King met Blast's scrutinizing gaze, the battle-lust in his own eyes solidifying into absolute certainty. A faint, golden-red aura—the barest leak of the Emperor Engine—rippled from him, causing the very light around them to warp.
"Thirty seconds," King's voice was a low vibration that resonated in their bones, not the air. "Is more than enough."
He didn't wait for further debate. The lunar surface beneath him exploded not outward, but downward, as he reversed gravity's hold on himself. He became a golden spear, plunging straight into the heart of the collapsing maelstrom where Saitama and Cosmic Garou were turning the Moon's core into pulp.
Blast didn't hesitate. "Now!" he barked into his comm.
Above them, his three teammates moved. Karnok, the cyclops, raised a hand, his single eye blazing with azure energy. Shiv, the elf-eared woman, traced intricate, glowing sigils in the void with elegant fingers. Ryan, the lion-man, roared, a sonic pulse that seemed to solidify the space around the forming gate.
A colossal, spiraling Stargate of brilliant blue energy ripped open above the Moon, its event horizon swirling like a captured nebula. The other end tore through the fabric of space, aiming for the bleak, empty void near a red dwarf star five light-years away.
Deep within the Moon's molten heart, the "battle" was pure chaos. Saitama, looking mildly annoyed, blocked a galaxy of copied Serious Punches. "Would you stop that? It's getting boring!"
Cosmic Garou, his Saitama-face twisted in furious concentration, roared back, "I will master your power! I will—"
THWUMP.
A golden hand, wreathed in spatial fractures, clamped down on Garou's stardust shoulder from behind.
THWUMP.
An identical hand landed on Saitama's shoulder.
Both figures froze mid-motion. Not from pain, but from shock. They hadn't sensed the approach.
King stood between them, his expression calm but his eyes burning with contained stellar fire. The oppressive, simmering pressure he now radiated made the superheated lunar core feel cold.
"Recess is over, children," King said, his voice cutting through the din of collapsing rock. "You're getting a time-out. In another star system."
Before either could react, King's grip flexed.
Emperor Engine · Heavenly Might Supremacy!
Two colossal, semi-transparent golden hands, projections of his will and power, materialized around Saitama and Cosmic Garou. They weren't meant to harm, but to contain—to be inescapable grips.
With a grunt of effort that made the surrounding molten rock vaporize into pure plasma, King heaved.
Like a god hurling Titans, he launched the two encapsulated fighters upward, through miles of solid and molten rock, on a perfect trajectory.
They erupted from the Moon's surface just as Blast's Stargate reached its peak stability.
"NOW, BLAST!" King's mental shout was a command.
"Gate is live! Thirty seconds and counting!" Blast's response was instantaneous.
Saitama and Garou, still wrapped in the constricting golden energy, shot like cannonballs into the heart of the swirling blue portal.
King didn't watch them go. He closed his eyes, focusing inward. The violent act of restraining those two monsters had sent waves of feedback through his new power, forcing rapid adaptation. He could feel his control solidifying, the terrifying energy integrating.
On the viewscreen inside the Emperor Maru Kai, the S-Class heroes watched, speechless, as the Stargate flashed with internal, catastrophic light—muffled explosions and shockwaves visible even through the dimensional tunnel—before winking out of existence.
Silence returned to the battered Moon.
Blast floated down to land beside King, his team regrouping behind him. He looked at the man who had just single-handedly defused a lunar explosion, his expression unreadable behind his goggles.
"They're gone. For now." Blast stated. "The gate deposited them in deep space near Proxima Centauri. They'll be… occupied."
King finally opened his eyes. The unstable spatial cracks around him were gone. His aura, while still unimaginably dense, was now perfectly contained. He looked at Blast, then at the scarred, trembling Moon.
"Good," King said, cracking his neck again. The sound was final, like a seal settling into place. "Now. While they're busy. You and I need to talk about this 'God' you've been fighting." His gaze sharpened, piercing through Blast's tactical goggles. "Because He just tried to use my disciple as a puppet. And I have… questions."
King's grin widened into something that made even Blast's seasoned nerves twitch. "The future's a mystery," King said, his voice deceptively light. "But for right now? It's more than enough."
Before the words had fully formed, he was gone—not a blur, but an absence, followed instantly by two dull, deeply resonant THUMPS that shuddered up from the Moon's tortured core.
"Ow!"
"Gah!"
A golden streak of light shot back to the surface, resolving into King holding two decidedly worse-for-wear figures by the scruffs of their necks. Saitama, a fresh, egg-sized lump swelling on his bald head, rubbed it with a pained grimace. Cosmic Garou's once-swirling starfield visage was flickering erratically, the mimicked Saitama-face literally cracked like broken porcelain.
"Fight, fight, fight! Is that all you two think about?!" King barked, shaking them like misbehaving puppies. "You were half a minute from turning the Moon into asteroid confetti!"
Saitama scowled, pointing a finger at Garou. "He started it! He stole my face!"
"Enough!" Another two sharp flicks of King's fingers produced twin, resonant bonks. "You want to go at it? Fine. I'm moving the venue. You can rip each other apart somewhere it doesn't cost us a moon."
Seeing the situation was—brutally—under control, Blast acted. He crossed his arms. Twelve prismatic energy crystals detached from his armor, arranging themselves into a humming, rotating dodecahedron in the void.
"Stargate, activate!"
Blue-white brilliance, cold and sharp, erupted from the crystal matrix, tearing a perfect, circular wound in reality. Beyond it, a tunnel of compressed stars and distorted spacetime whirled into existence.
Shiv and the others materialized beside Blast, their own energies flowing into the matrix to stabilize the violent portal. The elf woman's pointed ears flushed a deep crimson from the strain, but her eyes sparkled with a fierce, analytical hunger. Such power, contained in a purely biological form… the genetic potential… the offspring…
"Coordinates locked!" Blast called out, his voice strained but steady. "Target: The third moon of Proxima Centauri B. Barren. Uninhabited. Do your worst."
King gave a curt nod, hefting his two surly captives. "I owe you one. Next round's on me."
Without another word, he leaped into the cerulean maw of the Stargate. Saitama and Garou, for once, stayed quiet, though the murderous glares they shot each other promised a cataclysm merely postponed.
Blast exchanged a single, meaningful glance with his team. A battle of this magnitude was not something to be observed from a safe distance—it was a phenomenon to be witnessed. As one, they shot forward, vanishing into the gateway after him.
Karnok's single eye blazed with a warrior's longing. His fists clenched at his sides. The urge to join the fray was a physical ache, held back only by discipline and the certain knowledge that he would be annihilated in the crossfire.
On the other side, a desolate, grey-brown satellite shuddered as a circle of blue fire scarred its surface. King stepped out first, his landing causing the entire small world to groan and settle.
He didn't bother with ceremony. With a casual, underhand toss, he hurled Saitama and Cosmic Garou in opposite directions. They impacted like living meteorites, each creating a kilometer-wide basin of shattered rock and rising dust plumes.
"The ring's yours," King announced, rolling his shoulders. A cascade of pops and cracks echoed, each one like a miniature thunderclap. A familiar, eager fire ignited in his eyes—one that had been absent since his power surged. "But if you don't mind… I could use a proper warm-up myself."
He wasn't talking to them. He was stating a fact. The adaptation was complete. The new limits were known. Now, he needed to test them. And two of the strongest beings in the cosmos, currently picking themselves out of fresh craters and glaring with renewed, singular hatred at each other (and now at him), presented the perfect opportunity.
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