"So that's where it is."
Saitama understood in an instant.
That glowing point buried under layers of energy veins on the creature's abdomen—that was its true power core, its fatal weak spot.
By now, the monster seemed to have recovered from the pain. Purple light surged at the stump of its severed tentacle, and it actually began to slowly regenerate. All of its "eyes"—that crimson glow within the vortex—locked tightly onto Saitama, brimming with searing hatred and killing intent.
Its remaining tentacles no longer lashed out at random. Instead, they began to pulse in a deliberate rhythm, while its massive main body drew in on itself ever so slightly, clearly brewing an unprecedentedly terrifying attack.
A glint flashed through Saitama's eyes; a plan had formed in his mind.
He didn't choose to meet it head-on.
Instead, he did something the monster never expected—he suddenly retreated.
His steps even looked a little "unsteady," his body staggering backward as he raised his arms protectively in front of himself. A trace of "strain" and "exhaustion" even appeared on his face.
He was feigning weakness.
That subtle shift in posture was instantly picked up by the intelligent monster. It let out a psychic shriek laced with excitement and cruelty. In its eyes, this powerful human had finally been wounded! Now was the best time to finish him!
The monster abandoned the long-range ultimate attack it had been preparing. Driven by surging purple light, its colossal body lunged forward at unprecedented speed, like a moving mountain crashing down on the "retreating" Saitama!
It was going to crush this hateful intruder beneath its bulk.
Several intact tentacles thrust forward like spears, tearing through the air with a shrill howl as they aimed straight for Saitama's chest and skull!
Because it was charging and attacking with everything it had, the core light under its abdomen was flashing more wildly and brightly than ever before.
Now!
Saitama's "staggering" retreat came to an abrupt halt. The "heaviness" in his eyes vanished in an instant, replaced by calmness—the calm of someone who already saw through everything and held the situation in the palm of his hand.
The arms he'd been using to guard his chest dropped sharply. His body sank just a fraction. His right hand clenched into a fist, muscles bunching visibly beneath the yellow jumpsuit as all of his power gathered into a single point in that instant.
Facing the monster's enormous body looming right in front of him and the deadly tentacles stabbing at him, Saitama neither dodged nor flinched. Instead, he aimed straight at that blindingly flaring core beneath its abdomen—
And, like a shell fired from a cannon, he drove his fully charged right fist forward at a speed that left thought itself behind.
"Serious Punch."
Time seemed to freeze in that moment.
Saitama's fist, carrying his true power, actually moved after the monster's attack—yet arrived first. It threaded with pinpoint precision through the gaps between the lunging tentacles, ignored every energy field and layer of armor trying to block its path, and slammed, plain and simple, right into that wildly pulsing core of light on the creature's abdomen!
"Thump——————vmm!!!"
There was no earth-shattering explosion—only a single, impossibly heavy sound, as if space itself had been punched through.
The instant his fist touched the core, the blinding purple light was like a soap bubble being popped. It collapsed inward all at once… then violently burst outward.
But what burst forth wasn't destructive energy.
It was… collapse.
With Saitama's fist as the center, countless crack lines like spiderwebs raced across the monster's enormous body in an instant!
Those carapaces made of purple crystal and shadow, those glowing energy veins, those frantically thrashing tentacles—everything was overtaken by the spreading fractures, losing its luster and turning dull, gray, and brittle.
"GRAAAAH——!!!!!!"
A final, torn-from-the-soul howl ripped from the monster's throat.
(End of Chapter)
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