Chapter 61: Mysteries
’I wonder if someone’s already on the way...’ I’m definitely going to need help. I doubt I can take down the Nightmare on my own, even if I use molten metal to slow down her regeneration.
This whole fight is really just to buy time. Cecilia obviously saw the Nightmare through the communicator camera I left watching, so someone strong should be coming. But I can’t count on that too much if no one’s available.
"You know, I never asked—why are you so obsessed with hunting me? Let’s be honest, the fact that I beat you in the past shouldn’t be a reason, right?" I question as I grab a pipe from the ground.
’If I had a proper weapon suited for me... I really need to stop by the labs and find someone to make me a decent weapon.’ I try to buy time by talking to her.
"What’s strange about that?" Her question is kind of confusing. After all, I wasn’t the only one to defeat her. She lost to Zenith in the past, and even faster than she lost to me. She’s also lost a few other times to Kairas who were at the top.
For some weird reason, I’m the only one she became obsessed with hunting. The rest she just ignored the existence of. And I wasn’t even the first to defeat her—she’d already lost fights before and fled outside the island.
Even though she’s absurdly powerful, the fact that all the flesh she generates sends damage back to her means she takes a lot of damage from anyone with immense, powerful attacks.
"Are you trying to buy time?" She forms a bone whip and then lashes it in my direction. The whip extends, and when I dodge, it curves, grabbing my waist and tightening.
"!!!" I feel the tips cutting into my flesh, trying to anchor themselves. Before she can manage it, I grab the whip and pull with all my strength, yanking the Nightmare closer. I kick her chest, sinking her into the ground and bursting her thorax. With that, the whip loosens and I retreat a few steps, seeing that my vest has been pierced.
’Lucky the vest has so many layers...’ That was genuinely dangerous.
"Come on, I was talking. Are you really that much of a sore loser? You hate Zenith so much, so why do you target me more?"
"Why would I target a woman? And my greatest enemy, at that!?" She rises from the ground, stressed. She seems to be hatching some kind of plan. I stay cautious while subtly glancing to the side at my wristwatch.
’We’ve been in this fight for seven minutes now...’
"I don’t know. Why target me specifically? I wasn’t the only man to defeat you."
"And what would be the point of a man defeating me and me going after him?" Her confused answer leaves me even more confused.
’What? Then why the hell does she hunt me?’
"Why me? Out of the thirteen people who’ve defeated you, why am I the only target you go after specifically!?" It’s frustrating. Most of those fights weren’t recorded, and there isn’t much to learn from her because of the Mimicry. She always fights in different ways.
"..." She touches her own face, scratching her cheeks—another strange habit she has, usually shifting forms by touching her face.
’Does that make it faster or something?’ She returns to her "default" form, the one she always uses, while forming an exaggeratedly large axe in her hand. She points it at me as flesh is fired in a jet, coming in my direction.
"You’re like me, but also not... are you like me? You give off the same feeling as me, and that’s what matters. Zenith too, but I detest her. Her power is unpleasant." I barely dodge each jet of flesh and throw the steel bar in my hand at her, which she evades.
I take the moment to slip between the jets of flesh and close in. I slide on the ground to avoid a strike and grab a steel pipe, which I melt while making a swinging motion, sending the molten material splashing against her body.
She forms a flesh wall with several eyes to protect herself. The wall is relatively thin—she seems to have learned to handle the hot liquid better.
"Don’t you understand my love, Nadir? Is that what you’re trying to say? How can you not understand? Don’t you feel it too?" She seems much calmer about all this as she grabs my leg with flesh.
’I-I’m tired...’ I notice that around my eyes things are starting to look blurry, and my head feels hot. It seems like I’m getting overloaded from using my powers to melt metal so much.
"..." I let myself be captured as I look at my belt. I don’t have any explosives because I didn’t bring any, but there’s an explosive in my belt buckle. Zenith has always been paranoid about everything and everyone except me.
So she came up with a kind of improvised bomb that radars can’t detect, so I could always walk around with a bomb in my clothes. This bomb only explodes if its core receives direct heat at a very high level, so there was no risk of it going off unless I used it.
’Looks like Zenith’s paranoia served a purpose... it’s a good belt. Too bad I’ll lose it... Zenith’s going to rub it in my face that she was right...’ I didn’t want to use this belt because I thought it was kind of dangerous. Who’d have thought her paranoia would help me.
