Chapter 329: The Boundary of Life and Death
Exactly as Ryū had pictured, a faint vein flickered into view on Yukari's pale forehead, trembling ever so slightly.
Her expression visibly darkened, right before everyone's eyes. Her bright eyes carried an unmistakable edge of danger, and the temperature around her seemed to plunge more than ten degrees in an instant — enough to raise goosebumps on anyone nearby.
Nobody could say why the tall rule-breaking transmigrator had gone and courted death like that. Ryū had no idea. Neither did Tatsumaki, nor Master Roshi, nor anyone else.
Aside from the Ancient One, still new enough not to fully get the joke, everyone else looked down at the two rule-breaking transmigrators with a touch of pity in their eyes.
Plenty of people knew how to court death — but nobody courted it quite like this. The guy had clearly gotten sick of living. He was done for, no question.
Yukari drew a slow breath, as if reining in her own emotions, her lovely eyes — calm on the surface, laced with the faintest trace of danger underneath — narrowing just slightly.
Holding her folding fan, she gave it a light wave toward the two transmigrators below, murmuring a handful of words under her breath: "...Boundary of Life and Death."
Her tone was flat, utterly devoid of feeling. The look she gave the two visibly stunned transmigrators was the look one gives the already dead.
Just as the tall transmigrator who'd recognized Yukari opened his mouth to say something more, he suddenly felt, unmistakably, something inside him draining away at a terrifying rate.
Deep wrinkles began spreading visibly across his grass-green skin, and age spots crept even across his already-ugly face.
Watching his own body change like this, the tall transmigrator's pupils contracted sharply — he finally understood what was draining out of him. It wasn't his strength. It was his life!
After all, having been assimilated into demon-kind by King Piccolo, his lifespan had stretched out considerably — living past two hundred years should have been no problem at all.
And yet here he was, not even two hundred years later but less than two seconds later, already reduced to a decrepit, dying old man.
The tall transmigrator turned his head stiffly toward his partner nearby — and the sight of Kōhei's condition made his heart lurch violently.
Kōhei, his fellow rule-breaking transmigrator, lay there with an expression of sheer terror frozen on his face, every trace of life seemingly drained from him, collapsed on the ground in some bizarre, twisted posture — like some kind of aberration.
He looked every bit as ancient — as if he'd lived out a full hundred years as an ordinary human.
Wrinkles covering every inch of him on top of his already-ugly demon-kind features made him look even more grotesque.
"This thing... this thing is... it's actually Yukari!"
Those were the last words the tall transmigrator would ever speak. Under the power of Yukari's Boundary, even his soul vanished without a trace.
There was no afterlife waiting for him — he simply withered away to nothing in an instant, his soul scattered into oblivion. As dead as dead could possibly get.
"To think he'd actually say those words to my face. Aside from that infuriating Admin-sama, I've never seen anyone reckless enough to badmouth me like that — let alone say it right to my face."
Having dispatched both rule-breaking transmigrators with next to no effort at all, Yukari's mood hadn't improved one bit — if anything, she felt she'd been too merciful.
Had she known, she wouldn't have used a killing move like that at all — she should have tormented the two bastards first, shown them exactly what true terror in this world looked like, and only then finished them off.
What a shame... she'd been careless. She shouldn't have struck the killing blow so quickly.
An unsatisfied look crossed Yukari's delicate features, as though she'd barely gotten started before crashing straight into a post-climax slump — the whole thing suddenly felt pointless to her.
Meanwhile, the commotion had already drawn the attention of the rest of the demon-kind. Aside from King Piccolo himself, the four strongest among them — the "Demon Generals" — had already pegged Ryū and the others as enemies.
And now they were charging straight at them, closing in at blistering speed — fast enough to punch through the sound barrier, the resulting sonic boom sharp enough to rattle eardrums.
Tatsumaki, who'd had her arms crossed the whole time, let a look of disdain cross her dark green eyes. She raised both hands lightly, and terrifying psychic power erupted from her in an instant, crashing down on the approaching demon-kind like an avalanche.
Before becoming a Moderator, Tatsumaki had rarely spoken up in the chat group at all, keeping a famously low profile with almost no presence.
But her raw strength unquestionably stood at the very top tier. With no ceiling yet in sight for her powers, her combat strength climbed at a rate that put in half the effort for double the result.
Of course, even among the chat group's top tier, Tatsumaki still ranked toward the lower end — but her strength was still terrifying, far beyond anything from the original One Punch Man.
The burst of psychokinetic force bore down on the demon-kind, and the powerful demons charging through midair suddenly found themselves as if mired in a swamp.
Bodies that had been tearing through the air faster than sound now crawled along like turtles, each of them feeling as though some invisible giant hand had closed around them and refused to let go.
Pressure squeezed in from every direction, and the bones inside their bodies let out a chorus of grinding creaks, as if straining under a weight too great to bear.
One after another, agony spread across their ugly, oversized faces.
Tatsumaki's telekinesis ground their bodies down inch by inch — muscles and tendons giving way, skin splitting open, an eerily colored blood welling up from the cracks. The blood was green.
As anyone knows, blood can be any color you like — just never, ever red.
With the four Demon Generals pinned in place, Master Roshi had no intention of just watching the show — his eyes turned instead toward the weaker demon-kind.
He didn't think he stood a chance against King Piccolo himself, but the small fry? One punch apiece, no problem at all.
Roshi leapt straight down from the rooftop, his gaze — thick with killing intent — sweeping across the rest of the demon-kind.
He could see the human corpses on the ground clearly. To think King Piccolo had already killed this many people in such a short time since his release — there had to be at least a hundred bodies here alone.
"Now this really has made an old man angry. I may have spent all these years keeping out of worldly affairs, living in quiet seclusion — but that doesn't mean I've got no mercy left in me at all."
Roshi rolled his neck, joints popping with a series of sharp cracks, and said flatly, "This kind of brutality is exactly what crosses this old man's line."
"Burning, killing, plundering — there's no evil you haven't done. Not one of you is innocent. Even in death, the eighteen hells are all you'll get — no reincarnation for the likes of you."
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