Just as Chris had predicted.
When she found that she couldn't dispose of the two before her in any short order.
Neferpitou had already realized the gravity of the situation.
'This human… could he be stalling for time, nya?'
Neferpitou's slit pupils narrowed slightly. If even this human before her—one without so much as Nen—could tangle with her this long.
Then the man back in the nest, the one who claimed he could 'make time stop,' was surely no empty boast of bravado.
As a direct Royal Guard who valued the King's safety above her own life.
Neferpitou naturally couldn't leave such an uncertain threat unchecked.
"In that case, I'll just have to go deal with that troublesome guy first, nya!"
After nimbly flipping aside to dodge the scorching pillar of fire that Kiriyama Ikuha spewed out using [Purgatory Summons].
Neferpitou landed on Menthuthuyoupi's shoulder, using the big oaf as cover and a launching point.
"Bam!"
A burst of air pressure exploded through the atmosphere.
As she slipped past Ayanokoji's defensive line in the same motion.
She swung her claws offhandedly, shredding the few students blocking her path to pieces.
Then, without so much as a backward glance, she dashed toward the area where Chris and the others were.
Meanwhile Youpi, stepped on out of nowhere, staggered.
Which happened to send him crashing face-first into the flames Kiriyama Ikuha had spewed out.
"Sizzle, sizzle, sizzle——!"
The smell of scorched flesh began to spread.
Granted, with Youpi's body, fire of this degree wouldn't inflict any fatal wounds on him in the short term.
But since Youpi was hot-tempered and quick to anger by nature…
"Unforgivable!!!"
Youpi let out a roar, his form distorting as six thick, brawny arms sprouted from his frame; flailing them, he made to pound every human before him into pulp to vent his fury.
Unfortunately, he'd picked the wrong target to vent on.
With Cat Woman's restraint now gone.
Facing a wide-open Youpi, Ayanokoji Kiyotaka's eyes were cold and indifferent.
"Now."
Ripple Breathing conducted along the Parasyte's tentacles, riding the Imperial Arms' flame to slash at Youpi's weak point.
"Squelch!"
As the wound opened, the surrounding high-temperature flames, as if finding an outlet, poured back in through that gash.
"Gwaaaahhh——!!!"
The searing flames ran rampant inside Youpi's body.
Beginning to swell violently and uncontrollably!
"Boom——!!!"
A deafening blast.
He exploded with a roar!
"Phew…" Kiriyama Ikuha lowered the astonishingly hot Imperial Arms in his hands, gasping in great breaths.
His gaze drifted back and forth.
"The Cat Woman ran off in there… with only Kiryuuin and the others, can they hold her off?"
Ayanokoji Kiyotaka, expressionless, reached down and picked up the loot card that had dropped after Youpi's death.
"I'll go help Nagumo Miyabi." Ayanokoji made the decision for them outright, looking at Kiriyama. "Since you're back, head back and help Kiryuuin and the others."
Kiriyama Ikuha wasted no words and turned on his heel at once.
Ayanokoji, meanwhile, gazed off toward the battlefield outside the cave mouth, where roars and firelight flared up from time to time.
He lowered his head slightly and asked the Parasyte on his right hand:
"Zero, are you ready?"
The Parasyte's eyeball swiveled, as if sensing something.
"Ayanokoji, are you leaving?"
"Mm. I'm thinking of testing that limit."
Ayanokoji nodded.
The Parasyte fell silent for a moment:
"You'll take me with you, won't you?" "Mm. If it's possible.…"
Meanwhile. 'Youpi actually… died?!'
Flapping his butterfly wings as he circled high in the sky, Shaiapouf's expression turned grim.
He'd been about to go warn the Ant King, who was locked in fierce battle below.
But Pouf quickly realized.
Although he was one of the three Royal Guards, his abilities leaned more toward support, reconnaissance, and mental control; his actual head-on combat strength was the weakest of the three.
