The heart of the battlefield was no longer a place. It was a diagram of defeat etched in smoke, acid-scarred earth, and hero's blood.
Where the mighty Superalloy Darkshine had once stood, an unbreakable monument of gleaming muscle and unshakable spirit, now lay a broken man. He was sprawled on his back, his iconic sheen utterly extinguished. His torso, arms, and face were not just burned, but bleached—a sickly, porous white where Fuhrer Ugly's corrosive vomit, supercharged by some vile fusion with Gums's digestive essence, had eaten away not just his skin, but the very confidence that had hardened it. He didn't move. His eyes, wide and vacant, stared at the hellish sky, seeing not the clouds but the shattering of his own invincible myth. The strongest shield of the Hero Association had been melted by the weakest, most hateful of acids.
Nearby, the air sizzled with the scent of ozone and scorched metal. Genos, the Demon Cyborg, was a tragic sculpture of defiance. Both his arms were sheared off at the shoulders, sparking cables and hydraulic fluid leaking into the dirt. One leg was bent at a gruesome angle, its actuators shattered. Propped up against a fragment of rubble, he used his own ruined torso as a physical barrier, his single remaining optical sensor flickering with desperate red light as he aimed a sputtering, overloaded incineration cannon from his chest cavity.
Before him, Tatsumaki, the Tornado of Terror, was on the ground. Her dress was torn, her small form slumped in a crater of her own making, a trickle of blood tracing from her nose to her chin. Her legendary psychic aura was a faint, guttering ember. Swarming around them were hundreds, then thousands, of chattering, grinning Black Sperm copies, a tidal wave of identical malice. "So persistent! Just die already, tin can!" one cluster giggled, swarming over Genos's back, trying to pry open his core housing. "The mighty esper, brought so low! How delicious!" others mocked, poking at the edges of Tatsumaki's weakening telekinetic field.
To the east, the stink of seared flesh and ozone was thick. Atomic Samurai, the master of the blade, was on one knee, his newly acquired Sun Blade—a weapon of legend—lying beside him. He coughed, a wet, ragged sound that sprayed blood onto the scorched ground. His lungs were scorched from the inside, his muscles screaming from channeling power far beyond their limits to parry a single, devastating strike from Golden Sperm. The golden monster himself stood nearby, casually examining the steaming cut—the only Atomic had been able to inflict using all he got. "A commendable effort, insect," Golden Sperm droned, his voice a vibration of pure contempt. "You nicked the finish."
Beside Atomic Samurai, Iaian, the loyal disciple, stood with his own sword raised, his body trembling not from fear but from the overwhelming pressure. He was trying to shield his master from Homeless Emperor, who floated a short distance away, gleefully juggling spheres of sun-bright energy. "Your little light show is over, swordsman!" Homeless Emperor cackled, his eyes wide with god-complex euphoria. "The true power of divine energy will purify this wretched world! Behold!" He gathered the spheres into one colossal, swirling orb of annihilation, its light casting long, stark shadows of the defeated heroes. "The final sun!"
All around, Remnants of Black Sperm's multitudes chattered with anticipation. The scene was a closed ledger. The S-Class, the pinnacle of humanity's defense, was broken. Darkshine's spirit was dissolved. Tatsumaki's power was spent. Atomic Samurai's blade used all he had. Genos was on his last spark. The calculus of victory was complete, and it favored the monsters.
Homeless Emperor raised the glowing ball of energy above his head, ready to drown the two swordsmen in celestial energy. Golden Sperm took a slow, deliberate step forward, his intent to finish Genos and Tatsumaki with casual, metallic fists. Black Sperm's swarm surged.
It was in this moment of absolute triumph for the monsters that the world gained a heartbeat.
THUD.
It was not a loud sound, not at first. But it was deep. It was a frequency that bypassed the ears and vibrated directly in the chest cavity, in the teeth, in the foundation of the rubble beneath their feet. A small cascade of pebbles skittered down a distant mountain of shattered concrete and steel.
Every head turned.
Homeless Emperor's gleeful smirk faltered, the energy sphere in his hand flickering. Golden Sperm's empty gaze shifted from his prey. The chattering of the Black Sperm swarm died into a confused whisper.
THUD.
