Gourmet World – The Borderlands of the Eight, Week 22
The air here was different. Not just in composition or temperature, but in weight. Every breath felt like drawing in liquid history, every step resonated with the awareness of being in a domain where the rules were written by beings that predated civilization. They had entered the fringes of the territories governed by the Eight Kings—the undisputed, god-like rulers of the Gourmet World's food chain. It was a place even seasoned Gourmet Hunters feared to tread.
Indra and Rias moved with a new level of silent caution. Their bodies, after months of brutal adaptation, had reached what could only be called a peak human-plus state. Every muscle fiber was hyper-dense, woven with chakra channels and Gourmet Cells that glowed with restrained power. Indra stood at a solid 6'6", his frame no longer just muscular but sculpted like a monument, with skin that occasionally shimmered with spatial distortion. Rias, at 5'10", possessed a lethal grace, her body a perfect balance of Uzumaki vitality, sonic resonance, and the new, unsettling quiet of her Destruction affinity. They were, in every sense, demigods walking in a land of true deities.
Their senses, heightened to near-painful acuity, screamed warnings. The very atmosphere was saturated with Appetite Energy so dense it felt like swimming through honey. This was the royal court of the natural world.
Indra: (His voice a low vibration, barely disturbing the air) "Energy saturation is increasing exponentially. We're crossing a threshold. The ecosystem here isn't just dangerous; it's... curated. By intelligence."
Rias: (Her eyes, now permanently holding a fleck of crimson in the blue, scanned the horizon) "The soundscape is layered. There are patterns. Not just animal calls. Rhythms. Like... music for a garden."
They were in a transition zone between two King's domains. To the west, the air grew dry and carried the scent of ancient stone. To the east, it was humid, filled with the perfume of absurdly large fruits. They were heading south, towards a region of reported temporal anomalies, but their path would skirt the edges.
It happened as they crested a ridge of crystalline limestone.
A shadow fell over them. Not from above, but from miles away. They looked west.
On the horizon, standing at the edge of a desert of gemstones, was Heracles. The Mammoth King. Even at a distance of over fifty kilometers, its size was incomprehensible. It made the Regal Mammoths of Indra's summon clan look like calves. It stood easily four kilometers tall at the shoulder. Its tusks were curved mountains of ivory that glowed with internal light. Its fur was a shifting forest of moss, trees, and entire ecosystems that lived symbiotically on its back. Its eyes, like twin blue suns, were turned in their direction.
It wasn't attacking. It wasn't even moving. It was... observing.
A wave of psychic pressure washed over them, not hostile, but profoundly curious. It was the curiosity of a mountain noticing two interestingly patterned ants. The pressure carried pure, unadulterated age. This being had seen continents rise and fall.
Indra: (Every muscle locked, his Rinnegan spinning wildly just to process the being's spatial presence) "Do. Not. Move. Do not channel chakra. Do not project intent."
Rias: (Frozen, her Sonic and Destruction energies curled tightly within her, dormant) "It's... it's not a creature. It's a geological era made flesh."
Heracles took one step. The ground trembled, a seismic event that rippled through the earth and arrived at their feet seconds later. The step covered ten kilometers. It was now closer. Its gaze intensified. They could feel it scanning them, not with eyes, but with a sense that tasted their very essence—their foreign chakra, their tempered power, their respect for the world.
It sniffed the air, a sound like a thousand hurricanes inhaling. Then, a deep, tectonic rumble echoed across the landscape. It wasn't language, but meaning translated directly by the world: "Small ones. From outside. You carry the scent of order... and endings. You tend the garden, even as you walk through it. Interesting."
The psychic voice was vast, slow, and carried the weight of epochs. It held no malice. Only a deep, patient contemplation.
Then, to their shock, Heracles did something unexpected. It lowered its head slightly, in a gesture that could only be a nod of acknowledgment. One of the colossal trees on its back bloomed instantly, releasing a cloud of sparkling pollen that drifted on the wind towards them. The pollen settled on their skin, cool and soothing, carrying a faint blessing of vitality and a subtle message: You are noted. Pass.
With another world-shaking step, Heracles turned and ambled back into its gemstone desert, its attention withdrawing. The oppressive pressure lifted, leaving them gasping.
Rias: (Shaking, not from fear but from awe) "It... blessed us?"
