Saturday. 12:43 PM. Z-City Commercial District.
"Three minutes, Master."
Genos's voice cuts through the wind noise. The cyborg is a blur of chrome and heat haze, tearing down the fractured asphalt of Street 4.
Saitama runs beside him. He isn't blurring. He isn't glowing. He's just running, his red gloves swinging rhythmically, his white cape snapping like a plastic bag in a hurricane. His expression is dead serious. A bead of sweat rolls down his polished scalp.
"Make it two, Genos," Saitama says. "The special sale on premium beef short ribs ends at 12:45. If we miss the eighty-percent markdown, we eat bean sprouts for another week. My stomach can't take the fiber."
"Understood." Genos's mechanical eyes shift from blue to amber. Core output increases. "Engaging rapid transit thrusters. I calculate a 98.4% probability of arrival before the butchers close the counter."
The cyborg accelerates. Jet fire scorches the pavement.
Then reality hiccups.
It starts as a sound—not a boom, but a wet tearing noise, like the universe's wallpaper ripping in half. A violet fracture opens directly in their path. It doesn't suck air in; it bleeds heavy, static pressure out.
"Master! Spatial anomaly detected directly ahea—"
"Can't stop," Saitama says. He checks his watch. 12:44 PM. "Jump over it."
Saitama leaps.
The rift expands.
Physics takes a holiday.
Instead of clearing the purple gap, gravity inverts. The street vanishes. The sky turns from smog-grey to a swirling vortex of psychedelic gold. The air pressure spikes, heavy enough to crush a tank.
"My beef," Saitama mutters as the light swallows them.
The Valhalla Arena.
Silence screams.
Millions of souls hold their breath. The sound of a single heartbeat could shatter the tension in the vast, coliseum-style arena. On the sandy floor of the ring, the Champion of Humanity lies broken. Not dead. Not yet. But his volund is shattered, his spirit crushed.
Zeus, the Godfather of the Cosmos, stands over the fallen warrior.
The King of Gods looks terrifying. He is not the frail old man who entered the ring. He is expanded, muscular, his Adamas form rippling with condensed energy. Steam hisses from his pores. Every inch of his flesh is a compressed singularity of violence.
Zeus spits a tooth onto the sand. He looks up at the VIP section of the gods, where Shiva lounges and Odin watches with his single, burning eye.
"Is this it?" Zeus's voice grates like tectonic plates shifting. "Is this the best resistance mortals offer? A few parlor tricks? A little spirit?"
He looks down at the bleeding pulp of the human champion. He raises a fist wrapped in divine light. The air around his knuckles distorts, terrified of what's coming.
"Pathetic," Zeus rumbles. "Existence is wasted on your kind. Extinction is not a punishment. It is a mercy."
Heimsdall raises the gjallarhorn to his lips. "The winner is—"
BOOM.
The ceiling of the Valhalla arena—a barrier woven from divine magic that has withstood eons—explodes inward.
It's not an attack. It's an impact.
Debris rains down. Marble chunks the size of houses plummet toward the stands, only to be vaporized by the protective fields of the minor gods. But in the center of the ring, right between Zeus and his victim, a dust cloud mushrooms upward.
The shockwave hits the spectators. Human souls in the nosebleeds are thrown backward. Lower-tier gods shield their eyes.
Zeus takes a step back. His eyes narrow. He didn't sense an approach. Nothing moves faster than him. Nothing enters this sacred space without his permission.
"What is this?" Odin leans forward on his balcony, his ravens silent for once. "An interruption?"
Hermes adjusts his monocle, peering through the settling dust. "Curious. Very curious."
In the crater, a mechanical voice cuts through the haze.
"Diagnostic complete. Structural integrity at 99%. Master, sensors indicate a complete dimensional shift. Atmospheric composition suggests 13% higher oxygen levels and trace amounts of... divine ether?"
"Genos," a flat voice replies. "Where's the Supermarket?"
The dust clears.
Standing in a crater of pulverized divine stone are two figures. One looks impressive—a cyborg with black sclera and incinerator cannons glowing with heat. He scans the arena, threat assessment subroutines scrolling rapidly across his vision.
The other is a bald man in a yellow jumpsuit. He is dusting off his cape. He looks at his watch. He taps the face of the watch.
"12:46," the bald man says. Shoulders slump. "We missed it."
The silence returns to the arena. It is heavier now. Confused.
Zeus stares. He looks at the cyborg. Then he looks at the bald one. He feels... nothing. No aura. No divine pressure. No magic. The bald one feels like a rock. A blade of grass. An empty cup.