If he descended now.
To try to stop the humans who could kill Youpi in such a short time would be like a mantis trying to halt a chariot—throwing his life away for nothing.
'In that case, I should think further ahead.'
Pouf's gaze grew deep and pensive:
'If the King truly meets with misfortune… I must serve as the King's final insurance!'
At this thought, Shaiapouf decisively unleashed his Nen ability—[Lord of the Flies].
In an instant, his body split into countless miniature clones.
As they scattered in every direction, they were all but undetectable unless one watched with special care.
Among them, two clones flew silently off in the direction Cat Woman Neferpitou had departed.
As for Cat Woman. Relying on her terrifying legwork and her En perception.
Neferpitou quickly tracked down the location of Chris and the others.
Watching as they methodically, in proper order, destroyed those Chimera Ant eggs that had yet to hatch.
Cat Woman narrowed her eyes slightly.
'Trying to rack up points, are they… what a wicked-hearted bunch of humans, nya.'
Almost the instant she grasped their aim, her form vanished. "Bam!"
With a crisp crack.
The head of the nearest student had already been crushed outright in her grip!
Because she was still mindful of the possible existence of a powerhouse who 'could stop time.'
So Cat Woman chose to kill as many as she could—better to kill by mistake than to let one slip—doing her utmost to deny this pack of humans the chance to gather enough points.
What's more. Considering that certain humans—or rather, vampires—had strong regenerative powers.
When crushing the heads, Neferpitou deliberately channeled Nen into her claw tips.
Seeing that the vampires had no chance of survival once their brain tissue was utterly pulverized, Cat Woman planned to repeat the method.
But just as she was about to pounce on her next target.
A faint rustling sound startled Kushida Kikyo, who, being timid, was always on the highest alert.
"M-Monster, over there!"
Kushida Kikyo cried out in alarm.
The price for it: the sharp claws, trailing a fierce gust, had drawn infinitely close to that pretty face of hers, brimming with terror!
Just as Kushida Kikyo thought her head was about to part from her body.
"Dora!"
Crazy Diamond's iron fist slammed precisely onto Cat Woman's claws! "Bam!"
Cat Woman didn't press the engagement; using the momentum, she landed on a rock a few meters away.
Looking at the crowd around her, every bit of their attention now fixed on her.
She split her lips into a grin, baring two rows of fangs, her smile dangerous and bewitching:
"Oh my… I've been spotted, nya~"
"Since I can't kill you all on the sneak, I'll just have to kill every last one of you… Sorry about that, nya~"
The words weren't even finished. Cat Woman's form vanished once more.
To eliminate risks for the King, the efficiency-minded Cat Woman turned into an invisible whirlwind, weaving through the crowd.
"Aaaah——!" "Help!"
Amid the screams, one student after another who couldn't react in time dissolved into blue light and was eliminated.
And Kiryuuin, who possessed Crazy Diamond. At this moment was drenched in sweat as well.
Although Crazy Diamond's A-rank in both power and speed could keep up with Cat Woman's movements completely.
It was limited by the Stand's range…
Kiryuuin was forced to hunker down on the defensive, doing everything she could to protect Kushida Kikyo and Yotsuya Miko, the two closest to her.
She watched helplessly as her other classmates were slaughtered, yet didn't dare act rashly.
"Damn it… she's way too fast!"
Kiryuuin Fuka gritted her teeth.
If Cat Woman were converted into a Stand, she'd absolutely be a top-tier A-and-A in power and speed—and what's more… the kind with no range limit at all!
The brutal commotion over here quickly drew the attention of Shiraishi Asuka and Shiina Hiyori, who were handling egg-clearing duty in the adjacent chamber.
The two of them had just poked their heads out at the sound.
Shiraishi Asuka hadn't even managed to raise her gun. "Swish!"
