Crimson Count Valerius, ancient vampire lord and connoisseur of suffering, was not easily impressed. He had witnessed epochs rise and fall, empires crumble to dust, and stars grow cold. He had orchestrated centuries of terror, his name a whisper of dread in the darkest corners of the world. So, when his valet had babbled about "shouting mountains," Valerius had been more intrigued than alarmed. He had anticipated a new, perhaps crude, form of siege weaponry, or perhaps the tantrum of some minor earth elemental.
What he had not anticipated was the sheer, unrelenting, apocalyptic volume of the "shouting." Nor the localized seismic tremors that accompanied it, causing priceless (and irreplaceable) goblets crafted from the skulls of fallen kings to rattle off his shelves. And he certainly hadn't anticipated the increasingly panicked reports from his Sanguine Knights and Blood-Gorger patrols, describing not a siege engine, but a… a "small, bald, yellow-clad entity emitting concentrated sonic destruction and complaining about indigestion."
"Indigestion?" Valerius had repeated, his perfectly sculpted eyebrow arching in disbelief. "Are you telling me, Captain Vorlag," he addressed the grim-faced leader of his Sanguine Knights, a vampire whose armor was stained with the blood of centuries, "that the force currently causing my ancestral home to vibrate like a poorly tuned lute is suffering from… a tummy ache?"
Captain Vorlag, a warrior who had faced down dragon fire and angelic wrath without flinching, actually looked… uncomfortable. "My Lord Valerius… the reports are… consistent. The entity is… highly agitated. It appears to have ingested some form of… extreme irritant. Its vocalizations are… beyond anything I have encountered in my seven centuries of unlife. And its… locomotion… is causing significant, if unintentional, geological disturbances."
Indeed, from the throne room of Castle Maleficus, they could now clearly see the source of the commotion. Down in the valley of Umbraglen, near the dilapidated cottage of Old Man Hemlock, a yellow blur was rocketing back and forth with impossible speed, leaving trails of scorched earth and uprooted trees. Every few seconds, another earth-shattering roar would erupt, powerful enough to make the stained-glass windows of the castle (depicting Valerius in various heroic, if mostly fictional, poses) rattle ominously.
"Fascinating," Valerius mused, though a flicker of something akin to unease was beginning to stir in his ancient, cold heart. "Such power… from mere… gastric distress? What in the blighted abyss did it consume?" He stroked his pointed chin. "Perhaps this 'relish' they spoke of is more potent than I imagined. I must procure the recipe. For… research purposes, of course."
Meanwhile, Shadow Garden was fighting their way down the mountainside with a ferocity born of desperation and a growing fear of what Saitama might accidentally do to the local geography if left unattended for too long. The battle was a chaotic, brutal affair. Ghouls scrabbled from the earth, werewolves lunged from the shadows, and Blood-Gorgers swooped from the mist-choked sky.
Shadow moved like a phantom, his ebony blade a whisper of death, each strike precise and deadly. But even his considerable skills were being tested by the sheer, unending numbers of Valerius's minions. Alpha fought beside him, her silver hair a stark contrast to the darkness, her movements a blur of deadly grace. Beta provided covering fire and tactical analysis, her voice calm and steady amidst the chaos, even as she dodged a werewolf's snapping jaws. Epsilon, her slime armor deflecting claws and fangs, moved like a liquid shadow, her attacks swift and unexpected. Seraphina, fueled by a strange mixture of lingering fear and a newfound, desperate resolve, fought with the deadly efficiency of a Night Blade unleashed, her twin swords (one still bearing Saitama's 'flick-crack') weaving a tapestry of destruction.
"They are relentless!" Alpha gritted out, parrying a blow from a hulking Sanguine Knight whose eyes burned with crimson fury. "Valerius has emptied his kennels… and his crypts!"
