Chapter 165: Giant Flame Fist
The warehouse trembled again.
Nobody stood several meters away from the armored bodyguard. The massive man was barely recognizable as a normal human anymore. The strange energy beneath his armor had intensified.
Thin cracks had appeared across the metal-like plating covering his body. A distorted glow leaked through them.
Nobody tightened his grip around the frost crowbars. "...This is getting worse."
The armored man suddenly raised both fists. The air around him seemed to distort. Then he charged.
Nobody moved to the side. The armored fist passed beside his helmet and struck the ground. The concrete floor broke beneath the impact.
BOOOOM!!
Nobody immediately swung one frost crowbar toward the man’s shoulder. The armored bodyguard turned and blocked it. The second crowbar came from the opposite direction. The man blocked that one too.
Nobody jumped backward. "You’re getting faster."
The System appeared.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Warning]
Target’s external energy output is rapidly increasing.
Control stability:
18%
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Nobody stared at the notification. "...Eighteen percent? Adult number huh..ahem.."
The armored man roared. His entire body suddenly surged forward.
Nobody crossed both crowbars. The punch struck them directly. The force sent Nobody sliding backward. His boots scraped across the concrete. He finally stopped.
Blossom Bunny rushed toward him. "Atta!"
Nobody looked down. "I’m okay." He slowly stood.
The armored bodyguard charged again. Nobody ducked beneath the first punch. He spun around the man’s side and struck the back of his knee.
The frost spread across the armor. The armored man stumbled. Nobody immediately attacked the other leg. But the man recovered faster than before. His elbow came toward Nobody.
Nobody blocked it. The impact forced him backward. He looked at his arms. "...That one actually hurt."
Rian watched from behind a metal container. "Mr.Bunny!"
"Stay there!" Nobody raised his voice. "Don’t come any closer!"
The armored man turned toward Rian.
Nobody’s expression immediately changed. "Hey!" He rushed between them.
The armored man swung. Nobody blocked the attack with both crowbars. The force pushed him backward but he refused to move. "You’re not getting past me."
The armored man pushed harder.
Nobody’s feet dug into the floor. The frost around his crowbars intensified. "Come on..." His arms trembled. "Come on!"
The armored man suddenly released the pressure and swung with his other fist. Nobody barely avoided it. The punch struck a steel pillar. The pillar bent.
Nobody stared. "...Okay." He slowly looked at the armored man. "Yeah. You’re officially way too strong. To be honest, I am nerfed."
The System appeared again.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Critical Warning]
Target’s energy stability:
9%
External distortion:
Severe
Probability of uncontrolled discharge:
92%
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Nobody’s expression became serious. "System."
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Yes.]
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"Can we save him?"
There was a short silence.
The answer appeared.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Analysis]
The human body has exceeded its sustainable limit.
External distortion has permanently altered the target’s physical condition.
Current prognosis:
No viable recovery detected.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Nobody stared at the notification. "...No way."
The armored man roared again. His body shook violently. The strange energy around him became even more unstable.
Nobody slowly lowered his crowbars. "I tried."
The System appeared beside him.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[The human can no longer be saved.]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Nobody looked at the armored man.
The massive figure was barely standing. His body had become a weapon that was destroying itself.
Nobody clenched his fist. "...I guess I have no other way."
The System responded.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[User should utilize the appropriate skill
to defeat the enemy]
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Nobody blinked. "What skill?"
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[The skill obtained after defeating the Giant Fist]
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Nobody froze. "...Giant Fist?" He suddenly remembered the massive hand opponent. The ridiculous battle and the skill reward.
Nobody looked at his System menu. "Wait." He opened the skill list.
Several abilities appeared.
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[Skill List]
[]Mecha Fusion
[]Frost Element Fuse
[]Fire Element Fuse
[]Zig Zag Teleportation
[]Zap Cannon
[]Fusion Crowbar
[]Infinite Crowbar Swingers
[]Bunny Punching Gloves
[]Mind Reader
[]Fist Gigantification
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Nobody stared at the last one. "...There you are." He tapped it.
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[Fist Gigantification]
Skill Type:
Physical Enhancement
Description:
Temporarily increases the size and power of the user’s hand.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Nobody looked at his hand. "System."
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Yes?]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
"How big can it get?"
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Current maximum output: Approximately six foot.]
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Nobody’s eyes widened.c"...Six foot?" He looked at his normal-sized hand. "That’s not a fist anymore."
The System remained silent.
Nobody sighed. "Fine."
The armored man suddenly charged.
Nobody raised his hand. "Let’s do this."
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Fist Gigantification]
Activating...
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
A strange energy began surrounding Nobody’s arm. His palm started expanding. His fingers grew longer.
His hand became larger. And larger. Until finally...A gigantic six-foot palm towered in front of him.
Nobody stared at it. "...Bro." He moved his enormous fingers. The giant hand responded perfectly. "...This is ridiculous."
