32.
Another level.
These creatures were giving Mewtwo something far more valuable than experience alone.
Battle experience.
Real combat against opponents capable of pushing him to his limits, yes the levels were important, but here he was being pushed of ways of beating them.
It was worth far more than anything he had encountered over the past months.
And there were still four of them.
Plus...
The masked villain himself.
At that moment, the plan he had been forming since the beginning of the battle finally settled in his mind.
He would destroy the remaining Nomu.
Inflict as much damage as possible on the mastermind.
Then...
He would allow himself to be captured.
It sounded insane.
It was insane.
But if they brought him to their headquarters, everything would change.
Once inside...
He would trigger his Mega Evolution.
After that...
He would unleash absolute havoc throughout their base.
There was another reason he was willing to take such a reckless gamble.
Ever since the day his blood had been stolen, he had spent weeks thinking about the possibility of being captured. Eventually, he had devised a countermeasure.
Hidden inside his mouth was a miniature emergency locator.
The moment he emerged on the other side of one of those black portals, he would activate it.
The signal would immediately reveal his location to the Hero Bureau.
Not only that.
He had also been preparing another psychic technique specifically to prevent himself from being completely restrained if he ever fell into enemy hands.
He wasn't walking into this blindly.
He had prepared.
Still...
Preparation didn't change one simple fact.
First...
He had to kill the remaining Nomu.
Even knowing the plan bordered on suicide...
Even knowing how dangerous it was...
He smiled.
There were simply too few opportunities to farm this much experience.
Ignoring every warning instinct screaming inside his head, Mewtwo made his decision.
Now...
He would end this quickly.
From everyone else's perspective, something impossible happened.
One of the Nomu suddenly collapsed.
There had been no attack.
No explosion.
Nothing.
It simply dropped to its knees.
No one understood why.
Not the priest in the distance.
Not the remaining Nomu.
Not even All For One.
The brief confusion lasted less than a second.
Then...
The sky lit up.
It wasn't rain descending from above.
It was a torrent of glowing golden stars.
"Swift."
Hundreds of homing stars crashed into the fallen Nomu.
The explosions came one after another, relentlessly tearing the creature apart.
Mewtwo didn't stop.
He continued bombarding the body long after it had ceased moving.
The barrage only ended once almost nothing recognizable remained.
Silence followed.
For just a brief moment...
The remaining Nomu hesitated.
Not because they feared pain or fear anything.
They simply couldn't understand what had happened ,they paused to think.
Why had their companion fallen before the attack even began?
"...You know," Mewtwo said calmly, looking at the remaining monsters, "they're strong. You planned that part well."
His gaze slowly shifted toward the masked villain.
"But against me..."
"They're simply a bad matchup."
The explanation was simple.
The first Nomu he had ever encountered had possessed almost no thoughts.
No true consciousness.
No mind to invade.
These newer models were different.
They could think.
Their thoughts were coherent.
They possessed individuality.
More importantly...
They had natural mental barriers.
Weak ones.
Extremely weak ones.
By forcing his telepathy directly against those barriers, Mewtwo could shatter them.
He had already proven something similar against Muscular.
Destroying a person's mental defenses didn't merely affect their mind.
The backlash echoed through the entire body.
Normally, it was completely impractical in combat.
It required concentration.
It required a long pause.
Against any skilled opponent, that opening would be fatal.
The Nomu, however...
Were the exception.
they had only the bare minimum of mental defenses.
They were practically built to lose against a psychic.
But that wasn't the only reason Mewtwo had spoken.
The hesitation spreading through the remaining Nomu...
That had been intentional.
If he couldn't instill fear...
He could instill doubt.
Why did he fall?
How did he kill him?
If he can do that to him...
Can he do the same to me?
how I protect myself?
what method I had to use to attack and not fall?
Those questions didn't need answers.
Simply asking them was enough.
And although his words had been directed at the Nomu...
They were meant for someone else entirely.
All For One.
The second Nomu collapsed.
Mewtwo didn't hesitate.
He brought both hands forward, gathering an enormous amount of energy between them.
He knew he couldn't afford to use this attack many more times. His reserves were dropping rapidly, and Hyper Beam was one of the most taxing techniques in his arsenal.
Even so...
It was worth it.
"Hyper Beam."
The pillar of light erupted once more.
The fallen Nomu was completely engulfed before it could even attempt to regenerate. The beam carved through its body and continued far into the horizon until, finally, it faded away.
Nothing remained.
A faint glow spread across Mewtwo's forearm.
33.
Another level.
Another surge of power coursed through his body, easing the exhaustion that had begun accumulating throughout the battle. His muscles felt lighter, his breathing steadied, and even the strain on his psychic abilities lessened ever so slightly.
Not enough to return him to full strength.
But enough.
"Don't think. Attack."
All For One's voice echoed across the battlefield.
He had already figured it out.
Whatever Mewtwo had done...
It wasn't something that had happened during their first encounter.
Which meant only one thing.
The boy had discovered—or developed—a new application of his abilities.
He didn't understand it completely yet, but he wasn't about to let Mewtwo keep exploiting it.
The remaining Nomu immediately abandoned their hesitation.
Mewtwo sighed inwardly.
Looks like that trick won't work forever.
Very well.
Then he'd simply change his approach.
Only two Nomu remained.
...No.
Three opponents.
All For One had finally decided to participate himself.
Interesting.
Apparently watching his creations get dismantled so effortlessly had finally annoyed him.
Still...
He didn't move much.
