Chapter 819: Kaito Shirogane VS Son Goku
"The first match of the second stage of the World's Number One Gourmet Tournament begins now!"
"Contestant Mercenary Tao versus Contestant Son Goku!"
The referee announced the start of the battle. Outside the island, the mechanical faction had constructed an arena and spectator stands. As Mercenary Tao and Son Goku took to the platform, notifications flashed across the interfaces of the Reincarnators.
[Special Mission: Return of the Absolute Ace Triggered]
[Mission Details: Protect the special unit, Archetype of Terminus and Genesis, who has obtained the Doorway, over the next 72 hours. Ensure the Doorway successfully enters the Infinite Dimensional Space.]
[Mission Rewards: Participants receive A-Rank Singularity Point * 1. Key participants receive S-Rank Singularity Point * 1.]
[Failure Penalty: All attributes reduced by 25% for the next three deployments.]
Aka stared at the mandatory prompt. A 25% reduction across three mission cycles was among the harshest penalties short of outright erasure. Furthermore, the designated asset was Mercenary Tao—who was currently squaring off directly against Son Goku.
"Are you kidding me? The Space triggers this now?!" Aka grimaced. Even if every Reincarnator charged the platform together, they couldn't alter the outcome against someone of Son Goku's caliber.
Several Reincarnators stood up in panic, but Yoko remained composed.
"Calm down," Yoko said. "Mercenary Tao walks close to death, but he doesn't seek it needlessly. Until he acquires the strength he craves, his desire to survive burns hotter than anyone's."
She observed the martial artist across the water. His expression was alive with unbridled vitality. That was not the visage of a man throwing his life away.
Ritsu relaxed slightly and sat back down, placing faith in Yoko's judgment. As two figures whose combat capabilities stood in a tier of their own among Reincarnators, Yoko understood Mercenary Tao's mentality better than anyone. Beneath her stoic exterior, Yoko harbored an equally untamed core.
Across the arena, Kaito Shirogane watched Son Goku lightly bouncing on the balls of his feet, loosening his muscles. Kaito's heart hammered with pure exhilaration. Facing Son Goku on a tournament platform offered the highest survival margin of any top-tier entity. Goku rarely used lethal force; even when pushed to Super Saiyan through rage, a core of benevolence remained.
Kaito grinned and exhaled a stream of scalding white vapor. The Anti-Life Demon Dragon's furnace was pushed to its limits, driving cellular activity to boiling temperatures. The vapor rolled over the arena, instantly flash-fogging the surrounding sea upon meeting the cool ocean air.
A hundred meters away, Goku's eyes widened with genuine curiosity. The technical novelty of the maneuver eclipsed his prior irritation over the city disruptions. When engaged in combat, Goku was a martial artist through and through; moral judgments fell away.
In the stands, Ichiryu and Midora raised their brows at Kaito's opening posture. Luffy, Chopper, and Usopp cheered, treating it like a magic trick. Toriko, however, turned grim. The man standing on that ring possessed a lethal, crushing weight.
"Hah!"
A roar ripped through the mist. The local magnetic field violently twisted, causing the sea to invert and the clouds above to cave inward.
Magnetic Field Rotation: 500,000 Horsepower.
A cataclysmic shockwave of light and heat compressed inward before detonating toward the Saiyan.
Goku observed the technique with keen interest. The method of manipulating physical forces alongside Ki was entirely foreign to him—far different from Master Roshi's fundamental variations. Ending his warm-up, Goku raised a single open palm toward the incoming torrent.
BOOM!
A pale-cyan shockwave erupted from Goku's hand, tearing across the arena toward the open sea. The inverted clouds, the churning waves, and the blistering steam were instantly blown clean out of the sky. Seawater showered back down like a torrential downpour, followed by heavy gale-force winds filling the vacuum left by the blast.
Ichiryu's expression shifted into stark disbelief. A casual flick of the wrist had stripped the atmosphere over the entire coastal perimeter. What kind of power was that?
Across the ring, the long-haired martial artist was gone. Ichiryu couldn't sense his presence anywhere.
Was he blown away beyond sensory range with a single strike?!
In the stands, Fenrir, Aka, and Snow shuddered involuntarily. Witnessing a casual, base-form strike casually bend planetary-scale physics drove home the chasm separating them from this universe's power ceiling. Mercenary Tao, despite his overwhelming strength among Reincarnators, seemed completely outmatched.
Yoko took a quiet breath, suppressing her instinctual battle urge, and turned away toward the exit. She had her own role to execute. The Machina Court's higher sequences had not arrived yet, and Lady Crimson offered no resistance, watching silently as Yoko left the arena grounds.
Whoosh—BANG!
A sharp sonic boom ruptured the air. A concentrated needle of kinetic force punched through Lady Crimson's divine shroud, sending her hurtling backward across the sky. When she stabilized, she found the tips of her crimson hair singed and sheared off.
A fraction of an inch closer, and her physical form would have been pulverized.
Over the ring, Kaito Shirogane materialized out of the wind beside Goku, fingers rigid in a Crane Hermit strike aiming directly for the Saiyan's temple. The Qilin Armor manifested across his skin, his strike cracking through the atmosphere like solid stone.
Goku's eyes tracked the motion effortlessly. The combination of Spirit of the Wind and Martial God's Ultimate Intent allowed Kaito to completely erase his presence from conventional detection, a setup that would instantly execute any standard Fierce-tier Reincarnator. Yet as the Senra Intent of Death surged from Kaito's fingertips, Goku merely shifted slightly, recognizing the faint trace of a familiar martial tradition.
The next instant, Kaito dissolved into the air once more.
Setsuna: Tier 9!
Kaito's speed multiplied by a factor of 256. Amplified by the Martial God's Ultimate Intent, the physical world stiffened into apparent solidity. The ambient air turned as dense as stone. Feeding off the Earth's vitality through the Physique of the Primordial Man, Kaito sprinted through the solidified medium, leaving massive, blooming sonic boom clouds that cratered the arena floor.
Goku's eyes flickered, following the blurred velocity. Seeing a warrior push pure bodily mechanics to such limits without relying on vast Ki reserves intrigued him. He shifted his posture, weaving fluidly through incoming strikes that resembled stop-motion frames.
Piercing finger strikes bloomed outward like lotus petals, the stray shockwaves threatening to tear through the spectator stands. Luffy coated his arms in Armament Haki while Toriko's muscles expanded defensively.
Just as Ichiryu prepared to step in, an elderly figure blurred past him, driving a single finger into the air.
Jirou executed his Knocking technique. The spatial coordinates before the spectator barrier completely froze, locking the stray kinetic force and atmospheric pressure dead in their tracks. Ichiryu exhaled in relief. With Jirou present, the spectator area remained secure against Kaito's indiscriminate offensive.
Kaito accelerated further, his physical form beginning to bleed into sheer radiant energy. Yet Goku continued to casually evade every angle.
Testing was over. Against an entity like this, half-measures were meaningless.
Key of Miracles: Activated.
Sixteen-Fold Kaio-Ken: Engaged!
Golden light burst from Kaito's pores. The sea below shimmered as immense Ki surged through his limbs without the slightest cellular recoil. The unconstrained energy formed a massive, sky-piercing pillar of light.
Goku's eyes snapped open in surprise. The Ki signature... was the Kaio-Ken. But executed with an unprecedented, flawless harmony.
Kaito's presence saturated the entire battlefield. The countless afterimages across the platform abruptly vanished, converging directly above Son Goku. Twisting his torso, the towering phantom of Saitama materialized behind him, collapsing all kinetic force and physical mass into a singular, devastating concept.
[Killer Move: Serious Punch]!