VILLAIN'S RISING

In his hand, Phoenix created a small fireball. In the next moment, the small fireball in his hand exploded and a blinding light flashed.

-Bang!

“Run! He’s blind right now!” Phoenix shouted.

He had no plans of fighting the monster, he wasn’t sure he would win against him even at his full power.

But before Phoenix could even take a step to make his escape, the burly black man landed in front of him. Forming a small crater on the spot he landed.

“Ahh, man!” Phoenix expressed his disappointment.

“Out of the way!” From his back, Miss Atom yelled.

Hearing her warning, Phoenix ducked down and a light beam went past him, hitting the burly man in the chest and sending him flying a few steps back.

“What was that?!” Phoenix yelled.

“That was me saving your ass!” Miss Atom yelled back.

Before they could indulge themselves in a pointless argument, Iroha teleported in the middle and stopped them.

“Stop it you two! He’s not dead!” She said while pointing at their attacker.

Looking at him, Iroha eyed the burly man. He was looking more like a monster with those black horns on his head and glowing red eyes.

He was topless, exposing his huge monstrous muscles to the world and he had white hair, contrasting his black skin. Not to mention his towering height, which was at least above 7 feet.

His body was oozing off a deadly aura. His whole presence resembled that of a beast. He was eyeing the three Heroes in front of him like an apex predator eyes his prey, waiting for them to make a mistake._.

“Couldn’t you just have disrupted his atomic structure or whatever?!” Phoenix confronted Miss Atom.

“I did! I don’t know how he’s alive! It’s like my ability didn’t work on him!” Miss Atom replied, visibly confused.

“It’s fine, let me just get us out of here.” Putting her hand on Phoenix and Miss Atom’s shoulders, Iroha spoke.

She was intending to teleport them away from this monstrosity. No way they can’t fight him if even Miss Atom’s atomic disruption didn’t work on him.

Before she could activate her ability, however, the gorilla of a man blinked out of existence and appeared in front of them. He covered a few meters distance between them in the blink of an eye.

Before anyone of them could react, he threw a punch at Iroha and sent her flying a few feets back. Then he grabbed Miss Atom by the neck and lifted her body.

“Oye! Leave her alone!” Phoenix raged. In his hand, he created a fireball and hit him in the face with it.

-Boom!

The fireball exploded in his face. But Phoenix knew that wasn’t enough to put that monster down. When the smoke from the explosion cleared from his face, Phoenix was left stunned.

The monster had not even a scratch on his face. Yes, Phoenix expected his fireball to not kill him, but it didn’t even make a scratch?! What kind of a monster is this man?!

Widening his eyes, Phoenix created another fireball in his hand. But before he could hit him with it, the monster just swung his huge hand and hit Phoenix like he was hitting a bug.

The momentum and the force behind the swing were still great enough to send Phoenix flying a few meters to the side.

“Yo-Yo…” Miss Atom tried to utter something but her words failed to come out of her mouth.

She gritted her teeth and willed all her strength before speaking: “FUCK YOU!”

As if waiting for that cue, the man tightened his grip around her neck and strangled her.

But not even a second passed before a body disappeared and reappeared beside Iroha, who was barely standing on her feet after taking that last hit.

“Haaa! Haaa!” Placing a hand on her chest, Miss Atom desperately panted for air.

“Are you okay, Atom?” Iroha, who herself was in a bad condition, asked.

“Haa! F-Fine… I’m fine!” Straightening her back, Atom replied.

“Where’s Phoenix?” Iroha inquired.

Pointing at the direction where Phoenix’s body was sent flying, Miss Atom replied: “Somewhere around there.”

“Tsk,” clicking her tongue, Iroha expressed her frustration. “That thing won’t let me teleport and even if I try, Phoenix will be left behind.”

‘That thing’ was indeed planning to not let Iroha use her teleportation. Teleporting long distance would take up a few seconds at best and a few seconds was all that the monstrous man needed to stop her.

In the distance, a boy with black hair was sitting on top of a tree branch and watching the fight unfold.

“What will they do now?” Sam, enjoying the battle, questioned.