"Who..." Zeus's voice is low, dangerous. "...are you?"
Genos steps forward, chest vents hissing. "I am Genos. This is my master, the professional hero Saitama. Identify yourselves and this location immediately. My sensors detect hostile intent from multiple entities."
"Master?" Ares laughs from the Greek balcony. "That robotic doll calls that plain-looking egg his master? Has humanity run out of warriors so they send clowns?"
Saitama ignores the giant, muscle-bound god. He looks around. He sees the stadium. He sees the terrified humans on one side, the sneering gods on the other. He sees the bloody mess of a fighter on the ground near his boots.
"Hey." Saitama points at the fallen human. "You okay, buddy?"
The human groans, blood bubbling from his lips.
Saitama looks at Zeus. He sees the towering mass of muscle, the dark energy pulsing from him, the absolute arrogance radiating like heat.
"You the one who did this?" Saitama asks.
Zeus smiles. It's a rictus of cruelty. "I am Zeus. Father of Gods. And you, little flea, have interrupted my fun. Do you know the penalty for trespassing on sacred ground?"
Saitama picks his ear with a pinky finger. He inspects the wax. Blows it away.
"You guys talk a lot," Saitama says. "I'm annoyed. I missed my sale. And now I see some old steroids victim bullying a dying guy. Is this a wrestling match? It seems pretty unfair."
Unfair.
The word echoes.
Heimdall's jaw drops. No one calls Ragnarok unfair. It is divine justice.
Zeus's grin vanishes. His Adamas form pulsates. veins bulging like pythons under his skin. "Unfair? I am the rules. I am the order. I am—"
"Boring," Saitama interrupts.
The entire arena freezes.
On the balcony, Poseidon stops tapping his trident. His cold blue eyes lock onto the bald man. For a mortal to interrupt a god is sin. To call a god boring? That is suicide.
"Boring?" Zeus repeats. His voice is barely a whisper, yet it carries the weight of a collapsing star. "You find the King of the Cosmos... boring?"
"Yeah." Saitama yawns. A real, jaw-cracking yawn. tears form in the corners of his eyes. "You're just another guy who thinks being strong means you can step on people. I've seen it a hundred times. A thousand. It's repetitive."
Zeus begins to laugh. A dry, rasping sound. "Genos," or whatever your name is. Watch your 'master' die."
The god moves.
It isn't speed. Speed implies time passing.
This is Meteor Jab.
Zeus throws a punch. No, not a punch. A barrage. Ten punches. A hundred. A thousand. The air liquefies. The shockwaves create a vacuum that tries to suck the skin off the spectators' faces. Each blow travels at Mach 500, escalating to Mach 1000, then beyond physics.
Genos's sensors fail. WARNING: VISUAL PROCESSING LAG. TARGET VELOCITY UNQUANTIFIABLE. He can't see the attacks. He only sees the golden wall of destruction impacting his master.
Boom-boom-boom-boom-boom!
The impacts sound like heavy artillery fire played at ten thousand times speed. The ground beneath Saitama vaporizes, turning into glass, then into plasma.
The gods cheer. Ares pumps his fist. "Show him, Father! Turn him to mist!"
The barrage stops.
Steam clears.
Zeus stands panting slightly, smoke rising from his knuckles. He grins, waiting for the red mist that used to be the bald man to settle.
"That," Zeus says, "was a warm-up."
"Is that it?"
The voice comes from inside the dust.
Zeus freezes. His eyes widen so much the capillaries threaten to burst.
Saitama stands there. His yellow suit has a few scorch marks. His cape is dusty. He is unhurt. No. Not unhurt. Unaffected. He hasn't moved an inch.
"You're fast, I guess," Saitama says. He pats dust from his chest. "Like a mosquito."
Silence crushes the stadium again. This time, it's not tense. It's terrified.
Shiva sits up straight. "He... he tanked it? No blocking?"
"Impossible," Hermes whispers. "He didn't deflect them. He just... existed through them."
Zeus's face twitches. A vein pops on his forehead. Disbelief wars with rage. He is the summit. The absolute. This cannot be happening. A mortal cannot treat his divine fury like a light breeze.
"A mosquito?" Zeus creates a sound deep in his throat—a growl that shakes the foundations of Valhalla. "A MOSQUITO?!"
He crouches. The energy around him shifts. It stops being golden and turns a sickly, void-like grey. The air grows cold. The concept of time begins to whimper and curl up in the corner.
