Midora knew exactly what he needed to do, so he held nothing back from the start. His tongue wrapped tightly around the Monkey King Bambina, then constricted again with brutal force. The ape's remaining body twisted and warped under the crushing pressure.
Even then, the Monkey King still tried to resist—but Midora gave him no chance. His tongue snapped tighter and began to spin.
That monstrous tongue whirled like a high-speed cutter. In an instant, the Monkey King's body was shredded to pieces.
Just like that, one of the Eight Kings was dead. The entire fight hadn't lasted even a few seconds. Battles between true powerhouses were always over in a flash—it was only natural.
In the later stages, Acacia could also kill an Eight King in seconds. The only reason he'd ever been stalled was because the Eight Kings fought in perfect coordination. Facing one opponent versus eight working together was a completely different matter.
Whenever Acacia gravely wounded one of them, the others would immediately interfere, preventing him from landing a finishing blow. That was why they'd managed to hold him off so long.
But in a one-on-one fight, none of the Eight Kings could pose any real threat to him.
The Monkey King now was no different. Against Midora, it couldn't resist at all—especially after being severely injured from the start. So in just a few seconds, the battle was over.
Of course, even though it ended quickly, the power used was anything but small. The grave of the Monkey King's wife—and several surrounding mountains—had been completely obliterated by Midora's earlier punch.
At the moment of the Monkey King's death, everyone saw a sphere of light fly out from its body and streak away in a certain direction.
They immediately recognized it—that was PAIR. Still sealed inside its orb, the ingredient's source had left the Monkey King's corpse. Naturally, they had to follow.
No one paid the dead king any more attention. With Jiro's help, Kael sped after PAIR as well.
Kael felt a bit helpless. The whole time, he'd been carried along by Jiro. But there was no helping it—his strength simply couldn't compare to these three. Since they were rushing to save time, he had to keep up somehow.
Before long, the group chased PAIR's origin all the way to its destination: the Sandalwood Tree.
The glowing orb shot straight into the tree. The next second, fruit began sprouting across its branches.
One glance was all Kael needed to realize that every single fruit was brimming with PAIR.
Instead of returning to the earth, PAIR had chosen to parasitize the Sandalwood Tree. That was perfectly reasonable. In canon, the tree did produce inferior PAIR variants.
So PAIR fusing with the tree now made sense. But once fused, its preparation method changed.
Fortunately, Kael could hear the ingredient's voice. He already knew how to cook it.
"So what now? Do we just pick the fruit?" Jiro looked at Kael.
After all, Kael was the only professional chef here. He'd already prepared AIR—so could he handle PAIR too? They needed these ingredients to boost their strength. Midora and Ichiryu both turned toward him as well.
"I can hear the ingredient. Harvesting it isn't hard," Kael said. "You just have to strike the hundreds of special points on its surface simultaneously. Then it can be picked."
PAIR's capture method had completely changed. Each fruit now had hundreds of special nodes. Kael needed to stimulate them all at once with his calories before harvesting.
If those points weren't triggered, even if the fruit was picked, it would just be useless clear water.
As for locating those points—either the ingredient guided you, like it did for Kael, or you had to find them yourself. But that difficulty was enormous.
In canon, after PAIR was captured, extracting its soup took immense time and effort. Yet when Komatsu heard the ingredient's voice, he simply tapped a single point with his knife—and the PAIR inside burst out like a river.
These hundred points were essentially the same as that one Komatsu saw. Finding them alone was almost impossible. But with the ingredient's guidance, it was trivial.
As he spoke, Kael formed spikes of calories and stimulated all hundred points at once. Then he grasped the fruit and plucked it cleanly from the tree.
The harvested PAIR fruit erupted in dazzling golden light. The amount of soup inside a single fruit was staggering—enough to feed the trillions of monkeys from canon.
Kael didn't spare the rest either. The Sandalwood Tree bore dozens of fruits—each one accumulated PAIR from countless years.
In ancient times, PAIR could never have gathered in such quantity. Lying exposed on the earth, any creature could taste it. But after parasitizing successive Monkey Kings, everything changed. Capturing PAIR from a Monkey King was extremely difficult. There had even been failed attempts before.
So over time, the amount of PAIR kept increasing.
Leaving these fruits here would only let others waste them. Naturally, Kael took them all.
Still, he handed three fruits to the trio before him. They'd helped, after all. Even if Ichiryu and Jiro hadn't fought much, strengthening the Human World's side was important. And maintaining good relations with them had no downsides for Kael.
"These three contain enough for everyone in the Human World to drink once," Kael said. "They're yours. But I should warn you—drinking PAIR will awaken your Gourmet Cell Arm. At the same time, your body will change sex."
