"Fang Mo?"
Following Saitama's gaze, everyone also saw Fang Mo squatting not far from a pile of feces.
At this moment, he was squatting with his back to the people, and a strange "creak creak" sound could faintly be heard, which inevitably made everyone exchange puzzled looks.
"You..."
In the end, it was Saitama who couldn't hold back: "What are you doing?"
"Hmm?"
After hearing the shouts from the crowd, Fang Mo turned his head and then slowly stood up: "Oh, you guys came quite quickly."
And when he stood up.
Everyone could see clearly.
It turned out that in front of him was a pile of odd bicycle parts, such as axles, chains, pedals, and even a completely deformed wheel rim, suggesting he was probably fixing a bicycle.
But next to these bicycle parts.
There was also a pile of grayish-white slabs.
The shapes of these slabs were somewhat eerie, and upon closer inspection, everyone noticed suspicious brown traces on them.
These brown traces were roughly smeared on the slabs, forming a blurry pentagram with an eye-like shape in the center. However, the slabs were now crawling with numerous flies, casting doubt on the true nature of the brown paint.
Genos looked oddly at the slabs and then back at the parts.
After holding back for a while, he barely managed to ask: "Mr. Fang Mo, are you fixing a bicycle?"
"Uh, Priest."
The concerns of the Puri-Puri Prisoner were somewhat different from Genos's, as he worriedly looked at the Mumen Rider lying in a puddle: "Mumen Rider... Is he alright?"
"Oh, don't worry."
Fang Mo wiped his hands and casually glanced at the Mumen Rider in the puddle: "I'll look after him from now on, he won't die..."
But honestly speaking.
The condition of the Mumen Rider was quite bad.
Because just now, the Sea King, in the name of a deep-sea diver, called upon its master Cthulhu, who then received the blessings of the ancient days, rapidly regenerating its body, and soon wanted to rush into the city to seek revenge on Fang Mo.
And to prevent startling the octopus while fishing, Fang Mo had intentionally kept a low profile.
In his view, the commotion by the sea had already grown so large that soon an S-class hero would come to check the situation and casually finish off this creature.
But to Fang Mo's surprise, the expected S-class hero didn't show up, but instead, a C-class hero appeared; honestly, even Fang Mo himself hadn't noticed the situation here... since he had always been watching Cthulhu in the sea, he really didn't have time to deal with the Sea King.
Resulting in the Mumen Rider charging in unexpectedly.
Seeing the Sea King at full strength, the Mumen Rider didn't hesitate to launch his finishing move, Righteous Collision... that is, attempting to strike the enemy with his bicycle.
However, facing the Mumen Rider's attack, the Sea King simply swatted him away as if he were shooing a fly.
The Mumen Rider immediately screamed as he flew through the air.
Thankfully, his riding gear... although it's called gear, it's actually more like a Kamen Rider suit. Anyway, thanks to the quality of this gear, he was spared from severe injuries.
Even so.
The Mumen Rider still passed out.
Fortunately, after this incident, Fang Mo quickly noticed the disturbance and rushed over to save the day, fiercely striking the Sea King with the Shit Sword.
Thus, the Sea King once again died miserably in the pile of feces.
Even in his last moments, his face was marked with endless humiliation and resentment.
Fang Mo, of course, was not about to sympathize with the monster, since the Sea King initially wanted to turn all of humanity into his livestock, so such alien species were, of course, to be treated however one pleased.
After dealing with the Sea King.
Fang Mo then turned his attention to the Mumen Rider on the ground.
Honestly speaking, Fang Mo's opinion on the character of the Mumen Rider was quite complex.
When Fang Mo first encountered the One Punch Man manga on the internet in his previous life, he was very young and his thoughts were quite simple and pure; he only enjoyed watching Saitama overpower monsters with his overwhelming strength.
He thought that the feeling of breaking all laws with one punch was just too cool.
