One Punch Man: Heroics Start with Dual Kamui

Chapter 159 159: The Punishment of the Gods

"Excellent. As expected of King."

Shinji nodded with satisfaction. "Though the spar ended earlier than planned, I now have a clear idea of how the two of you work together."

That simplified things a lot. All Genos needed to do was keep upgrading his stats and leave the mechanics entirely in King's hands.

As long as Genos's stat gap with Vaccine Man wasn't too great, King could manipulate him into pulling off a stylish one-sided beatdown.

However, the problem was that Genos couldn't just mindlessly stack raw numbers. That depended on Dr. Kuseno's research advancing step by step, and on Genos gradually adapting to the upgrades.

This was why Genos lost miserably every time, only to realize where he was lacking. Then Dr. Kuseno would strengthen the specific parts to compensate.

"King, what weaknesses do you think Genos still has?" Shinji asked.

"I'd say his main weakness is destructive power. His speed and especially his defense are a bit unbalanced, too. And with only the Incineration Cannon, his offense is too one-dimensional."

King analyzed with a serious expression. "Against opponents of this level, close combat is useless. The margin for error is too low. The only viable approach is constant kiting and attrition. Genos should be equipped with more long-range offensive options."

"Your reasoning makes sense. I'll pass that on to Dr. Kuseno, along with details about the 'controller' setup..." Genos accepted humbly.

As long as it made him stronger, strong enough to crush that rampaging cyborg who once destroyed multiple cities, he didn't mind even handing over control of his own body.

"The controller is actually another key issue. I'm not very familiar with these complicated gamepads. If I were, when Vaccine Man grabbed Genos just now, I'm confident I could've dodged even that."

Clearly, King was bothered by what he called a "mistake." Strictly speaking, it wasn't truly a mistake, just that his play hadn't reached absolute perfection.

"Mr. King, I'll likely ask you to cooperate with Genos more often in the future. Are you willing?"

"I don't really mind..." King didn't look the least bit bothered.

As long as it felt like playing a game, he was interested.

And this way, things would at least go better than last time, when he faced the stubborn Machine God G4, who couldn't be bluffed at all. If only he'd been controlling Genos back then, G4 would've been pinned to the ground and pummeled.

"Alright, let's end here for today. Tomorrow, I'll have Boros spar with you."

Shinji smiled. "Of course, I'll have him hold back, limiting himself to his armored form with part of his power sealed."

"No problem." Genos nodded firmly, without hesitation. As long as it made him stronger, he was willing to accept even hellish difficulty.

"I'll... try my best," King said calmly on the surface, though inside he was already tense.

These weren't game avatars, but real people. If Genos got hurt because of him, he'd never forgive himself.

Thump! Thump! Thump!

As King's gaze fell on the imposing figure of Boros, his Emperor Engine roared to life.

Boros stood with his arms crossed, eyes utterly devoid of contempt toward King.

This so-called "strongest man on the surface" might not radiate any energy signature, but in other aspects, his abilities were unmatched.

Boros could clearly see that the energy inside Genos was nowhere near as powerful as Vaccine Man's, yet King had forcibly bridged such an enormous gap.

So there really was a reason this man was called the strongest on the surface...

Even so, Boros still felt that King didn't fully deserve that title. His greatest ability relied on others, unless there was some hidden power he didn't know about.

….

In the days that followed, King and Genos sparred repeatedly, facing Boros or Vaccine Man together.

Each time, Genos demanded to fight until the very end. He told King not to hold back for his sake, because what he wanted most was to grow stronger in adversity and continually fix his shortcomings.

Meanwhile, Shinji wasn't idle either.

When he wasn't out hunting monsters, he often visited Psykos. Over time, he began to regard her as someone he felt close to.

"Vice President Shinji, I've made a new discovery." The moment he entered the secret hideout, Psykos rushed to tell him.

"What discovery?" Shinji raised a brow.

"Recently, I went back to re-examine multiple psychic tomes, including The Third Eye. I suspect someone tampered with my memory. It's possible the same thing happened to you, Vice President Shinji..."

Her voice dropped as she continued. "Based on my research, there does exist this type of psychic ability. But I don't know who could have meddled with our memories..."

"Perhaps it was something from another dimension..." Shinji murmured.

There was no doubt Psykos was connected to that so-called "god."

As for whether their memories had been altered by it, that couldn't be confirmed. The most they could do was speculate reasonably.

Shinji's theory had always been that the god rewrote the future Psykos was supposed to see, replacing it with a fabricated one. Or perhaps the Third Eye never had the ability to see the future at all, and the whole thing was a trick laid out from the beginning.

Why Psykos had lost those memories of the future was still a mystery.

"I even started to doubt... whether I truly saw the real future at all. And now I can't even recall that so-called future. Then why am I doing all this... doesn't that mean everything was meaningless?!"

Her voice grew agitated, her face twisting with frustration.

"Psykos..." Shinji felt a sudden sense of dread.

"Ugh...!" Psykos suddenly clutched her head with both hands, her expression contorting in pain. A muffled groan escaped her lips.

"What's wrong?!" Shinji asked in alarm.

"My head... it hurts..."

Her trembling voice squeezed out between clenched teeth. "I... tried to force myself to remember that future... it feels like my skull is splitting... everything's chaos...!"

This was...!

The scene instantly reminded Shinji of "the god."

Back when Psykos was defeated, that entity had punished her in a similar way, driving her into a delirious state of agony.

Could it be that her thoughts had brushed against the god's taboo, and now she was being discarded as a pawn and punished?

Moments later, the pain grew so unbearable that Psykos fainted. Cold sweat drenched her as she collapsed into Shinji's arms, her face still twisted in torment.