I want to become a Kamen Rider

He staggered as he ran, first discarding his crutches and tearing off his bandages, then using both hands and feet to climb to the top of the rubble. The disheveled boy stood there, gazing into the distance at the once-prosperous city and the culprits on the other side.

There were no grand pronouncements, no dramatic embellishments. Only a resolute calm that reached its utmost.

He raised his arms.

A second crack appeared on the spirit stone at her waist.

Throw your punches at the darkness before you, at the fate of destruction.

"But I think it's never wrong that many people are saved."

Chapter Ninety-Nine: Shattered [4K]

The evacuation of the Tokyo metropolitan area is largely complete.

The final evacuation alarms had long since ceased. The once bustling and vibrant urban core was now as if wiped clean by a giant hand, leaving only the outline of a vast and empty graveyard sketched out by broken walls and ruins.

The glass curtain walls of skyscrapers reflected ominous firelight, and the acrid smoke and radioactive dust replaced the warmth of human life.

Whether it's Kuuga or the behemoth, a stage has been set up where they can put their skills to good use.

However, Kuuga, who has long dominated all enemies with an attitude of entitlement, is about to fight a battle that is not of equal value.

It's no longer about the unequal relationship between him and the monster, but rather the unequal relationship between him and Godzilla.

"Drink——!"

Crimson flames gathered in the warrior's hand and took shape in an instant. The air was distorted and torn apart by the extreme heat. A flaming spear, forged from pure flames and a hundred meters long, carrying the will to burn everything, tore through the dark sky and pierced through Godzilla's massive body like a spear of judgment.

“Roar, ahh ...

The behemoth let out a deafening howl, its massive body staggered as the penetrating force struck it. Yet, this strike, powerful enough to pierce mountains and evaporate lakes, brought only... a wail.

Crimson flames, powerful enough to melt steel and vaporize rock, scorched and spread wildly across the beast's hide, instantly turning any reinforced concrete it touched into a stream of molten lava.

Immediately following, amidst a teeth-grinding sizzle and rising scorching steam, the flesh molten by the intense heat at the edge of Godzilla's pierced wound began to writhe and proliferate at a terrifying speed visible to the naked eye. Layer upon layer of thick, metallic scales, clearly resistant to high temperatures and with a structure so complex it was chilling, spread and covered the wound as if they were living things.

The scales cooled and hardened rapidly under the scorching flames, their color changing from dark red to deep purple, emanating an aura that was even more resilient and ominous than before.

The reality of fighting for your life is far from that of a turn-based game.

Almost at the same moment Kuuga swung his flaming spear, Godzilla's cold, beastly eyes locked onto the tiny black figure.

Its dorsal fins, standing like towering swords on its back, suddenly blazed with a blinding purple light. Having reached the fifth stage, it no longer needed recharging; energy surged wildly, and the air crackled and popped due to ionization. That was an "atomic breath" that swept across three major districts of Tokyo in one go, turning everything into plasma dust.

People are used to measuring power by the area of ​​destruction, but they forget that light can be compressed to its extreme.

A single, deep purple dot, so intense it seemed to devour all colors, coalesced and took shape in front of Godzilla's open mouth. The next moment—

Buzz—!

A purple, destructive glow bloomed in the long night, illuminating half the sky.

The flaming spear, swung once more, collided with the atomic breath. Purple light and crimson flames intertwined, and a terrifying shockwave from the explosion slammed in all directions like an invisible giant hammer.

The already crumbling high-rise buildings collapsed and shattered like dominoes. The ground at the explosion's epicenter was scraped away to a depth of tens of meters, creating a massive, molten, vitrified crater. Wherever the shockwave swept, all structures below the impact surface were sliced ​​in half by an invisible giant blade, turning to dust.

The ancient warrior took a slight step back in the aftershocks of the energy blast, his deep voice carrying a hint of weary complaint, piercing through the roar of the explosion:

"As expected, no matter how many times I complain, this is an opponent that should be dealt with by the Giant of Light."

His crimson compound eyes were fixed on the giant beast's figure that had risen again from the smoke and dust.

As soon as he finished speaking, his figure vanished from the spot. Space seemed to fold, and the next second, he appeared atop a ruin several kilometers behind Godzilla.

Without the slightest pause, twist your waist, gather your strength, and throw a punch!

It was not an energy attack, but a pure physical strike mixed with sealing energy.

"boom--!!"

The air was compressed to its limit and then exploded, producing a deafening sonic boom. A visible shockwave, distorting the air, like an invisible battering sledgehammer, traversed space and slammed into Godzilla's relatively vulnerable side.

"Bam—!!"

With a deafening roar, Godzilla's massive body was slightly shifted to the side by the punch.

The ground beneath its feet shattered and collapsed like a fragile biscuit. Centered on the point where the fist landed, the ground within a radius of several kilometers resembled a lake surface tossed with a giant rock, unleashing a terrifying wave of earth, tens of meters high, mixed with rubble and debris, that spread and crushed outwards in a frenzied manner.