"He seeks to overwhelm us with numbers," Shadow observed, his voice tight as he decapitated a charging ghoul. "A crude tactic. But effective, if we allow ourselves to be bogged down." He glanced towards the valley, where Saitama's roars were now accompanied by what sounded suspiciously like… hiccups. Hiccups that caused small landslides. "We must reach Saitama-dono! Before his… indisposition… escalates into a regional cataclysm!"
It was then that Genos's voice crackled through Beta's communicator again, even more frantic than before. "Lord Shadow! Urgent update! Sensei's… physiological reaction… has entered a new phase! He appears to be… accumulating… a significant amount of internal… gaseous pressure! The readings are… alarming! I theorize an imminent, high-velocity… expulsion… of… well… everything he has consumed in the last twenty-four hours, including the prototype relish! The potential kinetic force could be… considerable!"
Shadow froze. Alpha froze. Even the Sanguine Knight Alpha was fighting seemed to pause, its crimson eyes widening slightly.
"Gaseous… pressure… expulsion?" Shadow repeated, a dawning horror spreading across his unseen face. He had a very, very bad feeling about this.
"He means…" Epsilon began, her voice barely a whisper, "…Saitama-sama is going to… burp?"
"Or worse," Beta muttered, her face pale. "Given the ingredients of that relish… and Sensei's unique physiology… we could be looking at a projectile event of… biblical proportions."
Saitama, meanwhile, down in Umbraglen, was not having a good time. His insides felt like a cage match between a colony of fire ants and a squadron of very angry badgers, all armed with miniature blowtorches. The running hadn't helped. The screaming hadn't helped. Even Mr. Fluffles, attempting to soothe him by gently nibbling his ear, hadn't helped (though it had been surprisingly comforting for a moment, before another wave of internal agony hit).
He skidded to a halt, clutching his stomach, his face a mask of pure, unadulterated misery. "Uuurrrgh… I think… I think I'm gonna… gonna…"
And then it happened.
It started as a low rumble, deep within Saitama's core. The ground beneath his feet began to vibrate. The trees around him swayed. Sir Reginald Fuzzybottom, who had been bravely trying to offer Saitama a calming lichen, wisely burrowed underground.
The rumble grew, intensifying into a sound like a freight train derailing inside a volcano. Saitama's cheeks puffed out. His eyes bulged even further. A faint, ominous green glow seemed to emanate from his mouth.
Genos, recognizing the signs, shouted, "SENSEI! CONTAINMENT PROTOCOL! AIM UPWARDS! AIM UPWARDS!" He frantically tried to erect a localized energy shield, but he knew it would be like trying to stop a tsunami with a teacup.
Saitama, in his agony, barely registered Genos's warning. He just knew he had to get… it… out.
With a final, convulsive heave, he unleashed it.
It was not a burp. It was not a sneeze. It was… a geyser. A geyser of pure, concentrated, Shadowfire Demon-Pepper Relish-fueled, Saitama-processed… everything. It erupted from his mouth with the force of a Saturn V rocket, a crimson-orange plume of unimaginable heat and velocity, shooting straight up into the perpetually twilit sky.
The shockwave alone flattened every tree within a hundred-yard radius. The roar that accompanied it shattered windows in the distant, (and now very alarmed) Castle Maleficus. The heat flash momentarily seared the mist from the valley, revealing the jagged peaks in stark, fiery relief.
The plume of… stuff… rocketed upwards, higher and higher, leaving a trail of multi-colored smoke and the lingering aroma of regret and very, very spicy doom. It climbed for thousands of feet, reaching an altitude that would have made most dragons jealous, before finally, mercifully, beginning to dissipate, raining down a fine, slightly acidic, and incredibly pungent mist over a wide swathe of the Dragon's Tooth Peaks.
Down below, Saitama, now pale, trembling, and covered in a fine sheen of his own internal… byproducts… collapsed to his knees, gasping for breath. "Whoa," he wheezed. "Okay… I think… I think I feel a little better now." He looked at his hands, which were smoking slightly. "Maybe… maybe that relish was a bit too much for me."
