Royal Capital - Sector 4
Invasion Hour: 0
The sky wasn't falling. Dead people were.
Portals made of black mud—sticky, reeking of wet graves—opened all over the cobbled streets. From the mud dropped corpses.
But these weren't slow, groaning zombies from movies. These were magically enhanced puppets. They sprinted. They climbed walls. They shot lasers from their rotting eyes.
Rades Spirito, the wraith-like necromancer leading the assault, hovered above the chaos on a zombie-bird. He cackled, his voice screeching like nails on a chalkboard.
"BURN IT! BURN IT ALL! SUFFER, YOU ROYAL TRASH! TASTE MY GRUDGE!"
People screamed. Mages scrambled. It was pandemonium.
"Saitama!" Yami yelled, slicing a zombie in half with a dark magic slash. "The rock! Get to the rock!"
Saitama stood amidst the panic. He looked up at the floating island hidden in the clouds above the capital. It was high. Like, commercial airliner high.
"It's far," Saitama complained, dodging a claw swipe from a corpse without looking. "And I don't fly."
"Then jump!" Yami roared, deflecting a curse bullet.
"If I jump seriously from here, I'll destroy the city block," Saitama explained, pointing at the cracked pavement under his feet. "For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. Physics, Yami."
"Since when do you care about physics?!"
"Since I destroyed my landlord's parking lot last week. Fine. I'll take the stairs."
"THERE ARE NO STAIRS TO THE SKY!"
"Then I'll make some."
Street Level - Center Plaza
Genos was in his element.
"Enemy Analysis: Non-living biological matter," Genos announced, scanning the horde of three hundred zombies rushing the main boulevard. "Conclusion: No restraint required."
His rusty-chrome Grimoire slammed open. The pages glowed red.
"Maximum Output. Area Denial."
He didn't aim. He just exploded.
A wave of intense heat pulsed from his core. Not a beam. An omni-directional heatwave.
"Incineration Flare."
The zombies didn't burn. They vaporized.
The mud they crawled out of baked into instant terracotta pottery. The street cleared in a perfect circle of sanitized ash.
Fuegoleon Vermillion landed next to him, his Fire Salamander roaring. He incinerated a larger ghoul with a lion-shaped flame.
"Machine-mage!" Fuegoleon shouted over the noise. "Efficient work! But they keep coming! We need to stop the summoner!"
"Master Saitama has commenced his ascent," Genos said, pointing a smoking metal finger upward. "Observe."
Fuegoleon looked up.
What he saw defied magic.
Saitama was running.
He wasn't running on the ground. He was running up the side of a collapsing bell tower that Rades's bomb had just knocked over.
The tower was falling down. Saitama was sprinting up.
His feet blurred. He moved so fast that the falling debris seemed to freeze under his boots. He reached the top of the falling tower, leapt to a floating chunk of masonry, kicked off it (sending it shattering into dust), and grabbed the leg of a flying zombie wyvern.
"Excuse me," Saitama said to the wyvern.
He used the dragon's head as a stepping stone.
STOMP.
The wyvern plummeted earthward, knocked unconscious by a footstep. Saitama rocketed higher.
"Serious Series," Saitama muttered as he spotted a rain of magical projectiles heading his way. "Serious Parkour."
He didn't dodge. He bounced.
He hopped off the incoming fireballs. Left foot on a fireball, right foot on a curse-bullet, backflip off a lightning bolt.
"He's..." Fuegoleon forgot to cast a spell. His mouth hung open. "He's treating the enemy barrage... like stepping stones?"
"Yes," Genos nodded proudly. "Master dislikes flying. He prefers tactile navigation."
Mid-Air
Saitama was kind of annoyed.
Rades kept throwing stuff at him. Mud balls. Bones. Green slime.
"Persistent," Saitama grumbled. He was currently standing on the hilt of a giant magical sword that some golem had thrown at him. He rode the sword upward like a surfboard.
"YOU!" Rades screeched, flying down to intercept. "BALD RAT! DIE FOR THE MASTER!"
Rades summoned his pride and joy. "Jimmy! Number 4! Crush him!"
