It was a foul, monstrous beast, massive and misshapen.
A hideous abuse of healing magic with an unnecessarily long name, it resembled a warrior clad in armor from the waist up while its lower half resembled a poisonous centipede covered in a steel carapace. It had two sets of arms and was shrouded in a poisonous-looking dark-purple mist.
After rising to its feet, the giant chimera—a humongous centipede warrior—reached the same eye level as the colossus. It had already seized Shroud in one of its hands, and now it began devouring the invisible creature.
“How’s that taste, Tsutsumi?”
Even after being converted into a power source for Psycho’s chimera, the interdimensional storage tank that was Tsutsumi remained as ravenous as ever. The others in the castle were struck dumb. They craned their necks upward and stared.
“Well, she’s gone and done it now. Whatever it is!”
“I wonder how I should say good-bye…”
Ada let out a dry little laugh, while Leela pictured Psycho on her way to the dungeons.
The giant centipede warrior began zipping down the main street, its body writhing. It collided with the colossus with a heavy punch. The shock wave swept through the people below.
The colossus was already crumbling, and it hadn’t even hurt anyone yet—although so far, Psycho and her warrior had only knocked off surface pieces of the colossus.
“Get ’em, Shogun! Keep it up!”
The centipede warrior carried on, punching the colossus again and again. But the colossus wasn’t just sitting there and taking it; it was punching back as well. Their blows connected, fist against fist, causing the entire city to shake.
The people all knew they were seeing something extraordinary, but there was nothing they could say as they watched these two kaiju battle it out across the city. The centipede and the colossus ignored the spectators, focusing on their fight.
“That’s it! Great shot, Shogun!”
At the end of the day, the colossus was just stone. One of its arms began to crumble.
“That’s it! Don’t let up now!”
But as the centipede continued to rain down blows, a new arm began to sprout where the old one had broken off.
“No fair, it’s regenerating!”
Psycho wasn’t ready for that. But even if it could regenerate, their opponent was also a product of magic. It couldn’t last forever.
“We’ll just have to keep punching it until there’s nothing left! Let’s show that thing who’s boss!”
The giant centipede warrior continued to pummel its opponent. However, no matter how many times the colossus’s arms broke, new ones always grew back.
“Damn, I think it’s sucking up more stone from the ground.”
At some point, the arms that had fallen earlier had disappeared. The colossus was made of stone and seemed able to reabsorb any stone it came into contact with.
“Dammit! We keep knocking it down, and it just keeps popping back up!”
The colossus was healing as quickly as they damaged it. And though the centipede warrior kept punching, it was also getting punched in return. Before long, one of Grand Centipede Shogun’s own arms snapped off, buckling under the force of the colossus’s blows.
“We’ve still got three left, though!”
But the colossus had more room to counterattack now. It began aiming for Psycho, who was perched atop the chimera’s head.
“Hey! Who said you could try to hit me, too?!”
“That’s what you get for sitting up there in the first place!” shouted Homura.
Homura! She had regained consciousness at some point and had just been carried up onto one of the nearby roofs by Jin. She was currently fricasseeing airman ants as they flew through the air.
“You shut up! I can’t control this thing unless I stay close!”
Psycho wasn’t just riding on the creature’s head for shits and giggles, after all.
“Oh, that’s good. I thought maybe you were just trying to look cool!”
“That too!”
“For Pete’s sake!”
She was only riding on the creature’s head half for shits and giggles!
“Is there any help coming?!”
“Seigrat and Ieskha are still down for the count!” Homura shouted back.
“I’ll take that as a no, then! At this rate, though…”
Things were looking grim. Just then, however, a cheer rose up nearby.
The citizens who had evacuated to the castle had been staring out the gate and windows in silence as they watched the fight between the two colossal creatures—whatever they were. A humongous rock puppet versus a hideous misshapen beast. No one could understand—or wanted to understand—what they were seeing.
The ground rumbled as the creatures traded blows. But a single child’s voice rose into the air, above the sound.
“That giant centipede—it’s protecting us…”
They had to admit, it seemed like the child was right. The colossus had been coming straight at them, but now that disgusting monster was holding it back.
“Don’t let them fool you! She just created a monster out of corpses! There’s no way humans can trust them!” the mean-spirited soldier shouted, but no one was interested anymore in what he had to say.
