Chapter 252: Full Output
Adrenaline.
The hormone secreted by the human body during combat, capable of suppressing
pain and clotting blood through sheer chemical will.
Crack!
Gaia twisted his neck, his vertebrae letting out a series of rhythmic pops. He
looked at Ren Shiroki with a serene, unblinking gaze.
"Truly remarkable. This is the first time I've ever been blinded by a 'Battle
Spirit.' It felt like I was trying to count every star in the galaxy at once."
"Now then—"
Gaia stripped off his shirt, revealing a frame of lean, corded muscle. He used
the discarded fabric to wipe the blood from his face. Visually, his condition
was peak; there was no sign that he had just been pulverized into the floor
moments ago.
After tossing the shirt aside, Gaia pursed his lips.
"Mm. Mandible feels slightly fractured. I'll need to adjust—"
The next heartbeat, Gaia's body shuddered. His pupils vibrated as a wave of
refreshed energy spread from his jaw across his entire face. He looked entirely
rejuvenated.
Under the watchful eyes of the observers—both inside the hall and at the
monitors—Zip!
Gaia suddenly opened his mouth and let out a massive, bone-stretching yawn, his
features scrunching together. His skin tightened instantly, every vein bulging
beneath the surface as his muscle mass seemed to expand and harden. The aura of
power radiating from him tripled in weight.
"Hah—!"
Gaia let out a low grunt, clamping his teeth shut as he manually purged the
final traces of discomfort from his nervous system.
Outside the Perimeter.
Mitsunari Tokugawa stared at the screen, stunned. "Gaia... he just turned into a
different person. It's almost like—"
The old man turned his gaze toward Erio Kure.
"You're thinking it looks like the Kure Clan's [REMOVAL]?" Erio rubbed his chin,
shaking his head. "No. The visual is similar, but the logic is different. Gaia
explained it himself: he is manually adjusting his Adrenaline Secretion."
"The Kure [REMOVAL] unlocks the brain's limiters on physical output." "The brat
Ohma's [ADVANCE] forcibly accelerates heart rate and blood flow." "Ren Shiroki's
[ENGINE] uses pure consciousness to pilot the body, purging the unconscious to
master multiple styles."
Erio paused, looking at the screen. "As for Gaia's Adrenaline Control? To a
normal person... it is a 'natural' state."
Tokugawa blinked. "Natural?"
Erio nodded. "Humans secrete adrenaline during a fight—even a common thug in a
back-alley brawl does it. But Gaia, as a professional soldier who has lived
through a thousand life-or-be-killed scenarios, has mastered the ability to
trigger and regulate that secretion at will. He has transformed a biological
reflex into a weapon. He is a Super-Human created by evolution, not lineage."
"Phew..."
Gaia's breathing settled into a rhythmic hum. He looked at Ren. "Since my
mind-reading is being saturated by your 'Choices,' let's go back to a
traditional battle."
The petite soldier radiated a pressure so intense it seemed to warp the very
dimensions of the hallway. Even though the windows were shattered and the
ventilation was clear, Ren could smell the heavy, acrid scent of cordite.
"Nice. That's perfect—"
Ren dropped his center of gravity. He drove his back foot into the floor and
launched a high-speed technical lunge.
Zip!
He fired a rapid-fire straight, but Gaia leaped into the air to evade.
However, as Gaia had promised, he wasn't looking for hair-breadth slips anymore.
He used a standard combat maneuver, but amplified by his hyper-adrenaline state.
He jumped.
THUD!
Gaia shot upward, leaping several meters into the air—a height that defied human
biology. He raised both hands, his palms touching the ceiling to stabilize
himself for a micro-second, before driving his arms upward to propel himself
back down with the force of a falling meteor.
"DIE!"
Whoosh!
Gaia's right foot snapped out, aiming straight for Ren's head. Ren performed a
desperate backward hop to clear the arc. Gaia's boot slammed into the floor
tiles instead.
BOOM!!!
In an instant, the reinforced tiles were pulverized into a thousand shards. A
spiderweb of cracks raced across the floor, and a tremor shook the entire
seventeenth level.
"Haha—"
Ren blinked, a cold sweat prickling his brow. "Oho! Now that is some serious
power!"
"This is the miracle of the human machine when fueled by pure adrenaline," Gaia
mused with a faint smile. "The history of the modern Olympics is just a story of
men trying to tap into this potential. If I chose to, I could rewrite the world
records for every event on this planet!"
Zip!
The words had barely left his lips when Gaia exploded forward.
Faced with an opponent a full weight class heavier, Gaia didn't use technical
evasion. He charged head-on, looking to engage Ren in a pure test of **
WRESTLING** strength!
The speed was staggering. Ren realized he couldn't dodge in time. And because it
was so interesting, he didn't want to.
"AHA!"
Ren spread his arms, dropping into a wide wrestling stance to meet the charge.
In a heartbeat, their bodies collided with a thunderous impact.
BANG!
The heavy sound of flesh hitting flesh echoed through the hall. Both men were
forced back a half-step, exhaling a cloud of hot steam.
"HYAH!"
Ren lunged forward again, reaching out to secure a clinch, but Gaia's right hand
snapped horizontally in a savage palm-slap that caught Ren flush across the
face.
SLAP!
The force was immense. Ren's mind went momentarily fuzzy from the shock. His
footing faltered.
