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The air on the tiny planet wasn't just thick; it felt like he was breathing tar. Every beat of his heart pounded in his eardrums like a war drum, warning him that his cardiovascular system was working at its absolute limit.
10G. Ten times the gravity of Earth.
For a thirteen-year-old boy, even with muscles tempered by the brutal training at Turtle School, it was crushing hell. Kaiju was standing, but the victory was Pyrrhic. His body demanded he throw himself to the ground and surrender to physics.
Clenching his teeth so hard he nearly cracked his molars, Kaiju lifted his right foot. The simple act of lifting the sole of his shoe from the soft green grass felt like he was lifting a 100-kilogram anvil strapped to his ankle. His leg twitched spasmodically. With a muffled grunt, he planted his foot a few inches further forward.
He had taken a step.
—Mental note number 8503—Tohka's melodious, clinical voice echoed beside her. —The Creator's current rate of advance is 0.05 kilometers per hour. Considering the distance to the residential structure, we'll arrive in approximately twelve minutes. Internal suggestion: I can lift him by the collar and carry him to optimize time.
Tohka floated impassively, her arms crossed. Her lunar energy body, immune to standard biological and gravitational laws, kept her suspended ten centimeters above the ground without the slightest effort.
"Don't... even... think about it..." Kaiju managed to stammer, sweat trickling down his scar and dripping onto the grass. "This... is a test of willpower..."
Kaiju took another step. And then another. Its white Ki aura flickered erratically, struggling to keep the external pressure at bay. Every movement was meticulous agony. It felt like its bones were about to be pulverized, but its stubbornness was stronger. It had to master the flesh before it could harbor the power of the gods.
Twelve minutes later, which seemed like twelve years to Kaiju, the couple finally arrived at the small yellow brick road in front of the dome-shaped house.
With his back to them, a short, blue-skinned being, dressed in a black suit with the kanji symbol for "King" on his chest, was humming a cheerful tune while polishing the hood of a small, classic red car. Beside him, a monkey in a vest hopped about, mimicking his movements with a rag.
The god's instinct kicked in immediately. The blue being dropped the cloth and turned sharply, its antennae trembling.
"Bubbles, watch out! I sense an incredibly strong and strange Ki!" he exclaimed, adjusting his dark sunglasses. "Who's there?!"
King Kai blinked, puzzled. He had expected to see some intergalactic monster or a frost demon. Instead, he saw a human teenager who looked like he was about to physically collapse from the gravity, sweating profusely, and an extraordinarily beautiful girl floating listlessly.
"A human?!" King Kai shouted, backing up and crashing into his own car. "And alive?! How on earth did you get here without dying and without crossing Snake Way?! This is the jurisdiction of the other world!"
Kaiju let out a long sigh, allowing himself to rest his hands on his knees for a second to keep from falling. He looked up, his single brown eye fixed on the deity of the North Galaxy.
"I have... good shortcuts..." Kaiju panted, forcing himself to straighten up and give a clumsy, respectful but firm bow. "You are... King Kai. I have traveled across galaxies and dimensions... just to find you. I've come to ask you to train me. I want to learn the Kaio-ken and the Spirit Bomb."
Kaio-sama regained his composure, crossing his arms and adopting a dignified pose (or as dignified as possible for someone so chubby).
"The Kaio-ken and the Spirit Bomb? Ha! You've got guts, kid, I'll grant you that. Reaching my planet alive is an impossible feat. But I don't train just anyone. There are sacred rules on King Kai's Planet." The blue god dramatically raised a finger. "Rule number one: You must make me laugh! If you can't tell a joke that makes my antennae quiver, you can turn around and leave!"
Kaiju smiled. A tired smile, but one brimming with cunning. He'd dealt with Roshi's voyeurism and Shen's arrogance. Making this deity with a comedian complex laugh was, quite literally, the easiest thing he was going to do all month.
"Let's see how well you master your galactic humor, you fat blue fellow," he thought.
Kaiju closed his eye. This time, however, he didn't rely on his Ki. For the first time in months, he drew upon his original power.
The iris under her eyelid mutated to an immaculate white color.
"Tohka... my coat..." Kaiju murmured.
Tohka nodded, understanding the implication. She extended her hand, shielding her creator's movement with her own body as Kaiju channeled his energy into the ground. Using the overwhelming density of the earth and the minerals of the multiplied gravity planet, Kaiju transmuted matter instantaneously.
