The Rim of the Abyss. Valhalla.
Ragnarok Defense Initiative (First Deployment).
"Hold the line!"
Thor screams the command. Mjolnir spins in his hand—awakened, veins pulsing, electricity turning the air into scorching white noise.
He swings. The hammer hits a serpentine neck thick as a redwood tree.
CRACK.
Scales shatter. Ichor rains down like toxic rain.
But there are too many heads.
Typhon, the Father of All Monsters, rises from the pit. He is not merely large; he is geography. His body is a swirling mass of storms and vipers, wings that block out the sun, and a hundred heads that speak with the voices of dead civilizations.
"Gnats," Typhon hisses. A dragon head snaps at Lu Bu.
Lu Bu parries with Sky Piercer, his muscles screaming as he holds back a bite force of three million tons. His feet furrow the bedrock.
"He is strong!" Lu Bu laughs, blood spraying from his nose. "Stronger than Thor!"
"Shut up and push!" Raiden Tameemon catches a descending claw with bare hands, his muscles inflating to the point of bursting. The sumo wrestler's bones groan under the weight.
They are holding him. Barely.
But Typhon isn't trying to win. He is trying to leave.
One of his primary heads—a human face made of magma—sniffs the air. It detects the scent left by the Sneeze.
The scent of the anomaly.
"The King is gone," Typhon rumbles, voice vibrating the bones of every warrior present. "I seek the One Who Sneezed. I seek the true Apex."
He ignores Thor's lightning. He ignores Lu Bu's spear.
He turns toward the dimensional tear that hasn't fully healed—the scar left by Saitama's departure.
"Stop him!" Brunhilde shouts from the backline. "If a Primordial Titan enters the human realm, Earth is finished!"
Typhon laughs.
"I do not go to destroy Earth. I go to hunt."
He thrusts his massive, storm-wreathed hands into the dimensional tear.
He pulls.
The fabric of reality screams like tearing metal.
With a pop that deafens the Defense Initiative, Typhon squeezes through the gap between universes.
Earth. Z-City. Apartment Complex.
4:30 PM.
The tea kettle whistles.
A sound of domestic tranquility.
Fubuki, the Hellish Blizzard, sits at the kotatsu. Her posture is stiff. Her eyes dart around the small room.
She came here to intimidate Saitama into the Blizzard Group. Again.
She intended to show him the hierarchy of B-Class.
Instead, she walked into a summit of monsters.
Saitama is reading a manga, lying on his side.
Genos is in the kitchen corner, calibrating a glowing green arm that radiates more magical energy than Fubuki has ever felt in her life.
And sitting in the corner, holding a game controller... is King.
The King, Fubuki thinks, sweat beading on her neck. The Strongest Man on Earth. Why is he here? Why is the cyborg here? What kind of secret society is this?
DOOM-DOOM-DOOM.
King's heart beats loudly. Fubuki interprets it as a warning signal. A psychic pulses to stay back.
"Hey, Fubuki," Saitama says, flipping a page. "You want a cookie? Genos made them. They taste like batteries, but they're crunchy."
"I... I am not here for snacks!" Fubuki stands up, slamming her hands on the table. "I am here to demand—"
RUMBLE.
The building shakes.
Not an earthquake. A thump.
Then another.
THUMP. THUMP.
A shadow falls over the window. Then the balcony. Then the entire block.
The sky outside turns a sickly purple.
The tea kettle falls off the stove.
"Earthquake?" Saitama asks. "Or construction?"
King pauses his game. His hands are trembling so fast they look blurry. Why now? I was about to save.
"Saitama," King whispers. "That's not construction."
Z-City Streets. Ground Zero.
The asphalt of Main Street explodes.
A claw the size of a skyscraper slams down, crushing a convenience store, a laundromat, and a parking garage instantly.
Typhon has arrived.
He squeezes out of the portal, expanding to his full height.
His heads pierce the cloud layer. Storm clouds gather instantly around his wings. Vipers drop from his body, hissing, dissolving cars with their venom.
The monster siren wails, but it glitches. The Threat Level estimator cannot calculate this.
Threat Level: Dragon... God... Error.
"I AM HERE!"
Typhon's voice shatters every window in a ten-mile radius.
"WHERE IS THE BALD ONE? WHERE IS THE SNEEZER?"
Heroes scattered around the city freeze.
Lighting Max falls off his bike.
Mumen Rider stares up at a monster so big he can't even see the head.
Fubuki rushes to the balcony of Saitama's apartment.
She looks up.
She sees a leg. A leg made of magma and scales.
She looks higher. She sees the storm.
She feels the psychic pressure—it feels like the weight of an entire planet pressing on her brain.
"Impossible," Fubuki gasps, falling to her knees. "What... what is that? It's bigger than the Meteor. Bigger than the Alien Ship."
Typhon looks down.
His thousand eyes scan the city.
He spots the apartment complex.
The only building where the energy signature is calm. The "Beige" energy.
"FOUND YOU."
A hundred viper heads hiss in unison.
Typhon raises a fist. It wreathed in Tartarian black fire—the fire that burns souls.
Inside the Apartment.
"Man, that's loud," Saitama complains. He puts down the manga. "Genos, is that the monster alarm?"
"Affirmative, Master," Genos says. He walks to the balcony. His sensors red-line instantly. "Target identification: Unknown Entity. Scale: Continental. Threat Level: Likely God."
Genos raises his arm. The Asgardian Gold glows.
"Incineration Cannon charged to 200%. Shall I engage?"
"Wait," Saitama stands up.
He walks to the balcony door.
Fubuki is huddled on the floor, hyperventilating.