Blossom Bunny stared upward. "Atta...?"
Nobody looked at her. "Yeah. I don’t know either."
The armored man rushed toward him.
Nobody raised the enormous palm.
The System appeared again.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Recommended Enhancement]
Temporarily fuse Flame Element into enlarged fist.
Effect:
Increased impact force
Additional heat-based energy
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Nobody smiled. "Flame element?" He looked at his giant hand. "Sure."
Flames began forming around his fingers. Unlike his frost attacks, the fire didn’t spread wildly.
Nobody concentrated carefully. The flames wrapped around his enormous palm. The giant hand became surrounded by controlled fire.
The System confirmed.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Temporary Element Fusion]
Flame Element:
Active
Duration:
30 seconds
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Nobody lowered his stance.
The armored bodyguard was already charging.
The villain’s voice echoed from somewhere outside the warehouse. "Destroy him!"
Nobody looked toward the doorway. "Still running your mouth, bitc*?"
The armored man raised his fist. Nobody raised his gigantic hand. The two attacks approached each other.
Nobody didn’t aim for the man’s head. He aimed directly at the center of his armored body. "Sorry."
The armored man’s fist came forward. Nobody’s enormous palm moved. The impact was enormous. The giant hand completely intercepted the armored man’s attack.
The floor beneath Nobody cracked. The flames surrounding his palm surged.
Nobody gritted his teeth. "You’re strong."
The armored man’s arm trembled.
"But this ends now." Nobody pushed forward.
The gigantic palm struck the armored man’s chest. The force launched the enhanced body backward. He crashed through a stack of crates. Metal and wood scattered across the floor.
The armored man tried standing. His legs trembled. The strange energy surrounding his body flickered violently.
Nobody walked toward him. The giant hand slowly began shrinking. The skill’s duration was almost over. Nobody raised it one final time. "Rest."
The armored man looked at him.
For the first time, the rage in his eyes disappeared. There was only exhaustion.
Nobody’s expression softened. "...You don’t have to fight anymore." He swung the enormous palm forward.
The flaming fist struck the armored body with overwhelming force. The impact sent the man crashing across the warehouse. He landed several meters away. The strange energy surrounding him finally disappeared. The armor stopped glowing.
Silence filled the warehouse.
Nobody’s giant hand slowly returned to normal. The flames vanished. Nobody stood there breathing heavily.
The System appeared.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Target Defeated]
Enhanced Human:
Neutralized
External Distortion:
Severed
Threat Level:
Terminated
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Nobody stared at the fallen armored man. "...It’s over, right?"
Rian slowly stepped out from behind the container. "Bunny uncle..."
Nobody turned toward him. "Stay back for a moment." He walked toward the armored bodyguard.
The massive man was unconscious. But he was breathing.
Nobody checked carefully. Then he looked toward the System. "You said he couldn’t be saved."
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[Correct]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Nobody frowned. "But he seems to be alive."
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[The target’s immediate threat has been neutralized.
His survival cannot be guaranteed.]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Nobody remained silent. He looked at the man again. "...At least he isn’t fighting anymore."
Blossom Bunny hopped over. "Atta ta."
Nobody smiled faintly. "Yeah." He gently patted its head. "Good job, man."
The System suddenly displayed another notification.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Mission Progress]
Rian:
Rescue Status — Secured
Immediate Threat:
Neutralized
Remaining Objective:
Escort Rian to safety
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Nobody looked toward the warehouse entrance. The street-level villain was gone. But that wasn’t what concerned him.
Nobody remembered the System’s warning.
External reality distortion.
Someone had altered this man’s body. Someone had turned an ordinary human into something almost uncontrollable.
Nobody’s expression became cold. "...Higher Being." He didn’t know where the being was. He didn’t know what the being wanted.
But the connection was becoming harder to ignore.
Nobody picked up his frost crowbars. "System."
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Yes?]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
"Add this to the list."
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[What should be added?]
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Nobody looked at the unconscious armored man. "Find out what higher being is doing to these people."
The System remained silent for several seconds.
Then...
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Investigation Objective Added]
Unknown Reality Distortion
Status:
Unresolved
Priority:
High
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Nobody nodded. "Good." He turned toward Rian. "Come on."
Rian approached carefully. "Where are we going?"
Nobody looked at Blossom Bunny. Then toward the exit. "Somewhere safe." He paused. "And after that..." His eyes narrowed. "...I start looking for answers."
Rian looked back at the unconscious armored man. "Will he be okay?"
Nobody paused. "I don’t know." He looked toward the broken warehouse entrance. "But we’re not leaving him here."
The System immediately responded.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Emergency Services Recommended]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Nobody nodded. "Yeah. That works." He took Rian carefully. "Let’s get somewhere safe first."
Blossom Bunny hopped onto his shoulder. "Atta ta!"
Nobody smiled. "Alright,team." He glanced back one last time.
"One mystery down."