King's complaint hung in the chaotic air. "So it's like grinding in a noob zone, hitting a wall, and then server-transferring to a new expansion pack to power-level?"
"A… crude but accurate analogy," Blast conceded, snapping his fingers. A cascade of unstable spatial energies shimmered around his hand. "But there's a significant variable."
"Which is?"
"Dimensional travel isn't a precise science. I can't guarantee the local conditions on the other side of the rift."
"You're saying we might spawn right into an insta-kill zone?"
"Hmm… Statistically, rifts can't stabilize in the heart of black holes or on pulsar surfaces, so immediate atomic dispersal is unlikely. You should be fine."
"My luck's always been S-tier anyway," King shrugged. "Last question: return ticket?"
"On that, we have a solution." Blast turned to Sif. "Princess, the 'Dimensional Compass,' please."
With a nod, Sif reached into the impossible depths of her cleavage and produced an ornate, crystalline pocket watch. King accepted it; the metal was warm, smooth, and carried a faint, enticing scent.
He opened it. Instead of hands, the face was a swirling, self-reconfiguring dodecahedron of light.
"This is no trinket," Blast explained, his tone grave. "It's a pinnacle artifact of Xi Empire hyper-technology. It doesn't just map spatial coordinates…" He tapped the crystal, and a breathtaking, multi-layered five-dimensional star map hologram erupted from it, showing dizzying folds of reality. "…It has already locked onto the unique vibrational signature of our home universe. When—if—you amass power sufficient to challenge a deity, this will guide you back."
"Appreciated." King nodded, storing the watch securely. Type III civilization tech is no joke, he mused.
"We can't linger," Blast urged, glancing around the warping void. "This pocket isn't impervious. He could find it. We move now."
He and his team fell into a practiced formation—a diamond of power. Karnok's eye blazed azure, Ryan's mane crackled with static, Sif's ears hummed at a ultrasonic pitch. Energy converged on Blast.
"DIMENSIONAL GATE—OPEN!"
With a roar of effort, Blast tore his hands apart. Reality screeched. A jagged rift, fringed with violent, electric-blue energy, was ripped into being.
Sif's eyes met King's, a storm of unspoken words—scientific curiosity, regal duty, and a very personal, biological interest—within them. All she managed was a soft, earnest whisper. "You must come back."
King flashed her a confident, roguish grin. "Save a seat for me." Then, without hesitation, he stepped into the maelstrom of light. Saitama and Garou followed without a second's glance back.
The transit was a nauseating blender of colors and non-sounds. Then—impact.
Not with ground, but with atmosphere. They were in a screaming, fiery descent, three meteors streaking across an alien sky.
Below them stretched a landscape of mythic proportions. A supercontinent of staggering scale, dotted with forests where trees stood like mountains, their canopies brushing the lower atmosphere.
"WAAAAAHHHHH—!!!" Saitama's distinctive, bored-yet-startled yell pierced the roar of re-entry.
"SHUT UP, YOU MORON!" Garou bellowed over the wind, his body already instinctively adjusting to the fall. "CAN THIS HEIGHT EVEN SCRAPE YOUR KNEES?!"
"Oh. Right." Saitama's panic vanished instantly. He even managed a casual mid-air somersuit, striking a 'flying superhero' pose. The motion, however, proved fatal for his only garment—the cape hastily tied around his waist.
The fierce updraft snatched it away.
"GYAAAAAH! COLD! COLD!" Saitama's screams redoubled as he frantically clutched his now-exposed nethers, the chill of the high altitude a novel and unpleasant sensation.
Garou howled with laughter, the sound ripped away by the wind.
King ignored the comedy duo. His senses—honed, expanded, and transcendent—flared out, washing over the planet below in an instant.
The data was staggering. Planetary volume: >300x Earth. Continental mass: Incomparable. And the biosphere was clearly bifurcated—a zone of relatively normal human civilization, and a vast, wild, terrifying region thrumming with unimaginable life forces. They were plummeting toward the latter—a place his new, hyper-cognitive mind instantly categorized.
