Yuri Alpha's fist was a ki-infused battering ram, aimed straight for Tanjiro's heart. There was no magic to it. Just pure, disciplined physical force meant to shatter bone and extinguish life. An execution.
Tanjiro's world slowed. He could smell it—the ozone scent of ki, the cold, dead scent of the attacker. His body moved before his mind finished processing the threat.
Water Breathing, Second Form: Water Wheel.
He didn't try to block. That would be suicide. Instead, he dropped into a spinning, vertical slash, his Nichirin blade arcing to deflect. Metal scraped against Yuri's iron gauntlet. Sparks flew like angry fireflies. The sheer force of the blow was staggering; it felt less like a punch and more like being hit by a speeding train. The impact sent him tumbling backward, his arms screaming in protest, but he was alive.
His feet had barely touched the ground when a blur of orange and blue shot past him.
Goku stood where Tanjiro had been a second ago, one hand held out, casually catching Yuri's follow-up punch in his palm. The ground for ten feet around them cracked under the redirected force, but Goku didn't even budge. His cheerful expression was gone, replaced by a sharp, focused look.
"Hey, now," he said, his voice light but carrying an edge of disapproval. "Picking on someone who's not on your level isn't very fun, is it?"
Yuri's eyes widened behind her glasses. Impossible. Her strike, strong enough to pulverize reinforced steel, had been stopped like a child's tantrum.
"LIAR! DON'T TOUCH MY FRIENDS!"
Asta rocketed forward from the side, Demon-Slayer held high, a comet of black energy. Lupusregina Beta met his charge with a manic grin, her priestess's mace intercepting his sword with a resounding crash. "Ooh, a little demon doggy! You wanna play?"
The fight was on.
Narberal Gamma raised a slender hand. "[Chain Dragon Lightning]!"
A serpent of pure, crackling electricity erupted from the ground, aiming to incinerate the entire group. But before it could even connect, Asta, mid-clash with Lupusregina, whipped his other blade around—the Demon-Dweller. He swung it in a wide, desperate arc. The anti-magic flowed, and Nabe's Tier-8 spell simply… dissolved. Eaten by the rust-colored sword.
"What?!" Nabe gasped. "Magic nullification?"
A quiet whir-click from the hillside. CZ Delta calmly lined up her shot and fired. A bullet of pure magical energy streaked toward Tanjiro while he was still recovering his balance. He didn't have time to react.
Saitama, who had been bending down to inspect his sandy crab leg for edibility, sighed. He straightened up and flicked a pebble off the ground with his thumb.
The pebble intercepted the magic bullet mid-flight.
Both disintegrated into motes of harmless light.
CZ Delta tilted her head. Her magical sights ran a diagnostic. Data: inconclusive. Threat level of bald target: recalculating… recalculating… error.
The battle became a swirling vortex of mismatched power systems. Goku effortlessly weaved between Yuri, Lupusregina, and Solution, treating their deadly, coordinated attacks like a dance. He didn't hit back hard. Just a tap here, a push there, always deflecting, always keeping them off-balance. He was learning their rhythm. For him, this wasn't a fight. It was a novel combat language, and he was becoming fluent.
"Amazing teamwork!" he said, ducking under Solution Epsilon's acidic spew. "You must train together all the time!"
Asta was a screaming whirlwind of anti-magic, single-handedly shutting down Narberal's powerful spells while trading brutal physical blows with a giggling Lupusregina. He wasn't as skilled as Goku, not even close, but his sheer tenacity was a force of nature. "NOT! GIVING! UP!"
Tanjiro found himself on the defensive against Shizu's ranged fire and Entoma's swarming, razor-sharp insects. It was a nightmare. His sword deflected bullets, and his breathing forms created vortexes to shred the bugs, but he was being penned in. The smells were overwhelming—gunpowder, insect chitin, and the cold, unyielding intent of the automaton maid.
Suddenly, an impeccably dressed man was just… there. Standing in the middle of the battlefield.
Sebas Tian observed the chaos with the serene calm of a placid lake. His steel-gray hair hadn't moved a single inch.
"Yuri. That is enough," he said. His voice was quiet, yet it cut through the din of combat like a surgeon's scalpel.
The Pleiades immediately disengaged, appearing behind him in a kneel. Every single one of them. Their obedience was absolute.
