"What does that mean..."
Before Saitama's words could even land, the ceiling shattered.
A strange-looking creature with two arms resembling the front legs of a praying mantis dropped from above.
Before it could even utter a word, Alice swung the Sword of Light and smashed it flying through the air.
"Ah! My apartment!" Saitama's face instantly froze.
While this sort of damage could technically be reported for repairs, the maintenance teams rarely bothered coming out to this abandoned zone.
They would most likely just pass the buck back and forth until they ran out of excuses, wasting a massive amount of time.
He was going to have a massive headache to deal with in the meantime.
"Alice will pay for it!" As the one responsible, Alice immediately stepped up to take the blame.
"No need... someone will eventually come by to fix it. Besides, you're just a kid, where would you get that kind of pocket money?" Hearing her offer, Saitama waved his hand dismissively. "Anyway, it's not your fault. It's that monster's fault for dropping in out of nowhere."
"There are more enemy signatures outside!"
Taking the initiative, Genos leapt straight out onto the balcony through the glass Alice had just shattered, diving down to the ground below.
"Well, let's go see what's happening."
Saitama was honestly a bit baffled as to why monsters were suddenly breaking into his home.
Could it be the family of a monster he had defeated before? Coming for revenge because he had taken out too many of them?
"Right! To protect Uncle Saitama and Uncle Saitama's home, Hero Alice, moving out!"
Though he didn't exactly need a young girl's protection, Saitama wasn't about to say anything to ruin her mood.
When the two of them jumped down from the balcony, they found Genos locked in a standoff with a towering, lion-headed monster.
"Oh? The target is here... huh?" The Beast King's eyes lit up when he saw Saitama step out. This bald guy was highly recognizable; this was exactly who Dr. Genus had sent him to find. But...
Accompanied by a slight tremor in the earth, a mole-like monster emerged halfway out of the ground, frowning as it looked at Alice.
"A cyborg is one thing, but to think an S-Class hero is here too... This is trouble. We can't let her get a chance to report this to the Hero Association!"
"In that case! We just have to kill her along with the cyborg!"
Hearing this, the Beast King didn't bother thinking any further. As the muscles across his body surged and swelled, his eyes flared with a savage, murderous intent.
Boom!
A massive crashing sound echoed from behind the trio. A cyborg entirely covered in mechanical components—looking like a literal iron gorilla—smashed through a wall, cutting off their retreat.
"An armored cyborg..."
Extremely sensitive to his own kind, Genos's eyes widened instantly as he raised his alertness to the absolute maximum.
Saitama glanced at the monsters in front and behind them, showing no rush to strike.
It wasn't that he enjoyed acting as the grand finale or savored the thrill of turning the tide at the last second. Rather, it was because he understood and craved the rush and tension of battle, and he knew that the desire to protect something had to be forged through combat.
Unless absolutely necessary, he wouldn't interrupt or interfere in someone else's fight.
By now, both Alice and Genos had clearly locked onto their respective targets.
"You destroyed Uncle Saitama's home. What exactly are you trying to do?" Alice aimed her cannon directly at the Beast King in front of her.
"None of your business!"
Having absolutely no intention of leaking information to the Hero Association, the Beast King slashed a claw straight at Alice.
The raw power driven by his incredibly massive physique was enough to instantly obliterate the tiger-headed monster Alice had encountered before with just a single strike.
But Alice was a different story.
Clang!
Alice planted the massive Sword of Light in front of her, deflecting his sharp claws to the side, much to the Beast King's astonishment.
Immediately after, Alice leapt into the air. Using the Sword of Light as a pivot point, she spun her body halfway around and delivered a kick toward the Beast King's undefended side.
A heavy impact and a sonic boom rang out simultaneously. The force exploding from the girl's slender leg was no less than a direct hit from a cannonball.
The ferocious impact, combined with the piercing force generated by her petite frame, sent the Beast King flying backward at incredible speed, crashing heavily into a nearby building.
"The Beast King... was blown back?! Impossible!!"
The mole monster, Ground Dragon, stared at the scene open-mouthed.
Were S-Class heroes strong? Yes, they were strong, but their strength was supposedly limited in the grand scheme of the House of Evolution.
Ground Dragon knew exactly how powerful the monsters of the House of Evolution were. He was confident the Beast King could defeat any of the lower-to-mid-tier S-Class heroes. Yet, he had fallen into a disadvantage in the very first exchange?
No... I'm overthinking it. He must have just been careless. After all, this girl doesn't look like an actual powerhouse at all...
"There are only two individuals even within the House of Evolution who can push me back."
From the dust-shrouded ruins of the shattered building, the Beast King's figure slowly emerged.
Though he looked disheveled and covered in grime, it was completely impossible to tell from his demeanor whether Alice's attack had actually caused any real damage.
Seeing this, Alice re-aimed her cannon at him.
A moment later, a beam of blue energy erupted from the muzzle, tearing through the Beast King's afterimage in less than a blink of an eye.
"Too slow! We've already thoroughly analyzed your weapon!"
Rapidly closing the distance to Alice's side, the Beast King swung his sharp claws, forcing Alice to retract the Sword of Light and dodge to the side.
The razor-sharp claws instantly left a terrifying, half-meter-deep trench in the ground. Saitama's brow furrowed slightly.
"It requires a charge time, and firing it at point-blank range will catch you in the blast, leading to mutual destruction. Am I right?!"
Despite his incredibly bulky frame, the Beast King's movements weren't slow at all. In terms of both flexibility and speed, he was vastly superior to the tiger-headed monster they had faced earlier.
As expected, the gap between high-tier Demon-level threats was clear.
"The Sword of Light isn't a weapon that can only fire beams!" Alice did not agree with the Beast King's remarks.
Instead, after evading the first wave of attacks, she utilized the heavy inertia of the Sword of Light from her dodge, spinning it to slam directly toward the Beast King's head.
Where did she get this much combat experience? Is it because she's a robot?
Evading an attack while simultaneously organizing a counteroffensive—is this a feat someone with only three battles under their belt can pull off?
Though astonished in his heart... she was still too green! In the end, she was just a machine operating on pure theory. Real combat couldn't be won by relying solely on the 'optimal solution'!
He had no intention of dodging or backing away to reset. Doing so might be safe, but it would only give the opponent a chance to regroup, and the pursuit opportunity he had worked so hard to create would vanish.
The Beast King intended to trade an injury for her life.
With an arm forged from powerful muscle and bones as rigid as steel rebar, his defensive capability surpassed most alloys. Facing Alice's downward smash, the Beast King unhesitatingly threw out one arm to block it.
'So heavy!'
His muscles collapsed under the immense force and weight. As his bones cracked, a sharp, searing pain shot through him.
But that was fine. As long as he blocked this single strike, he could immediately use his other hand to take her life while her stance was broken!
However, before the Beast King's retracted claw could strike again, a brilliant blue light flared from the muzzle of the cannon.
"Wait?! At this distance, you'll get caught too—?!"
"Light, guide me—!"
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T/N: If you want advance chapters, you can find it at [email protected]/AspenTL