His voice carried a distinct mechanical cadence.
"Hmph... if you ask me, we should have just charged in and slaughtered those humans one by one," shouted the bipedal lion with a bloodthirsty expression.
"No... we detected too many life fluctuations over there. They're all from the Hero Association. To ensure no one escapes, a long-range surprise attack is the most secure method," the gorilla explained, shaking his head.
"And our target?"
"We only need his body's cells. With the strength he showed in one-shotting the fleeing Mosquito Girl, his body should remain intact," the gorilla replied.
"So what's the result? Just scan it again," the lion suggested.
But the gorilla shook his head. "That last shot consumed too much energy. The core needs time to recharge."
"How weak... no wonder you're only ranked third in the House of Evolution while I, the Beast King, am ranked second," the lion—no, the Beast King—sneered.
Facing the Beast King's ridicule, the Armored Gorilla couldn't offer much of a reaction and remained silent.
After all, it was the truth.
Compared to the Beast King, his strength was indeed far inferior.
They were both genetically modified monsters, yet he relied on mechanical augmentations to reach the third rank, while the Beast King had become the second-ranked member of the House of Evolution through sheer physical power alone...
"Since you can't perform the scan, let's just go!" The muscles on the Beast King's body quivered, his eyes glowing with a terrifying red light. The mane around his head and neck fluttered as he emitted a horrifyingly dangerous aura. "Kill them all..."
He was already impatient to tear through human flesh and drink their blood.
"Oooooh!!!"
The numerous subordinates followed the Beast King's lead, letting out high-pitched, excited roars.
"Kill who?"
However, the very next moment as they were about to step forward, a cold voice suddenly rang out beside them.
"Who's there?" The Beast King was the first to alert, his muscles bulging as his steel-shredding claws suddenly extended.
That voice was incredibly close, as if... it were right in his ear...
He looked around but failed to find any living being other than his teammates.
But as he looked... he noticed something strange...
His teammates' eyes were all focused on him...
And their gazes were filled with sheer terror, as if they had seen a ghost.
"What's wrong?" The Beast King frowned, asking a toad subordinate next to him in a low voice.
"Beast... Beast King-sama... your... your head," the toad said haltingly.
His head?
Confused, the Beast King looked up.
There, he saw a human male standing on his head—someone he hadn't felt at all.
The Beast King looked up, and the human looked down.
Their eyes met.
For some reason, the Beast King saw an emotion called 'indifference' in the other's eyes.
This caused an inexplicable panic to rise in his heart.
He wasn't the only one; the Armored Gorilla and the numerous subordinates felt the same way.
To suddenly appear atop the Beast King's head from an apartment miles away without any warning, and for no monster to notice until he spoke...
This target human... was absolutely stronger than they had estimated...
They would have to join forces with the Beast King to have any chance of victory...
As he thought this, cold sweat began to seep from the Armored Gorilla's face beneath his mechanical armor.
"Hello."
Then, the Beast King saw the human flash a smile and greet him.
But the Beast King was in no mood for conversation.
A human he looked down upon had somehow appeared and was standing on his head. He even felt a sense of fear when meeting the human's eyes...
These combined factors caused the Beast King's embarrassment to turn into a fit of rage.
He wanted nothing more than to tear this human into shreds!
And in fact, that is exactly what the Beast King did.
"Lion Slash: Meteor Shower!!"
The Beast King's first move was a killing technique!
He raised his lion claws high and swung them violently, carrying extreme wind pressure as he slashed toward Lexon at high speeds.
The Armored Gorilla, who was now mostly recharged, also took this opportunity to follow up. The energy cannon extending from his shoulder began to focus its power.
"How impolite..." Standing atop the Beast King's head, Lexon unhurriedly drew his Nichirin Sword and swung it twice with a casual ease that was completely invisible to the eye.
*Thud, thud...*
In an instant, both of the Beast King's massive lion arms were severed at the shoulder, falling to the ground with a loud thud.
"Eh?" Until his arms hit the ground, the Beast King hadn't even fully registered what happened, letting out a confused sound.
*Squelch...*
It wasn't until blood began to fountain from the severed stumps... until the subsequent, extreme pain flooded his mind... that the Beast King reacted.
"AAAAAAAGHHHH!!!!"
He let out a frenzied scream of agony.
"Human!!! You damn human!!! I'll slaughter you, you bastard! I'll rip your limbs off!..."
A string of curses poured continuously from the Beast King's mouth.
"Cursing is bad, you know." The smile on Lexon's face didn't fade as his Nichirin Sword flashed once more.
"Urgh..."
The Beast King's words came to an abrupt halt.
A red line slowly surfaced on his neck, turning from shallow to deep.
Another spray of blood erupted...
The Beast King's head slowly slid off the cross-section of his neck and crashed to the ground.
The expression on his face was frozen forever in that moment of painful cursing...
Leaping down to the ground, Lexon stood before the Beast King's fallen, mutilated corpse. Stepping through the pool of blood, he coolly scanned the remaining genetically modified monsters before saying with a smile, "Now then... who's next?"
"Run... RUN!!!"
Seeing their strongest leader slaughtered like a common vegetable, the subordinates lost any will to resist. Their hearts trembling with fear, they screamed and turned to flee for their lives.
"Ah... so you're running..." Lexon's tone sounded slightly disappointed.
In the next moment, mist drifted from the azure blade of his Nichirin Sword.
"Mist Breathing, Sixth Form: Drizzling Mist."
He swung the Nichirin Sword through the empty air, tracing a beautiful arc.
Following that arc, the mist on the blade dispersed, condensing into droplets like rain as it flew toward all the fleeing monsters.
*Psh...*
*Psh...*
*Psh...*
The soft sounds of mist droplets piercing through brains rang out.
One by one, the fleeing monsters came to a sudden halt and collapsed.
The only living beings left on the scene were two.
One was Lexon.
The other was the Armored Gorilla, who had retracted his hand during the Beast King's attack and had stayed rooted to the spot without fleeing after the Beast King died.
"Aren't you going to run?" Lexon looked curiously at the seemingly calm Armored Gorilla.
He remembered from the original work that this gorilla was supposed to be quite the coward.
But his current performance... seemed quite composed and natural.
However, under Lexon's gaze and question, the steel-clad Armored Gorilla suddenly dropped low and knelt on the ground.
"I don't want to die, don't kill me."
An incredibly panicked voice came from beneath the steel helmet.
The voice he spoke with now was completely devoid of the mechanical cadence he had used when speaking to the Beast King earlier.
'I guess that was just an act,' Lexon thought as he watched him.
[Reviews - Power St0nes - Comments are highly appreciated to keep me going.....(+50 chapters) patre0n.c0m/talecrafter]