She was forced to rapidly shrink back to normal size, tumbling backward in a messy roll to evade. The steam beam skimmed past her body and blasted into the pipe wall behind her, melting out a massive jagged breach.
"No good! It's way too hot! I can't stop it!" Ms. Marvel panted, red burn marks visible on her arm. She hurriedly reported through her communicator, "We need stronger backup! This thing's temperature is insane!"
At the same time, in a supermarket somewhere in Z City, Saitama was wearing an ordinary blue tracksuit, a plastic bag in hand, seriously selecting potatoes from the shelf.
He picked one up, inspected it carefully, then put it back, muttering, "Today's discounted potatoes don't look very fresh…"
Just then, his cheap phone rang. He slowly pulled it out and answered. "Hello?… Oh, it's Genos… What? A huge bug underground? It's wrecking things?… Mm… mm… Got it."
He hung up, glanced at the potato in his hand, thought for a second, and finally set the bag down. He told the clerk, "Sorry, something came up. I won't take the potatoes for now."
Leaving the supermarket, he followed the location Genos sent and found a large sewer maintenance shaft nearby. He barely paused—lifting the heavy manhole cover with one hand—and then jumped straight down.
His body dropped quickly through the darkness, and soon he landed in a waterlogged tunnel at the bottom. Suffocating heat waves and a sharp, sulfur-like stench filled the air. Saitama brushed off the water splashed onto his clothes, then looked up and saw the enormous red-glowing silhouette advancing ahead, along with that unbearable temperature.
The lava worm also sensed this tiny creature that had suddenly appeared. It seemed enraged, surged forward faster, and abruptly opened a gigantic mouth that looked like it led straight into hell's abyss. Inside weren't teeth, but roaring, surging molten lava. With an aura that could melt everything, it snapped down viciously at Saitama!
Saitama merely shifted his body slightly, dodging by a hair's breadth—avoiding a bite that could have liquefied steel. The scorching airflow flapped his simple tracksuit.
"So hot… almost roasted my clothes," he complained.
Then he looked at the worm's head, which had gone a bit stiff after missing its strike. That head was covered in the thickest, darkest red armor plating, shimmering with a metallic sheen—clearly its hardest part.
"Whatever. I'll finish this quick, then I can still check if another supermarket has cheap potatoes."
Calmly, he clenched his fist and swung forward casually.
There was no earthshaking momentum, no flashy energy glow—just a seemingly ordinary punch, lightly pressed into the very center of the lava worm's toughest head plating.
Time seemed to freeze for an instant.
Then, from the point of contact, countless cracks spread out in a blink, webbing across the entire head. A heartbeat later, that unbelievably hard armor shell burst as if inflated from within by some colossal force—shattering into countless tiny fragments that rapidly lost their red glow and turned into black rubble.
The lava worm couldn't even let out a proper scream. Its massive body convulsed once, violently—then all its support vanished. With a huge crash, the entire body collapsed and disintegrated, becoming a pool of scorching magma that was already cooling and solidifying fast. It slowly spread along the bottom of the pipe, and the terrifying heat dissipated just as quickly.
(End of Chapter)
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