"You know, Nadir, I’m only holding back because your irritating heat power affects the whole environment. If it weren’t for that, I’d never need to restrain myself, and this whole place would already be an amalgam of flesh!!"
"But you’re an idiot!! Uh-huh, a real idiot. That metal woman probably could have already noticed my love!! I detest humans. I deeply detest all humans! They’re trash!!"
"...Do you really not feel it? Don’t you think we’re similar?"
’Is she trying to insult me?’
"...It’s strange that you don’t notice. Are you broken or something? I think if you left the island and looked, you might find it?"
’Find it? What the hell is this lunatic talking about...’ I feel like this conversation is taking a very disturbing turn.
"Forget it. If you don’t notice, it doesn’t matter. You’ll be my meal today." Her entire face begins to split open in the middle into a giant mouth with thousands of teeth. The mouth expands to have the capacity to swallow me whole.
’That’s enough. I bought less time than I hoped and didn’t find out much that’s useful.’ I quickly move my hand, grabbing my belt and throwing it into her mouth. I spin my body while heating the core in the belt. Using the heat, I cut the piece of flesh holding me and, quickly switching to the Moon State, I jump upward using the flesh as a springboard.
The lack of gravity’s effect on me allows me to go very high, leaving the explosion’s radius.
"NADIR!!!" The Nightmare screams my name, but before she can do anything, the belt overloads and explodes. The explosion is far bigger than I expected, completely blowing her body apart from the inside out, and the shockwave pushes me much higher.
"Z-Zenith is terrifying... I can’t believe I spent three years walking around with a bomb of this caliber on my belt."
"Nadir!! NADIR, NADIR, NADRI, NAIDR, NAIRD, NADIR, NDIAR, NRAID, NRIAD, ADNIR, ADNRI, ADINR, NADIR, AINDR, AIRDN, ANRID, ARDIN, NADIR, DIRAN, RANID, NADIR" Thousands of mouths sprout on the ground, screaming my name or strange distortions of it, as if she’s confused about how to say it correctly.
Flesh begins to grow at an alarming rate, trying to reach me up here. The amount of flesh becomes so great that it starts covering the block while thousands of mouths speak my name, correctly and incorrectly, and thousands of eyes stare at me with hatred.
"NADIIIRRRR!!" Before she can reach me, something suddenly grabs me and drops from the sky, bursting her body. I look at who arrived and see Astrid herself.
"Oh, Astrid. Great to see you," I say to her, and she has a look of disgust on her face.
"DON’T INTERRU—" Before the Nightmare can attack, her entire body is obliterated. Flesh explodes in all directions as Astrid uses [Chaos and Harmony]. It’s always a spectacle to see her power.
’The power of the Kaira who was once considered the strongest... truly terrifying...’
"..." A large portion of the flesh has been completely destroyed as she sets me on the ground. This shows the difference between people like me and Zenith, who are merely veterans, and a Kaira who was once at the top one.
’I was struggling so much, and she just obliterated her body without even using her hands for finer control of her powers...’
"..." I look at the ground and see a small lump of flesh with eyes and a mouth.
"I-It’s not over!! I-I haven’t been defeated, Nadir!! I-I’ll come back! I will come back!! I-I’ll always come back. I’ll kill you!! I’ll devour you!! I’ll kill all of humanity—" Astrid simply steps on the piece of flesh and crushes it, which almost makes me laugh.
"Haaa... this disgusting piece of trash never dies. It’s frustrating how she always gets away alive." Astrid sighs as she uses her powers to destroy all the flesh around. Even with her doing that, the Nightmare probably fled with the parts of her body that matter most.
"You did well to survive, Nadir... Nadir?" I collapse to the ground, having lost too much blood from the various wounds around my waist.
’The bone whip...’ Astrid quickly grabs me.
"I-It’s not a problematic wound, just intense bleeding from multiple injuries," I say, describing my injury so she takes me somewhere that can treat it.
"Honestly, it’s a good result that you only have this kind of wound. Most who fight her and make it out alive come out with their bodies shattered or limbs completely pulverized. She really likes you." She makes a joke about it, but it’s not funny at all. She realizes it and starts just carrying me in silence, flying.
’Flying... it would be really great to be able to fly...’ I just stay calm so as not to accelerate the bleeding, but I’m still pensive about the confusing things she said.
’Zenith would notice?... and she hates humanity, but she likes me and said we’re the same... what could we have in common that would separate me from "humanity" and that Zenith would also have...?’