Gaia capitalized instantly. He stepped his right leg across Ren's lead foot,
hooking the ankle while simultaneously yanking back on Ren's torso. He was
executing a perfect high-speed takedown.
Zip!
As Ren hit the floor, Gaia's left hand snaked between the youth's legs to secure
his crotch, while his right palm slammed onto Ren's face to pin his head. To a
civilian, it looked like Gaia was helping Ren up; to a warrior, it was clear he
had Ren in a vice-grip.
"It's a good thing this isn't a wrestling match, or I'd be in trouble," Gaia
whispered. "A throw from this angle hits with a velocity of 80km/h. It's roughly
equivalent to falling from the seventh floor."
"EYES FRONT!!"
Gaia let out a sharp roar. He twisted his core, upending Ren and slamming him
back-down into the concrete floor with the momentum of a runaway truck.
In the heartbeat before impact, Ren gritted his teeth and forcibly tensed every
muscle in his body, turning himself into a rigid rod of meat and bone. The
maneuver was a frame-perfect defense, intended to minimize the "G-force" of the
slam.
BOOM!!!
Ren was driven into the floor, a fresh crater erupting beneath him. The shock
was so violent his eyeballs vibrated in their sockets. He bounced off the impact
and performed a series of frantic tactical rolls to clear the area.
The observers—especially Kazuo and Sikorsky—swallowed hard.
The title "Deity of the Earth" was no exaggeration. Gaia was a petite monster.
He had just hoisted a 101kg man and nearly smashed him through a reinforced
floor. His physical power was pure, unadulterated [Monstrous Strength].
"Gah—hk!"
Ren coughed up a spray of blood. He rolled away from Gaia and sprang to his
feet, his pupils still quivering violently.
"Eh?"
Gaia noticed the vibration in Ren's eyes. It wasn't stopping; it was
intensifying. Red veins were tightening around the pupils like living chains.
[ENGINE]—MAX OVERDRIVE!
Ren snorted blood and spat out a clot. His intense conscious will overrode the
trauma, suppressing the tremors caused by the pain.
"A consciousness so powerful it can treat 'Killing Intent' as a multiple-choice
question..." Gaia whispered in admiration. "To think a human could push their
will this far. Incredible!"
WHOOSH!
[DRIVE RUSH]!
Ren blurred forward, his stride covering the distance in a heartbeat.
As he reached Gaia, he suddenly killed his momentum. His right leg snapped
upward in a vertical split.
Zip!
The movement cleared Gaia's attempted low-kick. Ren's heel descended like a
heavy cleaver.
[RYU'S HEEL DROP]!
BANG!
The heel caught Gaia flush on the face. But the adrenaline was working at
maximum efficiency. Gaia's body shuddered, but he ignored the broken nose. He
bared his teeth and exploded into a high-speed counter-barrage.
Ren roared in response. He didn't retreat. He met the flurry head-on, fists and
feet raining down like a tropical storm.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
The air in the hallway seemed to vibrate under the pressure of the trade. The
exchange was too fast for the observers to track.
Bang-bang-bang-bang!!
They were見招拆招 (matching move for move). Parries, slips, and strikes blurred into
a singular symphony of violence. Though they were using "basic" strikes, the
speed and torque provided by the [ENGINE] and Adrenaline Control made every hit
a potential kill-shot.
Sikorsky watched the two of them, his jaw hanging open. Neither of these freaks
is human!!
They seemed perfectly matched.
—No. Wait.
A heartbeat later, the masters watching the monitors—including the "Fist Eye" of
Kazuo Yamashita—noticed the shift.
In a pure, face-to-face slugfest... Ren Shiroki had the edge!
BANG!
Ren fired a brutal rising uppercut that caught Gaia on the chin. The soldier's
head snapped back, blood spraying from his mouth as he was lifted off his feet.
"SHINK!"
A guttural growl escaped Gaia's throat. The surge of pain triggered another
adrenaline dump. His face contorted with a fresh wave of combat fury. "Do you
really think 'Environmental Utilization' is limited to this?!"
Before the sentence finished, Gaia drove his heel into the floor and retreated.
Simultaneously, his hand swept upward in a wide arc.
BOOM!
A sound like a detonating grenade echoed through the hall. A cloud of thick,
choking dust swallowed Ren Shiroki instantly.
Shash-shash-shash—!
Ren raised his guard, but he felt a rhythmic series of stinging pains across his
chest and face.
Explosives?!
The group stared at the smoke, their eyes wide.
Gaia hadn't used a bomb. He had snatched a handful of scorched debris and gravel
from the floor and hurled it with enough torque to mimic the shrapnel of a
grenade. The impact on Ren's skin was devastating.
Ren's chest was covered in jagged lacerations where the stones had sliced him.
Several small shards were embedded in his muscles. The sight alone was
nauseating.
"Fighting a specialist in close quarters is tactical suicide. I don't intend to
do that again," Gaia said as he continued his retreat, ensuring a safe distance.
"Fortunately... this is a 'Battle'."
"My weapons aren't limited to my body or yours."
"Tell me... haven't you noticed?"
The Deity of the Earth spoke in a low, ominous whisper. "In a no-rules struggle,
an 'Urban Steel Jungle' is far more lethal than a ring—and even more dangerous
than the Amazon."
"Allow me to show you how to properly utilize a building that's just survived an
explosion—"
(End of Chapter)
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