Elder Centipede

Elder Centipede (ムカデ長老, Mukade Chōrō; Viz: Centichoro) was a Dragon-level Mysterious Being and an executive member of the Monster Association.

Appearance
Elder Centipede, in contrast to his two counterparts, is far more monster-like. In the manga, he sports jet black armor all over his body, while in the anime, his armor is a dark purple. Its main head is heavily reminiscent of one of Melzargard's heads and seems to be contained inside two other heads. Its secondary head has four glowing eyes, antennae and extremely sharp teeth. It is immense in size, even bigger than two years prior, dwarfing many humans and coming close to the size of a city. His width is 15 meters wide with 3 faces. He is even larger with 4 faces. With all this, he appears very antagonizing and intimidating.

Personality
Elder Centipede's first notable trait is that compared to its counterparts, Junior Centipede and Senior Centipede, it is much more stoic and less verbose. It is far more focused, tactical, and cautious of its opponents, ignoring conflict and going directly after its targets instead of engaging in pointless fights - because of its immense size and powerful defense, it can easily tank any attacks directed its way. It is not known to have its own ideas or ambitions, just being content to work as a higher-up of the Monster Association.

However, due to nearly dying to Blast two years ago, Elder Centipede holds a vicious grudge against him and would jump at any chance to get a rematch. This is shown when it immediately abandoned its fight with Bang, Bomb, and Genos when King announced that Blast was nearby. It's possible that it was because of this defeat at Blast's hands that he became less arrogant and more careful.

History
Two years prior to the current events, Elder Centipede was almost killed by Blast. Ever since, the monster was seeking chances of revenge on the hero and agreed with the Monster Association for cooperation to achieve his own goal. On the other hand, however, Elder Centipede had been anxious because of obscure and mysterious movements of Blast and tried to lure him out.

The last time he appeared he caused heavy damage to a city and then disappeared. According to Hero Association staff members, Elder Centipede was smaller when he was last spotted two years ago.

Monster Raid Arc
After Metal Bat finished off two demon level monsters, Elder Centipede emerged from the ground. Elder Centipede attempts to kidnap the Hero Association sponsor, but is intercepted by Metal Bat. However, Metal Bat's swing did not manage to injure Elder Centipede and Elder Centipede flings Metal Bat toward a building.

While Elder Centipede continued to chase after Mohican and Pineapple to kidnap the Hero Association sponsor, Metal Bat managed to climb onto Elder Centipede's head. Metal Bat then unleashes an attack on Elder Centipede's head. To get Metal Bat off of him, Elder Centipede shakes Metal Bat off by maneuvering around the city. Elder Centipede continues to rampage through the city as he tries to get his hands on the Hero Association sponsors. When he finally manages to corner Mohican and Pineapple, Metal Knight arrives and fires missiles at Elder Centipede. Despite the powerful set of missiles, Elder Centipede remains undamaged by Metal Knight's attacks and comments that the robot is just an annoying pest.

Elder Centipede later picks up his allies and escapes with Metal Knight in tow.

Monster Association Arc
Elder Centipede is later seen accompanying Phoenix Man to rescue Garou. He protected his fellow monster from an attack from Genos. He proceeded to attack Bang, Bomb, and Genos while Phoenix Man escaped with Garou. Despite, their combined strength and even accomplishing significant damage towards Elder Centipede, Bang, Bomb, and Genos were unable to defeat the monster due to its molting and massive regeneration power and were forced to retreat. As they retreat near the end of the forest, Bang was about to sacrifice himself and unleash his full power to buy Bomb time to escape with the unconscious heroes and Genos. Fortunately, King arrives and catches Elder Centipede's attention by tricking him into believing that King brought Blast with him, as well as taunting the monster, making the monster charge toward the S-Class hero. Elder Centipede meets his demise when an unnoticed Saitama, who was behind King, threw a Serious Punch that disintegrated his entire body from head to tail until there was nothing left of the monster besides his lifeless claws. Credit for his defeat went to King since only King, Genos, Bang and Bomb knew that Saitama is the one that killed the monster.

