"HAAAAAAHHH!!!"
Biscuit roared as though she were enduring unimaginable agony. Her massive, tree-trunk-like muscles tensed to their absolute limits, turning a dark, seething crimson. She bent her knees, digging her feet into the pulverized earth.
BOOM!
Like a rocket breaking orbit, she launched herself into the sky. Her sheer acceleration instantly shattered the sound barrier, creating a massive, visible sonic boom that rippled across the plains.
BANG! BANG! BANG!
The thunderous cracks of displaced air echoed in her wake as she ascended higher and higher.
"W-Whoa!" Gon's eyes were practically glued to the sky.
Killua felt his heart hammer violently against his ribs. Every hair on his body stood on end. It was the primal, suffocating sensation of walking on the razor's edge of death. His elite assassin instincts screamed at him: If that punch lands on you, there won't even be dust left.
So this is the true power of a Double-Star Hunter? Killua trembled, completely overwhelmed.
Fortunately, they had chosen a secluded clearing on the outskirts of the city. Despite the apocalyptic noise, no other players were around to witness the clash of the titans.
High above the clouds, Biscuit finally halted her ascent at an altitude of over a thousand meters.
Her entire body was glowing cherry-red, radiating heat like a freshly forged iron brand. Yet, despite the terrifying, beast-like aura she emitted, her eyes were remarkably serene—almost reverent.
She pressed her palms together in a prayer-like gesture, then shifted her weight and drove her right palm downward.
Like a genuine falling meteor, Biscuit plummeted toward the earth.
Gravity combined with her terrifying aura propulsion to accelerate her descent to unimaginable speeds. She broke the sound barrier again, the intense friction of the atmosphere igniting a brilliant, raging inferno around her massive frame. She had literally become a human meteorite.
Though she was still hundreds of meters in the air, the sheer, crushing pressure of her descending aura slammed into the earth below. Gon and Killua instantly found it difficult to breathe, their faces turning pale under the suffocating weight.
"What terrifying pressure! This is the ultimate strike of Shingen-Ryu!" Gon gasped, clutching his chest.
"You two, fall back. This is going to get a little messy," Ryker instructed calmly, keeping his eyes fixed on the blazing sky.
"Brother Ryker... you..."
"Be careful..."
Gon and Killua hesitated for a moment, deeply worried, but after seeing the absolute confidence in Ryker's eyes, they turned and sprinted away as fast as they could.
"Incredible," Ryker murmured, genuine admiration coloring his voice. "To find an opponent of this caliber inside a video game... aside from Netero, you are undoubtedly the strongest fighter I've ever faced."
In his past life, Ryker remembered Biscuit as a strong but mostly supportive character. She rarely showcased her true, destructive potential, even during the intense dodgeball game against Razor.
But seeing her now, going absolutely all-out, Ryker realized his previous estimations had been flawed. Biscuit was unquestionably in the absolute highest echelon of human fighters. She sat firmly in the tier just below Netero and Ging Freecss.
"Here I come! Brace yourself!" Biscuit's booming voice tore through the roaring wind.
Ryker took a deep breath. His chest expanded, and his muscles subtly shifted.
[Activated: {Scarlet Eyes} (Gold)]
[Activated: {Lightning Nen} (Red)]
[Activated: {Enhancement Mastery} (Double Red)]
[Activated: {Divine Strength} (Red)]
...That should be enough.
Ryker stood directly beneath the crushing atmospheric pressure, looking up at the falling sun. The ground within a hundred-meter radius of him began to violently buckle and collapse. Trees snapped like twigs, and boulders ground themselves into dust under the sheer weight of their conflicting auras.
"It's a magnificent strike. Let's see how it holds up against this!"
[Activated: {Hyper-Copy} (Gold)]
[Shingen-Ryu: METEOR!]
Standing firmly on the ground, Ryker executed the exact same technique. But unlike Biscuit, who used gravity and altitude to amplify her strike, Ryker was launching his attack from a static position, firing it directly upward into the face of a descending meteor.