Instead, several grotesque bone-like tendrils erupted from beneath his sleeves, lashing toward Mewtwo with frightening speed.
Mewtwo barely glanced at them.
One Psyshock.
That was enough.
The psychic blast obliterated every tendril before they could even reach him, reducing them to fragments that scattered across the battlefield.
"...Looks like he isn't in any condition to fight seriously," Mewtwo muttered.
Whether he was injured, weakened, or simply unable to exert himself, something was clearly limiting the masked villain.
He couldn't focus on that for long.
One of the remaining Nomu closed the distance.
Mewtwo met its strike with Iron Tail, the metallic clash ringing through the air.
Suddenly, the creature's forearms shifted.
Massive drills burst from both arms, spinning violently before lunging toward him.
"...Curious."
Mewtwo's eyes narrowed.
"So that's your Quirk."
The drills screamed through the air.
But...
Iron against iron.
Mewtwo had the advantage.
He spun, redirecting both drills away from his body with precise movements of his tail.
Before he could counter, the second Nomu attacked.
Dark claws erupted from its forearms, extending outward like living shadows before slashing toward him from multiple angles.
Without interrupting his spin, Mewtwo raised one leg.
"Mega Kick."
The kick shattered the shadow claws on contact, sending fragments of black energy flying in every direction.
The instant his foot touched the ground, electricity exploded around his body.
Blue-white lightning danced across his skin before surging outward.
"Thunderbolt."
The massive discharge struck both Nomu simultaneously.
The sky lit up in a brilliant flash.
For a brief instant, it looked as though lightning itself had descended upon the battlefield.
The impact hurled both monsters backward, their bodies tumbling across the ruined ground as arcs of electricity continued dancing over their flesh.
The lightning hadn't been meant to kill.
This time, Thunderbolt served a different purpose.
It was nothing more than a brief paralysis.
An opening.
The instant the current slowed the Nomu's movements, Mewtwo vanished.
at full speed he appeared directly above the creature before it could recover.
He extended one hand downward.
"Flamethrower."
A concentrated torrent of fire erupted from his palm, directed with surgical precision toward the exposed brain protruding from the Nomu's skull.
Unlike the previous monsters, this one lacked the overwhelming durability of the Thunder Nomu.
The flames consumed the exposed tissue almost instantly.
Only then did Mewtwo realize something.
The strongest one...
Had truly been the Thunder Nomu.
The one he had originally intended to capture.
The others were powerful.
Far stronger than ordinary Nomu.
But none of them came remotely close to that creature.
Which meant...
Even this villain couldn't mass-produce monsters of that caliber.
That realization was valuable.
By the time the third Nomu collapsed lifelessly, the last remaining one charged.
This one was... bizarre.
It possessed the body of a massive bird, its wings broad enough to cast a shadow over the battlefield.
Its forearms ended in enormous rotating drills.
"...What an ugly combination," Mewtwo muttered.
It didn't matter.
He had no intention of dragging this fight out any longer.
As the flying Nomu dove toward him, Mewtwo calmly adjusted his position.
Not to dodge.
To line up his shot.
He raised both hands.
Energy condensed once again.
"Hyper Beam."
The beam erupted toward the incoming Nomu—
But another figure suddenly stepped into its path.
All For One.
For the first time since the battle began...
He was forced to block personally.
Multiple Quirks activated simultaneously.
His arm swelled grotesquely, layers of black metal spreading across it while muscles expanded far beyond human proportions.
The limb transformed into something monstrous.
Then...
He punched.
The strike released a devastating blast of compressed wind that collided head-on with Hyper Beam.
For a brief moment...
The two attacks struggled against one another.
The battlefield trembled beneath the clash.
Finally—
A massive shockwave erupted outward, dispersing both techniques.
Dust and debris exploded in every direction.
Mewtwo immediately noticed it.
Subtle.
But unmistakable.
All For One's breathing had become heavier.
Only slightly.
Yet it was there.
He can't fight at full capacity.
A possibility crossed Mewtwo's mind.
...Maybe I can finish him here.
The thought barely formed before his psychic senses screamed.
Behind him.
"...Just how the fuck—"
Without turning around, Mewtwo instinctively activated Barrier.
A fraction of a second later—
Another missile.
The projectile exploded against his psychic barrier before reaching him.
This time, however, he had been ready.
Without hesitation, Mewtwo countered by unleashing another storm of Swift, the homing stars intercepting the explosion and tearing through the smoke before it could blind him.
Then...
The sky darkened.
A gigantic portal opened directly above him.
Something enormous emerged.
For an instant...
It looked like an entire mountain had fallen from the heavens.
It wasn't.
It was simply a man.
Or rather...
Something that had once been a man.
The colossal figure crashed down onto Mewtwo's Barrier with terrifying force.
The psychic shield shattered instantly.
Mewtwo reacted on instinct, driving a Mega Punch upward.
The collision echoed like thunder.
Even so...
The sheer momentum forced him into the ground, leaving a deep crater beneath his feet.
"...There."
Mewtwo's eyes narrowed.
My chance.
Instead of resisting further...
He stopped struggling.
His body went limp.
To every observer present—
It appeared as though he had finally been overwhelmed.
As though he had lost consciousness.
As though the battle was over.
Exactly as planned.
At the same time, without anyone noticing, Mewtwo activated the contingency he had spent weeks developing.
His trump card.
A technique he had only recently mastered and had never before been forced to use.
"Safeguard."
An invisible layer of psychic energy silently settled over his body.
he was protected. and now at level 34.