It came again, stronger. Closer. The vibration was now a tangible tremor. A crack snaked through the ground near Iaian's foot. The sound was heavy, deliberate, and carried a weight of immeasurable, gathering authority. It was not the chaotic roar of a monster or the explosive blast of an energy attack. It was rhythmic. Inevitable.
THUD.
This time, dust plumed from the sides of the largest pile of wreckage on the battlefield. The sound was now a physical pressure, pushing against the oppressive aura of the monsters. Genos's flickering sensor swung toward it. Atomic Samurai forced his head up, squinting through blood and pain.
"What… what is that…?" a Black Sperm clone whispered, its arrogance replaced by unease.
"A final, futile vibration," Golden Sperm stated, but he did not move.
Then, a silhouette appeared at the very peak of the rubble mountain, backlit by the hazy, toxic glow of the sky. It was broad, imposing, and utterly still.
THUD… THUD… THUD…
The rhythm solidified, marching out like the drumbeat of an advancing army. With each beat, the silhouette became clearer. The familiar, scarred profile. The sweep of the hair. The imposing breadth of the shoulders.
Recognition, cold and absolute, swept through the battlefield.
"No way…" Iaian breathed, his sword arm lowering a fraction in sheer disbelief.
From his crater, a bloody tear traced a clean path through the grime on Tatsumaki's cheek as she looked up, her emerald eyes widening with something beyond relief—something like awe.
Genos's sparking core flared once, a final, silent salute. "King…"
The monster executives reacted. Homeless Emperor's divine energy sphere shrank slightly, his confidence leaching away into confusion. The Black Sperm swarm collectively took a half-step back, their unified grin straining. Golden Sperm's perfect posture stiffened, his analytical gaze locked onto the figure.
Then, the figure took a single step forward to the edge of the precipice, rubble shifting under his boot. He looked down, not at the defeated heroes, but past them. His golden eyes, glowing with a calm, detached intensity, swept over the assembled might of the Monster Association's elite—over the bleached ruin of Darkshine, over the swarming Black Sperm, over the gleaming threat of Golden Sperm, and finally, over Homeless Emperor and his struggling sun.
He said nothing. He made no grand gesture. He simply stood there, high above the field of defeat, and the King Engine within his chest declared his presence for him—a deep, resonant, and utterly unconquered
THUD… THUD… THUD…
…that promised the battle was not over. It had only just now truly begun.
The King Engine's rhythm was a metronome of pure, undiluted authority in the suddenly silent battlefield. From his vantage point, King's mind, honed by High Combat Instincts and now operating with the diamond-clarity of a Dragon-Level consciousness, processed the scene below with cold, devastating speed.
Tactical Assessment: Catastrophic.
His King's Eyes, glowing with subdued gold, took in every detail. Darkshine was more than defeated; he was psychologically erased, a ghost in his own bleached shell. A liability, but also a stark warning of Fuhrer Ugly's new corrosive potential. Tatsumaki was critically depleted, her immense power reduced to faint green embers. An asset completely offline.
His gaze shifted to Genos. The cyborg was a portrait of heroic ruin. Sparking stumps for arms, a shattered leg, using his own core as a last-ditch shield. A sharp, unfamiliar pang lanced through King's calculated detachment. He can be rebuilt, the logical part of his mind supplied. Kuseno's technology has repaired him before. But another thought, quieter and more persistent, followed: Saitama would be… inconvenienced. It was more than that. Genos was his friend's disciple, a stubborn, blazing proof of dedication. Letting him be destroyed here, after such a stand, felt like a personal failure. He must be preserved. For Saitama's sake, and for his own.
Atomic Samurai was at his absolute limit, his legendary skill overcome by overwhelming durability and energy. Iaian's bravery was commendable but statistically irrelevant against the forces arrayed.
The monsters, however, were at their peak. Golden Sperm radiated a dense, flawless threat. Homeless Emperor brimmed with unstable divine energy. The thousands of Black Sperm units were a tactical nightmare of numbers and redundancy. And these were just the visible ones.
I have 95,000 BP. The Ultimate Hellfire Burst Wave Motion Cannon is primed. Super Sparking King Mode is available.
Down below, the monsters broke the silence he had imposed.
