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Hitmonlee couldn't process it.
One moment, Hariyama was beside him.
Next, his head rolled across the dirt.
The shock hit him like a brick wall.
His charge toward Leavanny slowed… then stopped.
His mind went blank, empty, and hollow.
Across from him, the corrupted Leavanny watched with delighted cruelty.
Its scarlet eyes danced with a mocking light as it flicked its right arm, gently plucking the thread in the air like a musician tuning a harp.
Shh—shh—shh.
The thin, metallic-silver line hummed as it threaded itself through Hariyama's now decapitated body.
Silent. Precise. Horrifying.
"What… what are you doing?" Hitmonlee choked out.
His voice trembled, barely more than a whisper.
Leavanny didn't answer with words—only a soft giggle behind its leafy hand, its gaze dripping with disdain.
The silver threads glistened as they darted through the corpse.
And then—
Hariyama's body moved.
Not a twitch.
Not a spasm.
It sat up.
It rose from the pool of blood like a grotesque marionette being lifted by phantom strings.
Its arms dangled lifelessly.
Its legs bent at impossible angles.
Its posture was stiff—an empty shell being puppeteered by lines of silk.
So many silver strands shimmered above the corpse that the air itself looked stitched together.
BOOM!
The corpse suddenly lunged.
Mud exploded beneath its feet as the massive body barreled toward Hitmonlee like a cannonball.
Leavanny's skill with threads was legendary.
Before the nightmares came, clothes handcrafted by a Leavanny were prized by humans, smooth, durable, and impossibly well-made.
But now that same mastery had twisted into a nightmare art.
It drove silk into arteries, wrapped bone, bound muscles, and strung the corpse together like a horrific puppet.
Hariyama was dead.
But under Leavanny's control, its body obeyed every command.
Its movements were jerky. Wrong.
But its strength?
Still terrifying.
And pain meant nothing to a corpse.
"YOU—!!" Hitmonlee roared.
His fury trembled in his chest, his vision blurring with rage.
He barely had time to think before Hariyama's body was already upon him.
Hitmonlee sprang aside in a desperate leap—
CRACK!
The puppet's massive fist slammed into the ground.
The earth split open, spiderwebbing outward as dust shot into the air.
Hariyama slowly pushed itself upright again, its body wobbling as Leavanny manipulated the threads.
The fist that had struck the ground twisted grotesquely backward, bone poking through torn flesh.
Leavanny didn't care.
It wasn't its body.
Every movement Hariyama made shredded the corpse further.
Every strike broke muscles, tore ligaments, crushed bones.
To Leavanny, it was just a toy.
Broken?
Disposable.
Replaceable.
"You… HOW DARE YOU!?"
Hitmonlee's voice cracked with pain and fury.
His chest rose and fell with burning breaths.
Fighting-type spirit pure, stubborn will flared through him like wildfire.
Fear fell away.
Grief drowned beneath rage.
He would make this monster pay even if it cost him everything.
His legs tensed.
Springs compressing.
Power building.
He fired forward like a launched spear straight at Leavanny.
He knew the only way to win was to ignore the puppet.
Hit the puppeteer.
If he reached Leavanny, even one solid strike could—
BOOM!
Hariyama's body reacted first.
Leavanny yanked a thread.
Hariyama's left leg exploded into a cloud of blood as tendons snapped and muscles burst from the violent torque.
It didn't need that leg.
The blast of recoil sent the corpse rocketing through the air like a missile.
WHOOSH—
In an instant, the massive body blocked Hitmonlee's path.
His right leg glowed red-brown with power he wanted to kick it aside.
But then he saw it.
Hariyama's body.
His friend.
The countless battles they'd fought together.
Training.
Laughing.
Growing.
Memories stabbed through his chest.
His kick faltered.
That single heartbeat of hesitation cost him everything.
Hariyama's left fist, one of the few parts still intact, smashed toward him.
Hitmonlee twisted his torso violently mid-air, barely avoiding a direct hit.
But the shockwave—
THUD!
The blast of force caught him full on.
And the corpse's remaining arm shattered on impact, bursting into a spray of red mist.
Hitmonlee was hurled across the dirt, tumbling through leaves and mud until he skidded to a stop in a choking cloud of dust.
He lifted his head, dizzy, aching—
And saw Hariyama's ruined body looming over him, strings visible now, glinting in the dim forest light.
Leavanny watched calmly, eyes half-closed in contentment.
Its bell-like laugh rang through the clearing a soft, gentle sound completely at odds with the carnage.
To Hitmonlee, that gentle laugh sounded like the whisper of a demon.
Cold.
Merciless.
Bone-deep.
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~Support with 200 PowerStones = 1 Bonus Chapter
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