Indra: (Examining the glowing pollen on his arm, which was already being absorbed, boosting his cell vitality) "It recognized us as... gardeners. Not pests. Not prey. As beings who also impose order. The ultimate keystone species acknowledged our tiny, similar role."
The encounter left them humbled and exhilarated. They had been seen by a King, and deemed worthy of notice, not destruction.
They continued south, the memory of Heracles's gaze burned into their souls. Two days later, they entered a region of impossible abundance—a rainforest where fruits the size of buildings hung from trees, and the air was thick with sugary nectar.
This was the border of Bambina's domain. The Monkey King.
They knew they were being watched long before the attack came. The feeling was playful, mischievous, and terrifyingly sharp.
They were crossing a clearing when the sky darkened. Not with clouds, but with fruit. A single, spiky, durian-like fruit the size of a tank fell from the upper canopy, aimed directly at Rias's head. It moved at hypersonic speeds.
Indra didn't even look. His hand snapped up. "Spatial Decree: Displacement." The fruit vanished inches from Rias's head and reappeared harmlessly embedded in the ground fifty meters away, where it exploded with the force of a bomb, showering the area with sweet, creamy pulp.
Silence for a heartbeat.
Then, from everywhere and nowhere, a sound like jingling bells mixed with predatory giggles echoed.
???: "Ooooh! Fast-fast! Again-again!"
A blur resolved in the branches above. It was Bambina. Or rather, a fragment of its attention. The creature before them was a simian form barely two meters tall—a mere avatar, a sliver of the King's consciousness projected for play. Its fur was golden and gleamed like metal. Its tail was a prehensile whip that cracked the air. Its eyes held the chaotic intelligence of a hurricane.
Bambina (Avatar): "Foreigners! You play? Catch-catch!" It didn't wait for an answer.
What followed was the most terrifying game of dodgeball in existence. Bambina, moving with speed that made their enhanced senses blur, began hurling things. Not just fruit. It ripped boulders from the ground, snapped ancient trees, and even threw condensed balls of pure Appetite Energy. Each projectile was thrown with impossible trajectories—curving around obstacles, splitting mid-air, accelerating unpredictably.
This wasn't an attack to kill. It was a test. Of reflexes, of creativity, of spirit.
Rias: "It's playing! But if we fail, we die!"
Indra: "Then we play. And we play well."
They moved. Indra focused on defense, using micro-spatial warps to deflect the largest projectiles, temporal decelerations to slow others for Rias to handle. Rias used her Sonic Release not to attack, but to navigate. She created sonic platforms in mid-air to leap from, used targeted vibrations to slightly alter the course of incoming fruit, and even harmonized with the frequency of a thrown boulder to make it shatter into harmless gravel.
They didn't try to attack Bambina. They focused purely on the game.
At one point, Bambina threw a cluster of a hundred razor-sharp thorns, each seeking a different vital point. Indra, pushed, used a new application. "Palkia Form: Spatial Weave." The space in front of them became a labyrinthine filter. The thorns entered and were harmlessly scattered into a dimensional pocket.
Bambina clapped with delight, hanging upside down from a branch. "Clever-clever! Now, my turn-special!"
It plucked a single, perfect, golden peach from a tree. This peach radiated energy that made the air hum. Bambina wound up and threw it. The peach didn't just fly; it phased, disappearing and reappearing at random intervals, its path a chaotic teleportation.
Indra's Rinnegan tracked it, calculating emergence points. "Rias! Your Destruction affinity! Not on the peach—on the space it's about to occupy! Force it to materialize!"
Rias: Understood! "Destruction Release: Void Anchor!" She pointed at a spot in mid-air. A point of absolute negation formed. When the peach attempted to phase into that space, it was violently rejected, forced to materialize in a predictable location. Indra was already there, his hand snapping out to catch it gently.
He held the peach. It was warm, pulsating with pure life energy.
Bambina's avatar dropped to the ground in front of them, its head cocked. It sniffed the air around them, then grinned, showing sharp teeth. "You catch! Good-good! You respect the fruit! Not smash! Not waste! You appreciate!"
It bounced around them in a circle. "Foreigners with good manners! Bambina likes! You pass through my trees. Don't be messy!" It then pointed a sharp claw at the peach in Indra's hand. "Eat-eat! Gift! Makes you strong-strong! For the quiet deer's puzzles!"
With a final giggle and a backflip that created a minor sonic boom, the avatar vanished, its consciousness withdrawing back to the heart of its domain.
