Chapter 134 : The Dragon's Adaptation and a Rampage in the Bowels of the Earth

Geten's cold smile was the prelude to our icy hell. With a single graceful gesture, the entire cave became his personal weapon. Jagged ice walls shot toward us, stalactites on the ceiling elongated into deadly spears, and from the floor, dozens of golems with glowing empty eyes began to rise, surrounding us. In the midst of it all, Geten stood calmly on a high ice pillar, a king in his frozen palace, observing us like trapped insects.

"You got a plan, strategy kid?" Mirko yelled, her voice filled with an impatient fighting spirit. She was already in a low stance, the muscles in her legs tense, ready to launch.

"I do!" I replied, my mind racing faster than the ice storm around us. "He's controlling the whole area, which means his concentration is divided. We can't let him dictate this fight!" I pointed at Geten. "Mirko-san, you are our spearhead! Ignore the golems! Just keep moving forward, destroy anything that blocks your path to Geten! Give him relentless pressure, don't let him think!"

I turned to Edgeshot. "Edgeshot-san, you are our shadow. Use the chaos Mirko creates to get close to him. He'll surely focus on the biggest threat, which is Mirko. That will be your opening to land a precision strike. We have to wound him to break his concentration."

"And you?" Mirko asked with a grin.

"I'll make sure you both can do your jobs," I said firmly. "I will protect your backs and our most valuable asset." I glanced toward Ryukyu, who was still lying helpless.

"I like a plan that's full of violence!" Mirko roared. With a echoing war cry, she shot forward.

She was a living white torpedo. She didn't try to dodge. She slammed into the first ice wall with her Luna Tijeras kick, shattering it into a million pieces. The ice golems tried to grab her, but she was too fast and too strong. She spun her body in the air, destroying several of them with a single spinning kick, then landed and charged straight toward Geten again.

Geten, surprised by Mirko's brutality and speed, was forced to focus most of his power on stopping her. Thicker, stronger ice walls appeared in front of Mirko, but she just destroyed them one by one, each of her punches and kicks shaking the entire cave.

In the midst of that chaos, Edgeshot disappeared. He thinned his body into a thread and slid silently along a crack in the ice floor, moving under the battle, approaching the ice pillar where Geten stood.

Meanwhile, my task began. The few remaining ice golems ignored Mirko and turned toward me and Ryukyu. I manifested both my Incursio gauntlets and faced them. At my side, I could feel spiral energy beginning to gather as Nejire, though still weak, prepared to provide support fire.

In another part of the ruined mountain, the fight of Fat Gum's team against Re-Destro had turned into a desperate struggle for survival. Re-Destro, in his Stress 100% form, was an unstoppable force of nature. He was a black giant made of pure rage, each of his punches capable of crushing steel.

"Your heroic spirits..." Re-Destro growled, his deep voice echoing in the collapsing tunnel. "...the stress of trying to protect each other... ALL OF IT JUST MAKES ME STRONGER!"

He swung his giant arm. Fat Gum, most of his fat having been burned off, leaped forward to absorb the impact. "I can take it!" he yelled. But the blow was so strong it sent him flying backward, crashing hard against a wall.

"Fat Gum-san!" Kirishima yelled. He activated Red Riot Unbreakable and charged forward, trying to hold Re-Destro back. It was like trying to stop a freight train with your body. He managed to hold him for a few precious seconds, but cracks began to appear all over his hardened body.

It was then that Amajiki acted. He had eaten the strange crystals from the cave walls, and now his manifestation was on a different level. "Chimera... Fortress!" he roared. His body was covered by a thick, serrated crystal shell, and his hands turned into giant crystal hammers. He slammed into Re-Destro, not to hurt him, but to push him back, giving Kirishima time to recover. They weren't fighting to win, but just to survive one more second.

Back in the ice tomb, Geten was starting to feel the pressure. Controlling hundreds of tons of ice while facing two top-tier pro heroes simultaneously was incredibly draining. He was too focused on Mirko, who was constantly destroying his defenses. He didn't notice a thin thread creeping up his ice pillar.

Suddenly, Edgeshot reappeared behind him. "You focus too much on raw power," he whispered. He stabbed his razor-sharp finger at a point between Geten's neck guard.

Geten screamed in pain and anger, instinctively creating an explosion of ice around him to push Edgeshot away. But the damage was done. His concentration was broken. Throughout the cave, his ice golems crumbled into piles of snow, and his ice walls began to crack.

Seeing this opening, he made a desperate decision. He ignored the pro heroes and focused all his remaining power on the most unprotected threat. On me.

"If I'm going down," he yelled, "I'm taking you all with me!"

He raised both his hands, and the entire cave groaned. The air temperature dropped at a terrifying rate, from cold to absolute zero in a matter of seconds. A blinding blizzard, filled with razor-sharp ice fragments, exploded from his body, heading straight for me and the helpless Ryukyu.

"TATSUMI!" Mirko yelled in horror.

I had no time to dodge. I could only stand in front of Ryukyu, cross my arms, and manifest as much armor as I could—chest plate, helmet, everything. I braced for the cold that would freeze my blood, for the pain of a thousand ice cuts.

The ice storm hit me.

And then, something miraculous happened.

As the super-cold ice particles touched the surface of my Incursio armor, I didn't feel a piercing cold. Instead, I felt my armor vibrate. The dragon's heartbeat in my chest accelerated, and I felt a warm energy begin to flow from my core to the entire surface of the armor. A very thin, almost invisible aura of heat enveloped my body. The ice that hit me hissed and vaporized into steam before it could even scratch me. The deadly blizzard now felt like nothing more than a strong, warm wind.

This was adaptation. No longer a passive, instinctual reaction. This was a deliberate, active response. After "learning" from Todoroki's ice and being pushed by this life-or-death situation, Incursio had evolved. It had learned how to neutralize an elemental threat on its own.

From across the cave, Geten stared in disbelief. His ultimate attack, his trump card that could freeze a pro hero in an instant, was now harmlessly vaporizing around a boy. He saw the black armor radiating a faint heat, standing unshaken in the middle of the storm he had created.