"Huh?!! A fight? Fine! I also happen to want to teach you, you damn old baldy, a good lesson!! Not only did you disturb my nap, but you even dared to hit me!"
Rimuru released the magicules usually hidden within her body without any reservation. Genos, standing blankly to the side, felt the pressure emanating from Rimuru and retreated several steps in fright before losing his balance and falling onto his butt.
Saitama became even more excited when he felt Rimuru's aura, looking at Rimuru with eyes full of battle intent.
Rimuru noticed Saitama's gaze and, without saying a word, directly extended her right hand. A huge black hole appeared beneath Saitama and Genos simultaneously, and the two fell straight into it, landing heavily on sand shortly after.
"Sand?" Saitama sat up and grabbed a handful of sand from beside him. Looking around, he found sand everywhere, and the heat of the sun didn't seem quite right either.
He immediately began shouting Rimuru's name, wanting to call her out and ask what kind of place this was.
He didn't see Rimuru around; there was only Genos, who was pushing himself up nearby. He was here because Rimuru had reached out her hand, a black hole appeared beneath him, and he fell in, so she would definitely know where this place was.
"Don't shout. This is my spatial skill called Amenominakanushi. There are six in total, and this is one of them. Fighting you outside would be too conspicuous and cause damage to the surroundings. Plus, the Hero Association would notice. Being an A-Class Hero is already troublesome enough; it would be even more annoying if I were targeted to become S-Class."
"Fighting here is absolutely safe, and you can go all out. Even if it gets damaged, it will recover in an instant."
Rimuru raised her small hand and pointed at Genos, sending him to a safe distance to watch. Then, she beckoned to Saitama, who was sitting on the ground, in a provocative gesture. "Hurry up. We can go eat after the fight; I'm a bit hungry."
Seeing Rimuru's gesture, Saitama stood up instantly. His heart began to beat more powerfully; he felt his long-dormant body boiling with hot blood once again.
"Serious Punch!" Saitama didn't even wait for Rimuru to say "start" before throwing a punch directly at her.
"You bald schemer, launching a sneak attack! Sneaking up on a Slime who's only in her teens." While cursing Saitama, Rimuru's reaction was not slow either. With a teleportation, she appeared behind Saitama and delivered a whip kick toward his kidney.
Saitama reached out a step ahead of Rimuru to block her whip kick, but to his surprise, Rimuru's strength was so great that it actually made his hand hurt a little.
Feeling the pain in his palm—though it wasn't much, it was indeed pain—Saitama became even more excited.
While unleashing extremely fast punches like a Gatling gun at Rimuru, Saitama shouted loudly, "Serious Series: Consecutive Normal Punches!!!"
Looking at Saitama's attack, Rimuru felt the dangerous aura coming from it. Instead of blocking directly, she used Poway God to create a pink shield in front of her, shrinking her entire body behind it.
At the same time, she had Great Sage in her mind monitor Saitama's habitual movements and quickly analyze them. Once the analysis was complete, she would give that bald schemer a big surprise!
Saitama truly lived up to his name; even the incredibly hard Poway God could only withstand his attacks for a short time. As time passed, cracks appeared on the shield, along with several very clear fist prints.
As he continued his assault, the cracks grew larger. Rimuru, huddled behind the shield, was pushed back a long distance by the force of Saitama's strikes against it, leaving two furrows plowed by her feet in the sand.
*Bang!* With a crisp sound, the pink shield in Rimuru's hand was shattered by a punch from Saitama, turning back into energy and returning to Rimuru's body.
In a gap between punches, Saitama shook his hand, which was slightly numb from continuously hitting the hard object. He couldn't help but mutter to himself, "The things Rimuru makes are so hard; my hand is actually a bit numb. Rimuru really is a massive treasure!"
Seeing that he had shattered the pink shield, he threw a punch straight at Rimuru's small face.
Rimuru used Body Armor to encase her right forearm, clenched her armored fist, and met Saitama's punch head-on.
Their fists collided, instantly erupting in a powerful shockwave that blew a small crater into the sand. Both Rimuru and Saitama were sent flying back a significant distance by the powerful recoil.
"Is this old baldy really trying to kill me?! Just you wait!" Rimuru landed on the ground after being sent flying. Since the recoil hadn't fully dissipated, she stumbled back step by step, only stabilizing herself after several paces.
