If one had to ask why Psykos dared act so arrogantly even after huge numbers of monsters had died for unexplained reasons, it was because the Monster Association's overall combat power truly wasn't weaker than the heroes'.
The standard for S-class heroes was the ability to defeat Demon-level threats alone, but the Monster Association had nearly ten executives—in other words, nearly ten Dragon-level monsters. And the names Psykos had called out were only the ones easiest to communicate with.
"So Gyoro-Gyoro's real body was a woman."
A light sphere struck the ground and produced an explosion powerful enough to blast through an entire city block. This was the work of Homeless Emperor, who possessed arguably the greatest destructive power in the Monster Association.
Judging by appearance alone, he looked just like Psykos: an ordinary human with no visible monster traits. The only incongruous detail on the homeless man's body was the crown symbolizing nobility perched amid his messy hair.
And he could summon countless light spheres like the one just now at almost no apparent cost, enough to fill the entire visible sky.
As a psychic herself, Psykos understood better than anyone: psychic powers were like trying to draw a circle with one hand and a square with the other. The moment you split your attention, your performance at every task dropped sharply.
She had still underestimated Tatsumaki. Even from that extreme angle, Tatsumaki could spare enough attention to react to Homeless Emperor's sneak attack.
But faced with a dense barrage of light spheres aimed solely at her, combined with Psykos's nonstop psychic interference, even Tatsumaki—the strongest esper, whose power Psykos now had no choice but to acknowledge—couldn't spare attention for anything else.
And the fact that she had been unable to sense the brat's psychic waves for so long was making her increasingly agitated.
"Little Tatsumaki!"
The other S-class heroes who had come with her tried to support her, but the other executives immediately intercepted them. The most brazen was Black Sperm, who split into trillions of bodies and blocked off the city, boxing them into an extremely small area, with every individual strong enough to give an A-class hero trouble.
Dragon-level. In the past, that was a level Fubuki absolutely would never have dared face. But she wasn't exaggerating her sister's strength: in a one-on-one fight, not one of these monsters would be enough for Tatsumaki.
"Psykos, what did you do to that child?!"
Other than Fubuki herself, the only person she could imagine making her sister this furious was that child. She had only meant to send Yimi away for a little while so the girl wouldn't see the ugly side of her recruitment work, and somehow Yimi had vanished just like that...
She had failed in her responsibility as an elder.
"What did I do? Fed her to the dog, of course."
But Fubuki didn't show the furious reaction Psykos wanted. She looked at her with absolute calm. "Your eyes flicked downward. So you're lying, and you know exactly where that child is, don't you?"
She smiled mockingly. "Trying to use some petty scheme to get revenge on me? Looks like your little scheme backfired. I can tell from that twisted expression of yours. My sister's monstrous genes shocked you that badly, didn't they?"
Psykos's expression cracked for a second. She glanced at Tatsumaki in the distance, constantly defending and dodging the coordinated assault from Homeless Emperor and herself, then looked through an "eyeball" at Yimi overwhelming Overgrown Rover.
You're attributing that little monster entirely to genetics?
"Looks like if I don't deal with you here, Onee-san won't be able to free herself up."
Fubuki brushed the hair beside her ear back and slowly spread out her psychokinesis, which looked laughably weak compared with the other three espers present.
"Thanks to you, I've finally understood something. In front of natural-born monsters like Onee-san and Yimi, both of us look equally mediocre: me, despite all my effort to develop my psychic powers without obvious progress, and you, despite how quickly you've grown."
"President Fubuki, don't tell me you think that garbage power of yours can still Seal me now?" Psykos sneered in a deliberately shrill voice.
"That's why I said I've understood it." Fubuki sighed.
Compared with her sister, who unconsciously used applications of psychic power that Fubuki had struggled to develop as ordinary attacks, even Psykos's psychic technique was only enough to bully Yimi, a child barely past infancy.
The special technique Fubuki had developed, Telekinetic Whirlwind Storm, was nearly useless against most other monsters. But against an esper like Psykos, no matter how large the gap in their psychokinesis, as long as it wasn't an absurd case like her sister, Fubuki was confident she could win.
"Oh-ho. Young lady, you seem to be living quite a fulfilling life. You're really acting like I'm not even here, aren't you?"
Homeless Emperor, conducting the light spheres attacking Tatsumaki like a musician, suddenly spoke, and another sphere of light appeared in his palm.
Fubuki hurriedly sprang back from Psykos.
He was controlling such a dense barrage and still had attention to spare?
"Crap! Tatsumaki's sister!"
Superalloy Darkshine, busy holding off Black Sperm, shouted, but nobody had any spare capacity left to help.
"Wait!"
At that moment, that man spoke, and the King Engine reverberated across the entire battlefield.
"King-san is finally going to make his move!"
King stood on a chunk of rubble, forcing himself to look calm while inwardly drenched in sweat. On his way to find "Invincible Saitama-san," whom he had met a few days ago, and ask for the Game Console he had lent him back, King had suddenly been spotted and dragged here as extra manpower.
What had an ordinary man like him ever done to deserve a scene this huge? But when he saw someone about to be attacked, he couldn't stop himself from standing up.
