Chapter 53

Chapter 53: Chapter 53

He moved through the clones like a living blender, each movement destroying his own body, each injury healing instantly, each attack pulverizing a clone into nothingness.

The real Vegeta watched from outside the melee, horror growing in his chest. This wasn’t a battle. This was a monster that couldn’t be stopped, couldn’t be hurt, couldn’t be killed by any conventional means.

Within thirty seconds, all fifty clones were destroyed.

Satou stood in the center of the carnage, his body covered in his own blood, his clothes hanging in tatters, his skin unmarked despite having been torn apart dozens of times.

He turned his crimson eyes toward the real Vegeta.

"Oh shit," Vegeta whispered.

BOOM!

Satou appeared directly in front of him. Vegeta hadn’t even seen him move. One moment he was twenty feet away, the next he was within arm’s reach.

Satou’s hand shot forward, grabbing Vegeta by the face. His fingers wrapped around the hero’s skull, his grip like an iron vice.

"Wait!" Vegeta’s voice was muffled by the hand covering his mouth. "Wmphf mph—"

Satou lifted him off the ground and slammed him down.

BOOM!

The impact cratered the earth, a depression fifteen feet wide forming instantly. Vegeta’s spine compressed, vertebrae cracking from the force. His head bounced off the ground hard enough to split his scalp open, blood pouring from the wound.

Satou lifted him and slammed him again.

BOOM!

And again. BOOM!

And again. BOOM!

Each impact drove Vegeta deeper into the earth, each one breaking more bones, each one driving consciousness closer to the edge of oblivion.

Finally, Satou threw him.

Vegeta’s body tumbled through the air like a broken doll, crashing through the remains of buildings, bouncing off the ground, rolling to a stop near the forest edge.

He lay there, gasping, every breath agony. His Hero’s Blessing was healing him, but too slowly. Broken ribs were knitting back together at a glacial pace. Internal bleeding stopped but the damage remained.

Through blurred vision, he saw Satou walking toward him. That same measured pace. That same inevitable advance.

"Please," Vegeta coughed, blood spraying from his lips. "Please, wait. We can... we can talk about this!"

Satou grabbed him by the ankle.

"No, wait, I was just—AHHH!"

Satou swung him like a club, smashing him into the ground on his left. BOOM!

Then his right. BOOM! Then overhead and down. BOOM!

He swung Vegeta in a circle, building momentum, then released.

Vegeta flew across the settlement, his body spinning end over end, before crashing into what remained of the central building. The structure collapsed completely, burying him under tons of debris.

For a moment, there was silence.

Then the debris exploded outward as Vegeta burst free, shadows swirling around him in a tornado of darkness. His face was a mask of blood and fury and terror.

"ENOUGH!" he screamed, his voice breaking with desperation. "Shadow Dominion: Total Eclipse!"

The sky went dark.

Not from clouds or smoke, but from pure shadow. An artificial night fell over the settlement as Vegeta unleashed his ultimate technique, the one that had killed the Demon Duke Margoth, the attack that had made him legendary.

Every shadow in a hundred-foot radius rose up simultaneously, forming into a massive construct shaped like a dragon made of pure darkness. It was fifty feet long, with wings that blotted out what little light remained, eyes that glowed with malevolent intelligence.

"This technique has killed demon lords!" Vegeta shouted, blood streaming from his nose and ears from the strain of maintaining such a massive construct.

"Let’s see you regenerate from being completely obliterated!"

The shadow dragon opened its jaws and roared, a sound that shook the very air.

Then it dove toward Satou, its mouth wide enough to swallow him whole.

Satou didn’t move. Didn’t dodge. He simply stood there, watching the massive construct descend.

At the last second, his fist moved.

BOOM!

The punch connected with the dragon’s nose.

The construct’s head snapped backward from the impact. Cracks spread from the point of contact, fractures racing across its shadow form like lightning.

Then the entire dragon shattered.

Fifty feet of concentrated shadow magic, the culmination of years of training, the technique that had killed a demon lord, destroyed by a single punch.

The backlash hit Vegeta like a physical blow. Blood exploded from his mouth, nose, and ears. His eyes rolled back briefly as his brain tried to process what had just happened.

"That’s... that’s not possible..." he whispered. "Nothing... nothing should be able to..."