"We're dead," she mutters. "It's the end. The prophecy was real. We're all going to die in a crappy apartment."
Saitama steps over her.
"Excuse me, Fubuki. You're blocking the door."
He slides the glass door open.
The wind is intense. It whips his cape around.
Typhon's fist is descending. A slow, inevitable apocalypse. The heat from the black fire is already melting the paint on the balcony railing.
"SUBMIT!" Typhon roars. "I AM THE END OF GODS! I AM THE—"
Saitama cups his hands around his mouth.
He takes a deep breath.
"HEY!"
The sound cuts through the storm. It cuts through the roar of the monster.
Typhon pauses. The fist stops mid-descent. The vipers stop hissing.
Saitama points down at the street below.
"You stepped on the vending machine!"
Silence falls over the city.
The giant, multi-headed, dimension-hopping Titan stares down at the small bald man.
"The... machine?" Typhon asks, confusion echoing from a dragon head.
"Yeah!" Saitama yells, veins popping on his forehead. "The one on the corner! It had the rare Azuki-bean soda! It's really hard to find! And you crushed it!"
Typhon blinks a hundred eyes.
He came for a warrior. A beast. A god-slayer.
He found a noise complaint about soft drinks.
"You mocking me?" Typhon growls.
The sky darkens further.
"I seek the warrior who humbled Zeus! I seek a glorious death in combat! I do not care for your bean water!"
He re-ignites his fist.
"DIE ALONG WITH YOUR SODAS!"
The attack resumes. Speed increases. The air pressure alone begins to crack the apartment building's foundation.
Fubuki screams.
King's heart hits 200 BPM, vibrating the floor so hard that Genos has to stabilize his gyroscope.
Saitama sighs.
It's a long, heavy sigh. The sigh of a man who just wanted to read the new chapter of his favorite manga.
"You guys," Saitama says, winding up his right arm, "never listen."
He doesn't use a stance.
He doesn't plant his feet.
He hops up onto the balcony railing.
Serious Series.
The atmosphere freezes. The wind stops. Fubuki feels her breath catch in her lungs. Even Typhon, a primordial chaos beast, feels a sudden chill run up his magma spine.
"Serious Squirt Gun... no, wait, I don't have water."
Saitama pauses mid-windup.
He looks at Typhon's descending magma hand.
"Serious High-Five."
He jumps.
He slaps his open palm against Typhon's titanic fist.
SMACK.
It isn't an attack. It's a high-five.
But the force applied is absolute.
Saitama stops the continent-sized fist.
The kinetic energy travels back up Typhon's arm.
The magma solidifies from shock. The bones shatter.
The shockwave travels through the Titan's body, ripping the wings off, forcing the hundred heads to headbutt each other violently.
Typhon is lifted off the ground.
All billion tons of him.
He flips backward. He is launched into the upper atmosphere. He clears the stratosphere. He clears the debris field of the moon.
He screams as he drifts into deep space, joining Boros and the previous throw-aways.
"THISSSS DOESS NOT COUNT AS A FIGHTTTTT!"
His voice fades.
A sparkle in the sky. Like Team Rocket blasting off.
Back on the Balcony.
Saitama lands on the railing.
"My soda," he mourns, looking at the crushed wreckage below.
Fubuki is catatonic. She stares at the spot where a Titan used to be. Then at Saitama.
"You..." Fubuki whispers. "You high-fived him into space?"
Saitama walks back inside. He slides the door shut.
"Don't worry about it. Probably a mascot for a new movie."
King is staring at his game screen. The 'Game Over' text is flashing because he dropped the controller during the vibration.
"Saitama," King says, voice surprisingly steady. "You owe me a new run."
"My soda is gone, King. Let me grieve."
Valhalla Monitoring Room.
The feed goes static.
Beelzebub taps the screen. "Signal lost. Typhon has left the solar system. Estimated trajectory: Towards Alpha Centauri."
The gods sit in silence.
Odin rubs his temples. "He used a 'High Five'."
Thor looks at his own hands. "A gesture of celebration... weaponized into an expulsion technique."
"We must never go back there," Shiva says, leaning back in his wheelchair. "Never. Earth is forbidden ground."
Brunhilde lights another cigarette. Her hands are steady now.
"Agreed," she says. "But at least Typhon is gone. The balance is restored."
Suddenly, a portal opens in the middle of the Valhalla Monitoring room.
Not a monster portal.
A polite, green, cybernetic portal.
Genos steps out. He holds a grocery bag.
"Excuse me," the cyborg says, addressing the terrified council of gods.
Odin falls out of his chair. Ares screams and hides behind Hercules.
"What is it?!" Brunhilde draws her sword. "We surrendered! We signed the treaty!"
Genos ignores the weapons. He pulls a clipboard from his chassis.
"Master is upset about the loss of a rare Azuki-bean soda caused by your escapee, Typhon. The market value is 120 yen. I have calculated the shipping costs from your dimension to ours."
Genos holds out a hand.
"Total reimbursement required: 500 yen. Do you have change?"
Thor stares at the cyborg.
He slowly reaches into his pouch. He pulls out a gold coin worth more than the GDP of Japan.
He hands it to Genos.
"Keep the change," Thor whispers. "Just leave."
"Transaction accepted." Genos bows. "Have a pleasant afternoon."
He steps back through the portal.
Earth.
Genos returns to the living room.
"Master. Reimbursement secured. And I found a vending machine three blocks over that still has stock."
Saitama's face lights up.
"Nice work, Genos! See? It pays to communicate."
He looks at Fubuki, who is still lying on the floor, questioning her reality.
"You still want that cookie?"