Chapter 130: Boom

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On the shores of Rio de Janeiro, the people who had previously been relaxing on the beach were now running away like lost puppies.

Who could blame them though, as a giant starfish had appeared, and started subjugating some of the people by sticking smaller starfishes to their faces.

Moreover, even though most couldn't recognize it, the size of the nuclear bomb was enough to tell them that if this thing detonated, then they would all be gone.

This resulted in the coming police not daring to shoot, not that it would have had much effect on the copy of Starro.

But as the starfish was busy putting as many humans under it's control as it could, a giant portal appeared in front of it.

It stopped in place, looking curiously at the portal that was clearly unstable.

But as the wise says, curiosity killed the cat.

While it was staring blankly at the portal with whatever it used to see, Edward had appeared behind it and smashed into it's back.

If it hadn't been carrying a nuclear weapon, Edward would have attacked it with his spear, but it had a tenacious vitality, and he knew he wouldn't be able to kill it instantly, it would at least manage to survive for a few seconds, enough to activate the nuclear bomb.

So he decided to go for another tactic, and pushed it through the large portal, which led to the shores of the US.

On the other side of the portal was the original body of the starfish, Starro, as well as it's copy, which had been in France.

Edward had first started with France because the experimental weapon wasn't as dangerous as the nuclear bomb, so he first wanted to see whether his portal could work. Thankfully, it did, so he quickly came to fetch the second clone.

In the sky above the coast of the United States, above the Chesapeake Bay, Edward looked at his three enemies, preparing to fight.

Starro, the original one, had a giant eye in the middle of it's body, and this eye was now directed to Edward as he asked in a deep voice, "You dare challenge I, Starro the Conqueror?!"

Edward smiled and replied, "You're kind of cringe."

Starro didn't understand what the word meant, but it still felt great anger at it for some reason as the center of it's eye turned orange, and a laser beam was suddenly fired at Edward.

Starro was so big too that he couldn't be enveloped into Edward's Chi Sense, and so he didn't feel the attack coming. Still, he had obviously seen the signs of the attack with his eyes, so he still managed to dodge the attack.

But right as he did, one of the clones, the one with the experimental seismic weapon, activated it as the shock waves hit Edward in mid air.

However, they weren't made to travel through air, and so he didn't even need to put up any defence as his body was more than strong enough to resist them.

Having managed to shrug off the attack, Edward took out Aeglos as he sped toward the clone with the nuclear weapon, but before he could reach it the main body appeared in the way and swung one of it's limbs toward Edward.

Edward dodged, and countless grains of sand were thrown up in the air as Edward could feel Starro's strength was a bit terrifying. More than his clones at least.

The failed attack left its defence opened though, and so Edward took the opportunity as he slashed a long tear on it's limb, purple blood gushing out of the wound while it also started freezing.

The pain made Starro grunt in pain, "Damn you! Let's destroy what you hold dear for that strike then!"

The clone with the seismic weapon aimed it at the ground, in direction of the closest houses. A frown appeared on Edward's face as he took a step back and slashed up with his spear, raising a pillar of sand beneath the weapon, before twirling the weapon around himself.

A stream of flames appeared in the air as it surrounded the pillar, heating it up as the burning sand infiltrated the machine.

One weapon neutralized, Edward sent another burst of hot sand toward the bomb, while stabbing his spear toward Starro.

The giant starfish fired another beam of light, but the air in front of Edward blurred as the attack was shifted aside, and Edward pierced through one of Starro's limbs.

Edward's point of impact was small, but with the immense strength behind it and the usage of Spear Aura, the entire limb was cut off with this strike.

Starro, who was in mid air, began losing its balance as a massive amount of purple blood gushed out of its wound.

Starro was strong, stronger than it's clones, and stronger than Edward physically, but it was just a giant starfish in the end. It's main strength was it's mind manipulation, not physical combat.

Starro knew that as well, so with a strong shriek it released thousands of mini starfishes out of its body, all of which converged toward Edward.

But the man merely released a burst of Royal Will as they all plummeted to the ground. However, what he didn't expect was for the giant clones of Starro to actually turn back into their original form.

Both Edward's and Starro's eyes turned to the nuclear bomb and the seismic weapon at that, and in an instant Edward understood he wasn't going to be fast enough.

He placed the strongest defences he could around himself as he watched the nuclear weapon hit the ground first, and… nothing happened.

But that only gave them a short moment of relief as the seismic weapon then hit the ground, and unlike the nuclear bomb, it had some effect. For this moment though, Edward was able to add another layer of shield, one even more important than the ones before.

An extremely strong shockwave was sent into the ground, and as it reached the bomb, everything turned white.

The earthquake created by the seismic weapon couldn't even be felt as barely 50 kilometers from the White House, a nuclear bomb was detonated.

For the first time since World War 2, a nuclear weapon had been detonated near a city.

The enormous flash of light gathered everyone's attention as they looked in the distance, those less careful getting blinded by the explosion.

It didn't take a genius to understand what happened as a mushroom cloud quickly rose into the sky, and panic gripped the heart of those watching as they started running for their lives.

But there were some who had already accepted their fate, the explosion was right next to them, they believed they had no chance of survival, so they decided to watch the explosion site, to see something very few people ever saw in their lives across history. Well, too many people honestly, but inconsequential compared to the amount of people who lived since the creation of nuclear weapons.

And those people who watched were the first to notice something wrong.

Although there was the bright light, the mushroom cloud, and a shock wave, the later was too weak, it barely felt like a breeze.

But more importantly, they weren't vaporized.

Even the smoke was only moving upward, but not toward them.

Finally, more and more people realized they weren't dying, and so curiosity gripped someone every second.

They saw a red wall of energy standing between the smoke and them, the wall was flickering, but it was still there.

Then, the smoke finally completely rose up to the sky, showing a terrifying scene.

Around the flash of light that had appeared, a circle of around a hundred meters was contained into a dome like shape. The top had been blown off, and so had everything inside as the people saw a bare piece of land, the water and the earth evaporated.

But on the lower layers of the earth, inside a giant crater, there were still two figures. One was a giant starfish, while the other… was a man.

Author's Note: Shorter chapter today, not only did I not have a lot of time to write today, but more importantly I felt like this was the best ending for the chapter. Epic Ending!