Hunter X Hunter: Grounded

Chapter 60



Title: Strong?




….
The deer chases at top speeds and not even three seconds later it catches up to Sub. But the latter crates his giant golem and throws it at the deer midair. The golem now has a dark age of Nen around it, and as it goes to punch the grotesque deer, this time the punch lands, and the deer plummeted to the ground.



Booom!


Creating a crater where it lands, the golem jumps behind it and throws a couple more punches that don't do any damage to the grotesque deer, but they do keep it pinned on the ground while Sub flaps his fleshy wings even quicker while running away. He looks at his hands and smirks. 'This power… it is quite good.'


Due to torturing the centipede inside of him, he now has a general map of these parts, because due to this being a copy of the giant centipede, it also has its memories. This means that around these parts the giant centipede traveled a lot and remembers… especially a certain natural occurrence which Sub predicts that it should be able to destroy the grotesque deer.



He gets even faster as he gets used to this grotesque armor around his body. Suddenly he even creates another pair of wings behind his body and flies at an even higher speed.



…
By now, the grotesque deer had obliterated the golem, even though unlike last time, it wasn't able to obliterate it in an instant. This gave Sub a lot of time to run away from here.



The grotesque deer though wasn't angry at all. It simply didn't know what it meant to be angry. So its dark Aura explodes out of its body and his bat-like wings grow disproportionately to his body, they become as big as the wings of a passenger plane.


Fwosh!


It immediately charges towards Sub, untired by this at all. His pursuit would be eternal unless Sub can somehow stop it.



…
On the other hand, the aforementioned person had already grown as many pairs of wings as it could fly faster away. He was in his 6th pair, it was as much as could appear on his back. 


His flying speed had almost reached that of a fighter jet, but the grotesque deer was even faster as it created sonic booms behind it.


But as soon as it caught up to Sub, the latter would conjure a golem and throw it at the creature. He could change the shape of his golem and would sometimes make it with a sword hand or something that wouldn't allow the grotesque deer to adapt to it.



…
…
This fight of theirs continues for eighteen hours and even Sub is starting to feel his Aura reserves depleting. He has been in a constant state of fighting mode, and it has taken a toll on him. But the grotesque deer was in top shape as it kept chasing. 


Any creatures that appeared in their way, Sub dodged them and while the grotesque deer initially fought them, he also learned that it would be best not to waste time on them while he is chasing Sub. 


Later on, during the eighteen hours of the chase, Sub couldn't even use its golem to hold the grotesque deer back, because the monster had summoned countless other infected creatures, the giant centipede was amongst them too. 


The sky was covered in darkness as the infected creatures chased Sub. But still, due to the large number of creatures, the grotesque deer ended up butting heads with many other creatures, some that could be considered on its level, but due to the large number of infected, they too were all defeated.





...
Finally, like the oasis in the middle of a desert, Sub sees a giant volcano, the head of the volcano was so big that it looked like a volcano lake and the normal human eye wouldn't be able to see the end of the other side of the volcano. Around it were countless red dragons of different sizes ranging from that of an elephant to that of a mountain, but Sub can immediately tell that none of them was a challenge against the giant army of infected giant and small creatures.


So, Sub takes the initiative by turning around and looking at the grotesque deer leading the charge. He knows that the deer has some self-awareness since it talked last time. So he takes this chance and while close to the volcano.



"Oy, you, the main body of the infected, we both know that this chase of ours would last forever if we continued it. So how about a one vs one, just you against me, leave the other infected creatures not get involved in this and I give you my word that there will be no foul doing on my part." Says Sub with a voice of sincerity. His face is covered by the fleshy helmet, but even under it, he has a sincere look on his face. 


The deer hits the air with his hooves and a voice comes from his body. "No…. I… do not accept…. You… already… tired…"



Sub sighs at this and pulls out a card from inside of his fleshy armor and the card turns into the light which makes a translucent angel appear and blow its breath towards him. This immediately recovers all of his Nen, because his body was already in top condition, his low levels of Nen was the only thing 'wrong' with his body.


"I can do this countless times, it's an ability of mine, if we continued, none of us would be the winner. So how about we end it, right here and now." Says Sub, lying through his teeth, that was the last Angel's Breath Card that he has on him. But the deer doesn't know that, and while the creature is great at fighting, it doesn't have enough social interactions to know how to read human body language nor tell if they are lying.



"Okay… we shall… fight… alone…" As the grotesque deer says that. The other infected creatures back off. 



Fwosh!!


It charges at Sub, and the grotesque deer's upper human headless body moves its arms. He jumps back as if dodge, but as soon as it is within Sub's range, he creates his giant golem, putting as much Nen from his body as he can into the golem. This causes it to swell and become twice the size that it is normally. 


