"Roar!"
Boom!
The clash between the two behemoths on the big screen was utterly oppressive. Their colossal forms effortlessly pulverized every surrounding building as they traded blows.
Brilliant energy crackled.
The contestants watched as Leviathan, in his towering colossus form, unleashed a concentrated energy beam from his jaws. As the beam swept across the landscape, skyscrapers hundreds of meters away collapsed, cleanly severed in half.
Refusing to be outdone, the opposing behemoth glowed with a violent luminescence, letting out a shriek before disgorging its own surging beam, clashing head-on with Leviathan's.
The collision of the two energy beams triggered violent ionization in the atmosphere, creating a sweeping shockwave that flattened everything within a hundred-meter radius.
Hiss...
"How the hell are we supposed to fight that?!"
The contestants felt their scalps go numb.
They could see that Leviathan's colossus form stood at roughly fifty to sixty meters tall. Since the host mentioned his weight reached tens of thousands of tons, his muscle density had to be absolutely horrifying.
Mecha Knight rapidly calculated the average density of Leviathan's behemoth state. "Assuming a height of sixty meters and a mass of fifty thousand tons, the average density of this colossus sits at 13.5 grams per cubic centimeter. Theoretically, this is denser than solid lead. However, physical density alone is not enough to support such colossal weight..."
His calculations yielded a shocking conclusion:
"The very existence of such a biological entity is illogical; it defies modern human science. Its bone density must be unimaginably high, and there must be some kind of high-energy generation mechanism operating inside its body..."
Leviathan exhaled deeply.
"Defeating that behemoth took everything I had. I nearly lost my life out there."
Radiant Man remarked dismissively, "Is that so? To me, they just look like two oversized punching bags. If it were me, that fight would have ended a lot quicker."
"Heh."
Leviathan sneered. He had had quite enough of Radiant Man's arrogant posturing—as if failing to assert his own superiority for a single second would kill him.
"I'll wait and see."
With that, both of their gazes shifted toward Hyuk. Now that the tournament was finally evaluating their tier of combat, they were eager to gauge her current level of power.
As Earth's very first globally recognized superhuman, Hyuk's terrifying reputation was fully acknowledged by them. However, they needed to see exactly how strong she had become.
Nearly a year had passed, and everyone had grown. Neither Leviathan nor Radiant Man believed that their current selves would be any weaker than the Hyuk of the past.
A moment later,
"Challenge commencing!"
The contestants plunged into the scenario to face Leviathan's behemoth opponent. Leviathan, however, only paid attention to two specific feeds.
One was Hyuk's.
The other was Radiant Man's.
...
Inside the scenario.
Thick, dark clouds blanketed the sky, plunging the environment into an eerie gloom. The pungent, sulfurous stench of volcanic ash hung heavy in the air. Surrounding civilians panicked, scrambling to evacuate.
"Forget the cars! Get out and run!"
Honk! Honk! Honk!
"Mom! Dad! Where are you?!"
Military helicopters roared overhead, the rhythmic thud of their rotor blades compounding the chaos. Hyuk ignored the terrified crowd surging past her, keeping her gaze locked on the horizon.
Boom!
The earth shattered.
A colossal behemoth, towering roughly sixty meters tall, slowly lumbered into her line of sight. It walked on two legs, each heavy step sending tremors through the asphalt, its thick hide covered in dense, interlocking scales.
"It's coming!"
"Run!"
Terror gripped the populace. Circling armed helicopters and ground infantry units immediately opened fire, a ceaseless cacophony of heavy artillery and gunfire raining down upon the titan.
Yet, it was completely useless.
Hyuk slowly rose into the sky, evaluating the behemoth's physical structure. She couldn't sense any massive energy signatures radiating from within its body; physically speaking, it looked rather squishy.
Of course, that was only to her.
The behemoth spotted Hyuk. Its posture tensed. Completely ignoring the military's attacks, it let out a deafening roar and charged, swinging a massive claw down toward Hyuk.
