Chapter 178: The Recklessly Courageous Forbidden Star: Overheat

"Fast...!"

"What's wrong? Does the Undefeated Queen not have any experience being outrun?"

"Unfortunately, I'm undefeated, you see!"

In Round 1, I was treated like a punching bag. In Round 2, I pushed back, but she was still annoying. Here in Round 3, I'm taking everything and paying it back double!

Metius leaps backward to open a two-meter gap; Prison Breaker steps in to instantly close three meters, overtaking her. Having slipped right behind her, I plant my feet and unleash a devastating spinning back kick.

Metius barely manages to throw up her guard in time, but the firepower is completely different. Though she wasn't blown away, her posture visibly wobbles.

"I'm surprised... So this is your main gig!"

"Unfortunately, I'm an omnivore when it comes to battle styles!"

If this is the optimal strategy, I don't care if I have to play a Mage, a Gorilla... or a half-naked pervert. I'll do whatever it takes! That's what conquering a game is all about!

Metius attempts to recover her posture with a mid-air jump, but Prison Breaker's mid-air jump can kick off empty space twice. Catching up to Metius as she escapes into the sky, I stomp the air itself and slam a roundhouse kick into her.

"What's wrong, what's wrong?! You gonna chicken out and try to survive until the time limit?!"

"Fufufu, the real fight starts... now!"

Are you kidding me, she can still get faster?! Whatever, burn it up, caffeine! Explode like nitro!

Neither my HP nor my Super duration allows me to stop anymore. If I don't attack, attack, and keep attacking until I crush her, I'll be the one getting overwhelmed. Focusing so hard I feel like smoke is going to shoot out of my ears, I relentlessly chase the freely darting Metius, continuously unleashing a barrage of attacks.

Ten seconds pass. With exactly twenty seconds left on the clock, Metius—who had been entirely on the defensive—finally made her move.

"Shall we settle this?!"

"Let's do it!"

There's no one around. Only abandoned cars and mangled street signs. I see, so this is our final battle stage. For Prison Breaker, the number of objects perfectly equates to the number of footholds, meaning he can extract maximum performance in this environment. And the exact same holds true for Metius, who shares a similar archetype.

"Tch...!"

Metius sprints up a car, kicks off a bent signpost, and accelerates. Lacking any defensive options other than evading, I dodge her assault and aim a sweeping kick exactly where she's about to land. Swung like a scythe, my leg shatters her posture, sending her falling flat onto her back... Not.

"Not yet!"

Twisting her body mid-air, she shifts from falling on her back to landing in a push-up position, instantly using sheer arm strength to launch herself back up like a coiled spring. And then, aiming straight at my face while I'm still locked in the sweeping kick animation, she unleashes a full-force kick like she's blasting a soccer ball.

If that hits me, I'm dead. I twist my neck and use my arm to parry, forcibly changing the kick's trajectory. The grinding sensation of Metius's toes scraping against my arm directly translates into my HP bar dropping. But I'm not letting you get away for free! Catching her swung leg, I stand up and yank it with all my might, forcing her into a Giant Swing setup.

"Ten seconds left!"

I'm ending it here!!

Instead of swinging her around faster than she can react... I slam her directly into the asphalt. But the fact that I didn't actually enter the swing animation meant she had completely read my move. A burst of "Wake-up/Reversal" invincibility forcefully breaks her ankle out of my grip, and with several backflips, Metius recovers her footing.

My thoughts accelerate even further. I can literally feel the caffeine in my system violently drying up. The exact moment her ankle left my hand, my body was already moving. Instantly closing the distance she just created with her backflips, I unleash a relentless rush of punches. She's trying to weather the storm with her guard, but... don't underestimate the Iai Fist Style.

"If there's a 12-frame gap, I can insert an attack...!"

A world and characters constructed purely out of data. But the ones controlling them are flesh-and-blood humans. It is fundamentally impossible to continuously output the absolute perfect, error-free optimal response against external impacts forever. A fray will inevitably appear. And striking that split-second gap is the true essence of the Iai Fist Style—a battle style that actually maintains a somewhat human shape in a fighting game infested with monsters! The ultimate out-of-bounds tactic that pierces through the biological instincts of the non-humans who discarded their humanity, forcibly binding them back into a "human shape"!

In the exact millisecond her guard wavers from the relentless impacts being hammered into her—the briefest instant a microscopic gap opens in the shield formed by her arms—my right hand slices through the air with a roar.

"Right there!!"

"Gahyu?!"

It's not a punch. It's not a kick. It's a piercing strike using five stiffened fingers—a Nukite—thrust straight into the gap in Metius's arms, forcefully prying it open. My fingertips stab into the throat of the wide-eyed, completely shocked Hero. The biological realization that her throat, a vital weak point, had just been pierced instantly paralyzes her body with instinctual stiffness.

"Drop... deaaaaaaaaaaad!!"

Yanking my right arm back, I tense my entire body and violently twist. Using only my right leg as an axis, I spin like a top, channeling every last ounce of energy in my soul into a devastating left roundhouse kick.

The absolute certainty of victory. Katzo, the tournament, everything completely vanishes from my mind as my thoughts sharpen exclusively onto this single strike.

But still... no, perhaps I should say as expected. Even with her HP shaved down to a mere 10% from my fierce assault, and even with her body paralyzed by an instinctual stiffness rather than a systemic stun... Yes, even in this absolute, checkmated, life-or-death millisecond, Sylvia Goldberg remained a "Pro Gamer."

"Don't underestimate meeeeeeee!!"

Ripping apart the chains of instinct binding her body through sheer rationality, Metius forcibly breaks out of the stun. With a scream practically oozing killing intent, she too enters a kicking stance. A normal kick lacks power. A roundhouse kick takes too much time. And so, the final strike she chose was... a high kick, launching her leg straight up to the absolute limit right where she stood.

Three seconds. Two seconds. One second............... Zero.

"Ugooh!!"

"Gufu!!"

Our kicks collide. The impact from her toes stabbing into my chest pierces through my pectorals, shaking my ribs and heart. My roundhouse kick, stabbing into her flank, bypasses her bones and inflicts direct damage to her internal organs. Several seconds of silence. The system processes the damage calculation, draining both of our HP bars... A few seconds that feel like several hours pass, and the result is finally output.

"Gu........."

All the strength drains from my body. This sensation of my vision blacking out is unmistakable proof that my HP has hit zero.

(To seize the post-initiative counter and flip the board from that situation... What are you, a monster...?)

I guess in the end, an amateur gamer really can't beat an undefeated Pro Gamer.

As my vision faded away, the last thing I saw of the victor was...

"Ah........."

It was the sight of her, strength completely leaving her body as she collapsed to the ground.

DOUBLE KO

What happens now?

Author's Afterword
He uses Cast Off, but the actual mechanics are more like Accel Form. [*1]

I really wanted to end this part on a clean break, so this chapter is a bit on the shorter side.

Translator's Notes

• *[1] Cast Off / Accel Form: Another Kamen Rider Kabuto reference. While Cursed Prison sheds his armor (Cast Off) like the titular Rider, the actual gameplay result (a massive, temporary speed boost with a strict time limit) functions exactly like Kabuto's "Accel Form" from Kamen Rider 555 (Faiz).