After stopping, she glared fiercely at Saitama, who, like her, was also being forced back by the lingering recoil.
"Notice: Please continue to battle the individual named Saitama to accelerate the analysis process," Great Sage spoke in Rimuru's mind after she stopped.
"How much has been analyzed now?" She shook her numb right hand and asked Great Sage in her mind.
"Notice: Forty-five percent."
"Good. I'm going to get serious now. Old baldy, I'm not just good at long-range! Let me show you my close combat!"
After speaking, Rimuru stretched her body and deactivated the Body Armor on her right forearm. Her amber eyes once again turned into the peach-pink Tenseigan.
In the next moment, Rimuru activated the Tenseigan Chakra Mode, and her body was immediately enveloped in a surge of blue chakra.
Her one-piece animal onesie pajama was transformed into a flowing robe. Of course, once deactivated, the pajamas would return; the robe was merely a manifestation of the chakra enveloping Rimuru.
Relying on her absolute control over Amenominakanushi, she threw the nearby Saitama right in front of her. Rimuru had prepared in advance; the moment Saitama appeared before her, she thrust out her hands, which were wrapped in even denser chakra, and unleashed a perfect set of Eighty Gods Vacuum Attack.
Once all the attacks had accurately struck various acupoints on Saitama's body, Rimuru extended her right hand and slammed a palm into his lower abdomen, sending him flying back to land on the ground like a tattered ragdoll.
Genos, standing on a distant sand dune, was completely dumbfounded. He had seen Rimuru burn a giant to ashes with that pitch-black fire tornado and had seen her release that massive golden sword, but he never expected Rimuru's Taijutsu to be this strong.
Although his eyes were mechanical, he could only capture the afterimages of Rimuru's palms striking Saitama. He couldn't see the traces of her attacks clearly at all, nor could he calculate them.
Rimuru's attacks indeed landed on various acupoints on Saitama's body. He had tried to calculate where Rimuru's next attack would land, but after calculating for a while, he almost burned out his CPU.
Because all the values he calculated were wrong; not a single one matched. Rimuru's attacks were simply impossible to predict. He estimated that aside from herself, no one could guess where her next strike would land.
Taking any of his calculated results, there was a 70% chance it would land on a different acupoint, yet Rimuru would end up attacking the same acupoint she had just hit.
Enveloped in the chakra cloak, Rimuru looked at the nearby Saitama with a smug expression. *Hmph, let's see you try to sneak attack me again, you bald schemer. I'll show you how formidable a Slime can be!*
Rimuru moved the fingers of her right hand, and the sand on the ground gradually gathered together, eventually forming a long staff. Following the movement of her fingers, it poked the Saitama lying on the ground.
But even after poking him for a while, Saitama still didn't move. Rimuru could feel that Saitama still had breath, and since she hadn't used lethal force, could he have fainted? Should she go check? But what if this bald schemer was just acting and wanted to ambush her?
Rimuru fell into deep thought, wanting to go see what happened to Saitama but fearing a sneak attack from that bald schemer.
After thinking for a while, she finally decided to walk over. After all, he was her friend, and even if she were ambushed, it should be fine since she still had the chakra cloak.
After a few steps, Rimuru still felt a bit insecure. She controlled the sand on the ground to gather toward her, and soon, a layer of Sand Armor covered her chakra cloak.
She tapped it with her hand, confirming the Sand Armor could likely withstand a simple attack from Saitama, before slowly walking toward him. As she walked, she didn't forget to observe the Saitama on the ground to see if he was planning an ambush.
However, even when Rimuru reached Saitama's side, he still didn't move. Rimuru used the sand staff to poke him again and found that he really seemed to have fainted. She knelt down and reached out, preparing to peel back his eyelids to check.
Just as Rimuru crouched down, the seemingly unconscious Saitama suddenly lunged up and threw a punch straight at her chest. Rimuru was sent flying far away, eventually crashing to the ground.
"I knew you, old baldy, were up to no good, trying to trick me. Do you think that's possible in my space?"
Rimuru's voice drifted into Saitama's ears from behind him. Saitama didn't seem to have any expression of shock on his face; he just silently turned his head to look at Rimuru, who was floating in mid-air with her arms crossed.