The same, all-too-familiar scene played out once more.
Boom!
A deafening sonic boom reverberated through the air, accompanied by a geyser of blood. In a fraction of a second, a massive, gaping hole was blasted clean through the behemoth's body.
"Roar!"
The titan roared in agonizing pain.
Hyuk remained unimpressed.
"Too fragile."
Never mind the astronomical disparity in physical density; in terms of raw weight alone, she easily outweighed five of these behemoths combined. If there were a heavyweight monster boxing league, they wouldn't even qualify for the same weight class.
The searing physical pain made the behemoth instantly realize the terrifying power of the human before it. Desperate, it immediately unleashed its trump card, opening its massive maw to discharge a surging beam of light.
Unfortunately, Hyuk was far faster.
She had no intention of testing the beam's destructive power. No matter how strong it was, there was no way it could surpass Pat's one-billion-degree nuclear energy impact. She threw a single punch, her figure instantly blasting straight through the behemoth's head.
The energy beam cut off instantly.
The colossus crashed heavily to the ground, kicking up a wall of dust.
Battle finished.
Back in the real stadium,
"..."
Leviathan stared in wide-eyed disbelief. He checked his watch. From the moment the engagement started to its absolute end, the entire process took less than fifteen seconds. Hyuk had only struck twice.
The disparity in their strength was too astronomical.
This behemoth, which had nearly cost him his life just two months ago, had been eliminated by Hyuk as effortlessly as taking a sip of water.
Leviathan felt an unparalleled sense of shock. He was starting to believe that Hyuk might truly be the single strongest superhuman on Earth. If she wasn't the strongest, who else could possibly claim the title?
He took a deep, steadying breath to calm his racing thoughts.
Then, he looked over at Radiant Man's feed.
That guy was locked in a fierce, chaotic struggle against the behemoth. Despite bragging endlessly about his own power, he had spent the entire time unable to land a single fatal blow on the titan.
Leviathan couldn't help but grin.
Five minutes later, all the contestants returned to the arena. A "+10 points" indicator popped up above Hyuk's head with a crisp chime, but Radiant Man's head remained completely bare.
"Hahaha! Who was blowing their own horn so loud earlier? What's wrong, did your precious radiation fail to work? Turns out the only thing powerful about you is your mouth, hahaha!"
Leviathan was utterly merciless, loudly and arrogantly mocking Radiant Man. Radiant Man's face darkened, but he remained tight-lipped; even he hadn't anticipated the behemoth to be so resilient.
This failure put him ten points behind both Hyuk and Leviathan. As a fellow VIP guest, this was an incredibly humiliating blow to his pride, so he chose to ignore Leviathan entirely.
"Hmph."
"And the leaderboard is beginning to show a clear division!"
The host's booming voice pulled everyone back from the shock of the behemoth clash. He excitedly announced that only a single contestant had successfully cleared the behemoth challenge.
"That is none other than one of our special guests: Contestant Powerful! Let us applaud her!"
Thunderous applause simulated out of nowhere.
The rankings on the big screen shifted. Hyuk and Leviathan were now tied for first place. Since the Clash of the Behemoths was Leviathan's featured battle, he had automatically received his ten points.
To this, the contestants were not at all surprised.
"It's Powerful, after all."
"I'm not surprised Powerful cleared it. What shocks me is that Radiant Man actually failed. Under this comparison, doesn't that mean Radiant Man is weaker than Leviathan?"
"Hard to say."
Real combat wasn't a simple comparison of stat values. Saying that Radiant Man failing to defeat the behemoth meant he would lose to Leviathan was just flawed, clunky power-scaling logic.
Mindset.
Opportunity.
Experience and technique.
All of these variables could dramatically alter the outcome of a battle.
Besides, Radiant Man hadn't actually lost to the behemoth; he hadn't taken heavy damage or been pushed onto the defensive. On the contrary, he had held the clear advantage throughout the fight.
He simply struggled to land a decisive, fatal strike.