Abilities and Powers
Elder Centipede is an executive member of the Monster Association and one of the largest mysterious beings in the series. It was noted that he even grew in size since two years prior to re-emerge and this massive size along with its speed and power makes it an extremely powerful monster. According to Gyoro Gyoro there are only four heroes from the Hero Association capable of defeating Elder Centipede: Tatsumaki, Metal Knight, King (not knowing his true nature) and Blast. Both Phoenix Man and the Hero Association compares Elder Centipede to natural catastrophic disasters. His power is proven when he was able to easily handle S-Class heroes: Genos and Bang, alongside Bomb (who's arguably stronger than Bang) with Phoenix Man claiming the only result of such a fight being complete slaughter for the heroes. This assessment almost came true if it weren't for King's and Saitama's intervention.

Physical Abilities
Immense Strength: Due to his enormous size, Elder Centipede possesses great strength as he was able to level an entire city just by passing through it and tunnel through the ground with ease. He was also able to knock Metal Bat hundreds of feet into the air and across the city. Elder Centipede was also capable of moving through the blasts of a vastly upgraded Genos and cut the cyborg in half with its mandibles.

Immense Speed: Elder Centipede is able to maneuver across a whole city with ease. Elder Centipede also has the ability to dig under the ground at high speeds. His reaction time is considerable as he was able to turn his head to the side in time to block Metal Bat’s swing with his carapace shell. Elder Centipede was also able to intercept Genos's blast after it was already fired into the sky. Immense Durability: Elder Centipede's unprotected face was able to survive multiple direct hits by Metal Bat, although he did show signs of pain. Elder Centipede took severe damage from the combination attacks from Bang and Bomb that damaged his outer body and Genos's heat blast from within that incinerated his insides but still did not go down completely.
 * Carapace Defense: Elder Centipede's huge body is protected by a super powerful carapace, which is his main form of defense as commented by Metal Knight, capable of enduring the latter's missiles without a scratch. It was also durable enough to withstand a swing from Metal Bat and Genos's Spiral Incinerate without damage. His carapace is also capable of growing stronger if he molts it as seem when he molted a new carapace after his initial carapace was shattered by Bang and Bomb.

Immense Endurance: Elder Centipede possesses incredible endurance being able to easily fight off multiple S-Class heroes with ease while enduring their attacks without much damage. He was able to continue fighting even after taking severe damage from Bang, Bomb, and Genos in rapid succession along with recovering from such damage in seconds. Only Saitama's punch which completely disintegrated his body stopped him altogether. Both his carapace armor and regeneration may influence this factor of him.

Regeneration: Elder Centipede is capable of regenerating from a significant amount of damage, regrowing his teeth, eyes, and even being able to recover from having his insides completely incinerated. However, if his entire body is completely destroyed, he will not be able to regenerate, as seen with Saitama's Serious Punch.

Acidic Digestive Fluids: Elder Centipede's insides are coated with extremely corrosive digestive fluids that would even melt the cybernetic body of Genos if he stayed in contact with them for too long.

Molting (脱皮, Dappi): Every time he sheds his outer shell, Elder Centipede grows bigger and stronger than he was before alongside gaining another face.
 * Elder_Centipede_Molting.pngMassive Size Increase: The size of Elder Centipede is massive enough that he can level cities in his way and force Saitama to use a Serious Punch to disintegrate him to minimize collateral damage. Also during its molting and regeneration process he can increase his already impressive size as Bang noticed while he grew a new coat of dermal armor.

Fighting Style
Mass Destruction: Despite being slower than the average S-Class, Elder Centipede uses his size to cause catastrophic destruction, being compared by the Hero Association to a "Natural Disaster."


 * Giant Centipede Tidal Wave (百足大うねり, Mukade Ō Uneri; Viz: Centipede Undulation): Elder Centipede moves in a swirling motion, causing mass amounts of damage in his wake. This technique was first seen used to shake Metal Bat off of Elder Centipede.

Transportation: Due to his sheer size, movement speed and ability to tunnel underground, Elder Centipede is used as a form of transportation for smaller monsters.

Trivia

 * Elder Centipede is the first official Dragon-level monster revealed.
 * Murata jokes on a stream about there being a centipede of a higher tier than Elder Centipede.
 * Elder Centipede is the first Dragon level monster that Saitama has used his Serious Series to destroy, though he did it out of a need to minimize collateral damage, to ensure that Elder Centipede could not get away and also because he was still frustrated for losing 81 times to King in a video game earlier.

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