Wherever they went, all the remaining low-rise buildings were completely leveled.

Then, this punch, powerful enough to destroy mountains, merely left a dent on Godzilla's ever-evolving body that quickly faded and began to be covered by new tissue.

Even more despairingly, the moment Kuuga withdrew his fist, the skin and muscle tissue at the point where Godzilla had been struck began to writhe wildly once more. To Kuuga's disbelief, a pair of nascent forelimbs, covered in purplish-black scales and bulging with muscles, began to grow at a visible speed from the body of the behemoth that had previously only possessed thick hind limbs, near the point of impact.

It is not only evolving its defenses, but also mimicking the attack patterns of its opponents, evolving corresponding limb structures!

To be fair, Fan Kang has experience fighting Godzilla. In fact, he personally defeated the stronger first and second-level subspecies of Godzilla with a much weaker fake body than he is now.

However, the behemoth before him might be a different concept from the Godzilla he understood and knew.

A terrifying purple atomic breath, unparalleled physical defense and regeneration speed, and... that despair-inducing, targeted evolutionary ability.

It's not that being able to evolve is so amazing; there are plenty of weirdos who can evolve. But to evolve in time during battle and react in minutes and seconds, the word "evolution" is actually not quite right anymore. It's just that he couldn't find a better way to express it for the time being.

He originally thought he would only collapse when he saw the dream that Hiiragi Tina saw, but at this moment, he truly felt the difference brought about by the scale.

The future has indeed changed, but in a much worse direction.

"call……"

He took a deep breath, forcefully suppressing his surging blood and the mournful cries of the spirit stone. He knelt on one knee, slamming his bloodied right palm heavily onto the ground!

"Zila——!!"

There was no chill, only a stillness and freeze at the molecular level. Centered on his palm, the crystal-clear ice spread wildly like a plague. In the blink of an eye, it froze Godzilla's massive lower body along with the ruins several kilometers around it.

A massive, gleaming iceberg appeared out of nowhere, swallowing and imprisoning the giant beast.

Then, this freeze lasted only a moment.

The purple light on Gozira's dorsal fin surged once more, and the newly formed deep purple scales on its body suddenly glowed with an eerie purple light. A violent, destructive heat surged forth from its core.

"Click."

The iceberg that imprisoned it was covered with spiderweb-like cracks, then it exploded with a deafening roar. Countless huge chunks of ice shot out like cannonballs, crashing into the distant ruins and causing secondary destruction.

Godzilla, having broken free of its restraints, let out a ferocious roar. Its massive tail, like a pillar supporting the sky, lashed out with a piercing shriek as it tore through the air, aiming fiercely at Kuuga, who had just unleashed his freezing power and was slightly dazed.

There is no way to avoid it.

The jet-black warrior was struck head-on by a speeding train, his entire body transforming into a black meteor as he was sent hurtling backward. He crashed through the load-bearing structures of dozens of dilapidated buildings, finally landing in the center of a ruin completely reduced to dust.

Smoke and dust billowed into the sky, forming a huge mushroom cloud.

He lay in the center of the pit, feeling every bone in his body groan, and another crack appeared in the spirit stone at his waist. He struggled to get up and throw himself back into the battle.

As he tried to get up and continue fighting, a figure he had seen long ago, who shouldn't have left much of an impression on him, appeared in front of him.

It was a figure wearing a tattered cloak, somewhat hunched over, exuding a heavy air of loneliness.

The reason he remembered it was because of the lighter. The lighter that was stolen from him was a great help to him. If the cloaked man had dropped gold bars, jewelry, or other valuables when he knocked him down, he might not have been able to move them out of the underpass by now.

This is just a virtual projection. If you don't want to see it, you can just cut off the electromagnetic communication in the vicinity. But he was a little curious about what he was here for.

"ended."

The cloaked figure's voice came through the projection, hoarse and weary, carrying a deathly stillness as if the dust had settled.

"Although I've always felt that you should atone for what you did to us, those of us who are barely surviving in the shadows, this time it's genuine. Maybe we should be the ones apologizing to you, Kuuga."

"..."

Kuuga lay in the deep pit, his breathing heavy and labored beneath the mask.

He turned his gaze with difficulty to his waist, where the ancient spirit stone surface was covered with five or six clear and ferocious cracks, like glass on the verge of shattering.

The cloaked figure gazed at Godzilla in the distance, which was once again unleashing a deafening roar and whose dorsal fins shone with a brilliant purple-gold light, his voice filled with regret:

"We opened Pandora's box, thinking that what appeared was merely the initial trial. Little did we expect that it would be the end of 'evolution'."

This is normal.

Reality isn't like a game where you fight monsters or a TV drama. To provide players with enjoyment or to highlight the protagonist's growth, enemies are arranged in an orderly fashion, from easy to difficult.