A contestant murmured under their breath,
"Has Powerful's Battle of Jpscan City still not come up yet?"
The Battle of Jpscan City was legendary. It was this single engagement that catapulted Hyuk to global notoriety, forcing the world's governing bodies to realize that superhuman capabilities could reach such terrifying heights.
Unfortunately, no one to date had ever witnessed the battle of Jpscan City in its entirety. The only materials preserved were scattered, low-quality video fragments.
"Hurry up. It has to be in the top slots; there is no way it isn't listed."
"So!" the host's voice echoed throughout the stadium. "I can feel the contestants' burning anticipation for our final three battles. Let us not delay!"
"The third most representative battle: Radiant Man's Battle of Losales!"
A flurry of chaotic footage flashed across the screens.
In the projection, Losales was engulfed in raging, brilliant infernos. Explosions shattered the air, followed by a beam of blazing thermal energy that sliced a towering skyscraper cleanly in half.
The skyscraper collapsed.
The visual scale was staggeringly intense.
"Unlike our previous entries which took place behind the doors, this battle occurred just half a month ago, right here on Earth, in Losales, Americas!"
"With searing flames and toxic radiation transforming the city into a literal purgatory, Radiant Man encountered his most formidable enemy to date: an Inverter from the Planet of Inversion!"
"Structures melted under the extreme heat, and the Inverter's power nearly flipped the world on its head, ripping high-rises from their foundations to launch them straight into the clouds! A truly rare and magnificent spectacle!"
"Contestants, please enjoy!"
An Inverter.
It sounded like an alien race blessed with some bizarre, conceptual talent—likely similar to the Merger. Hyuk was well aware of how formidable such extraterrestrials could be.
Rather than calling their innate talents "abilities," it was more accurate to describe them as literal manipulations of natural laws and structural mechanisms. They completely broke standard logic.
Radiant Man was deeply obsessed with power dynamics and hierarchy. He shot a freezing glare at Leviathan. "If you're so capable, let's see you secure a win in this battle."
The Inverter was exceptionally strong. Radiant Man had been forced to pay a devastating price to eliminate him, which was unlike his encounter with the brainless behemoth. Leviathan, likewise, might not possess the means to handle the Inverter's unique mechanics.
"And you, Powerful... let's see what you've actually got!"
This time, he addressed Hyuk directly.
He had never admitted to anyone that he once deeply idolized Hyuk. After all, she was the first individual to demonstrate the peerless, awe-inspiring potential of superhumans to the world.
Back when he had only recently awakened, the low-quality snippets of the Battle of Jpscan City had left him completely awestruck. Today, however, his idolization had faded, replaced by the firm belief that he was no longer significantly weaker than her.
Hyuk glanced sideways at Radiant Man.
She didn't bother to reply.
The host's voice rang out.
"Contestants, prepare yourselves. The challenge begins!"
Swish!
The participants vanished instantly.
Radiant Man sat in the VIP stands. Just like Leviathan before him, his attention was exclusively locked onto the feeds of the only two other formidable contestants: Hyuk and Leviathan.
...
Inside the scenario.
The moment she entered, Hyuk was confronted by the Inverter. Physically, he appeared indistinguishable from a regular human, save for the smiling mask that covered his face.
"Invert!"
The Inverter raised a hand, and the local gravity vector flipped instantly. Screaming civilians were violently yanked from the asphalt, falling upward toward the clouds as the entire environment seemed to turn upside down.
Yet, Hyuk's form remained suspended in mid-air, completely unaffected by the localized gravitational shift. Hanging "upside down" relative to the ascending debris, she calmly locked eyes with the Inverter from across the void.
"Huh?"
The Inverter froze.
Hyuk's flight capabilities had absolutely nothing to do with gravity vectors or magnetic fields, a detail she had once disclosed to the researchers of the Navy-blues Alliance. More accurately, it was a pure positional relocation capability.
She stopped wherever she willed. Her coordinates would not alter in the slightest just because gravity had flipped. Furthermore, she was thoroughly accustomed to the orientation of deep space, where concepts like "up, down, left, or right" simply did not exist.
