The man dashes toward Garuphu and punches his face. Garuphu tumbles and the man jumps to the floor. He dashes at him even more but simply evades Garuphu’s elemental punches without retaliating. He stops right in front of Garuphu who wants to hit him with a lightning punch but he notices that his arm isn’t moving anymore.

  “My threads fixated you.”, the man explains.

  “What’s your name?”, Garuphu asks and the man introduces himself, “My name is Ketsuki Bloodborne. I’m the future galaxy’s strongest man.”

  The group in the back is impressed and Raiden asks himself quietly: “So is he the strongest or will be the strongest?”

  Garuphu recognizes the name: “Bloodborne…? I’ve heard that name before. Wasn’t that some notorious assassin fam-”

  He gets interrupted by a really powerful punch to the face and spits some blood. Garuphu then emits a pulse of fire around his body and burns the threads thus hurting Ketsuki.

  Garuphu smiles: “Looks like I’ve found several weaknesses at once. For the future strongest man, I must say you’re weak as fuck.”

  He punches Ketsuki with a rocky fist and flings him over to the others.

  “You okay?”, Erika asks.

  Garuphu stands in front of this group and comments: “Unthinkable that I’ll have to go all out for a flock of children like you.”

  They all get battle-ready and start dashing toward him. Garuphu blocks and evades numerous attacks from Erika’s hammer, Raiden’s charged punches, Atsume and Ketsuki while trying to hit them with elemental punches infused with fire, lightning, ice and stone. Ketsuki uses his threads to gain momentum and flies directly into Garuphu with a powerful punch to his face.

  Raiden dashes right into Garuphu but has to dodge a punch so he uses this momentum for an “Overcharged Horse Kick!”. Atsume jumps onto Erika’s hammer and gets propelled at Garuphu by it. She tries to kick him but Garuphu grabs her by her leg and throws her into the ground. She breaks through the catwalk and Ketsuki jumps after her. He attaches lots of threads to different spots of the ceiling and Atsume.

  Ketsuki ends up holding her like a princess and Atsume blushes as she thanks him: “Oh my. So up close I notice what a hottie you are~”

  Ketsuki doesn’t react and pulls both of them back up to the platform. Meanwhile, Garuphu forms a huge icicle from his fist which grows rapidly toward Raiden and Erika.

  They dodge it but it keeps growing and Erika notices: “SVALIN!!”

  The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

  She swings her hammer to destroy the icicle and barely saves him. He has a deep bleeding wound and Erika freaks out.

  “Oh my god oh my god oh my god what do I do?!”, she panics and Svalin calms her with a strained voice, “Don’t worry about me. Focus on the man behind you.”

  Raiden runs toward Garuphu again and wants to land another punch but he hits a rocky surface and then gets punched by a flaming punch to his face. He has problems getting back up and spits some blood. Atsume jumps onto him from behind and tries to dig claws into his shoulders. Again, he grabs her and then punches her stomach. He ends up hitting her critically and she screams in pain.

  She holds her stomach with a horrified expression and thinks: “He fractured my core!”

  Ketsuki ties threads around both of them and then pulls the air with his hands. They get separated and Garuphu suddenly dashes toward Ketsuki. He barely dodges a few punches until he gets hit fully by a fist covered in dense ice.

  Garuphu then turns to Erika and shouts: “You fools! You seriously thought you could defeat me!? The mighty Garuphu of Sarseia?! I’ll now set an example so that my reign of this city will invoke even more fear in the people! Erika, you’ve been a great mechanic but… you’ve played for the wrong side.”

  Everyone except Ketsuki looks shocked as another icicle grows toward Svalin. Memories flash before Erika’s eyes. She remembers the time she spent with Svalin as a happy little girl and teen. All the happy times but also arguments. Them just talking or hiking in beautiful sceneries. But especially, Svalin teaching her how to weld and screw things together. One night, when she fell asleep at her workbench, he even put a blanket over her. Suddenly, she feels a strong hand on her shoulder that pushes her out of the way. Everyone hears a disgusting mushy sound and then they see that Svalin has been pierced by this icicle.

  Erika is in shock and Garuphu says: “What an idiot. I didn’t even mean to hit him.”

  Svalin falls into her arms as she starts crying like a waterfall.

  She can’t bring out a word and Svalin says: “Don’t cry, Eri-chan… you said it yourself… you’re a big girl now…”

  Erika can’t stop her tears and shouts: “Don’t say things like that Svalin! You’re gonna live! I’ll bring you to the hospital! Just you wait!”

  Svalin puts a finger on her mouth to shush her and says: “It’s too late… I’m now finally returning to my brother… It pains me to leave you behind, Eri-chan… but I believe in you…”

  His hand falls to the ground and Erika can’t control her crying. Raiden and Atsume watch in horror of what they’ve just witnessed. Ketsuki looks tired and Garuphu looks completely normal.

  Erika screams: “SVALIIIINNN!! …FATHEEERRRR!!!”

  Shurui tries comforting her and Atsume sheds a tear.

  Raiden and Ketsuki slowly stand back up and Raiden shouts: “You’re gonna pay for that!!”

  Raiden starts releasing way more of his lightnings than before and rushes toward Garuphu, screaming. Garuphu is solely fixated on Raiden but suddenly loses his footing.

  “That’s what I’ve been waiting for!”, Ketsuki thinks as he manages pull Garuphu.

  “What?! No!! At this rate he’s gonna-!”, Garuphu thinks and suddenly sees the ground below him disappear.

  Ketsuki simply throws him off the platform to the surprise of Raiden and Atsume.

  Raiden doesn’t know what to say because two things come up in his mind: “I just realized it. I don’t even know if I can trust him! He just killed him! And at the same time, I’m super confused as to why he didn’t do this earlier!”

  Ketsuki wants to walk toward the others but Raiden grabs his arm with a serious expression and says: “We need to talk.”