The golden peach was a treasure. Discovery #401: King's Gift Peach. They later analyzed it: one bite could regenerate lost limbs, purge all toxins, and permanently enhance cellular efficiency. They stored it carefully, a tangible token of a King's favor.
Rias: "It was like being tested by a god-child. Terrifying and... weirdly fun."
Indra: "It valued respect for its domain—the fruits. We didn't destroy unnecessarily. We played by its rules. That's what it wanted to see."
Fortified by the encounter, they pressed on, entering a region where the laws of gravity began to relax. Floating islands of earth and rock drifted in silent majesty, held aloft by glowing fungal networks and crystalline formations. The air was cool, thin, and carried a serene, melodic silence. This was the realm of Sky Deer, the Stag King.
They were climbing a floating mountain chain when they saw it. A kilometer away, grazing peacefully on a floating meadow of silver grass, was Sky Deer. It was smaller than Heracles, but its presence was no less majestic. It stood perhaps fifty meters at the shoulder, its form elegant and impossibly slender. Its fur was the color of a winter sky, and its antlers were not bone, but living, branching crystal that glowed with a soft, blue-white light. Each step it took left a temporary, glowing hoofprint in the air that chimed like a bell.
It raised its head and looked at them. Its eyes were pools of starlight.
Unlike Heracles's crushing observation or Bambina's chaotic test, Sky Deer's attention was a gentle inquiry. A psychic touch, light as a breeze.
"Travelers from the distant stream. You seek passage through my sky-gardens. Your hearts hold both song and silence. A rare harmony. You may walk my paths. But walk with care, for my gardens are dreams given form, and a heavy step may awaken regrets."
Its voice was the sound of wind chimes and distant galaxies.
It gestured with its antlers, and a path of solidified light formed between the floating islands, leading deeper into its territory—a path that hadn't been there before.
Indra: (Bowing respectfully) "We thank you for your grace, King of the Sky. We will tread lightly."
Rias: (Also bowing) "Your gardens are beautiful. We will only observe and document, if permitted."
Sky Deer inclined its head, a shower of stardust falling from its antlers. "Document, then. All dreams wish to be remembered. But remember, not all dreams are sweet."
It returned to its grazing, the haunting melody of its hoof-chimes filling the air.
They crossed the light-bridge and entered the true Floating Gardens of Sky Deer. It was a realm of surreal beauty and profound peace, where the very concept of violence felt like a blasphemy.
Here, they began their most concentrated period of discovery yet, from #402 to #480. The environment was so unique, so packed with miracles, that every hour brought new wonders.
Discovery #402: Memory Moss. Patches of glowing moss that, when touched, shared sensory impressions of past events that had occurred in that spot—ancient rains, the passage of gentle creatures, moments of perfect peace. It was like reading the land's diary.
#410: Gravity-Blossom Flowers. Flowers that manipulated local gravity fields. Some created pockets of zero-G where water droplets floated like pearls, others created high-G zones where light bent into rainbows. Rias practiced her Sonic Release here, learning to propagate sound in variable gravity.
#415: Echo-Sap Trees. Trees that wept a sap which, when collected and shaped, could record and perfectly replay any sound embedded in it. Rias created several "memory crystals" of the garden's natural sounds.
#420: Dream-Fruit. Fruits that, when eaten, induced vivid, lucid dreams of flying and exploration. They provided insights into subconscious desires and fears. Indra theorized they could be used for advanced psychological training and therapy.
#425: Starlight Lichen. Lichen that absorbed cosmic radiation and emitted a soft, nurturing light that accelerated plant growth and healing. A perfect, sustainable light source.
#430: Chrono-Berries. Berries that pulsed with a rhythmic light. Each pulse was exactly one second. A cluster of them could be used as a perfect natural clock. Indra noted their potential for refining time-keeping in seals and jutsu.
#435: Sky Deer's Tears. Rare, crystalline droplets found at the base of the Stag King's favorite resting spots. They held concentrated "serenity" energy, capable of calming even the most violent rage or healing deep psychic trauma. Priceless.
The garden was also a refuge for gentle, elusive creatures.
#440: Cloud-Fin Goldfish. Fish that swam through the air as if it were water, their fins leaving trails of mist. They fed on ambient starlight.
#445: Chime-Sparrows. Tiny birds with feathers of resonant crystal. Their songs were not random, but complex mathematical melodies that, when analyzed, mapped to celestial patterns.