The Eighth Continent of the Gourmet World.
A world where strength was devoured, where evolution was on the menu. Toriko's world.
A slow, predatory smile spread across King's face, visible even through the plasma sheath. A world where you grew stronger by eating? Where combat power was directly tied to culinary conquest?
He looked at Saitama, who was still howling about the cold, and at Garou, who was laughing maniacally as he fell.
"Boys," King said, his voice cutting through the atmospheric roar with unnatural clarity. "Forget the discount bin. We're about to hit the all-you-can-eat buffet. And I have a feeling… the menu is going to be very interesting."
The ground, a tapestry of gargantuan fungi, crystalline plains, and forests of meat-like vegetation, rushed up to meet them. Their exile had ended. Their feast was about to begin.
Saitama's eyes blazed with the promise of a transcendent meal. He cracked his knuckles, a shockwave of pure intent rippling from the motion alone. "Alright! Let's get cooking!"
But he was a fraction of a second too slow.
A dark red comet—Garou—had already blasted past him, tearing through the poisoned, miasmic air. A feral, exhilarated grin was plastered across his face. "First blood is mine!"
He didn't announce a technique. His movement was pure, predatory efficiency—a straight line towards a neural cluster behind the Devil Serpent King's central eye. The beast sensed the threat, one of its continent-shearing claws blurring down to swat the irritant.
Garou didn't deviate. His fist, enveloped in a spiraling vortex of cosmic and monstrous energy, met the descending claw.
CRUNCH-SHATTER!
The sound was less an impact and more a fundamental failure of material. The claw didn't just break; it disintegrated from the point of contact, hyper-dense bone and scale vaporizing into a cloud of black particulate. Garou shot through the debris, a scarlet streak tracing the serpent's massive forelimb upwards.
The Devil Serpent King's shriek of agony and rage flattened the surrounding jungle. Its remaining claws scrambled for purchase, its tail whipping in a cataclysmic arc that leveled a distant mountain range. It vomited a concentrated stream of the corrosive purple poison, a river of acid meant to dissolve continents.
Garou laughed, the sound sharp and bright against the bestial roar. The poison hit his aura and steamed away, unable to even touch his borrowed tracksuit. He reached the junction of neck and skull—a plateau of obsidian scale.
"Monster Calamity God-Slayer Fist:" he murmured, not for show, but to focus his intent. His fist glowed with a dark, hungry light. "Pressure Point."
He didn't punch. He tapped.
A wave of invisible, perfectly calibrated force propagated through the monster's body at the quantum level. Every gourmet cell in its nervous system experienced a simultaneous, catastrophic resonance.
The thrashing ceased. The three crimson eyes dimmed like dying stars. The mountain of muscle and menace went utterly, completely slack. With a final, ground-quaking THUD, the Capture Level 5500 Devil Serpent King collapsed, a fallen monument to a bygone era.
Garou landed lightly on its snout, between two of its lifeless eyes. He flicked a spot of sizzling black blood from his wrist and looked back at his companions.
"Prepped," he announced. "Who's on seasoning?"
From their rocky hiding place, Toriko and Komatsu were statues of pure, uncomprehending shock. Komatsu's detector had melted, smoking in its housing. Toriko's jaw hung open, his gourmet demon utterly silent for the first time in his life.
That… that wasn't a battle, Toriko's mind screamed. That was… portion control.
King strode forward, a pleased smirk on his face. He placed a hand on the still-warm scale. His Observation Haki delved deep, analyzing the incredible density of gourmet cells, the rich, complex energy patterns. "Excellent work. No bruising on the prime cuts. The neural shock even tenderized the connective tissue." He glanced at Saitama, whose drool was now a steady stream. "Well? You heard him. Fire's ready. Let's eat."
The era of the Eight Kings might have just met its match. Not a king, but a trio of gourmands. And they were just getting started.