"Damn... Why did I end up in a place like this again?!"
He was a white man with a head of messy curly hair. Bare-chested, he wore only an absurdly oversized pair of tattered pants and no shoes.
If he looked this disheveled in the slums of some country, it would have been understandable.
But this was deep within the Amazon Rainforest, a "forbidden zone for humanity." For an ordinary man who was reasonably fit but clearly scholarly to appear here like this, he had to be tired of living.
"First, I need to find water..."
The man took a deep breath. Though his expression was weary, he showed little anxiety, as if this was not the first time he had encountered such a situation.
He slowly exhaled and carefully listened for the sound of flowing water. Though the Amazon River hid terrifying piranhas, Caimans, anacondas, and other dangers, he did not seem worried.
After the weariness on his unshaven face faded, it was replaced by an indifferent expression that bordered on coldness.
He simply did not care whether he could make it out of the rainforest alive.
No, it was not that he wished to die.
It was that, in his eyes, the dangers of the rainforest were not worth mentioning.
Intense confidence and immense frustration seemed intertwined in the silhouette of his trudging back.
"Rustle..."
Bruce Banner stopped walking.
He held up his pants with one hand and gripped a thick branch for probing the way with the other. Hearing the sound, he gave a bitter smile and shook his head.
"So soon this time... I was clearly not far from the river."
Dense vines hung from the massive ancient tree diagonally ahead of Banner, and several of the thickest ones were slowly slithering toward him...
It was a gigantic anaconda, thicker than his thigh!
This place was already close to the riverbank, and such an environment was exactly what the anaconda, known as the "King of the Swamp," loved.
Still, it was Banner's first time encountering one this thick.
"Roar..."
A low growl sounded. Banner frowned. There was an anaconda ahead, and now a jaguar had appeared behind him?
The two apex predators of the Amazon Rainforest's food chain had both turned up at once. It looked like things were about to get wild again.
"Thump, thump, thump..."
His heartbeat gradually accelerated. Banner clutched his chest tightly and took a deep breath.
"No... Wait a little longer. I need to reach the river so I can follow it to a human settlement..."
This was not the first time Banner had found himself in such a situation. He pressed his lips together and prepared to ignore the threat behind him and continue toward the river—but he had clearly underestimated how appetizing he looked.
The jaguar seemed enraged by being ignored. If that stinking long worm got to the creature in front of it first, one that looked like it would not even take much effort to tear apart, would that not be a terrible loss?
So it launched its attack without hesitation!
In the next instant, amid an earth-shaking roar, the king of the Amazon Rainforest and apex predator of the food chain, the jaguar, flew backward like a rag doll.
Before it could even cry out, the poor creature was struck in the chest by a massive green fist, every one of its ribs shattered.
Blood sprayed from its mouth, and it promptly passed out.
"Roar—!!!"
Hulk punched the jaguar away, then immediately reached for the anaconda, which was frantically trying to escape.
"Hiss—ha!!"
The anaconda wailed in agony. When had it ever seen a two-legged creature that treated a king of the rainforest like a whip?!
Boom!!
Hulk wildly lashed the vines and tree trunks ahead with the anaconda-whip. Under that terrifying strength, the spine of the enormous six-meter-long snake came apart.
But suddenly, Hulk stopped swinging.
He tossed the nearly dead anaconda aside like garbage, then turned and warily looked toward an open patch beside a clump of bushes.
There was nothing there, but Hulk's feral instincts told him that something was there!
And... it could threaten him!
A few seconds later, Hulk grew impatient. He stepped forward sharply and slammed his hands together!
Boom—!!
The violent blast of air plowed through the clearing, and the invisible thing finally revealed its true form...
"Shit! That move is way too unfair!"
Oaks was nearly blown away by the air pressure from Hulk's clap. Only several tangled roots wrapping around his limbs managed to anchor him in place.
But there was no way he could stay hidden now. They were already fighting.
Seeing another big cat, Hulk snorted and threw a punch as he charged forward!
Perhaps Banner would have wondered why a cheetah, which should have lived on the grasslands, was in the tropical rainforest, but Hulk did not care about that.
Yet in the next instant, his green eyes widened.
Boom—!!
A massive bear paw crashed fiercely into his fist, and the resulting blast of air instantly cleared out a patch of ground!
"Now that's got some power..."
A fierce gleam flashed through Oaks's eyes. After lying low for all these years, he also wanted to see just how strong he could become in the Amazon Rainforest, a place that could practically be called his home turf!
And the legendary powerhouse before him, the Hulk, was the best possible touchstone!
Oaks's bear form was the largest bear on Earth—the Kodiak Brown Bear.
But unlike a real Kodiak Brown Bear, which could grow only a little over three meters long and weigh one ton, Oaks's bear form, bolstered by Nature Force, reached an astonishing four meters and weighed two tons!
In this state, Oaks and Hulk were practically built from the same mold.
The same incredible defense, the same overwhelming strength, the same feral instincts, the same potential for growth—
The more they were beaten, the greater their anger became.
And the greater their anger, the stronger their combat power became.
Thus, in the heart of the Amazon Rainforest, the two colossal creatures began a contest of raw, primal strength!
Hulk's fists struck with the force of artillery shells, and he occasionally used tree trunks and rocks as weapons.
Though Oaks's bear form could not wield weapons, his claws, strengthened by Nature Force, were the most powerful weapons of all!
His fur, hardened like steel under the enhancement of Nature Force, made Hulk feel as though he were striking a board covered in nails!
Hulk could rapidly enter and leave the battlefield with his incredible jumping power, while Oaks could launch a charge at any time to interrupt Hulk's powerful attacks before they could build momentum!
In terms of attack power, Oaks was clearly inferior to Hulk, but in defense and evasive ability, he surpassed him.
Combined with the use of Nature Magic—vines that bound and stunned, short-term defensive enhancements, special roars that shook the opponent's mind and weakened their attacks...
The green humanoid beast and the brown beast-like human poured their blazing fury upon one another.
Hulk's stamina was practically limitless, while Oaks could restore his own stamina through rage. This battle was utterly exhilarating!
Day passed, night fell, and then the morning sun rose again. In the blink of an eye, this unparalleled battle of savagery had lasted nearly a full day and night!
The rainforest within a kilometer had been utterly destroyed. From high above, the place where they had fought looked as though it had been plowed over by main battle tank artillery!
With no rainforest canopy left to block it, the morning sunlight awakened the two monsters with nearly limitless strength and endurance—they had fought until they had forgotten everything else.
The rainforest's ancient kings and apex predators of the food chain had long since fled for their lives.
For many years to come, this patch of forest would remain an inescapable nightmare for them.
Bathed in the morning sun, two figures brimming with feral power stood silently facing each other. For a moment, the very air seemed on the verge of freezing.
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