It was like a lone man attempting to punch a tsunami back up a waterfall.
A searing, pale-blue shockwave enveloped Ryker's fist as he thrust it toward the heavens. The earth beneath his feet instantly vaporized into a massive crater.
A split second later, the two apocalyptic fists collided.
BOOOOOOOOOOM!
The resulting explosion defied description. It sounded as though a dozen primordial beasts were roaring simultaneously. A catastrophic shockwave erupted from the point of impact, tearing up thousands of tons of earth and rock, blasting it outward in a devastating hurricane of debris.
Even from their safe distance, Gon and Killua screamed as the gale-force winds nearly lifted them off their feet.
RUMBLE...
The deafening roar of the collision seemed to last for an eternity before the kinetic energy finally dissipated.
A thick, suffocating cloud of dust and pulverized rock blanketed the area. The ambient temperature had skyrocketed, making the clearing feel like the lip of an active volcano.
"Brother Ryker!!!"
"Are you okay?!"
Gon and Killua screamed into the dust cloud, their hearts lodged in their throats.
As the wind slowly cleared the smoke, the boys finally saw the aftermath. The expressions on their faces froze in absolute awe.
The grassy plain was gone. In its place was a massive, blackened crater over three hundred meters wide. The earth within the crater was practically molten, glowing with residual heat.
Standing dead center in the bottom of the crater was Ryker.
His shirt had been completely obliterated, revealing his chiseled, perfectly defined musculature. His right arm was severely burned, the skin charred black, and blood steadily dripped from his torn knuckles. He looked battered, but he was standing perfectly upright.
Across from him sat the Muscle Kong, Biscuit Krueger.
The towering, two-meter-tall juggernaut had collapsed onto the molten earth. Her right arm was completely shattered, the bone visibly protruding through her torn, violently red muscles.
Her face was frozen in an expression of absolute, soul-shattering disbelief. She stared blankly at Ryker, her mind completely unable to process reality.
Ryker had perfectly countered her ultimate, altitude-assisted strike from a stationary position on the ground. In a pure, unadulterated clash of physical power and aura, Ryker had overwhelmingly crushed her. The realization was so profound it temporarily eclipsed the agonizing pain of her compound fracture.
Ten seconds of dead silence passed before Biscuit finally sucked in a sharp, trembling breath. Her massive muscles spasmed as the exhaustion of the ultimate technique caught up with her.
Unlike Ryker, whose only injury was a burned arm, Biscuit's entire body was wrecked.
"I... I lost..."
Biscuit sighed, her massive shoulders slumping as she sat defeated in the dirt.
It wasn't just the physical defeat that crushed her. If she had simply been overpowered, she could have accepted it. But Ryker had defeated her using her own, self-created ultimate technique—a technique she had never taught to another living soul.
He had learned it by watching her, and then immediately executed it better than she could. It was the ultimate humiliation for a martial arts master.
But as Biscuit looked up at Ryker, her despair quickly morphed into sheer, unadulterated shock.
The catastrophic burns and torn flesh on Ryker's right arm were... vanishing.
Right before her eyes, his skin rapidly knitted itself back together. The charred tissue flaked away, replaced by flawless, unblemished skin. Within a matter of seconds, the horrific injuries had completely healed, leaving no trace they had ever existed.
W-What...?
Is he even human?! Biscuit's mind screamed. What kind of monstrous regenerative ability is that?! Did he incorporate a healing aspect into his Hatsu?! How is that even possible?!
"Your arm looks pretty bad," Ryker said calmly, walking over to her.
He reached out and gently grasped Biscuit's shattered forearm.
Because his Scarlet Eyes were active, Ryker had access to 100% efficiency in all Nen categories, including Enhancement and Emission. Combined with the healing traits he had passively hoarded, his restorative capabilities were nearly instantaneous.
A soft, pale-green aura enveloped Biscuit's arm.
Under her utterly bewildered gaze, the protruding bone snapped back into place. The torn muscles reconnected, and the skin rapidly healed over the wound. In less than ten seconds, her arm was perfectly fine.
