It was amazing how clear things became once I'd transformed into... whatever this was. I hadn't realized how clouded by emotion I had been. I'd been so focused on the thousands of deaths that I'd caused that I'd lost sight of the millions of deaths I was going to prevent.

Now, though, I burned with righteous anger.

Seeing Alexandria, Eidolon and Legend standing there indecisively was irritating to say the least. Each of them had been fighting for longer than I'd been alive, and they should have seen the tactical sense in what I was doing.

While it was true that Alexandria was able to take Behemoth's blasts, I suspected that she still needed to breathe, and in Behemoth's current mood he'd take advantage of that the same was he'd tried to drown me. He'd use her as a hostage against me, and that was something that I could not allow.

Of course, even with my currently power level it wasn't like I could force them to go. Legend and Alexandria were fast enough that they'd be back from wherever I put them in a short period. Eidolon would doubtlessly pull some kind of master power out of his ass, and then I'd be under the control of people who had no idea what to do with a power like mine.

At this point I barely knew what to do with them. This was power beyond anything I could dream, and at the outer edges of my consciousness I could sense that Ki was useful for a lot more than just blowing things up.

Each time I'd been teleported, and especially by different people I'd seen more and more commonalities between them. I suspected that a few more times and I'd figure out the trick; of course, by now I moved so fast I probably appeared to be teleporting to those around me.

For the moment, there wasn't time to experiment. I needed to focus, or I'd never be able to do what had to be done.

Getting through the first layers on the outside of Behemoth had been easy, but the deeper I went the harder it got. I hadn't been trying that hard so far; I'd been more concerned about making sure that I could move around him and confuse him so that he wouldn't be able to redirect my energy.

After all, the force I was hitting him with now was at least five times as strong as the Kamehameha that had destroyed thousands of people. If he redirected the energy downward, on a volcanic island it was possible that he might be able to do much more damage than that.

Looking back, I could see that the others were finally starting to move. In their defense, the speed I was now moving at made ordinary human beings seem to be as still as statues even when they were moving.

They probably hadn't been floating there for all that long; it just seemed like an eternity to me because of my altered sensation of time.

I moved slightly to the right as Behemoth launched a blast at my back. His blasts were faster than mine, and even at this speed they were faster than I could dodge. But I could sense the power building up in him, which gave me a moment's warning, and a moment was all it took for me to dodge.

I flew toward him, and I started again, chipping away at him. The hardest part wasn't the fact that he was getting harder and harder. It was varying my attacks so that he didn't catch onto the pattern.

It was impossible not to have one, even if it was an unconscious one, and it was possible that he would...

Fire exploded against my arm as the force of my own blow was added to his own power. That wasn't an an ability he'd shown in the past, but it was certainly one he was able to use. Even if he wasn't able to generate enough energy on his own to kill me, I was certainly strong enough to kill myself.

This wasn't a certain thing, even if it was like fighting a statue. He was crafty, waiting and biding his time. He was tough enough that it would take a while to get to his core, and in the meantime all it would take would be for me to make some mistakes.

One wasn't going to be enough, of course, unless he redirected a Kamahameha, which I had no plans on letting him do. I'd learned my lesson.

For a moment I considered throwing him up in the air and simply blasting him into space. Even if he redirected the power of my blast, it would redirect it downward and simply propel him further into space.

However, when it hit the ground I couldn't be sure of just how much damage it might do. I'd struck a glancing blow earlier with my beam; even if I hadn't regained control of it the beam would have shot off into space due to the curvature of the Earth.

It was possible that at my current power level I might be able to blow an entire island off the map... or the entire chain. Giving that kind of power to Behemoth wasn't something I wanted, but I couldn't let him get away either.

He'd killed too many people, and he was going to kill many more if I didn't stop him. The deaths I'd caused would only be worthwhile if I killed the Endbringer. Otherwise I would be a mass murderer with more kills than many members of the Slaughterhouse with nothing to show for it.