A second later, he straightened up and handed an object to the astonished Kaio-sama.
—As a tribute and proof of entry, Great Kaio-sama, I offer you this. This is not a joke. This is the final registration.
King Kai took it with both hands. His arms drooped suddenly from the weight.
It was a book. An absolutely monstrous book.
It was the size of an encyclopedic dictionary, with dark leather covers and gold lettering embossed on the front that read: "The Multiversal Encyclopedia of Humor: Volume I." It was so absurdly thick and heavy that it seemed to be made of pure lead, as dense as stone.
"A-a book?" King Kai raised an eyebrow, clearly disappointed. "Hey, kid! I asked you to tell me a joke, not give me homework to read!"
"Just open a random page, Master. I beg you," Kaiju said, leaning against a round tree to avoid collapsing under the weight of gravity, keeping his breathing under control.
Reluctantly, grumbling about how young people today knew nothing about public speaking, Kaio-sama opened the thick tome in half. He read the first line. His antennae twitched. He read the second. His eyes widened behind his sunglasses.
—"Why did the math book commit suicide? ... Because it had too many problems!" Kaio-sama read in a low voice.
A deathly silence fell over the tiny planet. Bubbles the monkey scratched his head. Tohka made a silent mental note about the appalling quality of human literature.
Suddenly, Kaio-sama's shoulders began to tremble.
Her face turned purple. She held her breath until it looked like it was going to explode, and finally, she let it out.
—PFFFFFFFF HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!! —King Kai threw himself to the ground, pounding the grass with his fist as he laughed so hard his own planet shook—. HAHAHAHA!! Too many problems! Oh, my stomach! It's awful, it's terrible, but it's hilarious!
She quickly turned to the next page, her hands trembling with anticipation.
—"What does one traffic light say to another? ... Don't look at me, I'm changing!" HAHAHAHAHA!! Bubbles, listen to this!! Don't look at me!! HAHAHAHA!!
Kaiju watched the blue god roll on the ground, laughing until tears welled up beneath his glasses. Despite the gravitational torture his body was enduring, the young man crossed his arms and smiled contentedly. Hundreds of thousands of lame jokes, dad jokes, and anecdotes from his previous life as an otaku and writer were compressed into the thousands of pages of that hefty tome. It had enough content to keep the god busy for decades.
—Mental note number 8504— Tohka dictated, watching the god writhe with laughter. —The humor of higher beings is alarmingly simple. Evaluating the possibility of conquering the universe using an arsenal of bad joke books instead of lethal military force.
"Out of the question, Tohka," Kaiju whispered, genuinely amused. "With some monsters from my world, not even the best joke will save you from having your head ripped off."
It took a full ten minutes to get Kaio-sama to regain his composure and stand up, wiping the tears from his eyes and hugging the massive tome as if it were his firstborn son.
"Ouch... my stomach hurts," groaned the blue god, grinning from ear to ear. "Alright, kid... You earned it. You passed the humor test with the heavy artillery. You said you wanted to master my ultimate techniques, huh?"
The god's gaze hardened, shifting in the blink of an eye from comedy to the true face of the guardian of the galaxy. His eyes scrutinized Kaiju, assessing the contained Ki and the body that was forcing itself to stand under 10G.
"Your body is strong, but your energy reserves are strange, as if you had two separate oceans inside you. I'm warning you, kid, the Kaio-ken is a double-edged sword. If you don't perfectly control the Ki explosion and muscle tension, your body will burst like a balloon. Are you ready for true hell?"
Kaiju stopped leaning against the tree. He took two steps toward the god, white Ki erupting around him again with an intensity that made Bubbles the monkey back away. His eye shone with pure determination.
"I have lived in hell, Kaio-sama," Kaiju replied coldly. "I am ready to turn it into my weapon."
...
A full year had passed. Three hundred and sixty-five days under a gravity that would crush a military tank into a metal pancake.
For Kaiju, now fourteen years old, King Kai's Planet was no longer an unbearable ordeal. His body had adapted with terrifying resilience. He ran along the yellow brick road at supersonic speeds, threw punches that created shockwaves capable of ruffling the planet's round trees, and caught Bubbles the monkey blindfolded.
However, mastering gravity was only a prerequisite. The true purpose of his stay was always the forbidden technique of the gods.
