The impact wasn't a explosion. It was more of a crack—the sound of the sky itself splitting open.
Saitama collided with the chest-eye of Pluton, the Ancient Weapon. To the naked eye, he was just a yellow speck against a towering monolith of doom.
Wham.
The two-thousand-foot robot shuddered. The red beam charging in its chest sputtered and died, choking on the fist buried deep within its lens. Metal screamed. The colossal machine took a stumbling step back, crushing three abandoned city blocks under a foot the size of an aircraft carrier.
"Warning," Pluton's internal voice boomed across the city, audible for miles. "Kinetic impact detected. Hull integrity at 98%. Annoyance level: Minor."
Saitama hung there, suspended by his fist stuck in the giant robot's chest. He pulled his arm free with a squeal of tearing metal.
"98%?" Saitama mumbled. He looked at the tiny dent he'd made. It was just a scratch on the surface of the impossibly dense armor. "This thing is tough. It's like punching a really big... fridge."
Pluton swatted at him. Its hand moved deceptively fast, swatting Saitama out of the air like a gnat. He flew downward, crashing through five skyscrapers in a row before disappearing into a cloud of dust.
On the bridge of the S.S. Discount, Fubuki watched the monitors with wide eyes. "He barely scratched it," she whispered. "That armor... it's adapting. It absorbed the kinetic energy and reinforced itself instantly."
"Reactive shielding," Child Emperor typed frantically, sucking a new lollipop. "It learns. If Saitama punches it the same way again, it won't just absorb the blow—it will reflect it."
In the dust cloud below, Saitama stood up, brushing rubble off his shoulder.
"Okay," he said to no one. "Sturdy fridge."
He looked at his glove. It was smoking.
"And rude."
Pluton raised its foot to stomp him flat. The shadow engulfed the entire district.
Saitama looked up. "I just fixed the bathroom. I am not dealing with an earthquake right now."
He jumped.
He didn't aim for the chest this time. He aimed for the ankle joint.
Consecutive Normal Punches.
A flurry of fists struck the giant robot's ankle. Rat-a-tat-tat-tat. It sounded like a jackhammer on steroids.
Pluton's armor flared, rippling to absorb the blows. But there were too many. Too fast. The adaptive shielding couldn't keep up with the sheer volume of impacts. The metal heated up, turning cherry red, then white.
SNAP.
The massive ankle joint sheared. Pluton tipped over like a falling tree.
The crash registered as a 7.0 magnitude earthquake on seismographs as far away as City A.
"Target status: Unbalanced," Pluton droned from the ground. "Initiating combat form reconfiguration."
The fallen robot began to shift. Plates slid over each other. It folded in on itself, becoming smaller, denser. It stood up again, now only 500 feet tall, but broader, spikier. It looked like a walking fortress.
"Configuration: Brawler," it announced. "Objective: Pummel."
It punched the ground. A shockwave tore through the earth, ripping the street apart towards Saitama.
Saitama stood his ground. He caught the leading edge of the shockwave with his hands and stopped it. Just stopped the moving earth dead in its tracks.
"Okay," Saitama said, cracking his neck. "Now we're fighting."
High above, Metal Knight watched.
"Fascinating," Dr. Bofoi murmured. "Pluton adapts to physical trauma. But Saitama... Saitama doesn't adapt. He simply... exists harder."
He turned to a second monitor. It showed a map of the world. Several red dots were blinking.
"While the Ancient Weapon distracts him," Bofoi smiled crookedly, "we activate Phase Two. The Grid."
Across the globe, every active Metal Knight drone—millions of them—stopped fighting. They flew upwards into the atmosphere. They positioned themselves in a precise net around the planet.
"Link initiate. Solar Harvest Protocol."
The drones opened solar panels. But instead of absorbing sunlight, they blocked it.
A shadow fell over the Earth. The sky darkened from noon to twilight in seconds.
"Let's see how humanity survives when I turn off the sun," Bofoi cackled. "Surrender your freedom, and I will let the light back in."
On the ground, it got dark. Saitama looked up.
"Hey! It's daytime! Who turned out the lights?"
Pluton didn't care about the sun. Its eye glowed brighter in the dark. It charged, fist cocked back for a blow that could shatter a continent.
Saitama ignored the charging robot. He was looking at the sky. He was annoyed. First aliens, then underground monsters, now a robot sun-block?
"I have laundry drying!" he shouted at the sky. "It won't dry in the dark!"
He turned back to Pluton, who was mid-swing.
"Move."