Satou appeared beside him.

His punch caught Vegeta in the stomach. BOOM!

Something ruptured internally. Vegeta felt his organs compress, felt something vital give way. He doubled over, vomiting blood, his body trying to fold in half from the pain.

Another punch, this time to his face.

BOOM!

Vegeta’s nose shattered completely, the bone fragments driven back into his skull. Several teeth flew from his mouth, trailing blood. His jaw broke in three places.

A knee to the chest. BOOM!

More ribs cracked. One punctured his lung. He couldn’t breathe, couldn’t scream, could only gasp and choke on his own blood.

Satou’s left hand was destroyed by his own attacks, every bone pulverized. The right shoulder dislocated from the force of his punches, the ball joint separating from the socket.

His spine compressed from the explosive movements, vertebrae grinding against each other. His heart strained dangerously, pushed beyond its limits trying to pump blood fast enough to fuel this level of exertion.

Everything healed instantly.

The cost didn’t matter. The pain didn’t register. There was only the target.

Vegeta hit the ground and tried desperately to sink into his shadow, to escape into the Shadow Realm where he’d be safe, where he could heal and plan and come back stronger.

Satou’s hand shot down and grabbed him by the ankle, yanking him back up before the technique could fully activate.

"No! No, you can’t!" Vegeta’s voice rose to a scream, the sound raw and primal. For the first time in five years, the Shadow Hero felt genuine, bone-deep terror. "I’m a hero! I’m blessed by gods! You can’t kill me! It’s not possible for a monster to kill a hero!"

Satou pulled him close, their faces inches apart. Vegeta stared into those burning crimson eyes and saw absolutely nothing human looking back. No reason. No mercy. No recognition of him as a person.

Just rage. Pure, crystallized, unstoppable wrath.

"Monster," Vegeta whispered, the word half prayer, half curse.

Satou’s free hand grabbed Vegeta’s right arm at the wrist. His grip tightened.

"Wait, what are you doing? What are you—NO! NO, DON’T—"

CRACK!

Satou ripped Vegeta’s arm off at the shoulder.

The scream that tore from Vegeta’s throat was inhuman, a sound that no human vocal cords should be able to produce. It echoed across the entire forest, sent birds fleeing from trees miles away, made every creature within hearing distance freeze in primal fear.

Blood sprayed from the wound in arterial spurts, painting the ground, the rubble, Satou’s face. The shoulder socket was a mangled mess of torn muscle and shattered bone, the arm held on only by strips of skin before Satou’s strength tore through even those.

Vegeta stared at his severed arm, still held in Satou’s grip, his mind refusing to process what had just happened. His arm. His arm was gone. Ripped off like he was a doll in the hands of a child.

"My arm," he whispered, shock setting in. "You... you took my arm..."

Satou tossed the severed limb aside like garbage. It hit the ground with a wet slap, fingers twitching reflexively.

"NO!" Vegeta’s other hand shot to his shoulder, trying futilely to stop the bleeding. "Give it back! Give it back! I need it! Please!"

Satou grabbed him by the throat with his other hand, lifting him off the ground.

"Please!" Vegeta sobbed, all traces of his earlier arrogance gone, replaced by raw terror and agony. Tears mixed with blood on his face, snot running from his broken nose. "Please, I’m sorry! I’m sorry for everything! For the village! For your people! For the kid! I’m sorry!"

His remaining hand clawed at Satou’s arm, fingernails breaking as he tried

desperately to pry the grip loose. "Just let me live! I’ll do anything! I’ll tell the other heroes to leave you alone! I’ll say I never found you!"

The shadows around him tried one last desperate attack, tendrils stabbing toward Satou’s eyes, his throat, his heart, anywhere vulnerable. They were weaker now, lacking the strength they’d had at the battle’s start, but still deadly to anyone else.

Satou didn’t even flinch. The shadows struck the crimson aura surrounding him and recoiled as if burned, unable to penetrate the overwhelming presence of destruction.

"I have money!" Vegeta screamed, his voice cracking, breaking, becoming something barely recognizable as human. "So much money! Gold! Artifacts! Magic items! I can give you everything! Power! I can make you a hero too! The other heroes will listen to me! I have connections!"