The full might of the zergs and the ocean lifeforms struck not just Japan, but the entire world. Everyone was caught off guard. Less than fifteen minutes had passed when every remaining capable authority launched humanity's final trump card against these monsters.
Nuclear bombs.
The only thing that held them back was its overwhelming collateral damage. It is also somewhat ineffective against zombies; it would only cause them to evolve wantonly. Now that the zombies were taken care of by the zergs, plus the fact that they were cornered by the combined attack of the zergs and the ocean lifeforms, they no longer had other qualms.
Countless thick clouds shrouded Earth's pristine atmosphere. Oceans boiled the moment they contacted the energy released by the nuclear bombs. A large expanse of the oceans evaporated into white mist. Nuclear radiation was released en masse. The explosive strength of nuclear bombs and its radiation killed off a lot of oceanic lifeforms. The zergs weren't spared either as countless corpses littered everywhere. The ensuing shockwaves caused buildings to collapse completely.
It was a scene of the world ending!
"..."
Haruno was the one who got left behind in the villa. Dozens of computer screens showed different apocalyptic scenarios. All of them are scenes right before powerful shockwaves swept through the cameras. It didn't take long before most of the screens turned into a static mess. Only the images and videos transmitted by orbiting satellites remained unaffected.
{"The total tally for utilized nuclear weapons is at 63%. Reported damages include the spread of nuclear radiation throughout the Western and Eastern continents…"}
The aftermath reported was enough to shock anyone who heard of it. This was an actual scenario of the entire world unanimously deciding to use their nuclear reserves for a last ditch effort. More than half of the explosions went to the sea. Even so, its collateral damages on the land was at a historical high!
Her eyes shifted to the camera feed displayed around Yokohama City. Several tall tsunamis were frozen into solid ice—a masterpiece done by Utaha. Thousands of smaller creatures were frozen into ice blocks, their life deprived out of them. This did not prevent stronger creatures from breaking out, however. They broke through the frozen surface and led the charge towards the outer city walls.
Haruno's heart sank to the depths of the abyss.
'They seem endless…'
Her pupils shrank as she caught one of the scenes captured by the monitor. A large whale covered the entire city. Its body cast a dark shadow everywhere.
Just as she froze out of its mental pressure, its body disappeared. Haruno was lifted out of that overwhelming fear, yet her legs gave up and plopped to the ground. Cold sweat trickled down her forehead, her throat almost choking in her saliva.
'That thing…'
Its disappearance made one thing evident: someone dealt with it.
There was only one person in her mind who could do such a thing. Haruno immediately regained her composure. She who didn't prefer blind faith now found herself trusting someone greatly.
'All we can do now is trust in him.'
*****
Fourteen minutes had passed since the assault began. Eishi utilized his ability to fly to move at a fast speed.
'Fifth-order… and sixth-order.'
The first fifth-order lifeform that attacked him was the zerg. Its attributes were all placed at its agility. Coupled with its speed-type talent, he could barely cope with it. Eishi placed the zergs behind the oceanic lifeforms in terms of the problem he needed to face. He naively thought that these zergs would be the same as before—that they could be easily dealt with. Back then, their attributes were spread out. Since they possessed lesser attributes compared to their human esper counterparts, they were easily dealt with. Second-order zergs could be killed off by first-order human espers.
Things weren't the same now.
Upon reaching the fourth-order, they became similar to mutated zombies. One of their attributes was raised to their limits. The rest of their attributes became weaker due to it. There are zergs whose agility is in the thousands, but the payoff was their strength and constitution being far lower than what they should have been.
The first fifth-order zerg he faced has its agility attribute enhanced to its limits, reaching the five-digit mark. Coupled with its speed talent, he could barely react to it!
Only now did he realize that everything is a headache.
'How are we even supposed to survive this..?'
Don't even get him started with the sixth-order dolphin he encountered. Its ability was to imbue anything with sharpness, similar to his [Metal Sharpening] but ten times stronger.
Dealing with these higher-leveled opponents left him breathless. He stayed at one of the rooftops, crazily plunging dozens of [Stamina Restorative Pills] to his mouth. It is one of the most important resources Eishi targeted, bar for evolution fruits. They could keep on fighting as long as they possessed them. He never stopped farming them using his girlfriends' returns, hence his stock of it reached millions.
'Thank goodness I have the foresight to stock it up…'
Eishi didn't bother storing them in containers. He directly opened his spatial backpack on his mouth and poured them out all at once.
Just as he was recovering, Eishi's heart sank. An impending feeling of doom swept through his every being. His thoughts froze; his body stood still. His senses stopped responding to him. He could no longer see. His nose could no longer capture scents. His ears turned deaf. His body became numb.
Shatter-!
The moment his 'life-saving' shield broke, he finally reacted. The buffs he had unlocked elevated his mental resistance to 200%. Eishi broke free of the pressure that trapped him in a cage, allowing his sight to register its source.
Click.
The world turned into a pale and ashen gray. The long shadow cast over him turned completely still.
'...Shit.'
Eishi looked up and saw a massive mouth about to devour him whole. He couldn't help but step back several times. His heart couldn't stop beating quickly. The nerves on his neck and ears were about to burst due to the extreme tension he was placed into.
"Fucking hell."
Eishi's body floated across the large whale. At a glance, its size was overwhelming. Its body covered the entire city with ease. Extremely hot air came out of its blowhorn. Its sharp, jagged teeth looked far more intimidating than the blade of his fifth-rank spear. Looking directly at its eyes triggered yet another mental attack towards him.
'This…'
He didn't know what level it had reached. Based on its intimidation, however, it is not at the fifth-order.
'Sixth? No, maybe seventh-order?'
