Reina was utterly captivated, kneeling on the plush carpet. With each surge of that crimson-gold light on the screen, she'd pump her small fists in silent victory. When the sinister red flare retaliated, she'd worry her lower lip between her teeth, her brow furrowed.
"Breaking news!" Mizuno Ai's voice cut through, sparkling with glee. "The Hero Association has opened a real-time support channel! Viewers can vote for their champion via the official app! As of now, King's support rate is a staggering 98.7%!"
Reina snatched her phone. A giggle escaped her as she saw the voting interface. Garou's picture was comically edited with tearful, cartoonish eyes, while King's avatar shone in the majestic glory of his Emperor Armor.
"For King!" She tapped the button without a second thought. Then, a blush tinged her cheeks. She glanced around her empty apartment and proceeded to tap it a dozen more times in rapid succession. "A few extra votes… can't hurt, right?"
The broadcast feed suddenly tightened, zooming in for an extreme close-up of the lunar surface. There, bathed in the ethereal glow of suspended moondust, stood King. The Emperor Armor radiated a serene, terrifying light. A cape of condensed energy streamed behind him, fluttering in a non-existent solar wind—a deity presiding over a silent apocalypse.
"Ahhh! So incredibly cool!" Reina screamed, leaping to her feet and spinning in a gleeful circle, her pajama top whirling around her. She'd forgotten everything—her role, her attire, the world below.
Fujiwara Shota's voice, trembling on the edge of hysterical excitement, boomed from the speakers: "Ladies and gentlemen! Mr. King appears to be preparing a decisive technique! This stance… this energy signature… My gods! Could this be the legendary—?!"
…
The lunar landscape was a testament to mutual annihilation, a hellscape of nested craters and continent-spanning fissures. At its heart, separated by a kilometer of shimmering, vaporized silica, the two opponents faced each other.
Garou was unrecognizable. Forged in the crucible of their clash, he had broken his limits again and again. He now stood five meters tall, a true demon-god. His armor was a forest of jagged bone spires, three pairs of skeletal wings fanned from his back, and six cruel horns crowned his head. The pressure radiating from him was a physical weight, a promise of extinction.
Yet, the more he transformed, the deeper his dread festered. No matter how high he ascended, the figure opposite remained an unscalable cliff-face. This insurmountable gap, this casual superiority, poisoned Garou's pursuit of 'Absolute Evil' with a rage so profound it bordered on despair.
"KING!" The roar vibrated through the lunar regolith, picked up by Child Emperor's sensitive arrays and fed back to the observation deck. "ARE YOU MOCKING ME?! SHOW ME YOUR TRUE POWER!!"
The reaction among the S-Class heroes was instantaneous and visceral. The cataclysm they had just witnessed… was not his limit?
Superalloy Darkshine's muscles hardened with a metallic ting, a reflexive search for security where none could be found. His unshakeable defense now felt as fragile as rice paper.
Zombieman's perpetual calm cracked, a flicker of profound gravity in his eyes.
Drive Knight's systems whirred dangerously, his processors overloading on probability calculations that all returned 'ERROR.'
Tanktop Master and Metal Bat simply stared, minds wiped clean by the scale of it all.
Only Saitama, slumped in a beanbag in the corner, perked up. His hands clenched and unclenched unconsciously. "Huh? Oh? Finally… getting serious?" he mumbled, a spark of genuine interest in his eyes. "I wanna go fight, too…"
Within the sanctum of the Emperor Armor, King allowed a faint, knowing smile to touch his lips.
"As you wish."
His reply, transmitted through the same vibrating ground, was calm, final, and utterly commanding.
Then, he pushed off with his right foot.
The motion was simple.
The consequence was geological.
BOOM—CRACK—!
The lunar crust shattered, collapsing inward as if stomped by a celestial boot. King's form became a golden-red meteor in reverse, not falling, but ascending, tearing through the void, crossing a hundred kilometers in the blink of an eye.
And as he rose, a new layer of power manifested. A shimmering, transcendent aura—Transcendent Armament Haki—began to sheathe the Emperor Armor. It was not mere light, but the visualization of absolute dominion, hardening the already-invincible armor into a concept of unassailable power. The phantom dragon on the pauldrons roared silently, its scales becoming crystalline and sharp, its eyes burning with the fire of a thousand suns.