A fierce gust struck her face. A teasing voice sounded by Shiraishi's ear. "Pardon me coming through, nya~"
In the next instant, that blood-soaked claw had already appeared right before her eyes!
At this hair-trigger moment. "You're the one who should get out of the way."
A man's voice suddenly burst out beside Cat Woman's ear. And then.
Neferpitou's motion stalled.
Her lunging body bent into a bow shape, like a boiled prawn!
"Urgh…" A mouthful of blood mixed with shreds of viscera spewed from her mouth.
Fortunately, as the strongest of the three Royal Guards, her constitution was robust enough.
She forced herself to dodge aside while clutching her pierced abdomen with one hand.
After swiftly opening up distance, Neferpitou was alarmed and bewildered:
'My En was open the whole time… yet I never sensed the approach of any presence at all.'
'It seems… time really was stopped after all, nya?'
Honestly, Cat Woman wasn't all that surprised to have been hit.
After all, her Nen ability 'Terpsichora,' though it let her go from activating the ability to completing an attack in a mere 0.1 seconds.
No matter how fast, still couldn't outpace time itself.
Against a terrifying enemy who moved in the cracks of time, 0.1 seconds and ten thousand years made no difference.
What truly chilled her was that her opponent could, while stopping time, also punch a hole clean through her?!
She lowered her head to look at the blood between her fingers.
Yet Cat Woman felt no terror; instead, she made up her mind. 'My judgment wasn't wrong, nya!'
'If an enemy this terrifying were truly to meet the newly born King… and with those two humans added in, the King's life would absolutely be in danger, nya!'
However, before Neferpitou could once again drive [Terpsichora].
A fist gleaming with golden light had already appeared out of thin air before her eyes.
"Muda muda muda muda muda——!!!"
As the fist's glow drew near.
Because she hadn't had time to repair the fatal wound to her abdomen with [Doctor Blythe].
Cat Woman's reactions and speed at this moment were greatly diminished.
Her response was clearly nowhere near as leisurely as when she'd faced Crazy Diamond before; mid-dodge, she was solidly hammered by The World twice over!
"Bam! Bam!"
Bones cracked, and Cat Woman was sent flying once again.
Luckily, she'd had no intention of dragging out the fight with Chris to begin with.
Before laying down her life for the King, she still needed to wipe out the rest of the ants that might pose a threat to him!
Riding the force of being knocked back, Neferpitou steadied herself in midair.
Then, heedless of her injuries, she lunged straight at Shiraishi Asuka and Shiina Hiyori not far off!
'If I just kill them all…'
Unfortunately, just as she herself had thought.
In the face of true time-stop, all struggle amounted to nothing.
"The World!"
As the world around them was stripped of its color.
Chris strolled through this frozen world, coming to Cat Woman's side.
He sized up Cat Woman's current posture with considerable interest.
Because she'd had the pause button pressed on her mid high-speed assault.
Neferpitou at this moment hung in midair in a contorted pose.
The claws of her left hand were mere hairs from Shiina Hiyori's neck; and her right foot was already raised high, nearly about to shatter the spot over Shiraishi Asuka's heart.
"Planning to take out the ones collecting item points first, then fight me to the death…"
Chris stroked his chin and murmured with feeling:
"Are you trying to use the post-death Nen grudge to awaken your 'Nen after death,' pushing Terpsichora past its limits, so as to eliminate me—the great threat—for the Ant King?"
"How loyal of you…"
Still, feelings aside. Chris didn't actually care much for the character of Cat Woman.
After all, no matter how loyal she was, that loyalty was for the Ant King, not for him.
What this uncle hated most was precisely this sort—loyalty carved into their very bones, but sworn to someone other than him.
Although, if he truly wanted an obedient cat-girl.
He could perfectly well rewrite Cat Woman's underlying logic code and swap her object of loyalty to himself.
But Chris felt there was no need for that.
Hmm… come to think of it.
Looking at Cat Woman, Chris's thoughts suddenly wandered.