"Tch. That infernal noise," sneered a cluster of Black Sperm, their unified voice a chorus of annoyance. They pointed hundreds of fingers up at the motionless King. "He just stands there! Looking down on us from his little pile of trash! So this is the 'Strongest Man'? He's just a statue with a loud heartbeat!" The swarm rippled with arrogant laughter. "Oh, this will be satisfying. To swarm over the legendary King, to be the ones who wipe that placid look off his face… the fame will be exquisite!"
Homeless Emperor floated higher, his massive energy sphere pulsing with irritated light. "A false idol! A man pretending to divinity! My light will expose him as the frail mortal he is! Let me purge him first and reduce him to ashes!"
"Wait."
The word, from Golden Sperm, was not loud, but it carried a metallic finality that silenced the Black Sperm chatter and gave even Homeless Emperor pause. The golden being had not taken his eyes off King. His analysis was not based on emotion, but on a cold reading of power.
"Observe," Golden Sperm intoned. "Tatsumaki fought with visible fury, with vast displays of telekinetic force. Her power was a raging storm. This…" He gestured with his intact hand toward the peak of the rubble. "…is a tectonic plate. He has not moved. He has not attacked. He has not even spoken. He has only announced his presence, and the entire dynamic of this battlefield has shifted."
He turned his head slightly, his blank gaze sweeping over his monstrous allies. "Fighting the strongest human hero hastily is strategic folly. We do not know the limits of his 'legend.' Tatsumaki, at full power, was a known quantity—a catastrophic one, but a known one. King is an equation comprised entirely of variables and reputation. To underestimate him is to ignore the empirical evidence of his rank and the palpable weight now pressing upon us."
He brought his hands together, his metallic knuckles letting out a soft clink. "Therefore, the logical course is absolute overkill. We do not offer him the honor of a duel. We do not allow him to target us individually. We all engage him. Simultaneously. We drown his legend in an ocean of overwhelming force before he has the opportunity to define the terms of the battle."
The proposal hung in the air—a testament to King's sheer, passive intimidation. They were not just planning to fight him; they were planning to ambush him with their entire collective might, precisely because they feared what might happen if they didn't.
King heard every word. Good, he thought. They are afraid. Fear leads to overcommitment. Overcommitment creates openings. He was preparing to descend, to force the clash on the ground where he could control the geometry, when his enhanced hearing picked up a new sound behind him.
The subtle crunch of rubble, the scrape of metal, a labored breath. He did not turn fully, but his King's Eyes, with their near-360-degree perception, identified the signatures emerging from a hidden tunnel in the wreckage mountain.
Child Emperor, the young genius, crawled out first, his custom backpack scratched and smoking, one lens of his goggles cracked. His face was pale with exhaustion and pain, but his eyes were fiercely analytical. Right behind him, hauling himself out with a grunt, came Puri-Puri Prisoner. The angel-hero's costume was in tatters, his muscular body covered in bruises and lacerations, but a dramatic fire still burned in his eyes.
Puri-Puri took in the scene below—the defeated heroes, the triumphant monsters, and King standing like a monolith above it all. His face, which had been set in grim determination, transformed. A brilliant, tearful smile broke through.
"KING!" he bellowed, his voice echoing across the field. He struck a pained but triumphant pose. "My love! You've come! At our darkest hour, when hope's flame flickered low, our King arrives to set the world right again! Oh, the romance of it! With you here, we can turn this tragic scene into a victory for love and justice!"
Child Emperor, ever the pragmatist, quickly silenced him with a sharp gesture. His wide eyes were fixed on King's back, then darted to the monsters below, running calculations at lightning speed. "Puri-Puri, quiet! Don't give away our position further." He adjusted his broken goggles, addressing King in a hushed, urgent tone. "King. Your timing is… statistically miraculous. Darkshine and Tatsumaki are out of commission. Atomic Samurai is at his limit. Genos is on the verge of core failure. The enemy forces have consolidated into Dragon-level threats with complementary abilities."
He took a shaky breath, his mind working. "Golden Sperm represents supreme physical durability and speed. Homeless Emperor is unstable but possesses maximum destructive output at range. Black Sperm is a decentralized swarm, impervious to conventional area attacks. A direct, simultaneous engagement is ill-advised. Do you have a strategy?"
King finally moved. He turned his head just enough to look down at the young strategist. The full weight of his golden gaze was immense, but it held no panic, only a deep, unnerving certainty.
