2225 - The Creature
Swoosh
Tanuya advanced quickly, a wide smile on her face.
She would likely be injured again. This was the first time in several cycles that she had been injured to this extent overall, and the first time in her life that she had been injured this way by one of the Classified Universe Creatures.
Her energy had dropped, and her body was beginning to recover more slowly. This body was not designed for recovery or prolonged battles, but for decisiveness, power, and absolute resilience against universe creatures—it was fundamentally built to be impervious to injury.
But it was fine…
After this injury, she would still have enough energy left to heal herself, while Robin Burton would be dead or on the verge of breathing his last breath.
It was a fair enough trade!
Oooooohhhhmmmmm—
The huge eye followed Tanuya's swift movements as if watching a snail.
A suffocating, condescending gaze made Tanuya feel small, insignificant… but she decided to ignore it, as always.
Then the familiar sound emerged.
Creeeak
The Gear of Determinism, the symbol of Causality, began to move until it reached the broken tooth and struck against it.
Then Patterns emerged from it, which were quickly translated into:
<Will not hit the user.>
Then the gear sent a golden thread toward the Net Cube.
"Hmph!" A sneer curled on Tanuya's face.
She wouldn't hit him? No matter, that wasn't her goal to begin with. He just had to keep using the Master Laws, and he would end up killing himself!
"Raaaah!!" When Tanuya closed in to a certain distance, she deliberately shouted and thrust her Scepter toward Robin.
Her eye was on the Net Cube.
According to the Gear's decision and the thread, Spacetime would transport her and make her miss the target—that was certain.
The important thing was that after it transported her, she had to—
Ssshhh...
"...?!?!"
Tanuya felt her body halt, and her Scepter pierce something.
Then she slowly looked forward...
It was Robin Burton, his face inches from hers.
And her Scepter was piercing the area below his chest.
The Scepter entered with its pointed tip, then continued advancing and ravaging until it pushed out half of Robin's abdomen from the other side.
The entire region between his ribs and navel had nearly vanished, held together only by two strips of flesh on either side of his body.
Instantly, she turned toward the Gear of Determinism, toward the Master Law that was supposed to force her to fail!
But something strange happened...
Hoo~
The Golden Writing dissipated, and another appeared in its place:
Then slowly, she looked back up, toward Robin's eyes, with extreme astonishment.
"...The first sentence was a trap? The Gear of Determinism doesn't produce human words, only patterns... You kept translating the patterns until you finally trapped me in this snare? ...Amazing, you did what was in your head and forced me to kill you with my own hands."
"Cough..."
Robin coughed up chunks of flesh, then showed a very faint smile as he looked directly into the Executioner's eyes.
"Do you think I was planning... to die at the hands of... a depraved beast?"
Then he raised his right hand upward.
"No one has been born yet... who can make me... wish to die at their hands."
*Whoosh*
The golden hilt of the Cleaver fell into Robin's hand.
"...?!"
Tanuya finally sensed something dangerous as she saw the Cleaver raised just one foot away from her.
"Hmph!"
She activated the Law of the Void within her Scepter to completely annihilate Robin.
"A despicable creature like you should never have—"
Tanuya was stunned and stopped.
The Law of the Void wasn't working.
For some reason, she lifted her gaze upward.
*Oooommm*
The massive Eye of Truth above her stared at her intensely, dispersing the patterns of the Law of the Void before they could even gather.
"No..." Tanuya murmured.
The primal sense of fear and survival within all creatures screamed at her to run.
She swiftly pulled the scepter and fled at her maximum speed.
But—
BOOOOM
A terrifying blue energy attacked Tanuya from above and below.
The Nihari Galaxy Blast crushed the Void itself and violently compressed Tanuya's body from all sides.
Tanuya didn't seem on the verge of shattering from the blast's force, but it pinned her in place for a moment.
A moment that was enough.
Then she heard a voice… a voice that sent chills through her entire body.
“…Your neck is tempting.”
Robin spoke slowly, with deadly coldness.
“If I strike it with the cleaver… I'll cut at least half of it…”
Tanuya raised her head, looking into Robin's golden eyes, which stared at her very existence with calm, suffocating awe.
“But I won't… I won't cut your neck… Do you know why?”
Then Robin raised his left hand and grabbed Tanuya's right arm, focusing more than half of the Nihari Blast's pressure on it.
“…Because you challenged me… You said your bones couldn't be broken by a creature…”
Then Robin furrowed his brows slightly and lifted his nose upward in indignation.
“I'll show you then whether this creature can do it!!”
SWOOSH
Robin brought the Enhanced Cleaver down on the Executioner's elbow, reinforced by Nihari's Gravity and Spacetime Speed.
“AHH!!!”
Tanuya screamed in pain.
But she finally managed to break free from the force of gravity, striking Robin's chest hard with her leg, then pulling back the Scepter and darting like an arrow in the opposite direction.
"Ugh!"
As she flew like a loosed arrow, she quickly glanced at her right elbow, and instantly her anger flared.
That human had managed to cut through skin, flesh, and halfway into the bone, and had also caused a shock that damaged what remained of the elbow. If he had followed up with another strike, he would undoubtedly have severed her entire arm.
Her armed arm, built by the Transcendents.
An arm that, if cut off, could never be regrown!
Then she looked at Robin with anger and spite—anger because he had inflicted this kind of damage on her, and spite because he would die without achieving his impossible dream.
But she found him staring at her with strange, drowsy eyes, carrying neither joy nor sorrow.
That sight angered her even more.
"What is that person plann—"
Crack
"—Aaaaaahhh!!!"
Tanuya felt a violent pain in her right elbow, something forcing her to stop abruptly.
She quickly looked behind her, raising the Scepter… and instantly her expression froze.
"Oh…"
The harpoon that had been fired at her moments ago was now floating quietly here after missing her, and she was certain that the Master Laws had not affected it after its launch, otherwise she would have noticed.
That thing had left the entire Void and chosen to embed itself into her injured elbow from behind!
But she seemed to remember something... and instead of trying to remove the painful embedded spear, she slowly turned back to look at Robin.
"How long... have you been planning this moment?"
"..."
Robin did not reply.
He couldn't.
But he smiled.
BOOOOOOOOOOM
The crystal of the Adult Space Beast embedded inside the harpoon's spearhead exploded.