Chapter 162 (Online): Greatest Hero

Gathered with Sekingar, the hero rescue team takes stock of the lull in the fighting. Though the immediate danger seems to have passed, Sekingar cautions that fresh monsters could surface at any second and pushes the heroes to carry out their rescues quickly.

When Lightning Max asks how Sage Centipede and Evil Ocean Water were beaten, Tareo credits the man he calls uncle, meaning Garou. Mumen Rider wonders aloud whether this uncle wears a tank top, and Tareo doubts it. A sudden quake then rattles the area, hinting at renewed trouble.

Far overhead, the clash between Saitama and the mutating Garou has broken out in full and is the source of the tremors. Garou throws everything he has, but Saitama shrugs off the barrage, trading a dodged punch for an ax-kick that tears up the ground, then answering a hand chop with a head butt that shatters Garou's forearm. The limb regrows at once, yet all Saitama really wants is to talk. Exasperated, he punches Garou toward Tareo and the other heroes, and the Hero Hunter's body begins to warp as it lands, frightening the boy. Max and Sneck haul Tareo away, and the wounded heroes load onto two boats and shove off.

Tareo leaps from his boat and swims back to shore to face Garou. Unafraid of the monstrous shape before him, he calls Garou a hero. Garou protests that he is nothing of the sort, but Tareo insists the man has rescued him four times over and names him the greatest hero he knows, begging him to drop the monster act. As Garou reels, Saitama arrives and echoes the boy, mocking the transformation as cosplay.

Garou tells Tareo to watch as he shows how powerless heroes truly are. The boy pleads with him not to fight, warning that hurting more heroes will seal his fate as a genuine monster. Goaded by Saitama, Garou lands a heavy blow to the hero's head that shocks Tareo, though Saitama calmly promises the boy he is unhurt and swats the next strike aside. When Tareo nods in answer to Saitama's offer to put a stop to Garou, Saitama starts toward the Hero Hunter.

Titled Saikō no Hīrō in Japanese and released by Viz as The Coolest Hero, the chapter borrows in part from webcomic chapters 88, 89, and 92. Saitama and Garou appear on the cover.

It went online on April 7, 2022 with 43 pages, falling between Sinking Feeling and Tougher Than a Mountain. The same content is numbered chapter 167 in the collected volumes.