Just as he had been standing at the end of the long road from the very beginning, for these ambitious dark organizations that wanted to rule the world, it was also a kind of difficulty and despair.

He had a lot to say and a lot to ask, but he didn't know where to begin. Seeing that the other person was still in the mood to talk, he only asked about the giant beast.

"According to the usual pattern, I thought you would stand there smugly watching me make a fool of myself, and then say some stupid things like you would rule the world after I die in battle."

"It's hopeless."

The cloaked man repeated it.

"This world is beyond saving. 'Evolution' has reached its final stage. Haven't you noticed? It can now consciously learn your moves and move and fight accordingly. Why did those ridiculous human condensation plans fail? Because it 'evolved' antifreeze scales and thermal organs ahead of time. It's thinking, it's adapting, it's... targeting you!"

The mystery seems to have been partially solved.

Yet it seemed to bring an even deeper despair.

Godzilla is terrifying enough, with its atomic breath, G-cells, and unparalleled size. Compared to the fragile and insignificant humans, the behemoth is like a god bringing annihilation.

Even more terrifying than the original Godzilla is the Godzilla with the potential for "evolution." In the original history, this was the strongest secondary species that was defeated by the most powerful contract knight in human history when it had just reached the fourth stage.

Godzilla, capable of infinite evolution, is terrifying enough. Now, you also have to tell him that this Godzilla possesses intelligence equal to or even surpassing that of humans through further evolution.

what is this concept?

Well, Fan Kang couldn't find a concept either.

All he knew was that if this thing were allowed to continue evolving, it might reach a level even higher than the last one, even higher than that thing that literally replaced a planet.

"Now that things have come to this, all I want to ask is, how exactly did it evolve to this point?"

Most people refer to Godzilla by that name, but Fan Kang uses "He".

"Because you are too strong. Countless organizations tremble in your shadow, fearing you like a tiger. So, the already terrifying 'End of Evolution' has been deliberately 'added with ingredients'. Nuclear bombs, kinetic weapons, heat rays, gauss weapons, energy weapons, chainsaws, explosive bombs, storm torpedoes—everything imaginable and unimaginable, even the broken main cannon of the Colossus has been brought out by Cosmic Shocker, trying to make 'Evolution' develop resistance."

Upon hearing this, especially the last part, Fan Kang initially wanted to grab the other person by the neck and demand to know what grudge they held that led them to this point. However, after thinking about the number of kills and the amount of destruction he had achieved through his relentless battles, he let it go.

Ultimately, the other party only ended up here because they went too far.

"In the end, what you get is what's right in front of you, the Beast of the End, which reached the fifth stage in just one day."

"...That's it."

The boy scoffed.

"Leave this world, Kuuga."

The cloaked figure's projection began to sway, and the voice carried a final, pleading tone, "We're going to escape, and you can do it too. This is... my last piece of advice."

"I'm not going anywhere."

The jet-black warrior, bracing himself against the ground, shakily stood up. His crimson compound eyes were fixed on the distant behemoth, and the spirit stone at his waist hummed under its strain, the cracks seeming to have deepened.

He raised his scarred arm and pointed it to the sky.

This time, it wasn't just one or two spears. Countless spears burning with crimson flames coalesced in the void above his head, hundreds and thousands of them, like a volley of arrows of judgment, illuminating the entire night sky as if it were purgatory.

He squeezed out the last bit of power from the spirit stone, pouring all his resentment and anger into this final blow.

Countless streaks of crimson-gold destructive light tore through the sky, like a rain of destruction, carrying a mournful shriek, and pierced through Godzilla's massive body again and again.

This time, the damage far exceeded that before. The behemoth let out a deafening roar as its massive body was completely engulfed by the intense explosion. Flesh and blood flew everywhere, scales shattered—it was an irreparable and devastating blow.

However, as the smoke and dust from the explosion dissipated slightly, and Kuuga, having delivered this all-out attack, knelt on the ground, the spirit stone at his waist emitted a piercing, mournful cry, its surface almost entirely covered with countless cracks…

He saw, amidst the smoke and dust, on the colossal beast's tattered, towering body, newly formed tissue was still writhing and covering at a visible speed. Those new scales were no longer deep purple, nor crimson, but… a color that seemed to have been forged from the core of the sun, carrying a dual meaning of sacredness and destruction, both glorious and cold—

The color of reddish gold.

That color was like the cruelest mockery of the knight.

"Haha...hahaha..."

First came a low, suppressed laugh, like the whimper of a wounded wild beast.

"Ha ha ha ha……"

The laughter grew louder, tinged with self-deprecation and absurdity.

"Hahahahahahahahahahahahaha—!!"

A crimson-gold light flowed across the giant beast, illuminating the ruins above, where a dark figure knelt on the ground, its spirit stones at its waist riddled with cracks, and was emitting a maniacal laugh.