ROOOOOAR—!!!
SCREEEEEE—!!!
GRRRR-OWWWWL—!!!
A cacophony of bestial roars erupted from the horizon, drowning out all other sound. The ground trembled as a rolling, mountainous tide of dust surged towards Late Rain Hill, an avalanche of hunger given flesh.
"A beast tide!" Komatsu squeaked, ducking behind Toriko.
The perfect, universe-redefining aroma of AIR had acted as a cosmic dinner bell. Every remaining alpha predator on the Eighth Continent, driven mad by the scent, was converging. A Gluttonous Bear (Capture Level 1200) shouldered past a pack of Lightning Leopards (800). Rival species ignored each other, their singular focus on the source of the divine fragrance. It was an ecological disaster in motion.
"This is bad," Coco muttered, his electromagnetic senses screaming. "There's a wrongness to it… a guiding frequency beneath the chaos."
The tide was moments away. To protect Komatsu and their hard-won feast, the Four Heavenly Kings acted as one. From within them, their Gourmet Cell Demons manifested—not as internal struggles, but as willing partners. A crimson Red Demon, a swirling Poison Devil, a mane of living, golden Satan Hair, and a vibrating, formless Sound Wave Devil materialized, their combined aura a tangible wall of supreme predator pressure.
The forward edge of the beast tide faltered, animals skidding to a halt, instincts warring with hunger. But as more piled in from behind, the pressure built. The horde became a single, trembling organism of teeth, claw, and drooling avarice, its collective gaze fixed on the shimmering AIR pulp.
"Tch. Annoying flies." Garou didn't even look up from where he sat, casually picking his teeth with a claw. "SCRAM."
His shout wasn't loud. It was finality given sound, infused with the "Absolute Malice" of his Monster Calamity God-Slayer Fist. It was a conceptual command of cease to be.
Beasts with Capture Levels below 500 simply… burst. They fell in waves, internal pressure erupting from every orifice, painting the dust red.
The carnage, however, had the opposite effect. The scent of blood mixed with the promise of AIR, igniting a primal, suicidal frenzy. The tide surged forward, a mindless, breaching wave of flesh.
"Ignorant livestock," Garou growled, starting to rise. "Might as well clear the board—"
"Wait!" Toriko's hand clamped on his shoulder. Toriko's eyes weren't fearful; they blazed with a hunter's fervent light. "These are ours. A test for our new power. To protect what's behind us."
Coco, Sunny, Zebra—the same fierce resolve shone in their eyes. It was a warrior's claim, pure and simple.
Garou saw it. The unyielding will. He gave a curt, acknowledging grunt and settled back, crossing his arms. "Make it quick. The food's getting cold."
"HAH! Just watch! SOUND WAVE CANNON—!" Zebra was the first to move. His swollen sound-wave arm pulsed, and a visible, concentric shockwave cannonballed into the densest cluster of beasts, pulverizing everything in its path.
"The sky is mine~" Sunny sang, his Hair Arm erupting into billions of seeking, piercing strands that filled the air, plucking flying raptors from the sky with brutal, elegant precision.
"Poison Swamp: Abyssal Mire." Coco's Frog Arm gestured, and the ground before a charging column of beasts liquefied into a bubbling, purple quagmire that dissolved hide, bone, and will.
Toriko himself became a whirlwind. His Demon Arm was a blur of destructive force, meeting claw with fist, tusk with elbow. Where he moved, a path of broken bodies was carved through the tide.
Their synergy was breathtaking. The newly evolved arms and harmonized demons acted as force multipliers. The seemingly unstoppable beast tide's advance didn't just halt—it began to crumble, pushed back by the four-man wall of refined violence.
Yet, in the heat of the melee, Coco's enhanced senses shrieked a warning. "They're being herded!" he yelled over the din. "Someone's directing this! Using the beasts as a screen!"