Consequently, the inverted gravity and disoriented sensory field failed to hinder Hyuk in the slightest. In the split second the Inverter dazed in confusion, she had already broken the sound barrier, blitzing toward him like a thunderbolt.
"Inve—"
Boom!
Before the Inverter could even initiate a second gravity flip, he was blasted into a fine red mist by a single punch from Hyuk. Under a falling shower of blood, gravity returned to normal, and the high-rises suspended in the sky crashed violently back to the earth.
Tremors rumbled through the ground with thunderous echoes.
...
Back in the real stadium,
Radiant Man stood completely dumbfounded.
"Just... wiped out like that?"
His own clash against this opponent had been an agonizingly grueling war of attrition, yet Hyuk had ended it in the very first exchange. The Inverter indeed possessed countless other lethal, complex mechanics, but that was the nature of real combat.
No opponent was obligated to give you time to slowly set up your moves.
Hyuk's swift, decisive one-shot ensured the Inverter never had the luxury of deploying his trump cards. Even she was somewhat surprised that he had been neutralized so abruptly.
"That's it?"
On the massive screens, Hyuk looked around with a face full of confusion, which only irritated Radiant Man further.
She had previously used the Merger as a baseline of comparison for the Inverter's potential strength; it seemed she had grossly overestimated him. Though, it was also highly probable that this version of the Inverter simply hadn't fully matured yet.
Much like Terminal and Pat, once Pat fused with a massive cluster of superhuman gene factors, his power surged to a monstrous tier. Had Hyuk not intervened, Planao would have likely been devoured to its very core.
Radiant Man checked Leviathan's feed. The sight instantly restored his mood. True to his expectations, Leviathan had engaged in his winged dragon-man form.
The result was a disaster. Repeatedly buffeted by the Inverter's gravity flips, his spatial orientation and senses were thrown into absolute chaos. He was thoroughly beaten to a pulp, only surviving the ordeal thanks to his absurdly tanky, scale-clad anatomy.
Five minutes later, the contestants returned. Radiant Man did not let the opportunity slide. Staring at Leviathan's dark face, he let out a cold, mocking laugh to return the favor.
"Haha! How did it feel being thrown into a washing machine tumble cycle? Pretty refreshing, wasn't it? From where I was sitting, it looked like you almost had the crap beaten out of you!"
"Tch."
Leviathan had absolutely nothing to say.
Once again, Hyuk was the sole contestant to successfully clear the challenge, securing another ten points. With this, her total score climbed to eighty points, firmly anchoring her at the absolute top of the leaderboard.
Both Leviathan and Radiant Man finally grasped the truth. Hyuk's strength existed in an entirely different dimension compared to theirs; her power was absolute, a tier entirely of its own.
As for his earlier comment about "seeing her true strength," Radiant Man quietly acted as though he had never uttered those words.
The host's voice boomed across the arena. "The latest standings have just been tallied! Finally, we no longer have a tie at the top. Currently standing alone in first place is Contestant Powerful!"
"Hot on her heels are Contestant Leviathan and Contestant Radiant Man, tied for second place and trailing by a mere ten points. However, I must unfortunately deliver some grim news: they may no longer have any hope of catching up!"
The entire roster, including Leviathan and Radiant Man, was taken aback.
"Could it be..."
"Precisely!" The host revealed the answer with dramatic flair. "Our final two featured battles are entering Contestant Powerful's personal showcase!"
"Two matches?!"
"Doesn't that mean Powerful has three separate battles ranking in the top ten?!"
"Talk about total domination..."
The contestants gasped in sheer disbelief.
The host's voice reached a roaring crescendo as he excitedly declared, "Ranking second among our ten most representative battles: Contestant Powerful's Battle of Jpscan City!"
Boom!
The screens projected a collapsing skyscraper. Civilians scrambled in blind panic as two figures traded devastating blows right in the middle of a bustling commercial district, completely unhindered by their surroundings.
