Battles of Their Own (1)

Parasyte world.

During a United Nations video conference, while world leaders were gathered to discuss how to deal with mysterious supernatural entities, disaster descended upon the world without warning.

Faced with this sudden global catastrophe, the leaders no longer had the heart to continue discussing how to confront the supernatural. They left the meeting one after another to mobilize domestic forces for combat and rescue operations against the giant beasts.

At this moment, anyone in this world who turned on their television would find countless pieces of bad news following one after another:

"In the Gulf of Mexico, at 80 degrees west longitude and 26.1 degrees north latitude, a giant monster bird capable of controlling hurricanes is approaching the United States at a speed of 70-75 m/s. It is expected to make landfall on the east coast of Florida in 3 hours!"

"Rare, intense cooling in Norway; ice and snow beasts have made landfall!"

"A massive sandstorm has appeared in the Middle East, with suspected giant desert pythons emerging!"

"A drought demon has appeared in Africa, and several countries in Central Africa are suffering from an unprecedented drought!"

"Mount Vesuvius has erupted, and prehistoric dinosaurs are wreaking havoc!"

"Signs of a massive earthquake? The legendary Earthquake Catfish of the island nation has appeared!"

It seemed that in just a few short hours, the world had suddenly slid toward the abyss, standing on the edge of extinction.

But not long after, the bewildered and helpless people would discover that it wasn't all bad news.

Because at the very least, the will to survive that humans erupted with when facing disaster was astonishingly tenacious!

More importantly, while organizing battles and evacuations, humans discovered that there were actually superhumans among them!

That's right, those being regarded as supernatural beings descending to the world were none other than the Reincarnators. Humans speculated that the Reincarnators who had descended into this world were ace troops secretly cultivated by their respective governments!

After all, various film and television works had long speculated that their countries possessed all sorts of mysterious supernatural forces, such as clans, werewolves, vampires, biochemical troops, and so on.

Now that fantasy had bled into reality, we humans also had superhumans! Facing the monsters, we humans were not without a chance of winning!

Although the high-level human government officials did not know the origins of these Reincarnators, they all tacitly agreed not to confirm or deny these rumors, instead allowing them to spread. In the current situation, humanity desperately needed confidence!

In the Kanto region of the island nation, on the outskirts of Yokohama.

Doflamingo stood atop a high-rise building, watching the island nation's ground forces deploy.

In the mountain forest ahead, a massive catfish beast was traveling through the earth. Half of its fish back was exposed on the surface, while the other half of its body was magically concealed underground.

Its entire body moved as freely in the soil as it would in water. Wherever it passed, the land became a ruin as if an earthquake had occurred, and its two catfish whiskers swayed wantonly in the air; from a distance, it looked like a moving mountain.

"Open fire!"

The only forces the island nation's Self-Defense Force had on-site were infantry with high mobility, and they were only equipped with light firepower. As for the main combat units like armored divisions, they clearly could not arrive in a short time.

In the air, dozens of helicopters strafed the target, while on the ground, a phalanx of thousands of infantry conducted coordinated operations. Air and ground firepower covered the area in a crossfire, and a dense barrage of artillery mercilessly blanketed the area where the Earthquake Catfish was advancing.

However, human conventional weapons appeared so powerless when facing a Tier 3 supernatural giant beast.

Every shot that struck the Earthquake Catfish simply vanished, as if a clay ox had entered the sea!

Although large-caliber shells could explode upon its body, the Earthquake Catfish was a Calamity Beast—an avatar of natural disaster by nature, a special lifeform in an energy state, not a creature of flesh and blood.

If it were a creature of flesh and blood, even if it were larger, it might not have survived such concentrated human firepower.

But because it was a special form of Calamity Beast, absolute physical firepower from humans struggled to achieve results.

Doflamingo watched the human firepower and curled his lip in surprise.

"Very impressive firepower! It's a pity that pure physical strikes are meaningless against this kind of monster before they reach a qualitative change!"

Doflamingo looked up at the helicopters overhead, his eyes revealing an expression of interest. He did not act immediately, waiting until the island nation's military had exhausted all their offensive weapons before he leisurely used his Devil Fruit ability to walk through the air, arriving on the path of the giant catfish.

"Look, there's someone there!"

The military naturally spotted Doflamingo. Seeing his stance as if he intended to block the giant beast, and noting his three-meter height and his display of flight, they recognized him as a superhuman. Consequently, the military cautiously steered their fire away from him.

