After cutting and more of Poppy's tentacle arms, Arad realized that fighting her like this wasn't efficient at all. He was getting bitten and chomped every now and then, and while he didn't mind the pain, it didn't feel great at all.

If possible, he wanted to neutralize Poppy in seconds and be done with her. While saving the people's lives was important, making sure they don't witness a traumatizing clash of monsters is also something he can't ignore.

Besides, just them fighting here is putting people's lives at risk and destroying many of the houses they spent ages working to build. He can't stand letting his people sleep on the streets in the cold of the coming winter, and he won't allow it to be because his attacks trashed their work.

He needs something else besides his strength and speed, something more fundamental, a martial art that surpasses everything. Who is the most skilled person he has ever seen? Is there anything in his mind that could ever allow him to turn the tides of this battle in a flash?

Was it Kayden, the slayer of gods? No, he is already fighting like him, and it's not helping. Kayden's fighting style is directly based on destruction, and collateral damage is already a basis of it. To kill a god, you couldn't afford to worry about anything, which made sense. Poppy wasn't a god, and so he doesn't need such power to take her down.

Will it be Dalla's style then? The woman who used the power of the weak to subdue the strong? Granted, her slaps could quickly bridge the gap in strength between mortals and horrors and allow even a fragile person to step on even the dragons, but… Poppy here won't care about pain. She is a monster that tore into her own body for power, and that alone sets her apart from the common horrors that Dalla's skills would work on.

That only left a single master of the blade for Arad to use, the skills that already made a man stand above the dragons. The single most martially gifted genius he had ever met, and the man from whom he came. It was neither the accumulated knowledge of thousands of years nor the skills of desperation, but the pure will of mankind and their will to survive, thrive, and dominate.

Arad's body shifted back to that of a human, and Poppy was taken aback by it for a second. Did her attacks somehow work? That was impossible. Arad had far more HP than her, probably in several hundreds of folds. She couldn't have possibly weakened him enough to drive him back to a human form, which only meant one thing.

^A second phase?!^

Arad pulled a clean sword from his stomach and raised it above his head in a wrath stance. The moment Poppy saw him, and saw the stance, her true body in the sewers shat herself. She could clearly see his face, his image, and his will burning behind Arad. But what made her truly terrified was that she wasn't the only one who was surprised, even Cain, who was watching, gasped.

^Alcott?!^

[Dad?!]

A single sword, raised sky-high, that stance, those eyes, and that fiery will to rip through anything and everything. When such a skill was now carried by a man who could punch the gods down, it had turned into something that could put a stop to this madness.

Arad's eyes were faster, better, and more perceptive than those of Alcott by a lot, and thus, it was even easier for him to spot the details. How many tentacles were there? Did they have joins? How did Poppy move them? Where are the attacks coming from, and in which direction?

Blood engulfed Arad's blade, and it exploded forward to extend its reach like flames. He took a deep breath before all of his muscles contracted in a single move. He predicted the paths of all the tentacles at once, created a single, fluid path that links them all, and traced that with his sword.

Arad rushed forward with a single jump, and his blade flew right through the chaos, slashing every single tentacle more than ten times, shredding them all to pieces, and he reached Poppy in a fraction of a second.

^Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! No, he is at my face, I don't have enough time to regenerate…^ She could see Arad's sword flying toward her, but she only saw Alcott in his face, glaring right back at her with a cold, emotionless face.

Arad's sword whistled through the air and cut Poppy's body to pieces. He looped off her head, cut her torso three times, and each of her limbs at the joints. There was no wasted effort, no flashy moves, no big swings, just ruthless efficiency.

Poppy could see Arad's face as her head flew through the air and her torn body fell apart. She was about to regenerate, but Arad swung his blade again, as if to get rid of the blood, but instead, splashed his blood on her body parts, preventing them from regenerating.

"It is time to stop this meaningless fight. What are you even fighting for, Poppy?" He glared at her. "I'm fighting to protect my people, city, and empire. But you, it isn't just survival instincts, is it?"

Arad had already guessed that no matter how insane Poppy is, and no matter how much her sense of morality and danger has dulled, she won't be stupid enough to challenge him on her own. If she just wanted to survive or kill him, she would've run to the end of the world, hid, and bided her time to prepare. He had expected her to make an attack every few months or years, and to take maybe decades to come at him directly like she did today.

His eyes looked at her torn body as it shifted back to that of a child. "You aren't stupid; you knew it would end up like this. Why did you come here? What are you after… Who pushed you to do this?" He could already guess that there was someone, or something, pulling the strings from the shadows. Arad had expected an abomination, since they are well known to take advantage of the mortals' unstable minds, and he is someone they would very much like to target.

If such a threat exists, then Arad would want to take it down from the roots. Defeating Poppy and saving the day isn't enough; he had to save tomorrow as well. Whoever was behind this, Arad would have to cut down.

"How about this, Poppy? Who is behind this?" He leaned down to look at her severed head. "If you tell me, I'll let you live to see another day."

[Don't listen to him. He means his words literally. He'll let you see the light of tomorrow for a fraction of a second, then immediately kill you. He isn't that gentle or merciful.]

Cain wasn't wrong; Arad indeed just meant he'll let her see the light of tomorrow's dawn before executing her. He just worded it so she thinks he'll let her live to get information out without needing to lie. She was dealing with a dragon, and this is why humans had needed Alcott's help.

"You… won't kill me right after, right? I'll get to live…" She mumbled with a smile, and Arad didn't even flinch; he just flatly replied in a cold tone.

"I swear that I won't kill you." Hearing that response, Poppy was taken aback for a second, until Cain whispered back into her mind.

[He'll just let his wives do it. Many of them can easily kill you. Don't listen to this dragon. He doesn't lie, but never tells the whole truth. It is in their blood to scheme, plan, and subvert reality to their own benefit.]

Cain was once more right; Arad did intend to leave the job to his wives if he couldn't do it. It didn't matter what; Arad now wanted her dead, and she could not ever guarantee that he wouldn't kill her.

"Damn it… I won't survive long to find them." Poppy growled in the sewer, and a beautiful pale face with radiant white hair and glowing blue eyes appeared behind her back.

"Find who?" The face asked with a grin.

She blinked several times, looked back at the face. "Violet and Yog of course… what are you on about?"

[Fucking run! That isn't me!]

Gojo had made his entrance.