"This was the first time Powerful displayed her logic-defying, overwhelming capabilities to the world, crushing everything, shattering everything. This level of power is nothing short of suffocating!"
"Perhaps this clash does not boast the visual scale of a collapsing underwater city, nor is it as cinematic as the Clash of the Behemoths, and it lacks the high-rises shooting into the sky like in Losales. However..."
"This is the definitive battle where superhumans announced the dawn of a new era to the world! Powerful used her raw strength to teach everyone the true meaning of power!"
"The cultural and physical shockwaves this battle sent across Earth are unparalleled. Therefore, I have ranked it second, and I am confident none of you will object!"
The sheer significance of the Battle of Jpscan City was undeniable. This single engagement marked the dawn of the new era, and in its aftermath, Hyuk became a living symbol for all superhumans.
It was a clash that had earned her the title of the absolute strongest.
Although the emergence of more and more powerhouses over time caused her title of "strongest" to gradually fade from conversation, it did nothing to shake her unparalleled status among Earth's superhumans.
Before her rise, who could have possibly believed a Terran could achieve such a terrifying tier of power?
Leviathan, however, was focused on a completely different detail. "The Battle of Jpscan City is only ranked second?"
How cataclysmic must the top-ranked battle be?
Hyuk stared at the violent footage displaying on the massive screens. She harbored absolutely no nostalgia for this particular clash. To her, it was simply a reckless brawl born of fury, hatred, and impulse.
If she could turn back the clock, she would undoubtedly make the exact same choices. Yet, in her heart, she felt this battle was nothing to be celebrated or praised.
"It's finally here!"
"Hurry up and start!"
The contestants were practically vibrating with excitement. They were well aware that they likely stood zero chance of clearing the scenario, but they desperately wanted to experience this legendary battle firsthand.
It was like a holy pilgrimage for them.
Radiant Man's eyes burned with an intense light. He wanted nothing more than to clash directly with the infamous White Suit. He was eager to see if his current strength could measure up to Powerful's level back then.
Amidst the rising tide of excitement, the host snapped his fingers, signaling the start.
"Challenge commencing!"
Instantly, every participant was warped into the simulation.
With the final two stages serving as her personal showcases, Hyuk had nothing to do. Left to her own devices, she listlessly flipped through the screen feeds to watch the other contestants' struggles.
...
Inside the scenario.
Mecha Knight was violently slammed into a building by a massive wave of telekinetic force. Before he could even stabilize to counterattack, he was yanked back out by the invisible grip. His flight thrusters were simply too weak to break free from Manager Bach's immense psychokinetic control.
Before long, Mecha Knight was disassembled into a heap of sparking scrap metal. His crackling electronic eye remained locked onto the hovering figure in the air as a residential building was lifted bodily from the ground and smashed down directly on top of him.
"This is way too overpowered..."
As expected.
Without experiencing it firsthand, one could never truly comprehend the sheer terror of White Suit's telekinesis. That crushing, multi-thousand-ton psychokinetic force was absolutely not something a normal human could survive.
Leveraging mechanical structures and physical optimizations, lifting a ten-thousand-ton building was child's play for the telekinetic force. Its only real vulnerability was its relatively low average compression resistance, meaning a sufficiently powerful opponent could focus their force to pierce through a single point.
Mecha Knight understood the physics behind this but lacked the capability to execute it, believing that only Leviathan and Radiant Man stood a chance in a direct confrontation.
Had Leviathan been privy to Mecha Knight's inner monologue, he would have bluntly told him to shut up. In all honesty, he felt completely outmatched by the White Suit.
The moment he initiated his dragon-man transformation, he was beaten senseless. The White Suit practically pinned his head to the concrete, smashing him repeatedly as fresh blood geysered.
Even in his dragon-man form, Leviathan had to exert considerable effort to wear down Militmony. Facing the far more versatile and oppressive White Suit, he was reduced to a literal punching bag.
Crack!
"Argh!"