Saitama jumped through Pluton's fist. He didn't break it. He pierced it. He flew through the forearm, out the elbow, and continued upwards.
He rocketed into the sky. Past the clouds. Past the stratosphere.
In space, he saw the net of drones blocking the sun. A web of metal suffocating the planet.
Saitama floated in the vacuum. He held his breath, puffing his cheeks out.
He looked at the drone network.
"Serious Series," he thought. "Serious... Sneeze?" No, used that one on Jupiter. "Serious... Table Flip?" No table here.
He floated there, annoyed. He just wanted to go home and check the sales flyer.
"Serious Series: Omnidirectional Punch."
Saitama moved.
He didn't throw one punch. He flew in a chaotic, geometrically impossible pattern, punching every single drone in his path. To an observer on Earth, it looked like new stars were being born in the sky. Flashes of light erupted all across the upper atmosphere. Flash. Flash. Flash.
In ten seconds, he destroyed three million drones.
The metal net disintegrated. The debris burned up on re-entry, creating a spectacular global meteor shower.
Sunlight flooded back onto the Earth.
Saitama drifted back down, catching fire as he re-entered the atmosphere, looking like a grumpy comet.
He crashed back down onto Pluton's head, driving the robot deep into the crater it came from.
CRUNCH.
Pluton lay broken in the pit, sparking. Its core exposed.
Saitama climbed out of the wreck, his suit scorched black.
"Okay," he said to the pile of scrap. "I think we're done here."
From the S.S. Discount, Fubuki, King, and the rest stared.
"He... he fought a planet-killer robot, flew to space, destroyed an orbital blockade, and came back for lunch," King whispered. "I'm exhausted just watching him."
Metal Knight's feed went dead in Bofoi's bunker.
"He cleared the sky..." Bofoi whispered, sinking into his chair. "He swatted my checkmate like a fly."
He reached for the self-destruct button on his base. If he couldn't control the world, no one would.
Knock knock.
Bofoi froze.
The blast doors to his bunker—hidden deep beneath a mountain, shielded by layer upon layer of tungsten—caved in.
Saitama stood there, still smoking from re-entry.
"Hey," Saitama said. "You're the robot guy, right?"
Bofoi trembled. "How... how did you find me?"
"I asked the big robot," Saitama shrugged. "It had 'Return to Sender' stamped on its foot with this address. GPS is handy."
Saitama walked over to the self-destruct button. He covered it with his hand.
"Don't press that. Buttons are expensive to replace."
He looked at the old, terrified scientist.
"Are you done playing with toys?"
Bofoi looked at the man who had effortlessly dismantled his life's work. He looked at the bored, plain face of absolute power.
"Yes," Bofoi whispered. "I'm done."
Saitama nodded. "Cool. Then turn the rest of the robots off. They're making a racket."
He turned to leave, then paused.
"Oh, and you owe the city for a lot of property damage. My friend Fubuki will send you the bill. Don't worry, she's good with math."
Saitama walked out, leaving the most dangerous mind in the world broken not by strategy, but by a casual scolding.
As night fell on City Z, peace—actual peace—returned.
Saitama sat on the edge of the S.S. Discount's deck, eating udon noodles with Genos.
"The sun dried the laundry perfectly, Sensei," Genos reported.
"Good. Can't fight crime in damp underwear," Saitama slurped.
Fubuki walked up to them, holding a tablet. "Bofoi surrendered. He's transferring control of all active construction drones to the Hero Association for rebuilding efforts. The cities will be repaired in weeks, not years."
"Nice," Saitama said. "Tell him to fix my ceiling first."
"We did," she smiled. "His personal drones are already installing a skylight."
For the first time, Fubuki sat down on the dirty deck next to them. She looked at the city lights blinking on below. The fear was gone. The immediate crisis was over.
"You know," she said quietly. "Everyone is calling you 'God' again on the forums."
Saitama made a face. "Gross. Don't call me that."
"I won't," she promised. She looked at him. "To me... you're just the guy who really likes udon."
Saitama smiled. A small, genuine smile.
"That's a good rank," he said.
Somewhere far away, in a realm beyond dimensions, the Entity known as God opened its eyes.
It felt the destruction of Pluton. It felt the failure of the ninja. It felt the shattering of the barrier.
And for the first time in eons, it felt something resembling interest.
The Entity stood up from its throne of dead stars.
God reached out a hand across the cosmos.
And in a small, quiet apartment in City Q, Watchdog Man stopped licking his paw. He stood up on two legs. His blank, dog-costumed eyes turned completely black.
"Good boy," a voice whispered from the universe. "Time to hunt."