"One minute."
*SHING!*
The moment the three-minute cooldown evaporated, Naoki reactivated «Crazy Sheep». Instantly, the atmosphere around him shuddered. His body was engulfed in a roaring, golden-fiery aura, his hair defying gravity as it surged upward.
"Hmph. Screaming won't make you any stronger. You aren't a Super Saiyan, and you aren't powered by some magical 'bond of friendship' either."
Having said his piece, Naoki looked far too bored to continue the pointless chatter.
*WHOOSH!*
Buoyed by an extraordinary surge in attributes that would only last sixty seconds, he seemed to vanish from sight, closing the distance in a single heartbeat.
Reappearing directly in front of Rairen—who was still blinded by rage—Naoki coiled his strength into his right fist and drove it straight into her head.
*BAM!*
The blow carried a destructive force rivaling the rampage of a titan. Had it not been for Rairen's naturally superhuman resilience, her head would have surely detonated into a million pieces. Even so, the impact was instantaneous—Rairen was sent flying like a high-velocity shell, hitting the ground and plowing a trench hundreds of meters long.
"You bastard! Don't think you've won, human!" Rairen screamed, struggling to rise from the center of the crater. "I wasn't being serious last time! Besides, I was under some ridiculous orders to hold back!"
She glared at Naoki with pure, unadulterated hatred as he began to run toward her.
"But this time is different! I'm going to send you straight to the underworld!"
Hearing this, Naoki skidded to a halt exactly ten meters away. He let out a dry sneer, returning the threat without mercy.
"Really? You're going with the 'I wasn't being serious' trope too? If you aren't being held back by some 'ridiculous limit' anymore, why didn't you defeat me from the start? It's because you couldn't, isn't it?"
"..."
Rairen fell deathly silent.
She knew the truth. Despite her shouting about orders, the fact remained that in their last few exchanges, she had exerted more power than ever before. She had even reached the full output allowed by Taikyoku to capture him, yet she still hadn't been able to lay a finger on the man.
Rairen had initially assumed she could crush Naoki with ease. But the bitter reality had struck home: Naoki's strength was utterly oppressive, pinning her into a corner.
Taikyoku had given strict instructions: do not reveal your true power too early. If the Anti-Demon Corps realized the potential threat of the Eight Thunder Gods this soon, they would be on high alert and try to pick off the pillars one by one before the grand plan reached fruition. That was the only reason Rairen had been forced to restrain herself.
"To hell with it! I don't care about those orders anymore! Human! Let me show you what it feels like to face the true power of a god!"
"Uwoooooooooh—!"
Discarding Taikyoku's arrangements, Rairen let out a primal roar that shook both heaven and earth.
The massive shockwave thundered like a giant's war drum, creating such intense air pressure that Naoki was forced to cover his ears.
*BOOM!*
A colossal bolt of lightning struck down from the heavens, impaling Rairen. Electrical sparks exploded outward like branching veins in the air, while her silhouette began to swell dramatically behind a shimmering veil of bluish-white light.
"Normally, I'm not stupid enough to just stand here and watch an enemy finish their transformation." Naoki murmured over the howling wind. "But I'll make a special exception for you, Rairen. I'm going to beat you at the absolute peak of your strongest form."
Naoki didn't move an inch to interrupt the process. It wasn't mere arrogance; it was a manifestation of pure confidence.
Based on the plot he knew, even a transformed Rairen was eventually defeated by the combined efforts of Kyouka and her Unit. For Naoki—whose current strength already surpassed Yamashiro Ren—defeat wasn't even a statistical possibility.
*RUMBLE!*
Deafening claps of thunder erupted as the lightning strikes grew increasingly wild. Naoki raised his arm, shielding his eyes from the blinding white flashes.
The valley was suddenly hit by a gale-force storm; lightning struck haphazardly and rocks were tossed about like dry leaves. The incessant, overlapping thunder created an apocalyptic atmosphere that would make anyone shudder.
After what felt like an eternity, the light finally began to fade.
In the center of the massive, sunken crater, Rairen's previous form had vanished entirely.
In her place stood a titan of terrifying proportions.
The giant loomed at least fifty meters tall. Her skin was pitch-black, with muscles pulled tight like a fusion of legendary metals that seemed impossible to breach. Constant sparks of electricity hissed from her pores, shrouding her entire body in a lethal web of lightning.
Each of her knuckles was now larger than a grown man, looking capable of crushing anyone like a tiny ant. Coarse hair, bristling with sharp thorns, trailed fiercely behind her head. Jagged horns protruded from her shoulders, elbows, and knees. Furthermore, bone blades lined with spikes extended from her forearms, confirming that every inch of her body was a perfect slaughtering machine.
The giant then sat cross-legged within the massive crater, making the newly formed pit look like nothing more than a small bathtub for someone of her scale. With just a slight shift of her weight, the ground beneath her trembled violently and gave way, triggering a terrifying localized earthquake.
"Die, you insect!"
In her massive true form, Rairen laughed uproariously. Her voice boomed like a mountain collapsing, roaring at the sky like a monster that had finally slipped its shackles.
*SWISH!* *SWISH!* *SWISH!*
Without needing to move her massive torso, the thorn-filled hair at the back of her head suddenly writhed to life. The strands shot toward Naoki with blistering speed, hurtling like a volley of spears ready to impale anything in their path.
Faced with this frontal assault, Naoki stood calm. He didn't even show any intent to dodge. Every tip of Rairen's hair-spears slowed abruptly as they neared him, coming to a dead stop in mid-air—held back by Infinity, ensuring that no harm would ever truly touch his skin.
"What an annoying turtle shell! How about this, then?!"
Rairen remained seated, flaunting her arrogance by refusing to even stand. She sneered, raising a single giant finger toward the sky.
Instantly, the atmosphere churned; whirlwinds kicked up dust and black clouds gathered with unnatural speed. A vortex of dark clouds formed in the sky, spinning until it condensed into a terrifying, massive ball of plasma.
*BOOM-CRACK!*
In the blink of an eye, white lightning lunged from the sky, striking the spot where Naoki stood like a sharp blade descending from heaven.
However, the same scene repeated itself. The lightning halted several meters above Naoki's head, as if slamming into an invisible yet impenetrable transparent barrier.
"..."
Naoki watched as the lightning raked the ground around him like a spray of light, shattering into crackling arcs of electricity.
Had he not possessed Infinity, he would have died several times over against Rairen. Of course, that was assuming he was just an ordinary man without the Blessing of the Peach.
"It's useless. Raw power alone isn't enough to pierce my Infinity. Unless your stats reach a level capable of damaging space itself, you need a specific mechanism to neutralize it."
As Naoki spoke, the golden-fiery aura surrounding him gradually dimmed and vanished. The one-minute duration he had set for «Crazy Sheep» had reached its limit.
"I don't believe it! There's no way I can't break that flimsy turtle shell of yours!"
Rairen's voice, thick with pure rage, echoed for miles, vibrating through every inch of the earth as she refused to accept the reality that her divine power was still not enough to reach a single human.
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