A massive, armored zombie—bulging with muscles and hate—dropped from the cloud layer. It aimed a punch at Saitama, clad in heavy mana reinforcement.
Saitama sighed.
"I'm in a rush. Yami owes me steak."
Saitama didn't punch.
He just side-stepped on the sword-surfboard.
Jimmy missed.
As Jimmy flew past, Saitama grabbed the zombie's ankle.
"Thanks for the lift."
Saitama threw Jimmy upwards.
He threw the massive monster so hard it broke the sound barrier, creating a sonic boom that cleared the surrounding smoke.
Saitama then jumped after Jimmy.
He caught up to the flying zombie in mid-air, landed on its back, crouched, and jumped again.
Double jump.
Jimmy exploded from the recoil force. Saitama shot toward the floating rock like a human cannonball.
Rades stared at the mist of blood where his favorite zombie used to be.
"My... my Jimmy..." Rades trembled. "THAT WASN'T EVEN A SPELL! THAT WAS JUST DISRESPECT!"
The Floating Rock - Command Center
Licht (or the elf pretending to be Licht, Patry) sensed it.
He stood in the center of the floating base, the Sephirah seals glowing. But something was disrupting the mana.
Something fast.
"Valtos," Licht said calmly. "Something is approaching. The sheer kinetic pressure is pushing the clouds away."
Valtos, the spatial magic user, looked over the edge. "It's a... man? In a yellow suit? He's flying?"
"No," Licht's eyes narrowed. "He's falling up."
CRASH.
The edge of the floating island disintegrated.
Saitama landed.
He skidded a few feet, kicking up dust. He stood up, brushed off his red gloves, and fixed his cape. He looked at the assembled members of the Eye of the Midnight Sun. The elites. The threat to the kingdom.
Saitama looked at Licht.
"Hey," Saitama pointed at the ground far below. "You guys are dropping trash on the city. It's dangerous. Someone could get hurt."
Licht stared. He felt no mana from this man. But his instincts—his elf instincts honed in ancient wars—were screaming PREDATOR.
"You are not human," Licht said softly. "You have no magic. Yet you stand here."
"I'm human," Saitama said. "I'm 25. I'm a hero. And I'm hungry."
Valtos stepped forward, black portal magic swirling. "Insolence! Spatial Magic: Myriad Black Void!"
Dozens of portals opened around Saitama. Bullets made of compressed space fired at him from all angles.
Saitama scratched his neck.
Ping. Ping. Ping.
The bullets bounced off his bald head like pebbles hitting a tank.
"What..." Valtos paled. "Space... has no effect?"
"Is this part of the show?" Saitama asked. "Look, can we wrap this up? The King wants his nose fixed and Yami promised me a ribeye."
Licht moved.
Light Magic: Light Whip of Judgment.
A whip made of pure photons, moving at light speed, lashed out. It could slice mountains.
Saitama saw it coming. To him, it looked like a glowing noodle moving through molasses.
He raised his hand.
Chomp.
Saitama caught the light whip in his teeth.
He bit down.
CRACK.
The light magic shattered into sparkles.
Licht recoiled, his hand stinging. "He... ate... the light?"
Saitama spit out some sparkles. "Tastes like ozone. Needs salt."
Street Level - The Turning Point
While Saitama was upstairs traumatizing the villains, the ground war was getting brutal.
Fuegoleon was surrounded.
Rades, furious about Jimmy, had redirected all forces to the Lion Captain.
"If I can't kill the bald freak, I'll kill a Captain!" Rades shrieked. "No. 0! Michael!"
The strongest corpse. A conglomeration of dead mages. It used five different magic types.
It tackled Fuegoleon. The Captain's fire shield cracked. Mud bound his legs.
"Damn it!" Fuegoleon roared, burning the mud, but he was overwhelmed. A portal opened directly under his feet.
This was history. This was where Fuegoleon was supposed to lose his arm. Supposed to be taken.
"FALL!" Rades laughed. "Into the void!"
Fuegoleon fell. The black spatial magic swallowed him up to his waist.
Then—
CLANK.
A metal hand grabbed Fuegoleon's collar.