“Go get ’em, Human Centipede!” the child shouted.
Another child soon joined in. “Yeah, go get ’em! You can do it!”
Before long, the adults were cheering the hideous monster as well.
“D…don’t let them fool you… Sh-she’s…”
The soldier’s words were lost amid the cheers. No one could hear what he was saying.
“Soldiers, that giant centipede needs backup!”
The soldiers began focusing on striking down the smaller ants that had started to swarm around the centipede warrior.
The cheers rose up across Galdorssia, filling the ears of Psycho and Tsutsumi.
“Well, we can’t lose now, not when everyone is rooting for us!”
The massive centipede warrior redoubled its attacks.
“I’ll protect you, too, Psycho! I’ll give it everything I’ve got!”
Homura’s flames intensified. But this was only enough to get them back on an equal footing. And while the colossus could repair itself as soon as it was damaged, the damage to the chimera just continued to pile up.
“No amount of damage is going to get us anywhere. It’s gotta have a weak point somewhere…,” Psycho muttered as she directed the massive centipede warrior to keep pummeling away at the colossus. “Come on, Psycho, look harder…!”
The colossus was matching them blow for blow. But hold on…something seemed off.
“Hrm…?”
Psycho noticed a pattern in the way the colossus was swinging. It was protecting its chest!
The centipede had yet to land a single blow against the creature’s chest, but that was only because the colossus had been cleverly altering its stance. The reason they had been connecting fist against fist every time was that the colossus had been subtly shifting its position to control where the centipede’s blows landed. The flurry of blows had all been a smokescreen to keep them from noticing its weak spot.
“Hoh-hoh… For something this big to move, there must be someone inside controlling it. Or if not someone, at least a core. It makes perfect sense! The torso! Aim for the torso!”
With its three remaining arms, the massive centipede warrior began to stubbornly aim for the colossus’s chest, punching over and over again. The colossus tried to resist, but it was unable to keep up with this barrage as it had before. Eventually, one of the punches landed.
The punch wasn’t enough to obliterate the chest, but a momentary crack did appear. Light leaked from inside.
“Bingo! That must be the colossus’s core!”
However, the protection around the torso was solid, and they hadn’t even managed to expose it entirely. In fact, now that it was obvious that they were onto it, the colossus began sucking up even more stone to protect itself. The earth was steadily being dragged in, including some of the nearby houses.
“Dammit! Just when I figured out where to aim!”
Psycho ground her teeth together, realizing that she and Tsutsumi weren’t going to be strong enough to defeat this thing. But then Homura suddenly called up to her.
“Psycho, what’s wrong?!”
“Homura! It’s time you made yourself useful to me!”
“I’m happy to see you’re back to your usual self, but I don’t like the sound of that!”
The colossus punched off another one of the massive centipede warrior’s arms. It began to grapple with the centipede, tying up more of its limbs. The colossus seemed to be slightly stronger than the centipede warrior. The centipede was gradually losing ground.
“I need you to get in one good shot against the big guy! Lose control if you have to, I don’t care! We need help if we’re going reach the weak point inside its chest!”
The massive centipede warrior fought back with all its strength.
“But! B-but! That’s impossible! That thing is made of stone! How do you expect me to—?”
“Just do it, Homura! Now!”
They were beginning to lose ground again.
“What’s that supposed to mean, ‘one good shot’…?” Homura muttered in dismay. “But Psycho and Tsutsumi are in trouble. If I don’t step up…”
How was Homura supposed to change the course of battle with a single attack? That was asking for the impossible—
“Wait! My finishing blow…”
Homura remembered what Seigrat and Carlila had taught her. A powerful move to use against opponents when she knew she couldn’t miss. She had to focus her power into a single point.
She had failed once before, but this was no time to hesitate. It was for Psycho and Tsutsumi. She had to help them. She felt the fire well up inside her. She pictured the ultimate pinpoint destruction.
“No problem… I’ve seen this plenty of times.”
An ultimate attack. Manga and anime were full of all sorts of different finishing blows. But there was one finishing blow that showed up more than all the rest. She began to shout a spell in order to amp herself up, forming an image of ultimate strength in her mind.
“Flashfire! Annihilation!”
This time, she used all the magical power she could to control her flames.
“Homu…homu…”