'It's about time I added a live-combat sparring module to the Hyperbolic Time Chamber, isn't it?'
Having the students just brawl with each other gave nothing but the same fixed moves and patterns, round after round.
Over time, not only did it fail to provide the stimulation of real combat, it actually tended to breed dependence on set routines.
Powerful monsters that had already been beaten, like Cat Woman, Kars, and Jikku.
Using them as sparring partners didn't seem half bad…
In any case, there were plenty of class evaluation points now; adding more spending channels to recycle some of them would be good for the system's ecosystem too!
With that. Chris hesitated no longer.
He had The World unleash a barrage of 'Muda' on Cat Woman.
After all but shattering every bone in her body.
Chris used the Red-Backed Shrike to put a single shot clean through Neferpitou's head!
Having carried out this operation that would spell certain death in anyone's eyes.
Chris quietly watched Cat Woman. He was waiting.
Waiting for the dance that crossed the boundary of life and death—Terpsichora, the dance that surpasses all limits!
"Time, begin to flow."
As Chris snapped his fingers.
The gray-white receded, and color returned to the world.
"Thud!" Watching Chris suddenly appear before them, and Cat Woman tumbling down before them like a ragdoll.
Shiina Hiyori and Shiraishi Asuka still had their eyes wide, hearts not yet settled from the fright.
Both of them had Combat Suits on, which by rights should have pushed them beyond human limits.
But facing Cat Woman, they simply couldn't react at all.
Had Chris not been there… they'd likely not even have known how they'd died.
After all, from the moment Cat Woman appeared here, counting the one-sided massacre in between.
At the very most, it had been no more than ten seconds.
Had it not been for Kiryuuin Fuka's own excellent caliber, plus the dual amplification of her Stand [Crazy Diamond] and her Combat Suit, Kushida Kikyo and the others would long since have become ghosts under Cat Woman's claws.
Girls like Shiina Hiyori and Shiraishi Asuka, who weren't combat-oriented to begin with, naturally couldn't keep up.
"Is she… dead?"
Shiina Hiyori pressed her somewhat parched lips together and asked softly, testing.
Shiraishi Asuka glanced down at the Y-GUN radar screen, then spoke after a pause:
"On the radar, the red dot representing her has already disappeared."
Chris nodded and leaned in for a glance at the screen:
"Looks like, with this cat's pressure gone, things on Ayanokoji's side are progressing fairly smoothly."
"At this rate, it feels like we won't even need the Pauper's Rose…"
He looked up at the still-shaken girls and reassured them:
"All right, since the danger's been cleared, everyone go collect a bit more item points first."
"Whether you spend it on items later or save it for the future… it's always better to be prepared."
At his words, Shiina Hiyori was about to nod in agreement. But then, to her horror, she discovered.
Just as Chris turned around.
A surge of malevolent, ominous purple-black Nen aura instantly enveloped the entire space!
There, above the Cat Woman who was already dead beyond dead, a bizarre marionette phantom had astonishingly emerged.
Under the control of her post-death Nen grudge.
It came hurtling straight at Shiina Hiyori's and Shiraishi Asuka's throats at a speed even more terrifying than in life! "Look out!"
Chris reacted with lightning speed, instinctively preparing to stop time again to intercept.
But this dying-word attack of Cat Woman's was as if it had already anticipated this very move of his.
In the instant Chris turned.
That corpse, which had been lunging at the two girls, wrenched its trajectory around in midair.
"Squelch——!"
Chris blasted away half of its body outright.
But the puppet-like claw didn't pause, plunging straight into his chest.
Honestly, the moment he was stabbed, Chris thought this act was perhaps laid on a bit too thick.
After all, even without wearing a Combat Suit.
Several thousand layers of Heart of Steel combined with Demon Possession were not something Cat Woman's dying-word could break through.