I grimaced as he redirected the force of my blow, hitting me in the abdomen with my own power with some added for good measure. As fast as I was, there were going to be times when he managed to catch me; it was something I had to be prepared for.

He grabbed my arm, his massive fist wrapping around my arm and holding on with a grip that only a few minutes ago had felt like iron.

Now I simply gathered my will, and while I was punching him with my other hand, I murmured Ka Me Ha Me Ha under my breath.

He roared as his arm disintegrated under the force of my blast at point blank range.

The important point was to hide my Ki. I was figuring out how to do it as the fight went on. As long as he knew it was coming he could redirect it.

I could see drones in the distance, apparently filming what was happening. Was it Leet, or was it someone else filming the action. Ultimately it didn't matter. What mattered was that I finished this as quickly as I could before anyone else got hurt.

I punched and I punched, and the further I went in the harder it got. I was moving so fast that he couldn't keep up, chopping him down piece by piece, chipping away at the form that had been invulnerable before.

He was missing his other arm. He tried roaring, but I flashed away as I felt him begin to roar. I didn't need to go deaf. People's eyeballs had been known to explode if they got too close to his roar, and their internal organs would liquify.

Behemoth began to glow with a white light. I grimaced. It was one of his feared abilities; projecting radiation that would kill you without his having to do anything else. I had no idea how resistant to radiation I was in this form; it was possible that my teeth were about to start falling out and my hair would start coming out in clumps while I vomited blood.

That meant that I didn't have forever to do this. Radiation was cumulative; it could build up in your system and a certain portion of it would never leave.

He was getting hotter now; this wasn't radiation, but was simple heat. It wasn't the relatively minor heat of lava; this was heat like that of the sun. I continued punching, even as I felt my hands blistering from the point of contact. Pieces of him were coming off, but not fast enough.

I was getting closer and closer to his core, but each layer was taking me twice as long as the layer before. In the meantime I was getting more and more hurt through the simple process of hitting him.

This wasn't an opponent you could banter with; as far as anyone knew he couldn't talk, although it seemed likely that he understood languages.

The heat continued to grow, and my hands continued to blister. I was getting more and more tired; the effort of moving and never stopping was getting more and more onerous. More and more often I found myself being hit by my own blow, and I could feel my eye begin to swell as my head snapped back.

He was hitting me with his lightning more and more often; I was slowing, and that was giving him opportunities that he hadn't had before. He was winning through simple attrition; he didn't need to be as fast as I was; he simply needed to outlast my energy.

Clearly he didn't think that I was going to be able to beat him; otherwise he would have attempted to flee. Instead he was just waiting until I let my guard down, and then he would have me.

I stopped, floating before him, gasping for air. My hands and the shins of my legs were bloodied. Hitting rock sounded like something Garrett would have had me doing in my early days of training; I was glad now that I had learned to accept pain.

"You still aren't as bad as the Ash Beast, monster," I gasped.

He stared at me inscrutably. A moment later the biggest bolt of electricity I'd seen yet came arcing out toward me. He followed it up by a roar that hit me as I dodged. I felt my ears ring, and I saw some of the drones in the distance explode from the sheer power of the roar.

He stomped the ground, and a wave of force sent me flying backwards. It didn't make any sense, but since when did powers have to make sense.

All I knew was that I needed to end this soon; I was growing weaker while he was growing stronger.

I headed for the clouds, outside of his view.

"KA ME HA ME HA!" I yelled.

I sent a ball of energy flying over the horizon. A moment later I gathered my energy again.

"KA ME HA ME HA!"

Power drained out of me and flew in the opposite direction. I flashed back down through the clouds. Behemoth was doing something on the ground below, probably something that humanity wouldn't approve of.

I hit him from behind, and I began hitting him over and over again. Chips of his flesh began flying around me, and while I felt myself getting pummeled, he was only able to redirect one attack in every ten because the ones I did hit him with were so fast.

This was much more efficient, and I felt myself digging deeper finally. It was a tremendous amount of work to dig through three and a half feet of stone like flesh on this side of his body in order to get to his center, but it was all going to be worth it if I could do what I was trying to.