"Negative," a robotic voice intoned.
Genos stood there. He was anchoring himself into the cobblestones with pile-bunkers driving from his heels. His arm motors whirred to maximum torque.
"Captain Fuegoleon," Genos said calmly. "It is unadvisable to enter strange portals. Stranger Danger protocols active."
"Let go!" Rades screamed, amplifying the portal's pull. "I'll take the machine too!"
"Analysis," Genos's eyes flashed red. "Spatial pull equivalent to 40 tons. My output potential: 600 tons."
Genos heaved.
He didn't just pull Fuegoleon out. He yanked him so hard Fuegoleon flew ten feet into the air.
Genos then aimed his palm into the portal.
"Return to sender."
BOOM.
Genos fired a blast into the dimensional hole. The fire traveled through Valtos's spatial network.
Floating Rock
Valtos suddenly screamed.
His own portal spat fire at him. He dodged, eyebrows singed.
"They're fighting back!" Valtos cried. "The cyborg disrupted the spatial pathway!"
Saitama looked at the chaos.
"Boring," he murmured.
He vanished.
He appeared directly in front of Licht.
"Serious Series," Saitama whispered.
Licht's eyes went wide. He prepared the ultimate defensive spell. He gathered all the mana in the vicinity.
"Serious... Side Hops."
Saitama hopped side to side.
Left. Right. Left. Right.
He moved so fast that he created an afterimage wall. A literal solid wall of "Saitama."
And the shockwaves from his hops—just his side-steps—hit the floating island.
The rock groaned. Cracks spiderwebbed from under Saitama's feet. The kinetic vibration shattered Licht's concentration. It shattered Valtos's portals. It shattered the very levitation spell holding the base up.
"The structural integrity!" Licht yelled. "We're going down!"
"Oops," Saitama stopped hopping.
The floating island began to tilt.
"I think I broke the floor," Saitama noted.
"RETREAT!" Licht ordered, grabbing his wounded comrades. "We cannot win this today! That man is a catastrophe!"
Licht cast a massive blinding light. Not to attack, but to blind.
"Light Magic: Ray of Escape!"
The Eye of the Midnight Sun vanished into a singularity of light, taking the crumbling remains of their base into a distant dimension.
Saitama was left falling.
"Hey!" Saitama yelled at the vanishing light. "You owe me for the dry cleaning! This suit is borrowed!"
He plummeted toward the Capital.
Impact Zone - Capital Plaza
The zombies fell apart. Rades had fled. The mana supplying them was cut off.
Fuegoleon stood panting, staring at the sky.
A yellow comet was falling.
CRASH.
Saitama landed directly in front of Yami. He created a small crater, but stuck the landing perfectly (10/10).
He stood up, dusted off his shoulders, and looked at the Black Bulls Captain.
"They ran away," Saitama reported. "But I broke their clubhouse."
Yami blew smoke. He looked at the ruin of the zombies, the terrified Rades fleeing in the distance, and the unharmed Fuegoleon.
"You saved the Lion," Yami said, pointing at Fuegoleon. "Usually, that guy gets kidnapped by now."
Fuegoleon walked over. He looked at Genos (who was rebooting after the mana strain) and then at Saitama.
The royal, proud, stubborn Fuegoleon Vermillion bowed.
It was a slight bow. A head dip. But from him, it was monumental.
"You have my gratitude," Fuegoleon said. "And my curiosity. Strength that defies mana... I was a fool to doubt."
"Cool," Saitama said. He turned to Yami.
"Steak?"
Yami laughed. "Yeah, Baldy. Steak. Finral! Portal us to the pub! Put it on Julius's tab!"
As the team vanished into the portal, the citizens of the Capital emerged from hiding. They stared at the crater. They stared at the lingering footprint on the bell tower.
And whispers began.
Not about the Wizard King. Not about the Magic Knights.
About the Caped Baldy.
And high above, in the wreckage of his base, Licht (Patry) was shaking. Not from fear, but from confusion.
"My plan..." Licht whispered. "The prophecy... there was no mention of a bald man. We must accelerate the resurrection. Before he finds us again."