"A Tier 3 intermediate Calamity Beast, an avatar of earthquakes?"

Doflamingo grinned. "I'm getting excited now. A giant beast like this should be worth at least 2 Grade B side quests and tens of thousands of points."

"Fruit Awakening!"

Facing a Calamity Beast of the same tier, Doflamingo did not hold back and directly activated his Fruit Awakening ability.

The entire region surrounding the Calamity Beast completely transformed into a world of white threads.

The Earthquake Catfish, which had been manipulating the earth to advance, stopped for the first time. It discovered that it could no longer move forward by manipulating the ground! Before it lay a world composed of pure white threads, like an endless expanse of snow.

"Roar!"

The giant catfish let out a massive roar, and an invisible sound wave spread from its mouth.

Like a typhoon passing through, the intense noise and gale-force winds raged. The ground and buildings made of white threads shook violently, but they held firm and did not change.

The nearby military did not have such good luck. When the sound wave hit, everyone clutched their ears and collapsed in agony; many even had blood streaming uncontrollably from their ears.

[Excessive deaths of ordinary people will affect the mission rating.]

A cold notification echoed in Doflamingo's mind.

"What a pain. Is this what they call 'God has mercy on the world'?"

Doflamingo was noncommittal, but he did not stand idly by.

Doflamingo flicked his left index finger, and countless thin white threads fused with Haki to converge, forming a hemispherical shield that blocked the path directly in front of the ground troops.

"The weak truly have no control over their own deaths."

Doflamingo sighed, yet before he could offer any further insights, the giant catfish in the distance made another move.

The giant catfish, half-exposed above the ground, let out a strange cry before its massive body slowly descended, sinking into the earth and vanishing from sight!

Doflamingo's expression remained unchanged; his Observation Haki captured the giant beast approaching at an astonishing speed several kilometers beneath the surface!

"It's underground! Scatter! Everyone who doesn't want to die, get the hell away from this battlefield!"

Doflamingo roared at the troops below.

Fortunately, the Reincarnator Assistant had thoughtfully provided automatic language proficiency, allowing the ground troops to accurately receive Doflamingo's message.

After a brief discussion, the ground troops quickly assembled and evacuated in an orderly fashion.

However, the beast's terrifying speed did not grant them the luxury of a leisurely retreat.

Just as the Japan Ground Self-Defense Force was halfway through its evacuation, the giant beast already neared the surface and burst directly out of the ground!

"Damn it!"

Doflamingo stepped through the air to reach above the troops, his hands spreading wide as countless white threads surged out like a massive net, binding thousands of people and yanking them violently into the air.

At the same time, the ground beneath was shattered by a massive, chubby fish head. The giant catfish's blood-red maw snapped toward the crowd suspended by the white threads like a crocodile lunging at its prey!

"Ah!"

"Help!"

Even as soldiers, faced with such a bizarre and terrifying monster, their only recourse was to scream for help.

Though Doflamingo looked down on the weak, he would not let these people die in vain and jeopardize his mission.

He unleashed his Devil Fruit ability at full power, the white threads binding the crowd rapidly retracting to pull them into a city several kilometers away. Upon landing, he thoughtfully created a cushioning net to ensure the ordinary soldiers wouldn't be killed by the impact.

Simultaneously, countless white threads erupted from the ground, forming a massive white wave that surged toward the colossal catfish.

The giant catfish flicked its massive tail, and countless rocks and soil surged up, forming bullet-shaped polymers that counterattacked against the white wave!

"This beast actually knows how to learn!"

The Earthquake Catfish had clearly learned from the human artillery fire moments ago. Doflamingo dared not be careless, manipulating his fruit ability to consume the catfish's rocks.

Yet the giant catfish seemed tireless, continuously manipulating countless rock missiles to form an exaggerated barrier, wearing down his white threads.

Doflamingo's expression grew cold; he understood that a war of attrition like this would clearly be a loss.

Because the monster's manipulation of earth and stone seemed instinctive, while his own, though also instinctive, ultimately required stamina! Given the creature's size, he wasn't arrogant enough to think he could outlast it.

Doflamingo descended from the air to the ground and activated his ability. The white threads beneath his feet spread all the way toward the catfish, yet they could not advance or assimilate the ground within a hundred-meter radius of the beast. It was as if the catfish possessed a domain aura that allowed it to control the surrounding land.

The facts were indeed so; as the embodiment of the natural disaster of earthquakes, the Earthquake Catfish could not only manipulate vast amounts of soil and rock but also easily trigger earthquakes!