He was moving now, but so slowly it felt like he was a glacier.

I switched to his front, punching away. He was better at redirecting my energy on this side, but it didn't matter. If he was redirecting one on five of my punches I was still getting through to him, even if it was only slowly.

The fact that my face and ribs felt like they were made out of hamburger wasn't relevant. Each time my head snapped back with the force of my own blow I felt my anger growing. This was the monster who had started it all. He was the one who had created such a feeling of terror in people that they no longer even tried to look for a better future.

The Endbringers had stolen Pandora's gift to humanity; hope had been long gone even by the time I was born. It wasn't just my mother's death that had put the slump in my father's shoulders; it was the death of his city. He'd dreamed of making a world where people could work and be happy, unmolested by the gangs and bullies of the world.

Behemoth had begun the process of taking that away, not just from him, but from everyone.

He deserved to die, and once he died, so did the others. It was the only way that humanity could regain its place in the world.

He was struggling now, trying to get away. Radiation was burning my skin even as heat washed over me. The heat was almost unbearably, but I kept hitting and hitting.

Lighting hit me over and over; now that I wasn't dodging as I once had I was a much easier target. I didn't care about the pain; I had to make Behemoth pay for what he had done.

I was getting close; I could feel it. I had no idea how long it had been in real time, but it felt like it had been an eternity. My arms and legs felt leaden; it was getting hard to breathe, and I couldn't be sure whether it was exhaustion or simply because the air around Behemoth was growing so hot that it was on fire.

In the end, nothing mattered but ending him. If I died, there were other people like me in the world. The Chinese had some, and there was Dad. As long as I ended this thing my life would have been worth living.

My vision narrowed and all I could focus on was lifting my arms, hitting again and again. My hands were bloody and swollen now, hardly recognizable as hands at all. I was hitting a wall with my bare hands, and I wasn't sure how much more I could take.

My mother had told me a lot of stories when I was young. I'd always liked the story of John Henry, the story of the black man who had challenged the machine to see who could cut through the mountain faster. He'd won in the end, but he'd died.

The same had happened with the man in India who had cut a trail through the mountain so that his village could have access to a hospital. It had taken him years, decades even, but he'd eventually beaten the mountain.

Behemoth was my mountain, and even though I could not longer feel my hands, even though my arms felt as though they were encased in lead, I kept punching.

The energy this was taking was incredible; I suspected that my body hadn't been properly prepared for it. I couldn't hold out forever, but the one thing I told myself was just one more.

It became a mantra in my head.

One more. One more. One more.

Over and over I slammed my ruined hands into the ever more invulnerable surface of his body. Suddenly I felt his remaining hand slam into my stomach; I found myself flying through the air and into the side of a mountain on an island nearby. I didn't know which one.

Consciousness dimmed, but I forced myself to stay awake. I had to win this, no matter what the cost. Otherwise, none of it would be worth it.

I pulled myself out of the rock, only to look up and see Behemoth standing over me. He stared down at me, and a moment later he let loose onto me, hitting me with the fires of hell, so much power that I couldn't get up.

I couldn't even scream, the pain hurt so much. I'd been so close.

When the fires finally let up, I felt the golden glow around me flicker and go out. I was too exhausted to go on.

I stared up at him; in my current state there was no use in fighting; I wouldn't be able to affect him.

A moment later, I started to grin.

"You think you've won, don't you?"

He lifted his hand, planning to finish me, but then he was struck from behind by the first KA ME HA ME HA blast, the one that I'd sent flying all the way around the Earth. He roared in pain, and this time I did feel myself going deaf. I convulsed in agony.

It didn't matter; the second blast hit him in the chest a moment later.

I forced myself to put all my energy into getting away, and despite everything it wasn't enough. The second blast was enough to crack his core, and that in turn was enough to release enough energy that I found myself going blind as I tumbled through the air.

The island we'd been on was gone, but so was Behemoth. He was dead, and as I hit the water, I couldn't find it in myself to have any regrets.

The world went black.