When he tried to pierce its skin…
Bam-!
…it let out a slightly metallic sound. The strike produced a slightly deep wound on its skin—around ten centimeters or so—but that was it. The weapon that had been able to one-hit Eishi's opponents finally met its match.
Bam-!
Bam-!
Bam-!
…
He didn't stop striking at the wound. It wasn't long before the shallow wound turned deep. The sharp edge of his spear became coated with its scarlet-red blood. His arms began to ache as he struck at it non-stop.
Whenever the time stop was about to end, Eishi extended its duration by casting another one. It had been yet another feature when he broke through the fourth-order. There were no longer any intervals for his time stop; he could store its duration whenever he wanted to!
In the end, he was forced to ingest a lot of [Stamina Restorative Pills]. He spent a total of two minutes for his spent energy to come right back up.
'If six minutes isn't enough…'
Eishi gripped the shaft of his spear tightly. Not once had he faced an opponent that cornered him to this point. Likewise, there weren't any opponents worthy of making him use his [Time Dominator]'s full potential.
'Let's see who will die first..!'
Minutes flew by the clock, and then hours. He soon lost track of the number of pills he had consumed. The steady aching on his arms assaulted his senses frequently. His mind became heavier with every strike.
From the single wound, he drilled over the whale's city-sized body. He wasn't satisfied cutting through it once so he proceeded to do it several dozen times. The entire escapade took hours to complete, pushing Eishi to his absolute limits.
In the end...
'Fuck.'
Eishi looked at the new gigantic corpse placed inside his spatial backpack. Ever since the attack broke out, he had been dealing with enemies at the fifth-order and above. Prior to the whale, he had killed off several strong monsters.
Firstly, their physical attributes are unfathomably huge. Eishi couldn't beat them head-on. It was fine with fifth-order zergs. Eishi could still feel his strength matching theirs. In exchange for their higher numbers, they are weaker in individual power. Things changed with the oceanic lifeforms, however. Their attributes are stronger than the average human espers. He could only match fifth-order lifeforms at best; anything beyond that strained him greatly.
Secondly, they possessed strange superpowers. The zergs uniformly have talents that increase their explosive speed, enlarge their body, long-ranged shockwave attacks, and so on. The oceanic lifeforms, on the other hand, possessed unpredictable talents. The strongest of them all was that extremely large whale that possessed the capability to teleport through space.
That's right, teleport.
If it wasn't for Eishi's time stop, he would have been rendered helpless. Yokohama wouldn't be defended at all. Their only remaining choice is to run as fast as they could!
'If not for my cheat…'
He couldn't see the possibility of humans surviving without its presence.
'No, things should be balanced. There must be a glimmer of hope…'
Lastly, it was the monsters' quantity. Despite using hundreds of artillery rounds and exhausting most of their forces, they haven't seen the end of attacks. It was as if they were facing endless waves of enemies. The city's forces already began showing signs of lowering morale.
Fortunately, there didn't seem to be enemies stronger than the seventh-order whale Eishi had killed.
It took a while for him to withdraw from his trance. Pain gradually receded from his body.
'How strange…'
Feeling the renewed power coursing through his veins, Eishi glanced at his attributes.
[Eishi Hiraoka]
Innate Talent: Time Dominator (SSS, Fourth-order)
Non-exclusive Talent: Spatial Backpack (3,210,000 Cubic Meters), Constitution Boost (SS, Third-order), Weak Electricity (A, Third-order), Spirit Boost (B, Third-order), Metal Sharpening (A, Third-order), Clairvoyance (A, Third-order), Super Regeneration (S, Fifth-order), Law Penetration (S, Third-order), Qi Burst (S, Third-order), Cosmic Barrier (S, Third-order), Sun's Essence (SS, Third-order), Dragon Blood (S, Third-order)
Life Level: Fourth-order, Eight-stars
Strength: 1,529 > 2,649 (3,444)
Agility: 1,526 > 2,646 (8,732)
Constitution: 3,226 > 4,346 (27,380)
Spirit: 3,295 > 4,415 (5,740)
'How did this..!'
Eishi recalled everything he went through before stopping at that city-sized whale. It took him twelve whole hours of hacking and slashing to tear apart its most vital parts. Only then did it die.
Inevitably, he got stained with blood all over his body. There were also its internal organs that he tore apart to shreds as well as the massive human-sized rainbow colored crystal core found in its brain.
'Was it its blood and flesh..?'
Recalling the extremely huge whale, he couldn't help but feel his aching right hand. Blood dripped out of his torn-open wounds. His blood had long since dried on the spear's shaft. Its blade lost its previous sharpness; its edge chipped away. When he gripped it tightly, the spear crumbled into metallic dust.
Despite his renewed recovery speed and his [Regeneration] talent turning into [Super Regeneration], his eyelids felt extremely heavy.
'That damned whale…'
Eishi's time stop lasted for over two minutes during the fight against that huge whale. He could perform three batches of time stop; six minutes in total. Ingesting countless third-order [Restorative Pills] while using the ability allowed him to sustain his time stop for a longer time. Similarly, placed his god-like physique into extreme strains.
For this seventh-order whale, he spent a total of twelve hours inside the stopped time!
Twelve hours!
Fortunately, it hasn't escaped Eishi's time stop. The unreasonable power of SSS-rated talents showed itself right at this moment. Coupled with his millions of third-rank [Stamina Restoration Pills], he was able to cross three levels and kill the seventh-order giant whale.
Its presence was a wide-area attack. Everyone got affected by it, whether they be humans, zergs, or fellow oceanic creatures. The few espers who recovered early took this chance to finish off their enemies. Ironically, it was humans who first broke free of the whale's mental suppression.
'A blessing in disguise, then…'