"Is he mocking me? Asking if fire feels hot?"
"Die!"
Surtur growled. The Twilight Sword howled through the air, ripping it raw, heat spiking in a blink.
At his level, technique barely mattered. Hela—master of innumerable forms and flourishes—had still been helpless before him. With that hide like a furnace wall and a body that stitched itself back together, most attacks barely scratched him. All he needed was a single solid hit to settle the fight.
When power reaches a certain scale, brute force crushes finesse.
What puzzled Surtur was the bald man not even trying to dodge the sweep of the Twilight Sword—an artifact born to end worlds. Ants like these usually took to the sky and kited him around. Was the little insect… scared stiff?
The thought flickered by even as Surtur's blade accelerated.
Whoom—
The storm-pressure rolling ahead of the strike hit first. An ordinary being standing there would have crumpled and died from that alone.
But deep inside Saitama's chest—beneath the iceberg-still calm—a faint sliver loosened.
A heat called fighting spirit began to bubble in his blood.
"So strong."
A light glinted in the dead-fish eyes.
Rumble—
The vast flaming edge swallowed him whole. Lava detonations boomed; space itself trembled.
A mountain behind Saitama sheared in half under the aftershock alone.
Watching from not far away, Thor, Loki, and the Valkyrie blanched; even the wash of force left their footing shaky.
"Saitama!"
Valkyrie cried out. Of the three, she was the weakest here; Surtur's sheer presence kept her from advancing.
"Why didn't he dodge?!" Thor shouted, panicked. That single cut would have ended Hela—and Saitama had taken it head-on… If he fell, how was Thor supposed to clean up a catastrophe like this?
Hela had scared him. This Surtur, now, left him utterly at a loss.
"He won't. There's no way Boss Saitama dies that easily," Loki said, eyes locked on the inferno.
Where Saitama had stood was now a lake of boiling magma, the heat warping the very air.
"Dead bug," Surtur laughed, dragging the Twilight Sword up out of the lava. "Remember the name of the one who killed you—Surtur, the great fire giant! Hahaha! Now then, who's next?"
He turned toward Thor and the others. In all of Asgard, only this handful could even pretend to stand in his way. His strides looked slow, but each step spanned a shocking distance—faster, in a way, than the gods could fly.
The Twilight Sword rose again, streams of molten fire running off its edge as he leveled it at them.
"Wow. Your sword—and this lava—feel like a warm bath. Kinda comfy."
The voice came from behind him.
Surtur froze mid-swing. His titanic head turned, confusion creasing into dawning disbelief.
There, soaking in the churning lava like a hot spring, bobbed a bald head and a pair of placid fishy eyes. Bubbles burbled up around the man's cheeks.
"Hiss—"
Even Thor, with a body he proudly called godly, sucked air through his teeth, scalp prickling. Bathing… in Surtur's lava?
This wasn't ordinary magma. It was the fire giant's divine blaze—hotter, crueler, ruinously destructive. Even Thor wouldn't dip a toe in without expecting to lose a few layers of skin.
Loki and Valkyrie were equally dumbstruck.
"Is he… human?" Valkyrie's eyes were round. Back on Sakaar she'd thought Saitama "different." After he flattened the Grandmaster, she'd called him "strong." Now she realized she'd never understood him at all.
"Bathing, is it?"
Surtur felt the sting. The ant was bathing in his fire. If that wasn't naked mockery, what was?
"Roar—die!"
The Twilight Sword whipped toward the "bath."
Saitama jolted up with a splash. Somewhere far off, Valkyrie squeaked and clapped both hands over her eyes.
Thor: "…"
Loki: "…"
The lava had reduced Saitama's outfit to confetti. A tasteful heavy mosaic of modesty seemed to follow his leap, sparing the world unnecessary trauma.
The sword plunged, blasting lava outward in crashing waves. Saitama burst into the air, landed lightly on the Twilight Sword's broad spine as Surtur drew it back, and sprinted along the massive blade toward the fire giant's face.
"Hm? Coming for me? Heh."
Surtur noticed, of course. With might like his, there was no need to mind the ant's efforts.
His fanged maw opened; power gathered, just as it had before he blasted Thor.
"Raaaah—!"
The invisible shockwave shredded nearby ruins. Even at range, Thor, Loki, and Valkyrie winced in pain.
To Saitama, it was nothing. His gaze never left Surtur's brow.
His fist clenched.
"Want to hit me? Come then! Hahaha—"
Surtur's laugh was contempt. An ant's fist was still an ant's fist.
No flourish. No wind-up.
Just a punch.
Normal Punch.
He set it, almost lazily, against Surtur's forehead—gently.
(End of Chapter)
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