But on second thought. Considering that the dying-word was a life-sacrificing skill, and that no one knew he had Heart of Steel…
…it seemed reasonable enough?
With that thought. "Crack!"
Expressionless, Chris twisted his hand back and snapped off the cat-claw lodged in his chest. "Chris!"
"Chris-kun!?"
Seeing Chris gravely wounded for protecting them.
Shiina Hiyori and Shiraishi Asuka were instantly thrown into a panic, tears blurring their eyes.
But they were, after all, people who'd been through the exam grounds, and knew in their hearts that there were still the extra lives granted by the Black Sphere as a safety net.
So, after their brief panic.
Shiina Hiyori lifted her head and anxiously looked around. "Senior Kiryuuin!"
Shiina Hiyori called out loudly for help: "Quick… please, hurry and heal Chris-kun!"
As for Kiryuuin Fuka.
Actually, the very instant Chris and Cat Woman began fighting, she'd already been rushing over here at full speed.
But alas, her speed still couldn't compare to those two cheat-tier monsters.
On top of that, [Crazy Diamond]'s effective range was simply too short…
By the time she finally made it close, the fight was already over.
Looking at Chris, down on one knee, his chest soaked crimson.
Kiryuuin's gaze tightened, and she pressed a hand on Chris's shoulder:
"Don't move around—let me use Crazy Diamond to restore you…"
Feeling the wound inside him rapidly knitting shut, Chris gave a slight nod.
Rising to his feet, he casually wiped away the tomato spilling from the corner of his mouth… no, the blood!
He looked at Kiryuuin and quipped:
"You got here pretty fast. Good thing the adrenaline hasn't fully worn off yet, otherwise once the pain really caught up with me, that'd be downright humiliating…"
As the white light fully restored Chris to perfect condition.
Only then did the heart Kiryuuin Fuka had held suspended finally settle. She let out a long breath of relief.
But upon hearing this offhanded teasing from Chris, an inexplicable flash of anger suddenly welled up in her.
"Even at a time like this you're still in the mood to clown around?"
Kiryuuin Fuka shot him a glare, her tone unexpectedly carrying a trace of lingering fear:
"You really aren't afraid of dying! If I hadn't happened to arrive just now, do you have any idea what the consequences would've been?"
The words had barely left her mouth. When Kiryuuin herself froze for a beat first.
She suddenly realized that her tone just now… had it come across as a bit too intimate?
As if she and Chris had some special relationship in private, one crossing the bounds of an ordinary senior and junior…
For someone who'd always presented herself as carefree and unfettered, this was downright a first.
It totally didn't fit her persona?!
Chris, for his part, seemed not to notice anything off about her, and explained casually:
"On the Y-GUN's radar, that Cat Woman really did show up as dead."
"Who'd have thought this monster would even come with a dying-word skill."
"All right, it was a scare but no harm done—what matters is no one died. Let's gather all the still-living classmates together, so we don't get sneak-attacked by another one of these play-dead enemies later."
Kiryuuin came back to herself.
She looked at the breezy, unruffled expression on Chris's face.
But to cover for her earlier fluster, before heading off to clean up the aftermath, she still couldn't help turning back and reminding him once more in a stiff tone:
"You… do be more careful from now on."
"I worry that the Black Sphere's controller, even if it can give intel on the monsters, can't possibly mark out every last detail."
"If you run into something like this again next time… and there happens to be no one beside you who can use Crazy Diamond, let's see what you'll do then!"
Chris nodded with a smile, his tone unusually gentle: "Got it." "And right now, aren't you here? Don't go saying such gloomy things."
Hearing these near-reliant words.
Kiryuuin Fuka pursed her lips.
As if a touch displeased—but the slight upturn at the corners of her lips and the suddenly lighter steps betrayed her true feelings.
"Heh." "What an idiot he is."
____
👻🔥+40 ch: Walnut-chan🔥👻
🔥 New history: COTE: Counterattack System
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