In the nick of time, Garou twisted his body sharply. The spiraling drill grazed his ribs, carving a bloody line across his side.
He backhanded a punch into One-Horn's abdomen, but it felt like striking rubber; the creature's body sank strangely, dissolving most of the force.
"It's useless! My body can absorb any impact!" One-Horn cackled, dozens of eyes locking onto Garou all at once.
Garou spat out blood, but his fighting spirit only blazed hotter. "Three against one—and a sneak attack? Truly shameless."
"As long as we win, who cares about methods?" Showerhead jeered as it sprayed acid again, this time in a fan-shaped blast that sealed off Garou's retreat.
Super Rat-Man lunged in from the opposite side, claws slicing toward Garou's eyes.
Garou barely twisted away, but a deep, bone-revealing gash tore open across his shoulder.
"Hahaha! Little brat, become this Rat-Man's blood meal!" Super Rat-Man squealed, licking Garou's blood off his claws.
Garou half-knelt, blood pouring from multiple wounds.
Yet his gaze only grew sharper, a cold sneer lifting the corner of his mouth.
"Is that all you've got?"
He exploded forward. The techniques of Water Stream Rock Smashing Fist became ferocious, his movements sharper than ever.
His figure flashed like a ghost before Showerhead. A precise hand-chop slammed into the monster's neck.
A crisp crack echoed. Showerhead's head tilted, its nozzle bent from the impact.
But it quickly snapped back, shrieking in fury as it unleashed an even greater spray of acid.
Garou rolled aside, already anticipating it. At the same time he snatched up a chunk of rubble and hurled it with all his strength at Super Rat-Man.
The rock struck the Rat-Man squarely in the eye. A piercing scream followed.
One-Horn seized the moment, striking from behind. His drill thrust straight toward the back of Garou's skull.
Garou ducked low as if he had eyes behind him, allowing the drill to graze his scalp instead of piercing through.
He grabbed One-Horn's arm and flipped him forward, slamming the monster into the ground with a thunderous over-the-shoulder throw.
"Bang!"
A crater burst open beneath One-Horn. But he bounced up instantly, all his eyes spinning wildly.
"Useless! I am immortal!"
Garou panted heavily, every wound burning with pain.
Ordinary attacks barely worked. If he didn't find a weakness soon…
Before he could push further, the three Demon-Level monsters exchanged a quick, sinister look. Years of cooperation gave them perfect, wordless synchrony.
"Kid—try this!" Showerhead shrieked.
Its head swelled to three times its size, and scalding jets erupted from countless pores.
Blinding white steam filled the cavern. The air temperature spiked to nearly one hundred degrees.
Garou's vision was swallowed whole. He could only rely on the faint ripples in the air to sense movement.
"Now!" screeched Super Rat-Man.
One-Horn's body twisted grotesquely. His skeleton crackled as he compressed himself into a massive two-meter spiral drill.
Super Rat-Man's arm muscles bulged, veins wriggling like worms. With a roar he hurled the drill into the fog with all his strength.
The moment the spinning drill tore through the air, Showerhead swung his massive head and fired dozens of high-pressure streams.
Each jet struck the drill's tail, accelerating it a second time.
The drill's rotation shattered the sound barrier. Its point glowed red with heat from sheer air friction.
"Three Demons United: *Burst Speed Pierce*!"
Their trump-card technique—proven to have killed an A-Class hero in an instant.
The drill screamed through the steam, arrowing straight for Garou's heart.
Garou's pupils constricted.
At the last possible moment, he used Water Stream Rock Smashing Fist to deflect the drill.
It scraped across his ribs, drawing a fresh spray of blood.
But before he could catch his breath, the drill—supposed to have flown off—curved unnaturally in mid-air and came spinning back like a boomerang.
"What?!"
Only then did Garou notice a nearly invisible steel filament wrapped around the drill's base.
Super Rat-Man grinned wickedly. With a jerk of the wire, he bent the drill's trajectory.
"Pffft!"
This time Garou couldn't evade.
The drill tore into his back and burst out through his chest, blood erupting like a fountain.
His vision shook from the pain, but he clenched his jaw and refused to scream.
"It's not over yet, brat!" Super Rat-Man crowed.
His legs swelled grotesquely. With a thunderous stomp that blasted a crater into the ground, he launched himself like a cannonball.
His fist slammed directly into Garou's chest.
"Bang!!!"
It felt like taking a full-speed train head-on.
Garou's ribs shattered audibly, and his body rocketed backward like a severed kite. A long arc of blood traced through the air.
He crashed into the cave wall with a heavy thud. Cracks spider-webbed instantly across the stone, rubble tumbling down to half-bury him.
"Hmph. Overconfident brat."
Showerhead retracted his nozzles, his head shrinking back to its normal size.
One-Horn reverted from his drill form, though his face had turned noticeably pale; that technique had drained him heavily.
Super Rat-Man dragged his tongue along the blood smeared on his claws, his crimson rat eyes glittering with a ravenous hunger.
High above them, Great Eyes hovered silently. Data streams flickered rapidly across its massive pupil, as though recording the sharp decline of Garou's life signs.
A failure? Or—
Just as the three Demon-Level monsters finally relaxed their guard—
*"Boom—!"*
The rubble burying Garou exploded outward.
A blood-soaked figure, wrapped in shredded bandages, shot skyward like a demon clawing its way out of hell. His aura surged—wilder, heavier, far more vicious than before.
"It's not over yet… you nobodies."
Garou's voice was hoarse, yet it carried the fury of an erupting volcano—and the chilling calm of someone who had undergone a fundamental change.
His right eye, bloodshot to the extreme, shone with a blazing, star-like brilliance.
The agony in his ribs and chest no longer hindered him. It ignited him. At the precipice between life and death, something inside him had shattered—
—and something new was born.
His aura transformed completely. Sharper. Greater. More refined.
A terrifying blend of destruction and rebirth.
"What?!" The three monsters recoiled at once.
Garou moved.
His speed—more than double what it had been before he was injured.
An afterimage lingered where he once stood. The real Garou had already manifested before Super Rat-Man like a flickering phantom.
"Roar! I'll tear you apart!" Super Rat-Man roared, slashing his claws toward Garou's throat with feral desperation.
Garou's lips lifted into an icy arc.
He extended his hand—calm, precise—and caught the Rat-Man's claw in a firm grasp.
*Water Stream Rock Smashing Fist: Strangling.*
The force within his palm erupted instantly, flowing and twisting like a vortex.
Super Rat-Man's eyes widened in pure disbelief—right before his entire body was torn apart, reduced to nothing but mangled flesh.
Garou released the remains and exhaled lightly.
"First one down."
His voice was cold as steel—
and his gaze snapped toward the remaining two monsters, sharp enough to kill.
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