"This... this is incredible healing Nen... but what truly terrifies me is your physical strength. Are you sure you're just a normal player?" Biscuit asked, staring at her fully healed arm in awe.
All her previous desires to test him or humble him were gone. She knew exactly what had happened in that clash. She hadn't survived because they were evenly matched; she had survived because Ryker had intentionally pulled his punch at the last microsecond to spare her life.
His power eclipsed hers by an insurmountable margin. As a top-tier Hunter, she accepted her defeat completely.
"Don't feel too bad. When I fought Netero, I nearly put the old man in the hospital with a single punch," Ryker smiled, pulling his arm back. "Out of everyone I've fought, your strength is second only to his. You should be proud."
GASP!
Biscuit's eyes bulged so hard they nearly popped out of her skull. She felt like her entire worldview had just been shattered with a sledgehammer.
Did I hear that right?! Did he just say he put Chairman Netero in the hospital?!
If anyone else had said that, Biscuit would have laughed in their face. But coming from the monster who had just casually broken her arm and healed it in ten seconds? It was entirely believable.
"Netero... you... you know the Chairman? You fought him?!" Biscuit stammered.
"Of course. We sparred at the Association Headquarters. The old man is pretty spry," Ryker chuckled. "Actually, he's the one who gave me my Double-Star License. So technically, we're the same rank."
...
Alright. I admit it. You are a literal god walking among men.
Biscuit was completely, utterly speechless. This teenager wasn't just a prodigy; he was a historically unprecedented anomaly. The notoriously strict Isaac Netero had personally bypassed decades of bureaucratic red tape to hand this kid a Double-Star License. That alone spoke volumes about how highly Netero valued him.
Suddenly, losing to him didn't feel humiliating at all. In fact, if he had actually beaten the 'World's Strongest Nen User,' surviving his punch was basically a badge of honor.
[DING! You have defeated Biscuit Krueger in a direct combat scenario! 10% Auto-Plunder activated...]
[Success! Acquired: {Magical Esthetician} (Double Gold), {Shingen-Ryu Grandmaster} (Gold)!]
A mechanical chime rang in Ryker's mind.
[DING! You have utilized the item 'Continuous Lucky Star' on Biscuit Krueger!]
[Success! Acquired: {Transmutation Mastery} (Double Gold), {Muscle Kong} (Double Gold)!]
[DING! Synergy Detected: {Magical Esthetician} (Double Gold) + {Muscle Kong} (Double Gold) have triggered an automatic fusion!]
[Congratulations! You have acquired the new fused trait: {Super Saiyan Transformation} (Double Gold)!]
Ryker froze. His eyes widened significantly as he stared at the system prompt.
Even with his incredible composure, he couldn't stop his heart from skipping a beat.
[Trait: Super Saiyan Transformation (Double Gold)]
[Effect: A unique fusion of hyper-muscular enhancement and magical aesthetic manipulation. Upon activation, the user's hair turns golden, muscle density violently increases, and base combat power is temporarily multiplied by 5!]
...Holy shit.
Ryker was completely dumbfounded. He never expected Biscuit's traits to yield such an utterly broken fusion.
The System had taken her hideous [Muscle Kong] form, mixed it with the beautifying aspects of her [Magical Esthetician] ability, and casually created a functional Super Saiyan transformation!
It didn't provide actual Saiyan alien blood, but a raw, flat 5x multiplier to all his base stats was absolutely absurd. And this was only at the Double Gold tier. If he managed to upgrade this trait to Red or Black in the future, the multiplier would be apocalyptic.
Perfect. Absolutely perfect.
"I lost..."
A soft, cute voice interrupted his thoughts.
Ryker looked down. The massive, terrifying Muscle Kong had vanished. In her place sat the adorable, frilly, blonde twin-tailed loli, looking up at him with wide, pleading eyes. She had even managed to pull a spare pink dress out of her Binder.
The contrast was so jarring it gave Ryker mental whiplash.
"So... can I still join your party?" Biscuit asked, tilting her head innocently.
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