Ah... they weren't frightened. Of course not. The strongest opponent he had ever managed to intimidate before was only Demon-level. When Dragon-level monsters at the pinnacle of monsterkind saw this, naturally their first reaction would be the desire to challenge him, right?
King was panicking inside, but Homeless Emperor didn't dare underestimate the Strongest Man on Earth in the slightest. The other executives also paused for a second and turned their attention toward the least communicative executive.
Dragon-level, Evil Natural Water.
It looked like a mass of water with two eyeballs floating inside. Even Psykos couldn't control it; it had no thought process whatsoever and had been made an executive purely because of its strength.
Its ability caused it to launch powerful attacks in proportion to the killing intent of others.
Yet right now it completely ignored King, as though declaring that the man before them, with the King Engine already active, felt no killing intent toward them at all. It was the kind of contempt a human showed when casually crushing an ant.
"Damn it, who does this tough bastard think he's looking down on?!" the none-too-bright Fuhrer Ugly shouted, snapping Homeless Emperor out of his thoughts.
Right. So what if King was the Strongest Man on Earth? Homeless Emperor's power had been granted to him personally by God!
Homeless Emperor steadied himself and aimed a light sphere at King.
"You still haven't noticed?"
Seeing the situation, King hurriedly deployed his specialty and started spouting bullshit. "Look at the ground under your feet. It's completely uneven. Are you sure you want to attack right now? Aren't you afraid you'll slip?"
What?
Homeless Emperor looked down in confusion.
Then the ground trembled for an instant.
"?"
Boom—
Garou, who had not been dragged to the surface with the section Tatsumaki pulled up and had instead been buried by Yimi and Overgrown Rover's violent battle, burst out of the ground. Homeless Emperor, already off balance, fell flat on his butt.
Who was this guy? When had he gotten there?
The heroes were even more shocked than the monsters. They had come here together with King, so they knew perfectly well that King had never had a chance to plant a scout.
Did that mean King had already sensed this unknown person's arrival? Even Child Emperor's instruments had detected nothing.
Garou rolled his neck and looked at Homeless Emperor. "Who are you?"
"I should be asking you that!"
After the initial shock, Homeless Emperor hurriedly aimed a light sphere at Garou. At this moment, he was far more nervous than King was.
He had fallen embarrassingly from nothing more than a slight tremor. If either the heroes or monsters discovered that, outside of his light spheres, he was just an ordinary human, his fate afterward would be miserable!
King had probably noticed that weakness and issued that warning because of it, right?
But the instant Homeless Emperor launched his light sphere, Handsomely Masked Sweet Mask, who had been with Garou, climbed out of the ruins as well. Homeless Emperor's footing wobbled again and the attack missed.
By then, Garou, who had been five meters away just a moment earlier, had already grabbed his hand. "That's not something to play around with, old man."
Hero or monster, who cared? Beat them first.
Garou grabbed his face and smashed him hard into the ground.
The light spheres chasing Tatsumaki through the sky abruptly lost direction, while Fubuki seized the opportunity to attack Psykos.
The situation improved instantly. Child Emperor couldn't help giving Garou a thumbs-up. "Nice work, Warm-hearted Citizen!"
Garou stared at him blankly.
Everything had gone completely off the rails, but that didn't stop the genius Fuhrer Ugly from misreading the situation and swinging a fleshy palm toward King.
King was so frightened his eyes nearly rolled back and he nearly passed out, convinced he was done for.
...
Yimi hadn't imagined it. After feeding on Lord Boros several times, her appetite had grown larger, which was why those monsters felt like little buns to her.
Normally, in this state it was already difficult for her to truly fill herself enough to maintain her other powers, and even if she used them, the consumption was too high to sustain them for long. But Love Train could simply redirect the misfortune of going hungry.
By now, Overgrown Rover, which had fought her for ages and torn apart half the Monster Base, had shrunk to about the size of Uncle Nuomi. Apparently completely convinced by her strength, it sat obediently with its tail wagging and stopped attacking.
"Meow?" Yimi tentatively raised a paw toward it.
Rover wagged its tail and placed its paw on top of hers in a handshake.
"Meow!"
This six-eyed dog was still the enemy!
"Hero Hunter?"
A golden-haired man approached without a sound. It was S-class Rank 13 Flashy Flash, renowned as the "Fastest Man."
The moment he saw Yimi, he decisively swung his sword.
"Meow!"
Yimi had already sensed him through smell and hearing and jumped upward, but while using Holy Grail World Adaptive Force, she wasn't nearly fast enough. Flashy Flash's thrust struck her directly.
At the same time, on the surface, Fuhrer Ugly stared in disbelief at the gaping hole in his chest.
For a kitten, the misfortune of being pierced through the body naturally became a much more severe wound when scaled up to his body size.
Atomic Samurai, who spared a glance toward the scene, sucked in a sharp breath.
Even he, who could slash a hundred times in an instant, hadn't seen how King attacked—or what he had done.
The Monster Association side also fell silent for two seconds, because even after King had personally killed an executive, Evil Natural Water still stood there like an idiot without reacting. He had killed an executive with his own hands and still had no killing intent?!
"Are you abusing a cat?"
The viewpoint returned underground, where Saitama, who had come down to investigate after his house was destroyed, pointed at Flashy Flash and asked.