It was merely playing around with its nascent intelligence; if this monster were to get serious, it would be far more terrifying than it was now!

Unable to continue making headway with his fruit ability, Doflamingo stopped trying to assimilate the environment and unleashed a wide-range attack.

"Sea of White Waves!"

Except for the hundred-meter radius around the catfish, the entire ground transformed into an ocean of white threads. The catfish stood like a lone island in a white sea, facing the raging waves alone.

However, when the white threads surged onto the catfish's body, it remained unmoved.

As the threads grew denser and tightened, the Earthquake Catfish let out a massive cry—one that seemed to carry a hint of excitement.

Then, the giant catfish's entire body gave a strange, slight shudder. All the white threads covering it trembled in unison, the vibrations growing increasingly violent until every single thread was pulverized into dust!

"What is this?!"

The pupils behind Doflamingo's heart-shaped sunglasses contracted violently.

"This vibration... it's just like that man's Tremor-Tremor Fruit!"

Not only that, but the invisible shockwaves broke through the restraint of the threads and surged directly toward Doflamingo.

"Shield White!"

Countless white threads erupted from the ground, forming a massive shield to protect Doflamingo.

Under the assault of these bizarre seismic waves, the white shield shook violently, and even the ground where Doflamingo stood began to sway as if caught in an earthquake.

At this moment, the earthquake struck!

Under the impact of the catfish's seismic waves, the surrounding buildings and forests were caught within the radius of destruction.

In an instant, the earth shook and the mountains swayed; within a radius of several kilometers, the entire region was left in ruins!

Yet, after this wave of attacks, the Earthquake Catfish wiggled its body even more excitedly on the ground. With every movement, the earth shook more violently.

The land groaned, the ground split, and several massive fissures opened up, stretching for kilometers, nearly reaching the city of Yokohama not far away.

Just as another wave of seismic energy caused by the Earthquake Catfish's movements spread, destroying all buildings along its path while Doflamingo found himself helpless to stop it, the other Reincarnators descended!

As the seismic waves advanced, the ground suddenly surged upward, rising dozens of meters from the flat earth to form a small mountain!

"BOOM!"

The earth shook and the mountains swayed, the terrifying energy of the invisible seismic waves quickly rattling the peak until it teetered on the brink of collapse. Just then, a pair of palms pressed gently against the summit!

"Earth Style: Earth Core Rising!"

Soil and rock from a radius of several miles converged here in an endless stream, forming a mountain that grew without pause. At the same time, massive amounts of chakra plunged deep into the earth, forcibly neutralizing the terrifying seismic waves right there on the spot.

A big-nosed man clad in a red ninja combat suit, wearing the Iwagakure forehead protector, stood up while panting heavily.

The newcomer was none other than the Iwagakure elite jonin, Kitsuchi!

"Fufufufu, I wondered who it was. So it's you, the guy who plays with dirt!"

Doflamingo suppressed the rage in his heart; if it weren't for the fact that Reincarnators were forbidden from killing each other during a Reincarnation Mission, he would have already attacked him!

After all, the man before him was one of the primary culprits who had ruined his plan to usurp the country and caused him to be stripped of his title as one of the Seven Warlords of the Sea!

Kitsuchi crossed his arms, taking the opportunity to recover his chakra, and spoke calmly.

"Doflamingo, now that you have become a Reincarnator as well, surely you understand the importance of a Reincarnation Mission!"

"Fufufufu, otherwise, why do you think you're still standing in front of me right now?"

Kitsuchi wanted to say more, but he suddenly formed hand seals and pressed his palms down onto the ground. Utilizing the [Earth-Walking Bracers] on his wrists, he rapidly unleashed a powerful earth-style ninjutsu.

"Earth Style: Earth Mountain Technique!"

Countless rocks surged up from the land beside the Earthquake Catfish, forming two hemispheres hundreds of meters in diameter that slammed together, sandwiching the nearly hundred-meter-tall Earthquake Catfish like a cookie.

The moment the Earthquake Catfish was restrained, a figure wreathed in blue lightning appeared above it.

The person was enveloped in dazzling blue energy, appearing like a god of thunder descended to earth, holding the power of life and death, punishing evil and rewarding good, with thunder accompanying his every move! His right fist, carrying the momentum of a thunderbolt, slammed heavily into the head of the Earthquake Catfish.

In that instant, as the fist struck, wind and thunder roared!

"Heavy Flow Violence!"