawk smiled at Kong's concern. "Don't worry. I'm not going down there. Not right now."
Kong seemed to understand. He let out another low rumble, then turned away. His massive arms grabbed the high canyon walls, and within moments, he disappeared over the ridge.
Hawk returned to the Iwi village with Peter.
Once again ignoring the tribespeople who revered him as their ancestor, he headed straight to Felicia's stilt house.
A few minutes later—
Peter came back from outside and immediately pulled Hawk into an enthusiastic hug.
"Man, I knew you'd find us. I just thought it'd take you a month. It's been a whole year."
"Peter."
Felicia, standing nearby, interrupted. "It has been a month."
Peter instinctively turned to look at her.
Felicia nodded.
"Just one month. Only one month has passed outside."
"What?"
Peter's eyes widened as he turned back to Hawk. "Only one month passed outside?"
Hawk smiled at Peter, saying nothing.
He'd noticed that the current Peter was a completely different person from the one he'd known before.
But it was a good change.
At the very least, the Peter he was looking at now seemed more upbeat, more confident, less withdrawn than the Peter back in New York.
After all, the outside world was governed by rules.
This place? This was the wild.
Outside, Peter—despite his overwhelming power—had been restrained by those rules. Here, Peter had been completely liberated.
Just like earlier, When they'd returned to the village together.
The Iwi people had looked at Hawk with reverent awe. But when they looked at Peter? Their eyes held respect and admiration.
And Peter seemed to have built a pretty solid reputation here.
Hawk thought about it quietly.
...
Meanwhile, Peter—having just received the bombshell about the time difference—sat down on a nearby stool with a strange expression on his face. He covered his face with one hand and turned to Felicia, who was sitting beside him. "So... the Iwi people weren't mistaken. My parents really did die over a hundred years ago?"
Felicia looked at Peter and tried to comfort him. "Look on the bright side. The Iwi didn't lie. Richard and Mary lived full lives. They died of old age."
That was the silver lining in all this tragedy.
Richard Parker and Mary Parker hadn't been killed by the endless horrors of Skull Island. Their plane had crashed near the Iwi village's river, and they'd lived there ever since—until they passed away naturally.
That was also why, when Peter and Felicia had arrived at the Iwi village ten months ago, they'd been accepted so quickly.
Because Peter's parents had been here before. In fact, during their lifetimes, they'd taught some of the Iwi tribespeople English. And even though over a hundred years had passed, a few members of the tribe had managed to preserve that language.
That was how Felicia—with her exceptional linguistic talent—had been able to communicate with the Iwi so quickly.
Peter was silent for a moment. He nodded, then forced a small smile onto his face. "You're right. At least they died peacefully."
He'd already accepted the fact that his parents were dead. It was just that the Iwi people's initial statement about them dying "over a hundred years ago" had thrown him off.
Peter thought about the time dilation between Skull Island and the outside world, then turned to Hawk with visible shock. "Only one month passed outside. That's not possible."
Even if they'd traveled to another planet, If someone told him there was a time difference between that planet and Earth, he could accept that.
But—
Skull Island was just separated from the outside world by a thick storm system. That was it. And yet here Peter was—having lived a full year on the island—only to find out that barely a month had passed outside?
Hawk glanced at Peter.
"You can shoot webs out of your wrists. Is that scientifically possible?"
"I..."
Peter heard Hawk's counterargument, opened his mouth to respond, then immediately thought back to all the times people had bombarded him with questions about how he shot webs. He wisely decided to drop the subject and turned back to Hawk. "So... is Aunt May okay? I told her ahead of time that I might be gone for half a year. She wanted to know what happened to my parents, so she supported me going."
Hawk shrugged. "How should I know? The moment the butler told me you two disappeared, I came straight here. But I can tell you this—when you get back, Aunt May's going to be thrilled."
Peter assumed Hawk was talking about him finding answers about his parents' whereabouts. He grinned. "Yeah. Aunt May's always wondered what happened to them."
Hawk chuckled. "Aunt May isn't just wondering about your parents. She's also wondering about the little spider."
Peter's expression froze.
"What little spider?"
"...Take a guess."
Hawk caught the look on his face, then glanced at Felicia—who was sitting nearby with her hand covering her mouth—and the pieces clicked into place. He turned back to Peter and gave him a mysterious smile.
He hadn't known Felicia hadn't told Peter yet.
So—
This wasn't his fault.
Peter wasn't an idiot. The moment he processed what Hawk had just said, his eyes went wide, and he turned to Felicia with disbelief written all over his face.
"Felicia..."
"Yeah."
Felicia didn't bother playing coy. Meeting Peter's gaze, she nodded.
Peter's jaw dropped.
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