While the Gourmet Heavenly Kings spiraled into panic, Saitama and Garou remained preternaturally still. Their eyes were locked on the same point of seemingly empty air. Garou's lips curled into a disdainful sneer.
"A gutter rat that thinks it's clever," he muttered. He made no move to intervene. Why bother, when a far more terrifying entity had already cordoned off the escape route?
In the Hidden World—a dimensional fold imperceptible to normal senses—a creature of pure azure, a Blue Nitro, was cackling in triumph. It clutched the perfectly cooked AIR fruit, its bird-like beak stretched in a grotesque smile.
"Ghehehe… Foolish humans! Your 'perfect cooking' simply prepared the offering for me! One more key piece for Lord Acacia's glorious return!"
Unlike its usual smash-and-grab tactics on immature ingredients, this Nitro had exercised rare patience. It had lurked in the interstitial folds of reality, waiting specifically for Komatsu's culinary miracle to reach its climax. The chef's transcendent Food Luck had, in the end, only served its ancient, malevolent purpose.
"This destiny of flavor… was always meant for my use! Ghehehe… Huh?"
Its gloating ceased as its head thumped solidly against an obstruction.
"Odd… the path was clear…" It looked up, confusion turning to abject, feather-raising horror.
It was not a wall.
It was a knee.
The knee belonged to a dark gold armored giant so vast its very presence strained the fabric of the Hidden World, threatening to tear the pocket dimension apart. The giant stood like a primordial god of annihilation, and its burning scarlet eyes were focused directly on the tiny, thieving creature in its path. A smile, colder than the void between stars, played on its lips.
"Stealing another's meal… is terribly poor manners."
The giant's voice was the last thing the Blue Nitro ever perceived—a judgment rolled in thunder.
Back on the ravaged Hill of Delayed Rain, King walked into view as casually as a man returning from a stroll. In his hand, he carried the AIR fruit, now wilted to a mere hundred meters in diameter, its essence condensed.
"You! Stop right there!" Coco, Sunny, and Zebra instantly formed a combat triangle around him. Coco's fingers dripped with coalescing purple venom, Sunny's hair bristled into deadly filaments, and Zebra's throat glowed with the pent-up power of a Sound Wave Bomb.
"Hand over the AIR, kid," Zebra growled, "and we might let you walk away."
They saw only the fruit in his hand and assumed the thief had been forced to reveal himself.
"WAIT!" Toriko rushed between them, arms spread. "This is Mr. King! He's with us!"
"Mr. King?" Sunny's eyes narrowed. "The one you said…"
"…Tamed the Horse King?" Coco finished, his voice thick with skepticism as he scanned the unassuming, though imposing, man before them.
Komatsu peeked out from behind Toriko, waving excitedly. "Mr. King! Did you catch the thief?"
King offered a faint smile. With a casual flick of his wrist, he tossed a blue, feathered head onto the ground between them. It had a sharp beak and six lifeless, terror-frozen eyes.
"A Blue Nitro," King stated flatly. "It was waiting in a dimensional pocket you'd call a 'Hidden World.' It planned to steal the fruit the moment your cooking was complete. I… intercepted it."
"Hidden World?" The term meant nothing to them. Their confusion was plain.
Zebra snorted. "A convenient story! 'Hidden World'? Sounds like a lie you concocted because we had you cornered!"
King's gaze turned icy. It seemed this loud one required a more… direct form of communication.
But before he could act, a new sound split the sky—a sound that stole all attention.
Hiiii-eeee-ahhhh!
It was a first cry. Tender, yet imbued with a shocking, soul-penetrating vitality and latent power that dwarfed mountains.
On Horse King Hill, Heracles had just given birth. For a being of its scale, delivering a foal a few hundred meters long was an act of trivial ease—the equivalent of a human sighing in relief.
The newborn foal, its coat shimmering with a soft, innate golden radiance, took its first wobbly steps. Beneath its tiny hooves, the Hundred-Colored Rainbow Bridge—a magnificent spectrum of light born from the perfect release of AIR's essence—erupted from the earth. It was a celestial pathway woven from every conceivable and inconceivable hue, arcing across the entire Gourmet World.
With a joyful, powerful neigh that promised future sovereignty, the heir to the Eight Kings began its first, symbolic gallop along the bridge of light, a living emblem of a cycle completed and a new legend begun.
Unlike its countless siblings born frail or stillborn over the millennia, this foal was unique. Its gestation had been supercharged by the near-infinite, purified energy from King's Emperor Engine, channeled through its mother. The result was a foundation of unimaginable solidity and a latent, unique "flavor" woven into its very cells.
The little foal pranced on the shimmering rainbow bridge, head held high, basking in the awed and deeply envious gazes of the lesser creatures below. This innate superiority, this celestial birthright, swelled its small chest with pride. It drew a deep breath, preparing to unleash a sovereign's neigh that would announce its glorious reign to the cosmos.
However, just as the royal sound was about to escape its throat—
CHOMP.
"Awoo?!"
A sound of profound violation, followed by a squeal of pure, undiluted shock and pain, shattered the moment.
Saitama had materialized behind the foal using Serious Stealth. His eyes had been locked on its plump, perfectly rounded rump from the moment it appeared. Now, a sizable, mouth-shaped chunk was missing from it. He chewed thoughtfully, his dead-fish eyes widening into circles of genuine delight.
"Mmm…" he mumbled around the mouthful. "Tender! Juicy! Way better than I thought!"
The foal' tragic, indignant screech—"Hiiieee-yaaaaaaah!!!"—replaced its would-be kingly roar. It spun, hopping on three legs, tears of outrage and betrayal welling in its huge eyes as it beheld the bald demon calmly savoring a piece of its royal posterior.
Saitama swallowed, licking his lips. The flavor was a revelation—a succulent, energetic burst that made the previous grilled serpent taste like jerky. He leaned in for a second, more strategic bite.
The foal didn't wait. With a final, terrified glance at the chewing horror, it bolted. A golden blur, it vanished down the length of the rainbow bridge, its psychic scream echoing across the dimensional pathway: "MAAAAA! PERVERT! BALD PERVERT!!"
Saitama watched it go, sighing. "Tsk. One little bite. So dramatic." He hopped off the fading bridge of light.
His feet had barely touched the ravaged earth when he saw King. The man was standing calmly, running a brush—conjured from who-knows-where—through the sleek, obsidian mane of a stunning, powerful mare. It was Horse King Heracles, now reduced to the size of a magnificent draft horse by the Pym Particle collar. The mare turned her head, fixing Saitama with a glare that could freeze stars. A loud, disdainful SNORT blasted dust from the ground.
The message was clear: I saw that. Touch my child again, and the vacuum of space will be a pleasant memory.
Saitama rubbed the back of his head, an awkward, lopsided grin on his face. "Heh… well… you know… kids, they bounce back! A little protein, some rest… good as new…"
King, ever the diplomat, smoothly redirected the impending maternal wrath. "The side show is over," he said, his voice cutting through the tension. He gestured to the wilting, condensed AIR fruit resting beside him, its aroma now a palpable, dizzying promise in the air. "The main event awaits. It's time… to taste a Food King."
Patreon Rene_chan