Genos, his optical sensors struggling to recalibrate after the sheer sensory overload, slowly approached his Sensei. "Sensei… are you… operational?"
Saitama managed a weak thumbs-up. "Yeah… just… need a nap. And maybe… a lifetime supply of antacids."
Up on the mountainside, Shadow Garden, and the assorted monsters they were fighting, had all stopped dead in their tracks, staring in stunned, horrified silence at the colossal, fiery geyser that had just erupted from the valley below. The Sanguine Knight Alpha had been fighting actually dropped his sword. A Blood-Gorger, mid-swoop, simply forgot to flap its wings and tumbled out of the sky.
Shadow just stood there, his cloak fluttering in the sudden, heated updraft. He had witnessed Saitama one-punch cosmic horrors, nullify city-destroying magic with a bored glance, and make ancient evils flee in terror. But this… this was new. This was… a weapon of gastric destruction. This was… biological warfare by way of bad life choices and an overly enthusiastic cyborg chef.
"By the… by the abyss…" Alpha whispered, her voice filled with a reverence that bordered on sheer, unadulterated terror. "What… what was that?"
"That, Alpha-sama," Beta said, her voice trembling slightly as she consulted her internal chronometer and a hastily recalibrated trajectory analysis, "was Saitama-dono… clearing his system… with approximately the same kinetic energy output as a small tactical nuclear device. And it appears… to have been aimed… rather unfortunately… in the general direction of Castle Maleficus's north tower."
As if on cue, a distant, echoing CRUMP sound rolled through the mountains, followed by a plume of dark smoke rising from the direction of Valerius's fortress.
Shadow closed his eyes. He didn't even bother counting this time. He just… accepted it. His grand infiltration, his dramatic confrontation, his epic battle against the forces of darkness… had just been preempted by an interdimensional, relish-fueled, projectile vomit attack that had apparently just scored a direct hit on the enemy stronghold.
He opened his eyes. He looked at his dumbfounded Shades. He looked at the terrified, cowering monsters (who were now clearly reconsidering their career choices as minions of an ancient vampire lord). He looked down at the valley, where Saitama was now being gently fanned by Mr. Fluffles with a large leaf.
"Well," Shadow said, his voice a masterpiece of forced composure. "It seems Saitama-dono has… softened up the target… for us. Perhaps… perhaps we should take advantage of the… distraction."
The remaining ghouls, werewolves, and Blood-Gorgers, having witnessed the fiery geyser and the subsequent explosion at their master's castle, apparently decided that their dental appointments were, in fact, extremely urgent. They turned and fled, disappearing back into the mist with a speed and desperation that was truly impressive.
Shadow Garden found themselves standing alone on the mountainside, the silence broken only by the distant crackling of what sounded suspiciously like a very large, very old, and very flammable castle tower.
"So," Epsilon said, after a long, stunned silence, "do we… still need to infiltrate?"
Shadow looked towards Castle Maleficus, where a significant portion of the north tower was now conspicuously absent, replaced by a gaping, smoking hole. Crimson Count Valerius was likely, at this very moment, experiencing a level of consternation and property damage that even his centuries of unlife had not prepared him for.
"Yes, Epsilon," Shadow said, a strange, almost manic glint in his hidden eyes. "We still need to infiltrate. But perhaps… our entrance will be slightly more… direct… than originally planned." He began to walk towards the castle, his cloak billowing with a newfound, almost reckless abandon.
The Eminence in Shadow was tired of his narratives being shattered. So, he decided, if he couldn't beat the chaos, he would ride it. Straight into a vampire lord's burning, relish-bombed castle. This was no longer a carefully scripted drama. This was a high-octane, absurdist action-comedy. And he was, much to his own surprise, starting to find the pyrotechnics… rather invigorating. After all, what was a little unscheduled demolition between new… friends?