"One punch to calm storms, no gods across all seas."
In Fang Mo's eyes at the time, the Mumen Rider was nothing but an annoying clown... Despite being so weak, why try to act strong? Just have Saitama come over and punch the monster to death, and it would be over.
Who would like such a weak and battered hero?
There could be nothing more foolish than this.
However, much later, Fang Mo was harshly taught a lesson by cruel reality, and he came to understand many disgusting yet undeniable truths.
European vampires aren't afraid of Ripple. The Celestial Dragons from One Piece could actually break the fourth wall. Someone's softest spot in their heart was not cotton, yet it was still plucked by those damned black hands, and one of Fang Mo's colleagues... said he didn't want to die suddenly, but his body was already stiff.
After Fang Mo understood these truths.
When he revisited the manga, he found his view of the Mumen Rider had changed.
Everyone dreams of being the protagonist of their life, as powerful and cool as Saitama... But to be honest, reality is brutally cruel; it strips those dreams and beauties bloodily before your eyes, and then chops and grinds them up in front of you.
Only then did Fang Mo truly understand something.
Only those who know they can be hurt, can die, clearly understand they are mere mortals, but still stand up resolutely to protect others... are true heroes.
Fang Mo knew he definitely didn't have such awareness.
But that didn't stop him from admiring such people.
Thus, looking at the unconscious Mumen Rider on the ground, an idea naturally emerged in Fang Mo's mind, and in the presence of everyone there, he simply spoke out.
"I've decided to take the Mumen Rider as my disciple."
Fang Mo declared outright.
"What?"
The crowd seemed a bit puzzled, seemingly unclear why Fang Mo would bring this up suddenly, only Ancient One, not far away, started to feel a headache again after hearing this.
"He is a genuinely kind and righteous child, could you let him go?"
Ancient One sighed.
"No, I don't like to hear that,"
Fang Mo became displeased: "What do you mean let him go? Being my disciple is the blessing of eight lifetimes. I see his bones are extraordinary and want to take him under my wing. Once he eats the essence berry, he'll ascend right on the spot, okay?"
"Eight lifetimes' blessing?"
Ancient One commented: "I think it's more like eight lifetimes of bad luck."
"You didn't have to say that, but now that you mention it," Fang Mo reacted suddenly: "You deliberately gave me a name synonymous with the Root Of All Evil, and I haven't even settled this with you yet. You don't think you can just hide, do you?"
"I think that name suits you."
Ancient One stated the facts.
"Appropriate, right? Okay." Fang Mo's mouth twitched slightly, and then he magically pulled out a wooden box: "Then do you know what this is?"
"The box of all evils."
Ancient One glanced at the wooden box and calmly said.
"This is the wonderful tool I'll need for your seventh-day ritual after you die."
Fang Mo said: "I'll enchant it with life, and feed it your ashes. Hey, and then every day, this little box will emit a burst of whimsical, humorous laughter... The most amazing thing is that it laughs in a 'box, box, box' sound. What do you think if I call it the 'Ancient One Box'?"
"..."
Ancient One indeed fell silent.
"This..."
Meanwhile, the nearby Puri-Puri Prisoner, hearing the two's conversation, seemed a bit confused and quietly asked Genos beside him: "Genos... They seem to be master and disciple, right? Why are they arguing now?"
"I'm not sure."
Genos, being straightforward, shook his head and said, "But it seems related to the hero name. Mr. Fang Mo didn't like his original hero name..."
"But no matter what, now is not the time to argue, right?"
This time, it was Saitama's turn to speak, who wasn't really afraid of Fang Mo, so he stepped forward and interrupted the two: "Hey, hey, you two, at least take care of the monster in the sea first before you argue. Otherwise, it'll be trouble once it comes ashore, right?"
"Hmm?"
Hearing Saitama's words, both Fang Mo and Ancient One instinctively looked toward the sea.
