Starting from a Koromon! [57]

At this point, exposing his identity no longer mattered. Zero couldn’t even think about anything else.

Just seeing that instant when Rina was violently hurled away, a horrific wound torn open on the side of her abdomen, blood spraying everywhere—the rage already threatened to destroy his sanity.

Inside his body, his DigiCore thrashed madly, almost shattering itself—like an overloaded reactor going berserk, willing to tear his own body apart just to squeeze out the power to destroy the enemy.

This intense desire seemed to attract some entity’s “approval.” Amid the chaos, everyone’s eyes were on Devimon, Rina, Zero, and Hajime. Nobody noticed the symbol glowing faintly from inside Lillie’s bag.

A mark formed of two inverted triangles, red and black intertwined, quietly released some mysterious power.

“Hajime…” Zero forced out words from between gritted teeth. “…Go protect Rina and the others, and then…”

Not giving Hajime even a chance to react, Zero’s voice exploded into a furious roar—

“…I’m going to slaughter this bastard!!!”

Zero’s body was directly torn apart by an eruption of surging data. His DigiCore, enveloped by countless rings of data, began taking shape.

First: The previously damaged trident revolver. Since it was already broken, Zero, following his principle of not wasting anything, absorbed it into his data—a little recycling never hurt anyone.

Next: The massive amount of data from Devimon himself, clearly an enormous “experience” gift package.

Finally: Zero’s own power, ignited by nothing but the furious flame of revenge at this very moment…

…Combining the three, the massive form of a dinosaur emerged within the brilliance. Crashing straight through the hall’s ceiling, it rose high above the mountain villas, forming into a colossal figure.

Seeing this, Devimon coldly sneered and looked upwards. The pitch-black flames withdrew from the maid’s body, leaving her to collapse limply. Simultaneously, those flames rapidly expanded, constructing the towering form of a gigantic devil.

Luckily, this was deep in the mountains—surrounded for miles by the Shinomiya family’s private land. If something like this happened downtown, it would be global news by tomorrow.

Even so, these two gigantic creatures left the onlookers utterly dumbstruck.

The enormous devil needed no further description. Meanwhile, the form Zero evolved into…

…Mainly composed of virus-type data, supplemented with weapon data from the trident revolver and his own refined data—a mechanical-clawed, winged dinosaur, astonishingly similar to Greymon, yet with a silver cannon embedded in its chest…

METALGREYMON (VIRUS)!!!

Inside the hall, with the gigantic devil’s departure, everyone regained their mobility. Of course, the first priority was immediately gathering people to check on Rina’s injuries.

“Rina, are you alright?!”

Yuuko and Lillie rushed forward, joined by Hajime, who’d been left behind.

At this point, seeing Hajime didn’t even surprise Yuuko and Lillie at all—they seemed to simply accept her presence as entirely natural.

Meanwhile, Zero had already begun battling the gigantic devil in mid-air. Though Devimon’s strength had returned to his peak on File Island—and even further increased by absorbing the negative emotions of eyewitnesses—Zero, who’d successfully evolved, wasn’t disadvantaged in the slightest.

The two enormous monsters clashed in the sky. Naturally, the spectators below stared in stunned disbelief, though among them, certain individuals reacted differently.

Lusamine gazed upward at the two beasts, their forms reflected in her pupils, her face lighting up with almost fanatical fervor.

“…Unknown lifeforms inhabiting the digital network… ‘Digimon’ truly exist! This is simply marvelous… This power, this form—it’s precisely the ‘truth’ I’ve long been seeking!”

Elsewhere, Kamishiro Group’s technology chief, Akemi Suedou, murmured with a faint smile:

“Oh dear, this has escalated quite dramatically. I wonder how they plan to wrap this up?”

Both muttered to themselves quietly, unheard by anyone else, before shifting their attention back to the scene. After all, Rina’s injury was the more pressing issue.

Fortunately, after inspection, the wound wasn’t fatal. For ordinary people, it’d be critical—but given the Shinomiya family’s resources, fully mobilizing medical care, this injury was entirely manageable.

Of course, Zero didn’t know this—and even if he did, it wouldn’t matter. Because…

“…Die! Die right now! Disappear until not even ashes remain!”

His trident arm forged from Chrome Digizoid shone fiercely, its powerful strikes easily matching Devimon’s Death Claw blow-for-blow.

However, Devimon didn’t appear especially weak, either. For now, both sides were evenly matched.

“Heh, you think this is enough to kill me? Besides, the power keeps flowing in!”

Devimon was correct: with the increasing eyewitnesses, chaos continued to grow. Servants from the Shinomiya family, Kamishiro’s technicians, members of the Aether Foundation—though there were no ordinary bystanders, plenty of people were present.

The more the chaos escalated, the stronger Devimon’s power would grow.

“Oh, really? This isn’t enough to take you down? Fine. Then how about this?”

In the fierce battle, Zero suddenly posed this question. Immediately after, his body was enveloped by countless shining beams of barcode-like data.

METALGREYMON (VIRUS)—PARALLEL DIGIVOLUTION!!!

Zero could freely evolve and devolve, naturally choosing different evolution routes at will. Previously, he’d stuck to a single path to solidify one line first, ensuring his own survival before branching out.

After all, biting off more than you could chew wasn’t smart—rather than wasting resources on seven or eight Champion-level forms, it was wiser to quickly reach Ultimate first, then backtrack along other routes later.

But now, Zero sensed he had accumulated enough data in one go. In that case…

Another major evolutionary branch from Agumon—this deep crimson dinosaur’s back extended into thick, blade-like spikes…

…TYRANNOMON!!!

But that wasn’t all!

The battle-hardened dinosaur further tempered himself. His crimson skin blackened, his body decorated with countless scars marking countless battles—his aura sharpened to a higher peak.

Vaccine-type, Ultimate-level dinosaur Digimon—

—MASTERTYRANNOMON!!!

As the fight escalated step by step, Devimon began to feel himself straining slightly against the oppressive power radiating from Zero’s newly evolved Ultimate form. However…

“…It’s not over—not yet. This is still just the beginning.”

Reflected in Zero’s eyes was GeoGreymon’s figure. Having evolved successively into MetalGreymon (Virus) and MasterTyrannomon, his DigiCore had stabilized data from both mechanical and dinosaur-type forms. Now, it was time to…

MASTERTYROMMON—PARALLEL DIGIVOLUTION!!!

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This is a fan translation of从滚球兽开始 by 魔王丘比. Rights to the original work belong to the creator. Please support them by exploring their original work or sharing it with others if you can. Thank you for reading and supporting my efforts to bring this story to a wider audience!