The Serious Punch was not a projectile. It was a statement. A fundamental refutation of the Critic's entire premise, delivered in a language of pure, absolute, and now fully intentional, force. The universe between Saitama's fist and the Critic's placid form did not just get out of the way; it was momentarily, profoundly, rewritten.
Space itself warped, buckled, and then shredded in the wake of the punch. Time, for a fraction of an instant, seemed to run both forwards and backwards simultaneously. The laws of physics, which the Critic had so effortlessly wielded, were not just broken; they were dismissed as a minor, local ordinance.
The Critic did not raise his hand this time. He did not block. He simply… watched the fist approach, his expression no longer one of bored analysis, but of sharp, focused, academic curiosity. He had asked to see something interesting. And the universe, in the form of a bored hero who had finally found his purpose, was delivering.
The punch connected.
But it did not connect with the Critic's physical form. It connected with the concept of the Critic. It was a fist striking a philosophical argument. It was a simple, direct statement of "I exist, therefore you are wrong," delivered with the force of a trillion colliding galaxies.
And for the first time, the Critic… moved.
He was thrown backwards. Not with a violent, explosive force, but with a smooth, almost graceful, displacement. The concept of his absolute stillness, his immovable authority, had just been met by an equally absolute, and far more stubborn, assertion of existence. The immovable object had just been politely, but firmly, asked to leave the premises by the unstoppable force.
He flew backwards, not just across the plateau, but through it. He passed through the very rock of the mountain, not shattering it, but phasing through it, a silent, dark specter propelled by a force that operated on a dimension he himself had underestimated. He flew through the heart of the world, emerging on the other side of the planet, and continued, unabated, into the cold, silent void of space.
On the plateau, Saitama stood, his fist still extended, a single, perfectly formed bead of sweat on his temple. The raw, incandescent energy that had wreathed him faded, leaving him once again in his simple, unassuming yellow suit. The world around him was… silent. Still. Unbroken.
His Serious Punch, delivered with its full, world-breaking potential, had somehow, in its clash with the Critic's conceptual nature, created a "clean hit." All of its cataclysmic energy had been focused on a single, non-physical target, leaving the physical world almost completely unscathed. It was the single most powerful, and the single most precisely controlled, feat of strength in the history of existence. And Saitama had just done it by getting, for the first time, truly, genuinely, serious.
He stood panting, not from physical exertion, but from the sheer, overwhelming, emotional and spiritual effort of it all. He could still feel the phantom impact on his knuckles, the glorious, beautiful, world-affirming sensation of hitting something that had actually, truly, pushed back.
He had done it. He had fought a real fight. He had won.
A slow, tired, and deeply, profoundly, satisfied smile spread across his face. "Heh," he breathed, a laugh caught in his throat. "That… that was pretty cool."
But it was not over.
From the void of space, from the direction the Critic had been unceremoniously ejected, a thought echoed across the planet, not with malice, not with anger, but with a new, terrifyingly cheerful, tone.
**
The Critic reappeared on the plateau, standing in the same spot he had been moments before, his simple dark suit utterly unruffled, his placid smile returned, now wider, more genuine. He had a faint, glowing, fist-shaped "bruise" on the conceptual fabric of his chest, a mark that seemed to burn with a light all its own. He looked at it with an expression of pure, unadulterated delight.
** **
Saitama just stared at him. The man he had just punched through the planet with the most powerful blow in the history of everything was standing there, unharmed, complimenting his technique as if he were an art critic reviewing a painting.
"You… you're okay?" Saitama asked, his own hard-won satisfaction beginning to crumble, replaced by a dawning, horrifying disbelief. "But I… I hit you. Like… really, really hard."
**
He clapped his hands together once, a single, crisp, final sound.
**
He looked at Saitama, a genuine, almost friendly, smile on his face. **
And with a final, cheerful nod, the Critic, the Adjudicator, the literal end of the world, simply… ceased to be there. Vanished. For good this time.
The battle was over. The test was passed. The world was saved.
And Saitama… Saitama stood alone on the empty plateau, the echoes of the Critic's final, cheerful pronouncements ringing in his ears.
He looked at his fist. The fist that had just punched a god through a planet. The fist that had failed to leave a scratch. He thought of the Critic's delighted, analytical expression. The sheer, effortless ease with which his ultimate, most serious, all-out attack had been received, analyzed, complimented, and ultimately, shrugged off.
He had gotten his wish. He had found his worthy opponent. He had fought the ultimate battle, unleashed his full power, held nothing back. He had hit an immovable object.
And the immovable object had called it "interesting" and given him a passing grade.
A new, unfamiliar, and infinitely more profound, sensation began to wash over him. It was not the hollow emptiness of boredom. It was not the weary resignation of responsibility. It was… the soul-crushing, mind-breaking, existentially absolute despair of a man who has just thrown his single greatest, most powerful, most defining punch… and it was received as a "compelling argument."
He had not been a warrior in a battle. He had been a particularly clever ape, banging on a monolith, while a higher intelligence took notes.
He looked up at the vast, peaceful, and now utterly, completely, unthreatened sky.
"Oh, come on," he whispered, his voice a broken, pathetic thing. "Seriously?"
He had saved the world from its final judgment. He had won the ultimate victory.
And in doing so, he had been confronted with the one, single, absolute, and utterly unbreakable truth that would now define his existence: no matter how strong he got, no matter who he fought, he would always, always, just be a hero for fun.
He slowly, deliberately, sat back down on the cold, hard stone of the plateau, picked up the small, simple pebble he had been playing with before, and began to toss it in the air, his expression one of profound, absolute, and now truly, irrevocably, cosmic, boredom.
The war for the world was over. The war for a decent, satisfying fight had been lost. Utterly. And the silence after the end of this final, ultimate battle was the quietest, most deafening silence of all.