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East gate:

While Lastman had declared decidedly that he would deliver justice, he was quite shocked inwardly.

Baalzebub was the same. He, too, had been astonished when he saw the arm sprout from Lastman.

“Whoa… You can just grow armzz azz you pleazze…? Are you really human? Well, from how you look, you probably aren’t…”

The manner in which the fly’s mouth moved busily and spoke human language, probably wouldn’t be a laughing matter for those who disliked insects.

“Either way, I need to kill you, you zzee… No matter how often you can regenerate, if I make your head rot away, you’ll probably die, won’t you?” Baalzebub declared, and, at the same time, he charged at Lastman.

His speed, only natural for someone looking like a fly, was so fast, no normal human should have been able follow him with the naked eye. But Lastman easily managed to parry the attack with one arm and evade it. Still, the arm that touched Baalzebub, when he dealt with the attack, rotted away, once again, as if it was fresh meat that had been left to sit for a long time.

“Really… you dodged it? I wonder how many timezz you can keep that up?”
“HEH… I’M USED TO SPEED OF THAT EXTENT,” Lastman replied confidently, but on the inside he was extremely perplexed and tried to rack his brains.

There’s probably no one in this place, who can deal with Baalzebub’s speed, except for me. Additionally, as far as I can see, Baalzebub has the power to make everything he touches rot away.
Currently there haven’t been any victims since I was the only target, but in case I’m done in, the damage will be immense. It is likely, that only someone like Gilmars will be able to deal with him.
In that case, I have to bring the guy down quickly.

That were Lastman’s thoughts.

Once more, he called out to everyone.

“I’M SORRY, BUT… I’LL HAVE TO GO ALL OUT. EVERYONE, IT’LL BE DANGEROUS, SO CAN YOU PLEASE GIVE ME SOME SPACE?”
“Sure, will do.”

An accordance with Lastman’s shout, the others took distance from him and Baalzebub.

“Oh… what kind of ability will you uzze? Let me just tell you in advanzze, I can make both magic and weaponzz disintegrate… Come on, what will you do?”
“I’LL DO THIS.”

In an instant, Lastman took the shape of a dragon. This, too, was one of his abilities. Immediately after transforming, he turned onto Baalzebub and started to spew blazing fireballs from his mouth.

“Whoa!? That’zz dangerous, you know! How amuzzing,” Baalzebub easily avoided the fireballs with his hyper speed. “Ha-ha~! That’zz unfortunate, izzn’t it~…”

The fly demon turned his body around after dodging the fireballs and, once more, charged at Lastman.

“Bezzidezz, I think turning into a dragon wazz a bad move, you know? Why, sinzze you won’t be able to avoid my attackzz with that giant body, lowly human!”

It was just as Baalzebub had said. Due to having transformed into the huge body of a dragon, Lastman could no longer evade the assault. Consequently, the charge scored a hit on the dragon’s head.

Lastman’s dragon head rotted away completely. Then, his body gradually stopped moving.

“Ha-ha~… It’zz my win… he wazz surprizzingly weak… I guezz? It somehow doezzn’t ring true~.”

Baalzebub had clearly felt his attack connect, but at the same time, he had a feeling of unease. It was the same for the people around them.

“Hey… Just now, didn’t Lastman turn his head in that guy’s direction on purpose?”
“Yeah, he did.”

Lastman had faced Baalzebub’s charge, as if he wanted to be struck.

No one could fathom the reason… That is, except for the man in question.

From Lastman’s perspective, being touched by his enemy was done to prepare his body to defeat Baalzebub.

Suddenly a cut opened on the back of the dragon Lastman had transformed into. Then, the dragon’s body started to rot, as if Baalzebub was touching it. After a short time, Lastman appeared from within the dragon’s corpse.

“FINALLY… MY PREPARATIONS ARE COMPLETE. BAALZEBUB, I SHALL DEFEAT YOU NOW!”
“You’re… alive…? What the hell izz going on?”
“I’M THE IMMORTAL HERO… THAT’S WHAT EVERYONE CALLS ME. DOES THAT ANSWER YOUR QUESTION?”

Lastman started to move… was what everyone thought, but a moment later, he was already behind Baalzebub who was flying in the sky.

“Huh?!”
“ARE YOU WONDERING ABOUT MY SPEED? I COPIED THE SWIFTNESS OF AN SS-RANK MAGIC BEAST… IT’S CALLED A SKANDA-CAT¹. COMPARED TO THE SKANDA-CAT’S SPEED, YOU SEEM TO BE QUITE SLUGGISH, DON’T YOU?”

A closer look at Lastman’s legs revealed that they had a peculiar structure. Those peculiar legs were exactly the trait that gave the Skanda-Cat its speed.

From behind, Lastman grabbed Baalzebub’s arm with his left hand. However, that hand didn’t rot away. Baalzebub couldn’t understand how this grotesque man was able to grasp his arm.

“How… how can that be?!”
“DO YOU WANT TO KNOW?”

Baalzebub desperately tried to get away, but he couldn’t escape due to the abnormally strong grip. On top of that, before he knew it, large, black wings and countless tentacle-looking things had sprouted from Lastman’s body. Those tentacles were about to wholly entangle Baalzebub. None of those tentacles which touched Baalzebub’s body rotted away, either.

“Get away… get away, you monzzter!”
“YOU PROBABLY DON’T WANT TO HEAR THIS, BUT…”

Still flying in mid-air, the tentacles embraced Baalzebub’s body.

“As something to take with you to hell… I’ll tell you how I was able to touch you,” Lastman told Baalzebub, when the latter’s body, except for his head, was completely wrapped up by the tentacles. His voice was very quiet, so no one but Baalzebub, who was close enough, could hear it.

“My Beast Master has two abilities. The first one lets me freely change my own body. That’s how I can instantly heal, you see.”

The tentacles tightened around Baalzebub. Furthermore, it seemed like they dissolved his body with some kind of acid.

“The other one is to understand and copy the structure of a body. It lets me copy my opponent’s body, once I have touched it a few times… Since I turned into the dragon earlier, I can now touch you, Baalzebub. I copied your body, and acquired its rot resistance… Well, you can no longer hear me, can you?”

Lastman finished his explanation and detached the tentacles from his body. In the middle of the tentacles, Baalzebub had breathed his last, due to his body being dissolved by the acid the tentacles secreted to consume their prey. Then, his corpse became part of the tentacles, who returned to the soil afterwards.

TL notes:
Again, beast master is freaky. Now would probably a good time to ask oneself, who of those two was the real monster. I guess Alim will be in for a rude awakening, if he ever finds out about the pleasant, good looking Uruto’s real nature.

1. The original is 韋駄猫, which is a combination of 韋駄天 (“Skanda”, a fleet-footed guardian deity from Buddhism) and 猫 (“Cat”).