Dare Poison Me, and I'll Kill You

At the center of the Human World, a giant screen in Gourmet Plaza was broadcasting the battle between the Four Heavenly Kings of Gourmet and the Four Beasts.

Thirty billion people were packed into this enormous plaza, staring without blinking at the scene on the screen.

In their eyes, this was the moment that would decide humanity's survival.

Just then, the Four Beasts on the broadcast suddenly burrowed into the ground.

Seeing this, the crowd immediately erupted in cheers.

"Did the Four Beasts run away?"

"Haha, we won."

"Long live the Four Heavenly Kings!"

However, the host on the broadcast quickly shattered their illusions, saying urgently, "The Four Beasts we just saw were actually four clones cultivated by the true Four Beasts. From beginning to end, there has only ever been one Four Beasts. Its true body may now be charging directly toward World Plaza. Please evacuate immediately."

At his words, the plaza fell silent for a moment before suddenly descending into chaos. Cries and screams rose to the heavens.

Setsuna stood atop a tall building at the edge of the plaza, watching the chaos below and shaking his head slightly. Even if it was for the evolution of all humanity, this organizational effort was far too crude. They had actually crammed so many people together. The stampede casualties alone would kill quite a few.

Setsuna leaped into the air and landed in the center of the plaza, smashing his right fist into the ground like a heavy hammer.

"Vast Anesthesia!"

In an instant, all thirty billion people in the plaza were knocked unconscious through Acupoint Striking.

If Jiro had used this move, every living creature on the entire planet would have been struck. Setsuna did not possess that level of strength and could only strike living beings within a certain area, and only those far weaker than himself.

Even so, the sight of thirty billion people being stunned in an instant was incredibly shocking—and easily misunderstood.

The IGO staff shouted furiously, "What are you doing?! Are you trying to kill them?!"

Setsuna said calmly, "Instead of wasting time saying that, you should hurry up and get everyone evacuated."

After all, he knew the plot. Even if humanity was eaten by the true Four Beasts, they would not die immediately. They only needed to defeat the Four Beasts in time and rescue them. But if they died in a stampede, they would truly be dead.

Setsuna smashed the ground apart with another punch, grabbed the true body of the Four Beasts just as it was about to burst from the earth, and hurled it far beyond the plaza.

Only then did the Four Beasts' true body finally reveal itself before everyone. It was an oversized Hulk-like monster, its body capable of shifting freely like clay.

The Four Beasts rose from the ruins it had crushed beneath itself and sprayed a massive amount of green mist into the sky.

The green mist rapidly spread, covering the entire central region of the Human World, before poisonous rain began to fall from it.

The host continued his live report. "What the true Four Beasts has released is Disease Rain. Without an antidote, humanity will perish within an hour. But please do not panic. Lord Yuda, the Food King, knows how to detoxify it. All of our outstanding chefs will surely assist Lord Yuda in saving the world."

"A chef who can't save the world isn't a qualified chef. As expected of the world of gourmet food." Setsuna complained weakly, frowning as he looked at the poison splashed across his clothes. "Seriously, don't you know poison is what I hate most?"

Setsuna shot toward the Four Beasts like a cannonball, and the colossal monster, thousands or tens of thousands of times larger than him, crashed to the ground.

Setsuna then threw hundreds of punches in an extremely short span of time. The ground cracked like a spiderweb, and the earth sank dozens of meters in an instant.

Yet after throwing more than a thousand consecutive punches, Setsuna discovered that the Four Beasts was smiling. It did not resist at all, as though mocking Setsuna for being too weak.

Seeing Setsuna pause, the Four Beasts stretched out a giant hand with a sinister grin. Its shadow covered an area hundreds of meters wide as it came crashing down with the force of Mount Tai collapsing overhead.

Setsuna instantly erupted with energy and turned into a golden streak, slipping through the gaps between its fingers in the blink of an eye. The ground where he had stood collapsed with a thunderous crash, and the shockwave sent up waves of stone a hundred meters high.

Before the dust had even settled, Setsuna had flashed above the Four Beasts' head. His right fist created a sonic boom as it struck down like a meteor, driving the Four Beasts into the earth once more with a dull boom.

"Tri-Beam!"

Setsuna crossed his hands into a diamond-shaped frame, firing concentrated beams continuously downward.

The thunderous blasts were endless, and the ground kept roaring and trembling as if struck by an eight-magnitude earthquake.

The Four Heavenly Kings, who had returned from four different directions, stared in shock. Someone had actually begun fighting the true Four Beasts before them.

"It's Setsuna." Toriko recognized Setsuna, who was beating the Four Beasts, at a glance.

"You know him?" Sunny asked.

"Yeah. When I ventured into the Gourmet World last time, Setsuna saved me and brought me back," Toriko said.

"As expected of him. He's gotten stronger again." Zebra's eyes burned with excitement.

"You know him too?" Coco asked in surprise.

"Yeah. I lost to him during the Hunter Exam." Zebra kept his eyes fixed on the battlefield. When he saw Setsuna, who had been crushing the Four Beasts, suddenly get sent flying, he hurriedly joined the fight. "Let's help too."

"Meteor Noise!" Zebra gathered sonic energy above the true body of the Four Beasts, and a meteor came crashing down.

However, the Four Beasts' body became like the surface of water and swallowed the meteor whole.

The next second, the meteor shot back out from its body.

Zebra had no time to dodge and was sent flying by his own attack.

The other three of the Four Heavenly Kings were all horrified. This monster could absorb energy attacks and reflect them back.

"Hair Fist!" Sunny twisted two hundred thousand strands of hair together into a giant's fist and brought it down like a hammer.

The Four Beasts did not budge. It sprayed out a stream of poison that spread along the hair, and Sunny screamed as he fell.

"Sunny!" Toriko rushed forward and caught Sunny, his brow furrowing tightly. Were physical attacks ineffective as well?

At that moment, Setsuna appeared before the four of them and said in a low voice, "The Four Beasts' body has a structure similar to slime. Ordinary physical attacks lose ninety-five percent of their force when they hit it."

The four of them all felt the situation was troublesome. Energy attacks would be reflected, physical attacks had their damage reduced by ninety-five percent, and judging from the poisonous mist this monster had released, ordinary poison-based attacks would probably be useless too.

Setsuna continued, "I'll take the lead in attacking. Try using the power of Appetite to influence it."

"You'll be the main attacker?" The four of them were somewhat surprised. Setsuna was indeed very strong, but hadn't he just said that purely physical attacks could hardly hurt the Four Beasts?

"Ordinary attacks have their force dispersed, so make the power penetrate into its interior instead. Destruction Anesthesia." Setsuna flew before the Four Beasts and struck its chest.

As though a steel needle had pierced its body, the Four Beasts, which had shown no reaction after being beaten for so long, finally roared and began crazily chasing Setsuna.

"So it works." The Four Heavenly Kings' eyes lit up, and they hurried forward.

The four of them simultaneously summoned their Gourmet Demons. Demon phantoms emerged behind them, grinning savagely as they locked down the Four Beasts. The demons drooled in a distinctly humanlike manner, seemingly discussing how to eat this prey.

The Four Beasts struggled continuously, and Setsuna took the opportunity to press forward, launching repeated attacks at the spot where he had driven in hidden force.

"Million Anesthesia."

Setsuna's fists moved so quickly that even afterimages could not be seen. Every punch drove the steel needles formed from gathered hidden force deeper into the Four Beasts' body, steadily closing in on its core.

The Four Beasts roared in despair, but it could not change reality. It could only witness its own death as its entire body finally exploded, turning into a massive mountain of flesh.