Heimdall realizes what is happening. He scrambles back, dropping his horn. "Wait! Lord Zeus! That technique—the arena can't handle—"
"SHUT UP!" Zeus roars.
He focuses every ounce of his divine essence into his right foot. He steps.
The Fist That Surpassed Time.
The universe pauses.
Colors drain from the world.
Sound dies.
Gravity ceases.
In this frozen moment, only Zeus exists. This is his dominion. The mastery over time itself. This is the technique that defeated his father Kronos. It is the ultimate checkmate. The inevitable end. A punch thrown in zero time carries infinite force.
Zeus walks casually toward the frozen Saitama.
"You were amusing," Zeus speaks into the stillness. "For a microsecond. But do not mistake endurance for power. In this world of frozen time, I am absolute. Goodbye, little bald one."
He winds up. Muscles compress to diamond hardness. He aims directly for the center of Saitama's face. He puts eons of pride, eons of supremacy into the blow.
He thrusts the fist forward.
Impact.
Time snaps back into existence violently. The sound arrives all at once—a thunderclap that blows out the eardrums of the front row. The shockwave splits the arena floor in half, creating a canyon five hundred meters deep.
Dust covers everything.
"It is over," Odin says, leaning back in his throne. "Foolishness."
"Glorious!" Ares bellows. "Father remains undefeated!"
Genos scans the crater. His core trembles. Master...
Zeus stands in the center of the devastation, his fist extended. He breathes heavily, his Adamas form nearing its limit. He waits for the body to fall.
But there is no body on the ground.
Zeus feels resistance against his knuckles.
Warm. Soft. Resistance.
Slowly, terrifyingly slowly, the dust drifts away.
Zeus is punching.
Saitama is standing.
Saitama's head is tilted slightly to the right.
There is a red mark on his cheek. It looks like the kind of mark you get from sleeping on a wrinkled pillow.
Saitama blinks. He looks at Zeus's fist, buried in his cheek, then looks at Zeus.
"Whoa," Saitama says. "That one was... weird."
Zeus cannot speak. His brain cannot process the signals his eyes are sending. He hit him. He hit him outside of time. He hit him with the force to unmake reality.
And the man is calling it "weird."
"You okay, old man?" Saitama asks. "You're shaking."
Zeus is shaking. His arm, the one connected to the punch, is vibrating uncontrollably. The bones in his divine wrist are hairline-fractured. The recoil of hitting an immovable object has shattered his own skeletal structure.
"Im..." Zeus's lips tremble. "Im... pos... sible..."
Saitama steps back. The fist falls away from his face. He rubs the red spot. "Stings a little. Like snapping a rubber band."
He looks at Genos. "Genos, is my face swelling? I don't want to look weird for the photos if we find a new grocery store."
Genos stares. He pulls up a magnification of his master's face. "Negative, Master. Just minor epidermal irritation. It is fading rapidly."
"Good." Saitama turns back to Zeus.
The King of Gods looks small now. Not physically—he is still a hulking monster of muscle. But spiritually, he is shrinking. The aura of invincibility has been popped like a cheap balloon.
"You..." Zeus stumbles backward. His heel catches on a piece of rubble. The God of Gods trips. He catches himself, but the indignity burns brighter than the sun. "WHAT ARE YOU?"
Saitama scratches his chest. The fabric of his suit makes a zrt-zrt sound—the only noise in the paralyzed arena.
"Me?" Saitama looks confused by the question. "I'm just a guy who's a hero for fun."
He balls his right hand into a fist. It's a casual motion. No light. No chanting. No energy buildup. just a red glove closing over fingers.
"And," Saitama adds, his eyes looking dead fish-eyed bored, "you're blocking the exit. I still need to find dinner."
He steps forward.
One step.
The pressure hitting Zeus isn't divine. It's primal. It is the feeling of a prey animal realizing the predator isn't hunting it. The predator just wants to walk through it.
For the first time in thirteen billion years, Zeus feels a sensation crawling up his spine. Ice cold. Nauseating.
Fear.
"Genos," Saitama says, ignoring the terrified god trembling before him. "Check the map. Are there any supermarkets in this 'Valhalla' place?"
"Scanning now, Master," Genos replies, voice deadly serious. "But first, I believe we must address the divine entities blocking our path. Their threat levels are high."
"High?" Saitama looks at Zeus, then up at Odin, then at the sea of stunned deities.
He sighs. Long. Loud. Exasperated.
"Man," Saitama says. "This day is going to be such a drag."