(More like what can they do now? Iroha wouldn’t teleport without Phoenix and Atom’s ability isn’t working on Albert. No matter how you look at it, Albert has already won)

That deduction was indeed correct. Teleportation wasn’t fast enough and Atom’s ability wasn’t working on him, Albert has indeed won.

“I didn’t know that our first experiment would be this much of a success.” Sam commented. “Not only was his transformation time reduced by ten folds but he’s a lot stronger than any other normal Demons. In fact, I think he can go toe to toe against Anthony. There’s just one downfall, he didn’t retain his intelligence.”

(Intelligence doesn’t matter. Look, he’s giving them a run for their money by just fighting them with his instincts. Now all that’s left is to actually test him on a Willburn!)

Nodding to that statement, Sam ordered: “Albert, finish them. The play’s over. You’ve got a Willburn to fight with next.”

Albert, who was carefully analyzing his opponents’ movements up until now, nodded.

“Yes… Sire…” he spoke in a monotonous tone.

“What did he say?” Tilting her head, Atom questioned.

“Dunno-” but before Iroha could reply to her question, she saw the monster in front of her widening his mouth.

Albert’s mouth started glowing red along with his eyes.

“What’s he doing?” Panic-stricken, Atom questioned again.

“He’s using the same laser attack!” Iroha yelled.

As if he was waiting for that line, laser shot out from Albert’s glowing red eyes and mouth.

But before it could hit any of them, Miss Atom created an atomic barrier in front of Iroha and herself. Although, the heat from the attack was still too much for them to endure.

“I don’t think I could stop it for much longer!” Atom reported.

“Now you’ve done it!” Iroha took out a pair of throwing knives from the pocket of the pantsuit she was wearing and teleported them all away.

The knives disappeared before hitting in Albert’s eyes one each out of thin air. The laser beam he was shooting stopped instantly.

Iroha didn’t stop there. She took out another knife and said: “I’m going to swap this knife with his heart. Keep him from moving for 5 seconds!”

Before Atom could even nod at her words, out of nowhere a huge fireball came flying and hit Albert, who was already blind by this point.

-Boom!

Without giving him a chance to recover, Phoenix rushed at the monster of a man with another fireball in his hand.

Albert, however, sensed the incoming attacker and opened his mouth to shoot another laser beam at Phoenix.

The beam hit him before Phoenix could even get a chance to react and his body dissipated into the fire.

But out of nowhere, around a dozen of more Phoenix came out of the woods, rushing at Albert with a fireball in their hand.

“Fire clones?” Astonished, Miss Atom spoke. But she shook out of her daze in the next moment and readied herself.

-BOOM!

-BOOM!

-KABOOM!

Dozens of fireballs hit Albert and all the Phoenix disappeared into flames with only one true Phoenix remaining.

“Out of the way!” Miss Atom yelled again, and a pink-colored atomic barrier was created around Albert, who was down on his knees by this point.

Seizing the moment, Iroha activated her ability. Within moments, the knife in her hand blinked out of existence and was replaced by a beating heart. That heart belonged to Albert.

Not even a groan escaped Albert’s mouth when the atomic barrier around him vanished and he fell to the ground, lifeless.

“Is it over?” Phoenix asked, looking at Iroha, hoping for a positive response.

Iroha, however, didn’t say anything and just lifted her hand to show the heart in her grip, which had stopped beating by now, to Phoenix before muttering: “Yes, it’s over.”

“Finally!” Hearing that, Miss Atom’s knees gave up and she fell back first onto the ground.

She had never faced death up so close. Usually, her fights end by disrupting her opponent’s atomic structure and rendering them unable to fight or dead for the count.

This was the first time that she had fought so hard and even used her power creatively.

“Th-Thank you, Phoenix.” With blushing cheeks, Atom called out to Phoenix. “You were actually amazing today.”

“Don’t worry about that.” Phoenix replied with a charming smile.

He stretched his hand for Miss Atom to take. But before the pink-haired girl could take it to get herself up off the ground, a red light entered her peripheral vision.

However, the poor girl didn’t even get a chance to react to it before her body was hit by a wide-range huge laser attack.

Phoenix could only widen his eyes while watching his friend’s body dissipate into nothingness when hit by that massive laser beam.

“N-No…” that’s all he could mutter before a monotonous voice fell in his ears.

“Two down two to go.”