Hela's brows drew together. The thing she loathed most was defiance—especially groundless, die-for-nothing defiance.
Thor had it. And this supposedly smarter Loki had it too.
Poor offspring of Odin.
"Is that so? I'm curious. My executioner, Skurge, mentioned someone called Saitama. You've mentioned him. Quite a few in Asgard know the name. I'm very curious about this Saitama."
Hela smiled with cool elegance. She lifted Loki's chin with a finger, making the proud little brother look up at her from a humbled angle—just the way she liked it.
"Then use your method. Call this Saitama here. I'll kill him with my own hands—kill the 'king' you lot babble about—and show you what a true king is. Me. Hela."
A domineering darkness rolled out with a thread of anger, sweeping in all directions. The Frost Giants and Asgardian warriors around the palace were blown away like dry leaves.
Hela even spotted Heimdall—the gatekeeper of Asgard—who now seemed to have some… unclear tie to the Tenth Realm.
But none of that mattered. What Hela trusted, absolutely, was herself.
"Heh… you'll regret this, Hela."
Loki glared up at her, blood trickling from the corner of his mouth.
Her high heel crushed his head into the floor, leaving him humiliated and filthy.
"Hurry up and call him while I'm still interested."
Hela laughed from on high.
Sakaar.
The Grandmaster's command of energy truly flowed like water—spatial compression, spatial ruptures, even mind-control flashed one after another, opening everyone's eyes.
"So strong! As expected of the Grandmaster—Sakaar's number one!"
"Don't forget who unified Sakaar with absolute force. Time doesn't erase that—our Grandmaster!"
"That bald fool really made him mad this time!"
After a barrage that made the heart lurch, the Grandmaster finally stopped. His chest heaved—clearly even an ancient race like his couldn't maintain that output forever.
But if this killed the bald one and preserved his absolute rule over Sakaar, it was worth it.
"Done! Finally squashed the egghead!"
He let out a long breath, tension easing from his shoulders.
"Impressive. Your telekinetic control has even more tricks than Fubuki's."
Suddenly, a lazy voice drifted out of the rubble.
The Grandmaster went rigid. The cheering crowd went silent, faces frozen in gawking disbelief.
Valkyrie's bottle slipped from her hand and shattered.
Saitama…
The unkillable salted-fish hero crawled out of the crater yet again, patting dust from his suit like it was a habit.
The Grandmaster's expression went through a whole stage play; his jaw nearly hit the floor.
"N-no way… H-how can that be?"
What kind of race could take that beating? Even a demigod like Thor couldn't have eaten it. He was the Grandmaster!
"Got any other moves? If not, I think it's my turn now."
Saitama straightened his clothes, looked at the Grandmaster seriously, and asked.
"Uh… uhhh…"
It was like something clogged his throat. The Grandmaster wanted to speak—nothing came out.
Weak? Far from it. Energy conversion, levitation, mind control, energy projection, matter reassembly, spatial jumps—he even had some kind of resurrection in the bag. A real jack-of-all-tricks.
But before Saitama, there was only one phrase for it: "all flash, no substance."
I, Saitama, have no feelings.
And I counter all that flashy nonsense.
"If there's nothing else, I'll hit you now."
Rolling his shoulders, Saitama did a few warm-ups under a thousand watching eyes. Then his red glove leveled at the Grandmaster.
The Grandmaster's pupils shrank to pinpoints. In the instant Saitama clenched his fist, a calamity-bell rang in his heart. A suffocating sense of mortal danger crawled over his skin; terror like he'd never known made every hair stand on end.
"No! Impossible! There can't be such a monster in the universe!"
He raged inside, throwing up layer after layer of energy screens.
"One-Quarter Serious Punch."
Saitama murmured it.
By now, he could control his power decently well; during his time in the Marvel world, that power had grown frighteningly high.
One-quarter Serious Punch… should… probably not kill.
He thought that—and threw it.
BOOOOM—
Blue-white arcs crackled. The punch-wind roared out, swallowing the world in an instant.
Titanium-hard alloy rails shredded like paper. Even before the shock front arrived, the ground crazed and split.
The Grandmaster's eyes bulged as the blow hit him head-on.
RRRRR-RAAAAMMM—
Like a kaiju sweeping through, the stacked transparent barriers exploded to mist, offering no resistance at all. The hurricane of a punch filled the arena, engulfing him whole.
From Saitama's outstretched fist, an X-shaped shock-wave ripped outward. The entire gladiator complex split in two. Sakaarian bystanders caught in the path—vanished without a trace.
Seen from the sky, the largest arena-city on Sakaar was quartered like a cake. The aftershock washed across the planet.
Thor and Valkyrie—lucky enough to be just outside the cutting planes—stood petrified. The storm grazed past them; a hair's breadth closer and they'd be in pieces, even with Saitama's much-improved control.
The punch lasted only a heartbeat—but in the minds of the survivors, it crashed on for an eternity.
A cross-shaped scar—an X abyss—etched itself across Sakaar from horizon to horizon. Long after Saitama left this world, people would still call it: "The Place Where a God Once Came."
The Grandmaster's life-readout vanished from Saitama's view. Whether the gale erased him or blew him into space—unclear.
Saitama sighed, a little helpless. He hadn't meant to overdo it. Still, the Grandmaster's "justice value" had been -6. Cleaning up a man like that didn't trouble his conscience.
Every year, the dead under the Grandmaster's thumb numbered beyond counting.
"Well done, Saitama!"
Thor whooped, then shot a smug look at Valkyrie—as if he'd thrown that earth-rending punch himself.
Valkyrie stared, worldview shattered and reassembled.
Just as Thor strutted over to bask some more, pillars of rainbow light lanced down from the sky, wrapping Saitama, Thor, and Valkyrie.
"The Bifrost?!"
Saitama blinked—then all three vanished.
(End of Chapter)
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