The others felt it too—a cold, intelligent malice threading through the animal frenzy. They fought on, but their awareness split, bodies moving on instinct while their spirits sought the hidden puppeteer.
The moment came as Toriko's fist caved in the skull of a Chimera Rhino. For a fraction of a second, he was extended, off-balance, the rhythm of his power at its briefest ebb.
From four impossible angles—from within the shadow of a falling beast, from a distortion in the light-drenched dust, from the very ground at his feet, and from the silent space behind his ear—four attacks materialized.
They were not beastly. They were precise, silent, and lethally sharp. Aimed not to maim, but to sever. To decapitate the strongest fighter in the opening salvo.
The hidden hand had played its card.
Sound Spike – Condensed to a needle-point of silent, invisible vibration, aimed to pierce Toriko's spine.
Metallic Talon – Glinting with spatial-rending sharpness, materializing to sever Sunny's throat.
Venom Dart – A bolt of emerald poison, faster than thought, streaking for Coco's brow.
Thornbound Maul – A massive, vine-wreathed wooden hammer, swinging with obliterating force at the base of Zebra's skull.
The coordination was flawless, the timing surgical, exploiting the micro-second lull in the four warriors' combined rhythm.
"Hiding rats!" Zebra bellowed, his Sound Wave Arm whipping around in a blur to meet the crushing maul head-on.
Sunny's hair solidified into a dense, golden mesh before his neck. Coco's venom surged into a rippling, liquid barrier. Toriko's demonic arm twisted at an impossible angle, intercepting the sound spike with a roar of tearing energy.
CLANG! HISS-THUD! BOOM!
The ambush was parried, but the force of the counter-blows ripped the attackers from their concealment.
"Matsur? Uman?!" Toriko's roar was one of pure, gut-wrenching disbelief.
"Joa's puppets!" Coco snarled, the truth a poison in his mouth.
Seeing their comrades—friends they had fought and feasted beside—reduced to empty-eyed marionettes with glowing violet crystals for eyes was a wound deeper than any claw. Rage warred with a sickening grief in their chests. Even Zebra's usual bluster was replaced by a silent, volcanic fury.
"Subdue them! We have to break the control!" Toriko commanded, his attacks shifting instantly from lethal strikes to complex grapples and locks. His Demon Arm became a cage of crimson energy, seeking to envelop Matsur. Sunny's hair transformed into sinuous, binding ropes aiming for Uman. Coco and Zebra moved in flanking support, their goal not destruction, but desperate capture.
It was a plea. A final, stubborn hope for the comrades they remembered.
The controlled Matsur let out a distorted, cackling laugh that was nothing like his own. "Fools! Sentimental fools! You think there's anything left to wake?!"
Uman's voice was a flat, horrifying monotone. "Your focus… is here. Therefore… the chef… is vulnerable."
A bolt of pure ice shot down Toriko's spine. All four of them snapped their heads towards where Komatsu had been.
He was there. And so was Teppei.
The Regenerator had manifested from nothingness directly behind the petite chef.
"Chef Komatsu," Teppei's voice was a whisper of frozen air beside Komatsu's ear. "A temporary… repose."
His arm—not a hand, but a sharpened, crystal-tipped limb—pierced forward.
SHLIK—THUMP.
The sound was wet, final. Crimson bloomed across Komatsu's white chef's jacket.
Time seemed to freeze. The chaotic roar of the beast tide, the clash of battle—all of it drained away into a silent, horrifying vacuum.
"KOMATSU—!!!"
Toriko's scream was not a sound, but the rending of a soul. He tore against Matsur's hold with berserker strength, but the puppet held fast with unnatural power. Coco, Sunny, Zebra—all were locked in their own desperate struggles, their own cries of anguished fury choked by the distance, by the perfect, cruel trap that had been sprung.
In that suspended, heart-shattering moment, the chef who had cooked a Food King slumped forward, a puppet of his own, his life's blood watering the earth of the Gourmet World.
Patreon Rene_chan for advanced chapters