Chapter 423: Selling Out an Ally??
The sudden appearance of that bald head left both Gongbieerzi and The Other momentarily frozen in place — not because Saitama's head happened to be particularly smooth and gleaming, but because they were both, frankly, thoroughly baffled by why he was here at all.
"Baffled" really was the only word that fit their current state of mind.
That bafflement lasted less than a second, though. Gongbieerzi, being the rule-breaking reincarnator, snapped back to attention first, his expression sharpening into open wariness.
He kept his eyes fixed warily on the bald man standing barely ten meters away, his face souring further. If the enemy had already made it this deep in without anyone noticing, and this bald man had chosen a silent ambush instead of speaking first, he might well have ended up dead — or at least seriously hurt.
After all, someone capable of freely operating out here in the vacuum of space was clearly no pushover.
The Other turned to Gongbieerzi, expression flat, and said, "This is the caliber of security your side provides? Genuinely eye-opening."
The Other's face and tone barely shifted while he said it, but Gongbieerzi could hear the mockery buried underneath, loud and clear.
He didn't bother pushing back against the jab, though — he knew full well this one was on him.
The enemy had already breached the core of the fleet without a single guard noticing, and it had taken the intruder actually speaking up before either of them even registered his presence.
Saitama, meanwhile, glanced around curiously at his surroundings before looking up at the hole he'd punched through the hull. Studying the energy membrane sealing it shut, he remarked, "So this layer's what keeps the air inside the ship from leaking out? Pretty impressive."
"I remember punching straight through it when I came in, but it doesn't look damaged at all now. Does this energy membrane just ignore physical damage entirely?"
Gongbieerzi didn't bother answering. Energy-membrane technology like that wasn't exactly rare across the cosmos — plenty of ships used it.
His eyes stayed locked on Saitama instead, and rather than answering the question, he fired back one of his own. "You... are you Saitama?!"
Saitama blinked, genuinely surprised. "Wait, you actually know who I am? I figured only a handful of people in this world even knew about me! Oh, hold on — if you know me, that means you've got to be a transmigrator, right?"
The realization seemed to hit him partway through the sentence, like something had just clicked into place.
Those three words — "transmigrator" — made Gongbieerzi's pupils narrow sharply, disbelief flashing plainly across his face.
Still, he'd lived long enough to have some measure of self-control, and he managed to smooth that disbelief off his features fairly quickly.
Internally, though, he was nowhere near as calm as he looked. Question after question kept surfacing in his head.
This guy really was Saitama?
How was that even possible?
Had the Marvel world genuinely merged with the One Punch Man world somehow?
But then, how did this man know his identity? How did he know he was a transmigrator?
A coincidence?
Not a chance.
There was no plausible coincidence that landed on the exact phrase "transmigrator" — the normal guess would've been "alien," surely, given how Gongbieerzi must have looked to this bald man's eyes.
While Gongbieerzi's expression darkened further, Saitama spoke again. "Admin-sama said this quest's time limit is only 72 hours. If we don't take care of both of you within that window, we might not be able to complete it."
"But if we do take care of both of you, your little minions out there will be leaderless, right? And leaderless minions are a lot easier to mop up afterward, aren't they?"
Saitama had never once been squeamish about killing. Sure, he was a professional hero by trade, but the amount of blood on his hands probably wasn't much less than any villain or monster's.
Of course, everyone he'd ever killed had thoroughly deserved it — villains, monsters, nothing more.
And as far as Saitama was concerned, these aliens invading Earth fell squarely into that same category.
Which meant, when Saitama actually threw down, he had absolutely nothing holding him back.
And with the battlefield being the open void of space besides, he could go completely all-out without worrying about the fallout spreading anywhere near the solar system.
Before long, once Saitama made the first move, a genuinely furious fight broke out at the heart of the fleet — Saitama taking on both of them at once, the shockwaves alone tearing through the surrounding warships as collateral damage.
Saitama's raw strength was, of course, absurd — practically a living, breathing Power Stone. A single punch sent Gongbieerzi flying an unknown distance.
But Gongbieerzi had spent over a thousand years surviving in the Marvel world, and he carried his own system besides.
Which meant he wasn't some pushover either — that one punch hadn't been enough to actually kill him.
And he wasn't down to just one trump card, either — he still had one more he hadn't played yet.
The first trump card had, of course, been the 500-cannon superweapon. He'd never actually planned on using it, honestly, but the enemy's strength had far exceeded his expectations, forcing his hand.
The second trump card, he'd originally intended to save for the Ancient One specifically — a genuine "big treasure" he'd acquired through his own system.
But with the Ancient One nowhere near him now, that card would have to go toward this suspected Saitama instead.
Gongbieerzi had no idea whether the card would even work on someone who wasn't a sorcerer...
But at this point, it was worth a shot regardless — nothing left to lose.
The Other's own personal combat strength, honestly, was even weaker than Gongbieerzi's — dropped into the Dimensional Chat Group's own ranking system, he'd probably barely scrape into Tier 3.
Which meant there wasn't much he could actually do to help Gongbieerzi here — all he could do was watch, helplessly, as the man got punched clear across space, over and over.
A creeping sense of regret had already settled over The Other. He had no idea where Earth had dredged up this many "monsters" from, but one thing was becoming painfully clear: the mission Lord Thanos had entrusted to him had failed.
The Other made the pragmatic — if not exactly noble — choice: he sold out his own ally. He simply didn't believe he stood a chance against this bald human.
Not the most honorable move, sure. But it was, at least, a way out of the mess.
☆☆☆
-> 20 Advanced chapters Now Available on Patreon!!
-> https://www.pat-reon.co-m/c/Hollowborn
(Just remove the hyphen (-) to access patreon normally)
If you like this novel please consider leaving a review that's help the story a lot Thank you