#450: Gravity-Weaver Spiders. Spiders that spun webs of solidified gravitational fields to catch drifting pollen and light-particles. Their silk, if carefully collected, could be used to make fabrics that altered weight.
As they documented, they felt the distant, subtle attention of the other Kings. Not intrusions, but acknowledgments.
In the ocean trenches, Mother Snake, the Eel King, sensed the ripple of foreign order in the world's energy flows and stirred in her abyssal sleep, a flicker of interest in her planet-sized mind.
In the molten core, Emperor Crow, the Bird King, perched on his throne of solidified magma, turned one of his seven heads slightly, a single eye peering through the earth and stone to note the two small, disciplined flames walking the deer's garden.
In the deepest jungle, Lord of the Lake, the Fish King, moved a fin the size of a continent, sending a gentle current of curiosity through the world's waterways that made every aquatic creature pause for a second.
In the barren wastes, Battle-Wolf, the Beast King, stopped its endless pacing, sniffed the air, and let out a low huff that was neither challenge nor welcome, but simple notation.
And in the center of it all, Dragon King Derous, the mightiest, dreaming in his cavern of treasures, shifted a claw. The sheer pressure of his partial awareness caused tectonic plates to groan. He did not care about the two ants, but their unusual flavor in the world's energy was noted in his eternal dream.
Indra and Rias, focused on their work, only felt these attentions as momentary, profound shifts in the background pressure—like being briefly glanced at by distant suns.
Their bodies, nourished by the garden's perfect energies and the constant, gentle resistance of variable gravity, underwent final optimizations. This was Physical Peak.
Indra: His bone density had increased to the point where he could support the spatial stresses of his own techniques. His muscle fibers now contained microscopic chakra coils, allowing for instant, explosive power without buildup. His nervous system conducted signals at near-light speed, making his reflexes borderline precognitive. His skin was now a flexible armor, resistant to extreme temperatures, pressures, and energy attacks. His hair had taken on a dark, metallic sheen, and his Rinnegan's patterns were now permanently faintly visible even when deactivated, glowing softly in low light.
Rias: Her Uzumaki vitality had merged completely with Gourmet Cells, granting her a regeneration factor that could regrow a finger in minutes. Her muscle structure was optimized for both explosive power and sustained, delicate control—perfect for sonic manipulation. Her vocal cords were now biological marvels, capable of producing sounds from infrasound to ultrasound with crystal clarity. Her hair, with its red base, silver sonic streaks, and orange destruction tips, was now semi-prehensile, responding to her emotional state and channeling energy. Her senses could parse a soundscape into its individual components across a ten-kilometer range.
They were, in essence, no longer merely human. They were evolutionary endpoints forged in two worlds.
On their fifth day in the garden, they had a final encounter with Sky Deer. They had reached the heart of the domain—a floating island that was a single, massive, ancient tree. Sky Deer lay beneath it, resting.
They approached and bowed again.
Sky Deer: "You have walked the paths with light steps. You have listened to the dreams. You have not taken more than memories. This pleases me."
It raised its head, and from between its antlers, a single, perfect feather of light drifted down. It landed before Indra. Discovery #480: Sky Deer's Feather. It was not a physical object, but a solidified concept—a "Passage Token."
"This will grant you safe passage through the territories of the Kings, once. It signals that you are travelers who understand balance. Use it wisely, for the attention of Kings is a double-edged gift."
Indra: (Taking the feather, which dissolved into light that wrapped around his wrist as a barely visible tattoo) "We are honored beyond words. Thank you."
Rias: "Your garden... it's shown us that true power can be gentle. Thank you."
Sky Deer made a soft chiming sound that was the psychic equivalent of a smile. "Go now. Your path leads to the marsh of fluid time. There, you will face not monsters, but reflections. Be true to the harmony within you."
With that, the Stag King faded into the light of its own tree, becoming one with the garden.
Carrying the feather-tattoo, seventy-nine new discoveries, and bodies honed to absolute peak, Indra and Rias left the floating gardens. They looked back once at the serene, drifting islands. They had walked in the realm of a King and left with its blessing.
The journey to the Marsh of Fluid Time lay ahead. But now, they walked with the subtle, terrifying knowledge that the Eight Kings of the Gourmet World knew their names. Not as prey, not as invaders, but as interesting guests.
It was both a protection and a warning. Their margin for error had just vanished.
End of Chapter – 59.