"They will come together," King rumbled, his voice so low it was almost part of the Engine's vibration. "They are afraid to do otherwise. That is their mistake."
He turned back to face the battlefield, his declaration made. He didn't explain his plan. He didn't need to. His presence was the plan. The King Engine's beat, which had held steady, now began to accelerate—a slow, deliberate crescendo from a marching tempo to a war drum's pounding rhythm.
Below, Golden Sperm saw the subtle shift. "He is not alone. Reinforcements. Irrelevant. The strategy stands. Ready yourselves."
Black Sperm's multitude grinned, cracking their knuckles in unison. "Finally! Group hug time!"
Homeless Emperor's energy sphere blazed brighter. "The false god and his pathetic followers! They will be the first testament to my new world!"
King stood between the arriving, battered hope of the heroes and the consolidated, terrifying might of the monsters. The calculus was complete. The variables were set. All that remained was the violent, definitive solution.
The King Engine's accelerating beat was the only sound that mattered. It carved a sphere of tense anticipation in the smoky air, a sovereign claim over the next moments of history. King stood as the fulcrum, the battered heroes at his back, the consolidated monster elite before him.
Child Emperor's mind, though reeling from exhaustion and pain, locked onto King's terse statement. "They will come together. That is their mistake." It wasn't a hopeful boast; it was a cold, tactical prediction. The young genius's eyes darted across his battered wrist-computer, its screen flickering with low-power warnings. He opened a fractured comms channel to the conscious heroes.
"All units… retreat to my position. Disengage. King is engaging." His voice was scratchy but absolute. "Puri-Puri Prisoner, secure Tatsumaki and Genos. Extract them beyond the immediate blast zone. Do not argue."
Puri-Puri, for once, didn't offer a dramatic soliloquy. He saw the look in Child Emperor's eyes—the look that said the battlefield had just been handed to a force of nature. With a grunt of effort, he moved, his muscular, bruised form surprisingly gentle as he carefully gathered the unconscious Tatsumaki in one arm and, with immense care, hooked his other under Genos's sparking torso. "Fear not, my loves! Your knight ensures your safety!" he whispered, beginning a labored but swift retreat toward a skeletal framework of collapsed girders that offered some cover.
As they moved, a form stirred in a nearby patch of shadow. Zombieman, his body a grotesque patchwork of half-healed bullet wounds, acid burns, and psychic lacerations from his earlier, brutal defeat at Homeless Emperor's hands, pushed himself up. His regenerative ability, slow but relentless, had finally knitted enough of him together to restore function. He didn't speak. He merely gave King a single, grim nod—an immortal's acknowledgment of a mortal taking the center stage—and fell in beside Puri-Puri, forming a rearguard.
This movement sparked the monsters into action.
Homeless Emperor, furious at the attempted extraction, screamed. "You think you can steal our trophies? NO!" He thrust his hands forward, the massive sphere of divine energy condensing into a lance of pure, sun-white annihilation aimed directly at Puri-Puri's retreating back. "BE PURIFIED!"
King's King's Eyes tracked the energy buildup. But he saw something else, something his enhanced, Level 5 perception, attuned to the nature of auras and life-forces, parsed in a microsecond. The energy was immense, terrifyingly so. But the being wielding it… the core signature within the robe…
There was no monstrous biomass. No twisting demonic soul. No dense, bestial aura. The core was… human. A fragile, fever-bright human psyche, puppeting god-like power it barely understood.
"A regular human," King murmured, the words so low they were less than a whisper, a vibration of thought given minimal sound. "With borrowed power. A conduit. Not a source."
The words should have been lost in the roar of the gathering energy. But Homeless Emperor heard them. His eyes, wide with divine mania, bulged further. The streaming energy lance flickered, its trajectory wavering. The words struck not his body, but his deepest, most secret insecurity—the truth he glorified as a divine blessing but feared was merely a loan from a capricious god.
"YOU… WHAT DID YOU SAY?!" he shrieked, the focus on his attack breaking entirely. He stared at King, his confidence shaken. How could he know?
Black Sperm's multitude, watching this, let out a collective, mocking sneer. "Oho? Having stage fright, 'Your Holiness'?" one of them giggled. "The big bad god-man gets stage fright because the strong guy mumbled something!"