"Of course, it's reversible. You can switch back anytime."
He explained PAIR briefly. He himself had no intention of eating it yet—he had zero interest in becoming a woman. He wanted to try modifying PAIR with his Qi first. Only if that failed would he drink it.
"That's the effect Joie used with Lady Frohze's body, right? Understood," Ichiryu nodded.
Midora, meanwhile, didn't care in the slightest. He drank PAIR immediately.
The moment it went down, his body transformed into a woman.
The change was bizarre. Only biological sex characteristics shifted—his face and overall appearance didn't. The result was deeply uncanny.
His massive, muscle-bound frame didn't shrink; he simply became a hulking, muscular woman. But in the blink of an eye, Midora reverted to normal.
His Gourmet Cell Arm had awakened. Having consumed two of the Eight Ingredients in succession, he felt his body overflowing with power.
If he fought the Monkey King now—without even using his demon arm—he wouldn't need a sneak attack. A direct punch from the front would be enough to kill it.
That was the terrifying amplification from consuming an Eight Ingredient.
And such growth was hard to replicate. Midora and the others had spent years devouring Gourmet World delicacies, raising their cell levels to monstrous heights. So even after further evolution, they still surpassed Toriko's group.
If not for Toriko's absurdly overpowered gourmet demon later on, Midora would still have been the main attacker—not Toriko.
"I see… That Joie bastard is dead," Midora said coldly. "What else do you know about him?"
He looked at Kael. Clearly, Kael knew far more than they'd expected.
"I do know more," Kael said. "Joie founded an organization called NEO. Some members joined willingly. Others… were forcibly controlled after their Gourmet Cells were cooked by him."
"Cooked and controlled?!" The others were stunned. It was unheard of—not because of ignorance, but because only Joie possessed such an ability.
"Because the body he used was Frohze's. She'd consumed all eight ingredients and perfectly fused with her appetite, bringing her Gourmet Cells to one hundred percent.
With that body, Joie could use divine culinary techniques unique to Frohze—allowing him to cook others' Gourmet Cells. In any other body, it would've been impossible.
Frohze's corpse gave Joie enormous advantage. Even dead, she could create a super-chef. Joie had talent, yes—but without her body, he'd never have reached this level.
"Exactly," Kael nodded. "Because he uses Frohze's body, he has special abilities. Anyone whose Gourmet Cells he cooks becomes forcibly controlled."
That ability was insidious. In canon, only Teppei ever broke free voluntarily. Everyone else had to be beaten to near death before regaining themselves.
"No wonder I always suspected a traitor in the Biotope 0 but couldn't find one," Ichiryu said. "They were being controlled… Does this control have any signs? Is there a cure?"
He'd suspected a mole in IGO long ago. Intelligence kept leaking, yet he couldn't identify the culprit. All Biotope 0 members were personally recruited by him—he knew they'd never betray IGO willingly.
Now it finally made sense. They themselves didn't even know they were controlled.
"It can be cured," Kael said. "You have to push them into a near-death state. That breaks the control. But it's extremely dangerous—reviving someone from near death is difficult."
"They also all share one trait: a scar somewhere on their body. After their Gourmet Cells are cooked, the scar lengthens and deepens."
"So near death… that's manageable," Ichiryu said, glancing at Jiro.
Jiro immediately understood. Reviving the near-dead was hard—but they now had PAIR. If Jiro knocked the person into suspended animation at the brink of death, then fed them PAIR, their Gourmet Cells would revive—and they'd live.
"Looks like I'll need your help too," Midora said.
Now that he'd learned the truth, something in him had changed. The old extremism was gone.
He'd always believed Frohze died because of him—that his failure to bring the Cure Water in time was the killing blow.
But now it seemed that wasn't the cause. Cure Water could clearly restore her body—otherwise Joie couldn't have revived in it. Frohze had chosen death herself.
The fault didn't lie with Midora—it lay with Acacia.
Something Acacia did made Frohze abandon life. The realization twisted Midora's old guilt into pure rage toward Acacia. He felt utterly played.
"I can help," Jiro said flatly. "But you'd better clean up your people. If not for your sake, I'd have wiped them out long ago."
Midora said nothing—but gave a small nod. Clearly, he intended to reform the Gourmet Corp.
"Oh, right," Kael added. "There's one more thing. Frohze actually gave birth to two children back then. Afraid Acacia would target them, she sealed them in a Warp kitchen and sent them away."
That alone showed how selfish Acacia was. NEO was essentially part of him—his appetite incarnate. Yet for its sake, he'd abandon everything: disciples, wife… everything.
In the end, Frohze lost all trust in him. She believed their children would be killed—so she sent them away.