A deep, gravelly voice came from the Hermit Warrior's mouth—one perk of a machine body: even when vital parts were wrecked, speech stayed crisp.
Octopus looked down in disbelief.
He realized that the mechanical body he'd always been proud of had been punched clean through by Saitama's fist!
"What kind of terrifying power is this?!"
Before he could think further, his built-in safeguard protocols kicked in.
In an instant, he self-disassembled.
Like other Decepticons capable of breaking apart, his frame split into a swarm of mini Octopuses!
"He actually split into that many!"
Andrew and the others gasped at the sight.
The girl, afraid the Octopus bits would escape, ordered the blue beetle to chase and block them!
But they were too fast—one by one they darted into burrows beneath the desert and didn't come back out.
"What do we do? If this guy relays our position into Megatron's intranet, then…!"
Cade sucked in a breath.
Originally, living and surviving at the junkyard had been possible because his Autobot buddies there had supplied jamming tech.
Now he'd shown his face.
With his history against Megatron, he wouldn't be any safer than Saitama.
But at this moment, Cade was embarrassed to ask Saitama for help.
Earlier, when Saitama invited him to join the rescue team, he'd refused—meaning…
Perhaps at this very moment, though everyone was set on reaching City No. 1, they each held their own ideas close to the chest.
And the root of it all was Megatron—
The one holding the AllSpark!
The being perched atop Earth's biological food chain!
With the AllSpark, he could manufacture an army of mechanical warriors at will, tailored to crush people like them who couldn't stand against it.
Only now did the protagonist of the original story realize how small he was without the Autobots' protection.
Just then, Saitama did something that shocked them all.
He sprang into the sky.
Then he drove his fist down with a single Futsū no Panchi (Normal Punch)!
Boom—
The whole desert shuddered!
And that was only the beginning.
Saitama hammered the surface again and again with Futsū no Panchi (Normal Punch), triggering a spectacle that stole their breath.
The yellow sand at the surface began to quake beneath the repeated blows.
When the trembling peaked, waves of yellow "sea" rolled across the dunes!
And in those waves, Saitama began hunting for the "shells" that had been left behind—
Octopus!
"G-good lord… what kind of monster can do this? Even Lord Megatron has never displayed power like that!"
Octopus trembled under the sands.
For the first time, he felt that the vaunted Cybertronian AI safeguard protocol couldn't protect him.
All because the man in the sand-colored coat and red cape… was getting impatient.
Crack!
Crack!
Crack!
In no time, the scattered safeguard modules of Octopus were found—one after another—by Saitama.
When the last tiny safeguard module fell into Saitama's hand, he noticed it looked a bit like a crab from the sea.
"Maybe this is the 'crab-man' of the TF5 world."
Poor Octopus never knew that, at the moment of his death, Saitama had given him a nickname.
He didn't know whether to call that lucky… or lucky.
Snap.
Saitama crushed the final Octopus and flicked it away, then continued forward.
The people behind him—staring as if at a monster—saw only his red cape twitching and gleaming through the lifted grains of sand.
The blue beetle toddled up to the last Octopus bit, pinched it up with tiny hands, and presented it to the girl.
"Beep-beep-beep—"
"So this is what that terrifying thing really was!"
The girl dimly recalled something a teacher had once mentioned in class, but her attention was already elsewhere.
Now, she wanted to know what kind of monster Saitama himself was.
On the other side, Cade had his two Autobot buddies examine the crushed Octopus.
The red swordsman said, "What a terrifying guy."
The green trooper said, "Ain't that the truth."
Seeing Saitama pulling away again, the group shouted, "Saitama—wait for us! One Punch Man! Superman bro!"
Andrew and his soldiers murmured, "The leader we'll always look up to."
After Saitama defeated Octopus, a new Octopus model appeared in his system.
This time, the Octopus model was classified under the Decepticons.
Saitama noticed the TF5 model-collection system was just like a popular mobile game—collect enough pieces and you unlocked a collection reward!
He'd just gathered three Decepticon models—perfect to trigger a system bonus!
"Attribute increase!"
Saitama tapped attribute increase.
A surge of power washed through his body.
He was stronger than before!
Soon, Saitama reached the outskirts of City No. 1—and the sight made his skin crawl.
The city had been swallowed by a jungle of steel.
The whole metropolis was wrapped in snaking iron "vines," and hanging in the sky above were iron blossoms in full bloom.
At the heart of each blossom was a cluster of ghost-blue surveillance units.
Below, they monitored the entire city.
Some machine monsters stroked terrified children with mock gentleness, then drifted through the streets—and at the city's far end, they'd toss those children away like balls to the opposite side.
Others guzzled motor oil as they staggered down the avenues—guns out, robbing on a whim.
Native civilians were whipped and herded into tasks they didn't want to do—and then executed per federal statutes.
This City No. 1, already occupied by machine life, was a prison for humanity.
As Saitama arrived, a bespectacled young woman was trying to flee.
She ran while shouting, "Damn you, Megatron—you've got the AllSpark already! Why won't you crawl back to Cybertron?! I'm going crazy! I don't want to tell those Crusader Knights and 'Merlin the mage' stories on loop anymore! They're all lies!"
(End of Chapter)
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