Enveloped in the churning psychokinetic tide, Leviathan's bones shattered with sickening, crisp snaps. The excruciating agony forced a guttural scream from his throat, which quickly dissolved into pure rage.
"I don't believe I can't beat you... Roar!"
With that roar, his frame expanded exponentially. In the blink of an eye, he morphed into a sixty-meter-tall, nightmarish behemoth. Leveraging tens of thousands of tons of raw physical mass and strength, he effortlessly shattered the White Suit's telekinetic constraints.
A blinding, terrifying column of energy erupted from his jaws, blasting the White Suit back several hundred meters. Leviathan had successfully seized the initiative, but his advantage was short-lived.
Before long, the White Suit entered his second phase. Making a series of rapid, cryptic phone calls, his power spiked exponentially. Without another word, he unleashed a devastating telekinetic spear.
This was the very technique that had heavily injured Hyuk in the past. While Leviathan's behemoth form was significantly larger, his physical density and durability were far inferior to Hyuk's. He was cleanly impaled through the head by the psychokinetic lance.
Battle finished.
...
Meanwhile, over on Radiant Man's feed.
Relentless psychokinetic force was compressed to such an extreme degree that it glowed with a violent, azure light, warping the very atmosphere around it. Severely mangled, Radiant Man knelt helplessly on the cracked ground.
Nearly half of his torso had been completely obliterated by a telekinetic spear.
"This is too logic-defyingly strong..."
This was the first time Radiant Man had ever encountered an opponent who could suddenly trigger a massive mid-battle power-up. The sheer increase in the White Suit's telekinetic intensity during his second phase was simply too overwhelming for him to withstand.
His proud, high-temperature thermal barrages were completely neutralized by the White Suit's simple deployment of a vacuum barrier, while the crushing gravitational field generated by the telekinetic suppression made even taking a single step an agonizing struggle.
It was simply too brutal.
Telekinesis was technically a fairly common ability, but the issue here was the absurd scale of his output. The White Suit deployed an endless, layered variety of sub-techniques and applications, leaving his opponents with no viable counterplay.
Ultimately, Radiant Man suffered a crushing defeat.
Challenge over.
...
Upon returning to the arena, Leviathan turned to Hyuk and said, "Everyone calls me a monster. But as far as I'm concerned, you are the real monster."
Radiant Man was spiraling into silent despair.
Keep in mind, this simulated engagement was based on a battle fought nearly a year ago. Even after undergoing their own rapid growth phases, they had both been utterly decimated by an opponent that Hyuk had defeated back then.
The sheer magnitude of the gap in their strength left a bitter, heavy weight in their chests.
The stands erupted into a flurry of shocked murmurs.
"Damn it, I couldn't even survive for a single second!"
"A total, instant wipeout."
"I still can't believe it. This was the level of power active a year ago?"
"It's real, brother. It's as real as it gets."
Having experienced the Battle of Jpscan City firsthand, the assembly of superhumans unanimously agreed that the legendary status of both the battle and Powerful was only bound to grow. If they were to be dropped onto that actual battlefield, none of them could confidently guarantee they would survive even the collateral shockwaves.
The White Suit tossed skyscrapers around like toys, and both combatants effortlessly sustained supersonic velocities throughout their engagement. How could anyone hope to dodge that? A single moment of distraction meant being instantly pulverized into red pulp.
Knowing that such a cataclysmic battle was only ranked second on the list sent a surge of pure, raw adrenaline through the contestants. They were dying to know what kind of spectacle could possibly top this.
"Where's the top-ranked battle? Bring it on already!"
"Hurry up!"
Spinning his microphone in mid-air before catching it with a theatrical flourish, the host capitalized on the crowd's soaring energy. "Spectacular! It seems our contestants' passion has been completely ignited! Without further ado, our grand finale makes its entrance!"
"Ranking first among our ten most representative battles: Contestant Powerful's Battle of One Billion Degrees! This single clash will completely shatter your current understanding of the absolute upper limits of superhuman potential!"