At the center of the small planet, the air was distorted by the heat.
"HAAAAAA!" roared Kaiju, his fists clenched at his waist.
A violent, erratic, crimson aura erupted around his body. The grass beneath his feet instantly disintegrated. His muscle mass expanded, and the veins in his arms and neck stood out grotesquely, throbbing under the immense pressure of the multiplied energy.
"Focus, boy! Keep the flow going or your own Ki will tear you apart from the inside!" yelled Kaio-sama, taking refuge behind his small red car to avoid being pushed by the gale of hot wind.
Kaiju gritted his teeth, feeling his bones crack. The Kaio-ken wasn't magic; it was pure biological overload. It accelerated heart rate, blood flow, and destructive force at the expense of cellular integrity.
"Kaio-ken... times three!" shouted the teenager.
The red aura grew to three times its size. The small planet trembled violently. Kaiju felt as if his lungs were filled with lava, but the euphoria of power was intoxicating. He was living the fever dream of his childhood. He wasn't doing this because he had a cosmic destiny or a prophecy to fulfill. He was doing it simply because, in his past life, he had grown up reading manga in his room, wishing with all his heart that he could do exactly this.
"Just a little more... I can give a little more..." thought Kaiju, blinded by adrenaline.
"Kaiju, stop! Your human structure is collapsing!" Tohka's voice echoed from above, filled with genuine panic that no longer sounded robotic.
But the boy didn't listen. He wanted to reach the limit of his own physical potential.
—KAIO-KEN TIMES FOUR!!
BOOM!
The burst of red energy was so massive that it illuminated the planet's yellow sky. The raw power emanating from its human body was enough to create a crater beneath its feet. For two glorious, perfect seconds, Kaiju possessed physical strength capable of pulverizing mountains with a snap of its fingers.
And then, physics caught up with him.
Several capillaries in its arms and legs burst simultaneously. Its muscles tore with a bloodcurdling sound. The red aura dimmed like a candle smothered in water, and Kaiju spat out a mouthful of blood before collapsing forward like a puppet whose strings had been cut.
It didn't even touch the ground.
Tohka crossed the space in a flash, catching him mid-air. They fell together onto the grass. She held him against her lap, her gloved hands trembling as she scanned his vital signs.
Kaiju opened his one good eye. His vision was blurry, out of focus, but he was still conscious.
"I... I did it..." Kaiju whispered, a small, delirious smile appearing on his red-stained lips. "Four... four times... that's... the limit of my humanity..."
"You reckless idiot!" Tohka scolded, pulling him close to her chest, tears welling dangerously in the corners of her beautiful amethyst eyes. "If you ever do anything like that again, I'll lock you away in the pocket dimension forever! (Mental note: The Creator has suicidal tendencies due to male romance!)"
Kaiju let out a dry laugh that quickly turned into a groan of pain.
"Relax, Tohka... I know my physical limits. Kaio-ken times four. If I use my eyes to heal passively... I could maintain it for longer in a real fight."
Kaio-sama approached quickly, sighing deeply and rubbing his forehead.
"You're crazy, kid. You have the tenacity of a Saiyan in the body of an Earthling. The Kaio-ken x4 is officially your absolute limit. If you attempt a multiplier of five, not even all the magic in your celestial eyes will be able to piece your cells back together. You'll disintegrate before you can even throw a single punch."
"I've got it... noted down, blue old man..." Kaiju murmured, closing his eye and letting exhaustion take over as Tohka carried him protectively.
He had done it. He had transformed his fragile human body into a weapon of mass destruction. With perfect control of his Ki, the Kaio-ken x4 as his physical trump card, and the immeasurable power of his Celestial Eyes still in reserve, Kaiju felt invincible.
As she lost consciousness from the pain, a peaceful thought crossed her mind.
He still knew nothing about the dark, demon-infested world he had been reincarnated into, nor about the secret wars raging in the shadows of Kuoh City. To him, the Earth he was returning to was just a normal, boring place to hide his tree house. This entire journey—the suffering under gravity, the sweating, the broken boundaries—had been solely for his own ego and entertainment. He was living his own Isekai fantasy against his will.
But the irony of fate was cruel and brilliant: by blindly pursuing his otaku fantasies, he had armed himself to the teeth for the supernatural massacre that would inevitably come knocking at his door.