It grabs into the grotesque deer and before it can understand what happened, the golem ripped off its giant bat-like wings.

Splash!!


Both deer and golem splash into the lava, the golem is not immediately destroyed as it pushes the deer deeper and deeper. The deer's skin burns off, but it regenerates almost immediately. Sub immediately cancels his golem, getting some of his Nen back, and then uses it to lift a giant boulder from the ground, and jumps back into the lava, as while the deer is regenerating it starts heading for the surface, but the giant boulder is pushed into it and a giant splash of lava is created due to the impact.


The laws of gravity push down the deer. Due to its monstrous regeneration, it doesn't die, but Sub smiles, finally showing his true emotions. 'Dumb animal, though it has all that power, it doesn't understand schemes because it has lived its life as a beast.'


Sub never planted to fight fairly, he would be a fool to do so. He will make as many fake promises as he needs to survive. 



"It's my win." He says before looking at the rest of the infected creatures. Immediately they try to run, Sub's eyes land on the centipede monster.


Fwosh!


He appears above it and before it can react, a giant fist of the golem appears and hits the centipede on the five heads.


Baam!!


It slams on the ground and its brains are splattered on the ground as its body crashes in a crater. Unlike when he met them, they are not screaming anything now.


BOOOM!!!


Sub conjures only the two golem arms and smashes into the centipede's body, turning it into mush. He understood something when he tortured the information out of the small (relatively) centipede inside of him. The bigger the creature, the harder it was for them to regenerate. For example, while Sub now has very fast regeneration, and the grotesque deer had almost instantaneous regeneration due to being the Origin of the virus. The bigger creatures, they too healed fast and could even regenerate limbs if given enough time. But in comparison to Sub who can regenerate limbs in less than two seconds… the giant creatures are slow to regenerate in comparison.


So Sub looks at the giant centipede and dispels his golem. His flesh armor changes and his real body appears, but one of his arms cracks and is made into a big worm with a big mouth, twice Sub's body size. 


Crunch! Crunch! Crunch!...


The giant centipede begins being devoured, Sub's body gains more figure to it and his muscles increase in size, becoming more buff. Something that a normal seventeen years old couldn't have. 

Also, he notices something that he hasn't been able to notice since he came to this place. 'When I came here… not even a couple of days ago. I wasn't able to even make this giant centipede flinch, but now I can easily smash it into mush.'


His growth has been into super speed once he came here.


….
After devouring the centipede, Sub's body releases a dangerous Aura that makes creatures around him run away. The dragons into the volcano look at him, their eyes are ferocious.


The ground starts to shake and out of the giant lake-sized volcano top, a giant red dragon's head, covered in magma pops out.


It looks around it and opens its mouth.


BOOOOOOM!!!!



Flames so hot that seem as if burning the sky appear. Sub looks at that with a gaze full of admiration. 'Ah… it seems like I am still weak. That dragon is way out of my league. Welp, I guess this is it.'


He pulls out a card. "Accompany On: Karla."


Fwosh!!


He shoots out in a beam of light.



….
Next time, he appears in a tree wrapped in bandages, Karla is there leaning on the tree, breathing heavily as she has a wound to her side. 


Sub looks at her, an unknown look appears in his eyes. Karla also looks at him and sees his cold eyes. 




'Sub's used to feel dangerous to me… now feels like deadly, like every other creature in this place. He feels like… he belongs here.' Thinks Karla, her thoughts slightly muddled by her blood loss, because while  Sub drew the grotesque deer away, many things around here could kill her. 

Thankfully she was able to take control of this tree by using her ability, still, she got injured, and due to the difference in power, Karla has lost a lot of Aura permanently due to her ability. Which allows people (and creatures) under her control to use their full power, but she loses Aura permanently the stronger the creature the more Nen she loses. 


A normal person is almost nothing in cost, but… anything from the Dark Continent costs a leg and a half. She feels like she lost a decade worth of Nen amount that she trains hard to gain. It feels like her Aura is back to when she used to be a beginner at Nen. This is the price for a strong ability like her's. The tree moves its vines and injects nutrients directly into Karla's body, helping her heal as much as it can.


"Sub… was I a bother?" Asks Karla, this time feeling as if she truly didn't do anything during this journey of theirs.




….
A/N: Sub has grown stronger… way stronger than he was just a couple of days ago. It might seem unnoticeable because of how strong his opponents have been though.🤣

P.S: Anyone curious about where the MC is in the Dark Continent.






P.P.S: For anyone even more curious. Yeah, I did research about what kind of creatures might be in the Dark Continent. I even translated some japanese tweets from the author...😉👍
(I am very through with these things. Also the immage above is an official immage of the Dark Continent.)