It must be said that as a god of evil, this old ruler truly possessed an imposing aura. At this moment, the entire sea had turned completely dark, as countless heavy, iron-like clouds converged into a terrifying vortex that stretched as far as the eye could see. Within it brewed a fearsome thunderstorm, as if interpreting this globally rare disaster.
The originally clear and pristine ocean had, under the influence of this blasphemous aura, turned into an endless black tide.
Accompanied by the malevolence from the depths of the sea.
They seemed eager to swallow up all of humanity.
Under the watchful eyes of a few, the enormous, vaguely visible shadow became increasingly tangible, surrounded by a nauseating, ink-green, foul-smelling mist, like corrupt poison constantly swirling around it.
Accompanied by its malevolent will, this filthy and unclean black tide began to rapidly expand outward.
Seemingly intending to spread this terror indiscriminately to the ends of the earth.
"It's... it's over..."
Seeing this scene, the "Puri-Puri Prisoner" also began to turn pale, the form of the Old One terrifying beyond human understanding, his voice trembling: "This is not just a dragon-level disaster, this is... a god..."
"It's bad!"
Genos's expression was equally grim: "With this scale, even self-destruction would be futile, wouldn't it?"
"Saitama, shouldn't you take care of your disciple?"
Fang Mo couldn't help but facepalm: "Why does he always think about self-destructing..."
"I don't know either."
Saitama seemed a bit troubled: "But the monster this time does seem a bit tricky, maybe we should just go and deal with it in the sea, the daSorcerer it could cause once it reaches the shore would be too great..."
"No, its harm is already becoming apparent."
The Ancient One, an expert in dealing with such entities, immediately spoke up: "Just by arriving here, it has already begun to distort reality itself. We must immediately contain it."
With that said,
Ancient One quickly formed a magical array.
This time, she didn't bother with an orange array but started directly with a bizarre black array.
Fang Mo could feel it.
That was the power from the Omothol dimension.
This old thing had secretly borrowed the power of his dimension to cast spells again!
But to be fair, with the strong support of Fang Mo, the "Dimensional Sorcerer," the Ancient One's power was indeed displayed beyond the ordinary.
She suddenly flicked her hand, and a semi-transparent black crystalline film expanded outward from her body, activating a strange... high-level mirror space composed of pure potential energy, covering the entire sea in front of her in an instant.
However, through her deliberate manipulation,
Mumen Rider, Puri-Puri Prisoner, Genos, and others were isolated in the real world.
"Alright..."
After activating the mirror space, the Ancient One also took a long breath, knowing even with the highest dimensional power from Omothol, trapping an indescribable terror was no easy task, so she directly said: "It's up to you guys now."
"Oh, leave it to me."
Saitama was full of vigor, clenching his fists.
"...How did you know I was going to fight him?" But Fang Mo's style was a bit different, as he strangely looked at the Ancient One: "Couldn't I just be wanting to talk and make friends with him?"
"I may have lived for a thousand years, but I'm not that stupid."
The Ancient One helplessly glanced at Fang Mo: "I can tell the difference between a bad taste and pure evil..."
"Tsk, fine."
Fang Mo smirked, then drew a giant sword from behind: "I really can't stand this guy, I'll split his dog brain open."
And with that said,
Fang Mo took a leap, flying towards the direction of the sea.
"Hey! Wait for me!"
And just behind Fang Mo, Saitama couldn't help but shout, since he couldn't fly and after thinking about it, he just jumped into the sea to chase after Fang Mo.
But swimming was no match for flying.
It wasn't long before Fang Mo reached a place not far from Cthulhu.
Facing this mountainous, bloated deity that had just descended from the dreamscape into this world, a dangerous smile appeared on Fang Mo's face.
"Didn't notice me, huh?"
Fang Mo suddenly extended a finger, then a giant sword in his storage space vibrated fiercely: "Well then, let me start by greeting you..."
"Tengai Shinsei."
~~~
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