Luma charged out of the arena like a human-shaped tank, heading straight for the gigantic Manxie.
The Royal Guard could only hold her back for a moment. By now, she had already crushed their skulls one by one, or twisted their necks and left them on the ground.
"Now this kind of big chunk is worth taking apart!" she shouted excitedly. Then she clasped her four fists together and brought them down in a meteor-like smash!
Boom!!
The monstrous Manxie took the heavy blow and caved in. Its huge body swayed, but it did not stop moving right away.
In fact, the Manxies had already begun preparing to fire Deathflame shells, using raging fire to wipe everything out!
In an instant, the entire capital turned into a hellish sea of flames.
The scorching temperature of the Deathflame shells even exceeded the surface temperature of the star Taiyou. The heat was so terrifying that even Luma's skin could barely endure it.
Surrounded by fire, Luma could only grit her teeth and hold on.
"Four-Armed Overlord?" the Red King said with a sneer. "That name does suit her. But even Luma can't defeat an enemy that weighs tens of thousands of tons."
At this moment, the towering Totem Tower was the only place not yet touched by the flames.
Standing there and looking down at the purgatory below, he felt like a god, deciding everyone's fate.
Anyone who opposed him would die!
He turned his head and looked down at the three people before him again, saying arrogantly, "So, will you kneel and live, or stand and die?"
"I choose neither!"
A blue-and-black Phantom blur flashed in. Speedstar tore through the flames and appeared before them.
After wiping out the Spikes, Bant had immediately rushed back to the capital.
He should have arrived before Caiera, but awkwardly enough, he had gone the wrong way and looped around the Sakaar continent once before finally finding this place.
"It's you!" The Red King narrowed his eyes and recognized him by the symbol on Bant's "crappy little watch."
"You've got a lot of tricks. What a shame, though. No matter what you turn into, you lowly bastard, you can't stop my Manxie army!"
"That's not necessarily true."
Bant lightly tapped his chest. In the next moment, his slender limbs shifted again.
In the blink of an eye, Upgrade was on the field!
"Pathetic." The Red King shook his head. "This time you don't even look human. What can a pile of sludge possibly do?"
He learned the answer very quickly.
After turning into Upgrade, Bant did not rush to deal with the Manxies. Instead, he stretched his body out, surging toward Caiera like living slime.
"Ah!"
In an instant, Caiera's body was wrapped in black-green goo, and she let out a sound that did not exactly seem healthy.
Before anyone could even react, Bant peeled away again, and in that brief moment, the disc on Caiera's body was completely destroyed.
Then he quickly rolled himself into a ball and came to Brunnhilde's side.
"Brunnhilde, throw me."
In that short time, the Red King still had not figured out what Upgrade could do, but Brunnhilde had.
This soft, squishy creature could clearly attach itself to technology, and now it was about to attach itself to those Manxies.
"Using Manxies to fight Manxies?" That thought surfaced in Caiera's mind as the neurotoxin's grip eased.
"I've got a way to make you fly farther," Brunnhilde said with a faint smile, showing off her long right leg.
"Watch me. Goal!"
"Wait, at least take off your shoe first!" Bant yelled.
Too late.
Brunnhilde's kick was so brutal that Bant's body literally deformed on the spot!
He bent into a U-shape, then slapped onto a Manxie like a wad of goo.
In the next second, Upgrade began to spread.
Black-green patterns multiplied like a virus, devouring a towering Manxie dozens of meters tall in an instant!
"That's a Galvanic Mechamorph?" As a high-tech race, Luma had seen other mechamorphs before. She immediately abandoned the machine she was fighting, leaped several times, and landed on the Manxie Bant had possessed.
"You've really got something, my sweetie!" The invincible war goddess suddenly turned sticky and affectionate again.
"But why not just possess the red ant's turtle shell instead? Then killing him would be way easier." Luma's sharp mind nailed the point instantly.
"That wouldn't be fun."
Because he was controlling a massive Manxie, Bant's voice now boomed like a great bell.
That was one reason. The other was that if they did not deal with the Manxies first, the casualties would keep climbing. In just tens of minutes, tens of thousands could die.
Even if those people were the Red King's citizens, Bant still found it hard to watch disaster unfold.
He was not really some hero. It was just that the Red King was too much of a beast.
"As expected of the fiancé I picked!" Luma nodded in satisfaction, her four eyes narrowing. "It's only fun if I personally smash his turtle shell apart!"
"I saved that main course for you on purpose!" she said, twisting her body as she spoke.
Then she jumped several kilometers and slammed down onto a scavenger aircraft.
The pilot inside was scared half to death, and the impact cracked the front window.
"Y-You're the Red Wind Queen?" the pilot stammered.
Luma casually pried the window open like she was peeling a can lid, then shouted, "Tell everyone to evacuate the palace. Any plane that can carry people, load up and take as many civilians as possible!"
"But those machines…"
"That?" Luma pointed back at Bant. "That's my husband!"
Boom!!
Endless artillery drowned the capital.
Above the flames, the towering Totem Tower trembled as if it might collapse.
The Red King stared at the Manxie that had changed into a completely different form, and despair surged in his chest.
Even the machines had betrayed him?
His throat tightened.
What kind of humiliation was this?
Under Upgrade's ability, the giant Manxie became even stronger, more advanced.
Compared to it, the Kree space whales were nothing.
Soon, the last Manxie also fell under Bant's assault, and its massive body crushed the buildings of the headquarters beneath it.
Bant peeled off from the Manxie he had possessed and paused its systems as well, preventing further destruction.
The Red King's face looked horrible. The Manxies were his final trump card. Without them, no matter how strong the armor on his body was, it would not matter.
Bant returned to the Totem Tower.
He strode toward Anmor A'shan.