Goku stopped, a flicker of genuine excitement in his eyes. He looked at Sebas. "Oh! You're way stronger than them." It was a statement of fact. The ki flowing from this butler was deep, calm, and immensely powerful. It was like comparing a raging river to the entire ocean.
Sebas offered a polite, shallow bow. "You have impressive abilities. However, you are trespassing on the sacred domain of the Supreme Being, Lord Ainz Ooal Gown. I must ask you to cease your hostilities."
"Hostilities?" Asta shouted, pointing his sword. "You guys attacked us first!"
Sebas's gaze shifted to Asta, then to Tanjiro. "We detected demonic and anti-demon signatures in proximity. We acted to neutralize a potential threat. A threat you have proven to be."
Saitama finally gave up on his crab leg. He dusted his hands off. "Okay, look, can you guys just point me to the nearest supermarket? All this fighting is making a mess."
Sebas blinked. He registered the words, but his mind refused to process them in the current context. A being who could stop Shizu's magic bullet with a pebble, standing next to a warrior whose power rivaled the Floor Guardians, was asking for… directions? It was a level of strategic misdirection so profound he couldn't even begin to analyze it. A feint within a feint?
"This isn't a game," Sebas said, his tone hardening. He turned his attention to the true threat. Goku. "While I applaud your skill, I cannot allow a being of your power to remain so close to the Great Tomb of Nazarick."
He dropped into a low stance. A pulse of ki, dense and heavy, pressed down on the area. "Leave now, or I will be forced to remove you."
Goku's smile returned, bigger than ever. "You're really strong! Okay, just a little bit!"
Goku vanished. Sebas's head snapped to the side, his arm rising to block a strike aimed at his neck. The impact created a sonic boom that tore the ground apart. Sebas skidded back a few feet, his sleeves shredded, but he held firm.
Impressive.
Sebas counter-attacked, his movements a blur of perfect efficiency. It wasn't the wild, explosive style of Goku. It was precise. Jabs aimed at pressure points. Palm strikes that discharged ki internally. Dragon Fist vs. Adamantine Butler.
For a few spectacular seconds, they were a storm of motion.
Until two hands, one in a red glove, one bare, entered the storm.
Saitama stood between them. He'd caught Sebas's fist in his right hand and Goku's in his left. Casually. Like he was stopping two toddlers from slapping each other.
There was no sound. No shockwave. Just a dead stop.
The kinetic energy of two world-class martial artists vanished into his palms without a single tremor.
Silence.
Absolute, profound silence.
Goku looked at his trapped fist, then at Saitama's bored face, and his eyes went wide with pure, unadulterated awe.
Sebas's composure finally, irrevocably cracked. He stared, his mind reeling. Every fiber of his being, every ki-enhanced muscle, was pushing against an object with the inertia of a mountain range. No, a planet. To call it a hand was an insult to the physics-defying reality he was experiencing. It wasn't a hand. It was an answer. And the answer was 'No'.
He pulled back, his mind racing. This bald man… his power wasn't just immeasurable. It was nonsensical. A living violation of every law of combat he had ever known.
Sebas straightened his posture, formally bowing. "It appears… we have made a grave miscalculation. Please, accept my deepest apologies for the actions of my subordinates."
This sudden, formal apology threw everyone off.
But before anyone could speak, the world changed again.
It wasn't a violent shatter. It was a smooth, effortless adjustment. The glitching, chaotic landscape around them stabilized. The fractured ground knitted itself back together into perfect, seamless stone. The air, thick with a hundred warring energies, became calm, neutral, and heavy with an ancient authority. The very laws of physics seemed to snap to attention.
A figure stood there. He hadn't been there a moment ago. He didn't teleport. He didn't walk. He was simply… present. A young man with black hair and piercing red eyes, dressed in a black and red uniform that felt more like royal attire.
Anos Voldigoad looked at the assembled group. He glanced at the ragged tear in the sky where Saitama's punch had passed through. He saw the bowing butler, the awestruck fighter, the confused swordsmen, and the bald man who just looked mildly annoyed.
An amused, almost pitying smile touched his lips.
"So this is the chaos that ensues when children play with reality," he stated, his voice calm yet resonating with absolute power. It wasn't loud, but every soul in this fractured dimension heard it. "How tiresome."
His crimson eyes met Saitama's.
"Did you truly think breaking one dimension would be enough to entertain me?"