Chapter 127 (Online)

The duel between Psykos and Tatsumaki rages on. Tatsumaki binds her opponent with a psychic hold and yanks her upward, only for Psykos to seize the hero in return and haul her down, sending the two hurtling toward one another. Psykos punches through the floor that Saitama, Flashy Flash, and Manako are traveling along before slamming into Tatsumaki, who then presses her for the whereabouts of the second child they came to find.

In another corner of the base, Tareo spots King and rushes over in relief. King, certain the boy must be another shapeshifter in disguise, barks at him to halt and accuses him outright. The commotion spooks a truly invisible monster lurking behind Tareo, who bolts under the assumption that King had actually detected it. King simply takes the boy's hand and leads him away.

The fleeing invisible monster is snatched and engulfed by a mass of slime down a corridor. That slime is the surviving heart of Orochi, drinking in monster blood to rebuild himself. Sensing the two espers battling close by, he stretches toward them. Psykos keeps hammering at Tatsumaki, yet the hero brushes her aside with ease, wrings the needed information out of her, and calls the other heroes through her locator. Only Sweet Mask answers, sharing his own predicament as the two trade barbs. Without warning, Orochi, now regrown enough to ring the opening with dragon heads, unleashes blasts from every angle, tearing Tatsumaki's sleeves, scuffing her, and jarring loose her grip. Psykos cackles and plunges toward Orochi to drain his power.

Tatsumaki overpowers Psykos in their psychic brawl and extracts the location of the second child. Tareo finds King, who mistakes him for a monster, and the pair slip away as a hidden monster flees. Orochi, reduced to a blood-absorbing slime heart, regenerates enough to blast both espers, and Psykos breaks free to seek his energy.

This online chapter sits within the Monster Association Arc and reached readers on February 22, 2020, drawing partly on webcomic chapter 70. Tatsumaki and Psykos appear on the cover, and the chapter corresponds to Tonari serialization number 171. A noted quirk of this first online version is that Tareo carries the Hero Association Catalog when he meets King, despite Garou having discarded the book earlier while sending the boy away from Royal Ripper and Bug God; the inconsistency was corrected in the Volume 26 edition.