Golden Sperm ignored the distraction. His metallic eyes were fixed on the retreating heroes, then on King who allowed it, then on the wider battlefield. He saw the pieces moving exactly as King had predicted—they were consolidating around him. It was the correct, logical tactic. But a deeper, more profound logic was dawning on him. This was not a hero buying time. This was a king clearing his court.
"Enough," Golden Sperm stated, his voice cutting through Homeless Emperor's sputtering and Black Sperm's mockery. "The variables have simplified. The ultimate opponent stands before us. To face him with anything less than our absolute, unified form would be an insult to this moment… and a strategic error of the highest order."
He turned his gaze upon the vast, chattering sea of Black Sperm. "All parts. The experiment in decentralization is over. The tactical necessity is supreme concentration. Converge. Merge. Attain the form worthy of this climax."
A hush fell over the Black Sperm swarm. The grins didn't fade, but they changed, becoming eager, hungry. "Finally…" tens of thousands of voices whispered as one. "The main event!"
Then, it began. It was not a fight. It was a reverse big bang. Trillions of microscopic cells that comprised the totality of Black Sperm stopped their chattering and surged toward a single point—Golden Sperm. They flowed like a river of liquid metal, absorbing into him, not adding to his mass, but refining it. Golden Sperm's form began to glow, not with light, but with a terrifying, absolute density. His gold deepened, becoming impossibly bright, then smoothed into a seamless, flawless platinum. His physique streamlined, every curve speaking of effortless, devastating speed and strength that made his previous form seem clumsy.
The process took seconds. Where once stood a golden being and a sea of copies, now stood a single entity. Taller, sleeker, radiating a silent, overwhelming pressure that made the very air feel thin. Platinum Sperm opened eyes that were slits of utter, focused void.
"A form worthy of legend," Platinum Sperm said, his voice now a smooth, high-frequency hum that vibrated in the teeth. "To dismantle a legend."
King observed the transformation without a flicker of surprise. This was the consolidation he had anticipated. The swarm was gone, replaced by a single, supreme physical threat. That was preferable. It simplified the math.
His gaze swept past the radiant, seething Homeless Emperor, past the silent, platinum perfection of the new foe, and settled on a still, glistening pool that had gathered in a low corner of the rubble. Evil Natural Water. It had no mind to read, no aura to sense, only a pure, reactive malevolence. It was a environmental hazard given sentient hunger, waiting to replicate any attack.
The battlefield was set. The arrogant human with god-powers. The perfected physical specimen. The omnivorous elemental.
King's voice, when he spoke next, was not a shout. It was a decree that carried on the back of the King Engine's thunderous rhythm. He did not address the monsters. He spoke to the heroes behind and around him.
"Everyone."
The single word brooked no argument. Child Emperor, Puri-Puri Prisoner struggling with his charges, Zombieman, the bleeding Atomic Samurai and loyal Iaian—all froze and looked to the rubble peak.
"Step away from this area." King's golden eyes held a light they had never seen before—not just power, but a chilling, deliberate intent. "I plan to let loose."
A collective shiver, one of profound relief and chilling awe, went through them. They weren't being asked to help. They were being ordered to survive. They were spectators being cleared from the blast range of a living superweapon.
Without a word, the retreat turned into a full, desperate withdrawal. Child Emperor dragged at Atomic Samurai's shoulder. Iaian helped. Zombieman took point. They scrambled, putting shattered buildings and miles of cracked earth between themselves and the silent standoff in the epicenter.
King watched them go. Then, he was alone.
Before him, Platinum Sperm took a single, silent step forward, the ground not cracking, but compacting beneath his foot. Homeless Emperor, still rattled but furious, levitated higher, a constellation of smaller, deadly energy spheres igniting around him like malignant stars. Evil Natural Water quivered, a single, sharp spire rising from its surface like a targeting needle.
The King Engine reached a crescendo, a rapid, pounding rhythm that was the sound of a world holding its breath.
King did not assume a flashy stance. He simply settled his weight, the golden glow of his King's Armor beginning to emanate from within, not as a shield, but as the first glimmer of a star going supernova.
The final, silent second stretched out. The chessboard was clear. The pieces were in their deadly positions.
The King was ready to play.