'BOOM!'
Thunder rumbled across the sky once again.
Deep Sea King looked at the two people who had suddenly appeared in front of him and blocked his path. He tilted his head, his swollen-looking eyes giving him an eerie, unsettling appearance.
"Heroes?" Deep Sea King spoke almost nervously. "I don't know what you are, but if you're human, that's reason enough for me to get rid of you."
Despite saying that, Deep Sea King didn't attack immediately.
"You two aren't ordinary humans, are you?" Deep Sea King stuck out his tongue as though savoring some delicious flavor and chuckled softly. "Looks like you might actually give me some fun. In that case, I'll take you seriously."
With that, Deep Sea King slowly began walking toward the two men.
Puri-Puri Prisoner and Speed-o'-Sound Sonic reacted very differently to the sight.
"This pressure... A Mysterious Being at least Demon-level. Excellent. Breaking out of prison really was the right choice." Puri-Puri Prisoner clenched his enormous fists, his eyes fixed firmly on Deep Sea King.
"He thinks I'm prey too?" Sonic, meanwhile, seemed to have found a reason to stay. He tilted his head back slightly, wearing an expression of obvious disdain.
None of the three, two humans and one Mysterious Being, were ordinary. Unnoticeable to outsiders, faint auras began spreading through the air around them.
Deep Sea King's aura was filled with savage bloodlust. Puri-Puri Prisoner's was as steadfast as stone. And Sonic's was sharp and cutting, like a violent storm.
With these three facing each other, the atmosphere became so tense that it felt like a storm was about to break, even if their presence wasn't quite enough to shake the world itself.
Unfortunately, they weren't the only ones who would be involved.
"Hm?" At that exact moment, Deep Sea King, Puri-Puri Prisoner, and Speed-o'-Sound Sonic all seemed to sense something and let out surprised noises.
A pure yet concealed murderous aura was approaching. Unless someone had exceptionally sharp senses, they wouldn't have noticed it at all.
The first person to detect it was Sonic.
"There!" Sonic suddenly raised his head and looked toward the coast.
Deep Sea King and Puri-Puri Prisoner turned in the same direction at the same time. The next second, all three of them saw it.
'Whoosh...!'
With a sound that seemed to split the sky, a streak of light came rushing down like a falling star. In the blink of an eye, it arrived.
"Oh?" A voice drifted through the air. "Looks like things are pretty lively here."
The streak of light suddenly came to a stop, revealing the figure within it.
"You're..." Puri-Puri Prisoner stared in surprise. "A human who can fly...?"
Deep Sea King narrowed his eyes.
"You...!" The moment Speed-o'-Sound Sonic got a clear look at the newcomer, his eyes widened slightly. Then he smiled, an exceptionally sinister smile. "A pretty boy who hangs around Sylvia Lyyneheym?"
The newcomer was, of course, Fang Li.
'Tap...'
With a faint landing sound, Fang Li descended from the air and quietly touched down on the ground.
Looking at the two men and one Mysterious Being in front of him, Fang Li raised an eyebrow slightly. Naturally, he recognized all three of them.
The Fish-Man-looking creature could only be Deep Sea King.
And Fang Li certainly couldn't fail to recognize the scruffy, heavily muscled man wearing a prisoner's uniform, Puri-Puri Prisoner.
He was currently the nineteenth-ranked S-Class Hero. Before Fang Li, Sylvia, and Genos joined the Hero Association, he had been ranked sixteenth in S-Class. For a long time, his ranking had remained near the bottom of the S-Class without much fluctuation.
That wasn't because Puri-Puri Prisoner was weak. For Professional Heroes, ranking wasn't determined solely by combat ability; actual achievements played a major role as well. And Puri-Puri Prisoner's achievements were rather sparse, as he rarely participated in Hero activities.
The reason was quite simple: this S-Class Hero was gay.
Because of his habit of pursuing attractive young men, Puri-Puri Prisoner had been sentenced to life imprisonment and had spent most of his time behind bars. Naturally, that left him with little opportunity to participate in Hero activities.
Of course, there were times when Puri-Puri Prisoner did show up. Whenever a serious disaster occurred, this S-Class Hero would break out of prison without the slightest hesitation.
There was only one reason. He believed that...
"If a cute boy gets hurt, that's an unforgivable catastrophe!"
That was why Puri-Puri Prisoner had appeared here. It was even said that one of the reasons he had joined the Hero Association and become a Hero was because he believed being a Hero would make it easier for him to meet cute boys.
All things considered, he was definitely a Professional Hero people were better off keeping their distance from.
As for the other man...
"So that's how it is..." Fang Li suddenly smiled. "You're Speed-o'-Sound Sonic?"
Speed-o'-Sound Sonic, he wasn't a Professional Hero. Born in the Ninja Village, he called himself the strongest ninja and was essentially an assassin who cared little about good or evil.
Sonic was also somewhat well-known in his line of work. This ninja would occasionally hunt high-ranking fugitives for bounty money, and his skills were exceptional. Numerous wealthy individuals had hired him as a bodyguard to work for them.
Sometimes, those jobs involved less-than-legitimate dirty work.
Not long ago, Sonic had even been hired by a wealthy man and was working at his mansion. That wealthy man had given Sonic a simple order:
"Bring Sylvia Lyyneheym to me!"
Clearly, the so-called wealthy man had developed sinister intentions toward the world-famous diva.
Unfortunately, Sonic was foolish enough to actually attack Sylvia. The result was obvious.
"Losing to a woman who only knows how to sing and then getting thrown into prison... For me, that's the greatest humiliation imaginable." Sonic stared at Fang Li, the corners of his mouth curling upward. "This humiliation must be washed away with blood."
And that made perfect sense. Now that Sonic had escaped from prison, he would probably seize the first opportunity he got to seek revenge. In other words, this man would eventually come after Sylvia.
Fang Li understood that perfectly well. Yet instead of continuing to look at Sonic, he shifted his gaze toward Deep Sea King.
"You're Deep Sea King, right?" Fang Li asked the question directly. "Were you the one who defeated all those Heroes by the coast?"
The blunt question made Deep Sea King split his mouth into a grin. "You came to avenge those little weaklings?"
Deep Sea King chuckled. "How foolish."
The instant those words left his mouth...
'BANG!'
A suffocating impact that made the heart seem to contract suddenly rang out.
'Whoosh...!'
With a sharp sound that split the air, Deep Sea King was sent flying like an arrow released from a bow. He slammed heavily into a nearby building, smashing straight through the wall as dust and debris exploded into the air.
(End Of This Chapter)
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