On his two sides were Luma in her armor and Brunnhilde holding the Dragonfang Sword. Slightly farther out were Caiera and Loki.
They all stayed half a step behind Bant, forming a triangular pressure as they closed in on the Red King.
And it was not only them.
Bill also arrived with the arena's warriors, surrounding the area. Their morale was blazing. Each of them held their chest high. Once the shackles were gone, it was like even their souls were lighter.
"Surrender, Anmor A'shan."
"Your dynasty is over!"
"Over? It won't end!" the Red King said madly. He glared at the gladiators, still believing those people were on his side. "You slaves, all of you, attack! Kill them!"
Bill stepped forward, like a lord of hell.
He reached up, unfastened the Obedience Disc on his body, and crushed it in front of the Red King's disbelieving eyes.
"We won't be controlled by you anymore, Anmor A'shan."
In that moment, Anmor A'shan finally sank into true despair.
Just as he had said, war was not one man's stubborn last stand.
Now the one isolated and without support was him.
But he would not surrender.
His eyes flashed with final madness. As a tyrant who had ruled this planet for decades, he simply could not accept this ending.
"I am the King of Sakaar!"
He raised his great blade and pointed at Bant, letting out his last roar.
"Hacker!"
"Do you dare fight me?"
He shouted, and Deathflame ignited along the blade. "Let all of Sakaar witness the final champion battle!"
"The victor rules this planet! The loser becomes dust!"
"Nice scheme, Anmor A'shan," Bant scoffed.
The Red King's defeat was already decided. Saying that now could not stop the rebels from toppling his dynasty.
But from Bant's perspective, he was willing to accept.
If for nothing else, then to personally cut the Red King's head off.
In the arena,
Bant and the Red King stood on opposite sides.
The capital's civilians were already gone, but this duel lacked no audience.
All the warriors who had joined this war gathered here, and the Sakaarans still outside also watched the destined Son of Sakaar face the tyrant in their final battle.
Bant transformed into the Four-Armed Overlord.
Using a Tazdroman for the last fight made Luma practically bloom with joy.
"Come!"
The Red King attacked first.
His double-bladed weapon resembled Thanos's blade, but now it was wrapped in terrifying Deathflame. When he swung it, the fire roared like a dragon!
Bant held no weapon at all.
He even looked at the Red King with pity.
In Bant's eyes, the Red King was completely insane now.
A man like that was not even a threat anymore.
Bant bent low and avoided a sweeping slash. The two arms beneath his ribs shot out, seized the Red King's wrist, and with a violent twist, he disarmed the flaming greatsword and sent it flying.
The blade sliced through the air like a spinning propeller and stabbed deep into a wall.
Then Bant planted his upper arms to the ground, flipped backward, and kicked out like a spring, blasting the Red King away.
Thud!
Bant leapt again and crashed down like a falling star, driving the Red King into the ground.
"It's useless!" the Red King snarled. "Punch me hundreds of times, thousands of times, and you still won't break my armor!"
Bant tilted his head. "If thousands won't do, what about tens of thousands?"
"What?"
The answer was a rain of fists.
Bant's punches blurred into afterimages. In that instant, no one could see how his four arms were throwing blows, because his arms had turned into a violent hurricane!
Up in the stands, Loki was thrilled out of his mind.
"This is the feeling!"
He jumped up, waving hard, teeth clenched tight.
Back on Earth, Bant had beaten him like this, so hard his brains almost exploded.
Now seeing someone else suffer the same pain, and that someone being the person Loki hated most, Anmor A'shan, was so satisfying he could barely stand it.
"I have to let Thor try it someday too!"
While Loki was already plotting how to screw over his brother, Bant's fists began cracking the Red King's exoskeleton.
Crack!
The fine fracture sound was almost impossible to hear under the thunderous barrage.
But the Red King sensed something was wrong.
Because once the armor cracked, Bant's power began to seep into his body. In that moment, it was like a meteor storm striking him. The impact shattered his organs instantly.
"Cough… impossible…" Blood sprayed from the Red King's eyes, ears, nose, and mouth. "You can't break my armor…"
"Why can't I?" Bant shot back. "I said it already. If a hundred punches don't work, then a thousand. If a thousand don't work, then ten thousand! Even if I have to punch from here all the way to the planet's core, I'll crack your turtle shell!"
In truth, it was no longer necessary.
Because the Red King's armor had already broken.
No matter how tough something is, once it has cracks, it becomes fragile.
Next would be the final strike.
Bant raised his right arm high, gathering all his strength into that single fist.
In an instant, Eternal Power seemed to awaken as well. Crimson lightning wrapped around his knuckles, bursting with cosmic brilliance!
Eternal Power.
A force any living being could learn to wield.
Naturally, the Four-Armed Overlord could too.
On the high platform, it was not only Caiera. Every Phantom Tribe member recognized that energy.
It was weak, so weak it might not even boost the Four-Armed Overlord by much.
But it symbolized cosmic might.
And it symbolized Sakaar.
At this moment, it was as if Sakaar itself came alive. The planet's power poured into Bant's fist, and heaven and earth changed color.
In that instant, he became the true Son of Sakaar!
And this punch would pierce the stars!
Boom!!!
One punch landed, and the armor on the Red King's body shattered into dust.
Crimson ripples spread outward in a heartbeat, racing across the entire planet.
Strangely, it was not terrifying.
It was gentle.
Wherever that red radiance swept, the scorched earth began to regain life.
On this planet, murky water gradually turned clear. In the barren desert, green shoots sprouted again. Those who were wounded, when touched by that light, felt their injuries slowly heal…
Everyone in the arena stared at Bant in shock.
Everyone on the planet lifted their head and looked toward the place where the stars gathered, shouting the name of the Son of Sakaar.
They praised the new king.
/-\
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