He rose, a new star igniting in the black sky, his gaze fixed on the demon-god below. The final act was about to begin.
His ascent culminated in a transformation of pure, terrifying majesty. The Emperor Armor had evolved. It was now a suit of dark golden Asura plate, its joints pulsing with rivers of molten, gold-red light.
Armament Haki · Hell-faced Asura!!!
The V-shaped visor ignited with a cold, judicial fire. And then—the chaos stilled. Every particle of lunar dust, every spinning shard of rock blasted into the void across the entire battlefield, froze in perfect, impossible suspension. Physics held its breath.
"Come on! Show me the true worth of the man they call the strongest!" Garou's voice was a maddened shriek of challenge. He launched himself upward, bone wings a grim parody of angelic flight. The power coiling around his fist—the Monster Calamity God Slayer Fist—warped the very fabric of space around it, creating a vortex of distorted light and screaming potential.
From his celestial vantage point, King looked down upon the ascending demon. His gaze, within the helmet, sharpened to a razor's edge.
Observation Haki · Three Thousand Worlds Lock!!!
A hundred thousand meters above the desolation, bathed in the unforgiving light of distant suns, King became a silent sovereign. From the seams of his Asura armor, a torrent of golden threads erupted. They were not solid, but constructs of pure perception and will, weaving themselves into a colossal, shimmering net that draped over half the lunar hemisphere.
Garou, a supersonic blur of malice, jerked to a halt. He was caught, suspended not by force, but by absolute prediction. Every possible trajectory, every micro-movement, every intent was sensed, calculated, and pinned in place an instant before it could begin. He was an insect in cosmic amber.
Conqueror's Haki · Heavenly Tribulation Entanglement!!!
Spiral nebula patterns, miniatures of dying stars, etched themselves across the dark metal of King's gauntlets. The space around his clenched fist didn't just warp—it collapsed inward, drinking the light from around it.
He raised his right fist. It was no longer just a limb; it was a focal point, a singularity drawing in the power to shatter star clusters.
"Cosmic Starburst Fist · Finale—"
His low murmur was the last law spoken before creation's end.
Behind him, a phenomenon exploded into being. It was not the familiar Emperor's Domain. It was the projection of a miniature, ferociously active galaxy. Stars flared into life, burned with impossible intensity, and died in supernova bursts. Nebulae churned in magnificent spirals. At its heart, a black hole devoured light and spat out cosmic rays. The entire history and destructive fury of a universe was compressed, distilled, and made manifest behind this single, poised fist.
"—Galaxy Impact."
The fist descended.
It did not merely move. It dragged reality with it. The starfield behind him seemed to shear and pour downward, transforming into a cascading torrent of pure annihilation—a river of will made manifest. Where it passed, space itself was erased, leaving behind a wake of absolute, featureless void. The Moon's gravitational field screeched in protest, visibly扭曲 and torn like a fragile cloth.
"Hah… Hahaha… HAHAHAHAHA!!"
Garou's pupils contracted to infinitesimal points. A violent, exhilarating tremor wracked his monstrous frame. This was not terror. It was rapture—the ecstatic recognition of the ultimate power he had hungered for.
"YES! KING! THIS IS IT! THE POWER THAT TRANSCENDS ALL!!!"
He abandoned defense. He abandoned strategy. He poured everything—the accumulated might of his monstrous evolution, the seething rage against all the world's hypocrisy, his entire fanatical creed of 'Absolute Evil'—into a single, answering fist.
"MONSTER CALAMITY GOD SLAYER FIST · FINAL FORM—''
The energy around his fist condensed into a dark, screaming orb, a negative star that devoured hope.
"—GODFALL!!!"
The two fists, one a galaxy-ending judgment, the other a blasphemous revolt against creation itself, converged upon the silent, waiting point between them.
The feed on Hero Association Channel One whited out entirely, overloading with raw energy. In living rooms across the world, millions leaned forward, breath held.
The collision was not a sound. It was the end of it.
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