Ryuu's gaze sank. In a fraction of a millisecond, he forcefully pivoted his grip, bringing the Black Blade: Yoru—thickly wrapped in his absolute maximum output of Armament Haki—crashing directly into Saitama's oncoming fist.
BOOM—!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
An earth-shattering detonation erupted, far eclipsing any noise that had come before it.
Up in the air, Fubuki's face drained of all color. Even though she had consistently retreated to what she deemed a safe operational distance, the sheer atmospheric displacement of the collision hit her like a physical wall, throwing her silhouette backward through the sky through the violent gale.
Below her, the entire heart of the district dissolved into a chaotic domain of pure destruction. At the center of the impact, a terrifying, unmitigated kinetic pressure radiated outward, violently tearing, crushing, and vaporizing everything in its path.
VROOM—!
The localized energy became so hyper-condensed that it reached a critical threshold, violently exploding outward in a blinding flash.
Fubuki squinted through the dust, her eyes tracking a lone figure that was forcefully hurled out of the epicentral shockwave. She had fully expected it to be the plain-looking bald youth, but as the silhouette solidified, she froze in absolute, paralyzed shock.
The figure skidding backward across the shattered bedrock, dressed in the dark attire of a foreign swordsman and clutching the remnants of a massive broadsword, was none other than Ryuu—the perfect incarnation of Hawkeye Mihawk!
In a direct, frontal clash of raw power, the one who had been definitively blown back... was actually Ryuu?!
The sheer absurdity of the realization left Fubuki entirely dazed.
Meanwhile, as Ryuu stabilized his sliding footing, he looked through the shimmering heat distortion at the unmoving, bald figure across the field. Behind his hawk-like eyes, a wave of profound, unadulterated shock rippled through his consciousness.
Is this truly the absolute, ceiling of strength in this world?!
With the thought grounding him, Ryuu lowered his gaze to the legendary weapon in his hands.
A hairline fracture had suddenly manifested across the obsidian surface of Yoru. A split second later, the crack splintered outward like a crawling centipede, rapidly webbing across the entire length of the blade.
SHATTER—!
With a crisp metallic ring, the World's Strongest Black Blade shattered into millions of dark, glittering fragments.
At that moment, Ryuu gained an incredibly visceral, deep understanding of Saitama's capabilities. Although the weapon he held was technically a product of his shapeshifting ability, it was an exact anatomical replica of the supreme grade blade, completely saturated with his advanced Armament Haki and backed by the absolute peak of his master-tier sword forms.
Yet, even with all those overlapping multipliers, Saitama had shattered it to pieces with a single, unadorned punch.
This was the absolute apex of the One Punch Man universe.
Yet, despite staring at the shards of his broken blade, the burning battle lust within Ryuu's veins didn't diminish in the slightest. Instead, it roared to life with an even fiercer, catastrophic intensity! It burned like an unquenchable, primeval wildfire.
Because... he had just successfully parried a direct strike from Saitama.
He had cleanly tanked a punch from the ultimate One Punch Man and walked away standing!
This proved a monumental, reality-altering truth: Saitama was not a conceptual, abstract god of absolute invincibility. At his core, he was simply an entity possessing an unimaginably massive, staggering reservoir of physical stats.
He was not fundamentally untouchable. He could be fought. He could be beaten!
The moment that paradigm-shifting realization solidified, the Hawkeye Mihawk template Ryuu was embodying underwent a profound, soulful transformation. The performance completely shed its theatrical nature, achieving a level of fluid, organic authenticity that transcended a mere mimicry.
Simultaneously, a burning, fierce heat ignited within his hawk-like eyes—a desperate, unyielding hunger for evolution that even the canon Hawkeye Mihawk had never possessed.
It was a hunger to breach his own limitations and step into a completely uncharted territory of strength!
Right on cue, as if directly responding to the absolute intensity of his desire, a rapid-fire succession of system notifications began to detonate like fireworks inside his mind!
[Ding! Current role-playing completion rate +2%!]
[Ding! Current role-playing completion rate +2%!]
...
[Ding! Current role-playing completion rate has reached 100%! Mastery threshold finalized. Congratulations to the host for unlocking a realm of power that completely transcends Hawkeye Mihawk!]
One hundred percent synchronization achieved!
The seal binding a tier of strength that completely eclipsed the absolute limitations of the World's Strongest Swordsman had formally begun to fracture!
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