"Despicable and shameless!!"
Baseball Guy was thoroughly disgusted by the three of them. Not only were they immortal, but they played incredibly dirty.
Because Arata had absorbed the Mosquito Devil's ability, he harbored a literal blood pool within his body. After killing the Gluttony Devil last time, the blood pool had filled to the absolute brim. The stored blood volume had reached a staggering one million units, making attrition warfare completely pointless against him.
---
"Hmph, all you do is talk big. Now I'm down a piece of 'clothing,' I have to go back to using my old ones," a girl's voice complained over the phone.
"Wake up Natsume and have him help you find some new clothes. Big brother will bring back some delicious cream puffs for you in a bit."
"Cream puffs!! Then hurry back, big brother, I'll be waiting for you!" His sister's happy cheers came from the other end of the line. Hearing his sister's laughter, the corners of Baseball Guy's mouth couldn't help but curve upwards.
"Sir, your coffee." A waitress placed a cup on the table.
"I'll let you go for now. I'll be back soon."
Hanging up the phone, Baseball Guy picked up the coffee and took a sip. He then looked up and asked, "Do you know any places nearby that sell cream puffs?"
"There's a bakery right across the street. Their cream puffs are really good."
"Alright, thank you. It's getting late, I should head back."
Baseball Guy downed the coffee in one gulp and left some cash on the table.
"Sir, you gave too much!" the waitress called out, immediately chasing after him to return the change.
"Keep the extra as a tip."
After saying that, Baseball Guy pulled his cap down low and walked out of the cafe.
He looked across the street and spotted a bakery named *Crimson*.
But just as he reached the middle of the street...
A mirror suddenly materialized out of thin air, just five paces away.
Arata and his crew stepped out once again.
Baseball Guy's good mood instantly shattered. "You lingering bugs."
"Who are you calling bugs?!" Denji snapped, clearly annoyed.
"You can't escape." Quanxi didn't waste a single word, immediately unleashing a massive barrage of arrows at Baseball Guy.
At this moment, all three of them were at full health and peak condition. Meanwhile, Baseball Guy was visibly drained.
*BOOM!!*
With a fierce swing of his bat, Baseball Guy conjured a wind wall that caught the countless arrows. He then swung at the wind wall itself, violently deflecting the arrows right back at them.
*Swish!!!*
The three swiftly dodged. The arrows shot straight past them, embedding deeply into the bakery across the street.
"Denji, Quanxi, step back. Leave him to me this time," Arata ordered.
"You can't kill me! Why do you keep following me around like idiots?!" Baseball Guy shouted in frustration.
"If you can't die, why run?" Arata shot back.
"I got bored, so I didn't want to tangle with you anymore."
"Is that so? If you had known this would happen, you shouldn't have started it. If you hadn't come looking for trouble and tried to kill my companions, you wouldn't have ended up in this situation."
Arata transformed into Freddy Krueger once again. However, this time, his body became noticeably leaner and more streamlined than before.
*SLASH!!!*
Before Baseball Guy could even react, his right hand—still tightly gripping the baseball bat—was sent flying into the air.
The speed was so incomprehensible that even Quanxi couldn't see the movement clearly.
"Huff... puff... I used up almost all my speed."
Arata stood a short distance away, panting heavily.
Just now, he had unleashed the entirety of the Leopard Devil's power all at once. His speed had skyrocketed by at least ten times. This meant Arata wouldn't be able to use the Leopard Devil's power again for quite some time.
But Baseball Guy's right hand was ruined.
The outcome of this battle was set in stone.
"Ahhh!!"
Baseball Guy collapsed to the ground, entirely stripped of his initial arrogance.
"Why aren't you recovering this time?" Arata asked calmly.
"You... you figured out my ability?"
"That's right. You must have contracted with the Tragedy Devil. Whether you die or get mind-controlled, you can revert to any state from 20 minutes prior. You can also actively rewind time to restore your body to its peak condition. This explains why you were able to break free from my Dream Realm, and how you could resurrect immediately after dying."
"I underestimated you." Baseball Guy stared at Arata with a grave expression, his demeanor shifting from high-and-mighty superiority to absolute helplessness.
"Why do you think I kept killing you and then checking the time? It was to grasp your pattern. To save time, I had to get the others to help kill you faster. By the time we killed you for the sixth time, your body still retained old injuries. From that, I deduced that your ability wasn't actually resurrection, but rewinding your body's physical state.
"Then, based on the marks I left on you during your seventh and eighth deaths, the interval was exactly two minutes. Therefore, I calculated that your initial rewind time limit was 20 minutes. Every time you die, your limit decreases by two minutes. Once you run out of time to subtract... you actually die."
Seeing that Arata had completely seen through him, Baseball Guy no longer bothered to hide it. "I can actually rewind more times, but the price I paid only gave me 10 chances."
"However many times you can rewind is how many times I can kill you. After all, the Tragedy Devil can only rewind 15 times in an entire lifetime anyway. Its fatal flaw is that it can only rewind *your* time, not the time of those around you."
"You win." Baseball Guy conceded, wholly convinced of his defeat.
"Now, it's time to send you on your way."
"Wait! My father is a councilman in the Moore Family! You dare kill me?!"
"Haha, I don't care if your dad is the President of the United States. You're still going to die."
With a swift, merciless strike of the blade, Baseball Guy's head rolled right up to the entrance of the bakery.
And his promise of bringing home cream puffs tonight would forever remain unfulfilled.
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