The air in the deepest sanctum crackled with stolen power. Prelate Malakor stood at the epicenter of a vortex of swirling, purple-black energy, his arms outstretched, his head thrown back in ecstatic agony. The last vestiges of the abyssal entity from the containment field had been forcibly siphoned, torn from its ethereal form and absorbed directly into his own. His gaunt frame trembled, his skin glowing with the same sickly light as the now-dead crystals, the runes etched into his flesh burning like brands of dark fire.
Power, raw and intoxicating, surged through him. He could feel the whispers of the void, the secrets of shadow, the cold, hungry strength of a being from beyond the veil. The monastery might be crumbling, his acolytes slaughtered, his defenses annihilated, but it didn't matter. He had achieved his goal. He had become… more.
"Yes…" he hissed, his voice no longer a gravelly rasp but a layered, resonant chorus of his own voice and the dying whispers of the entity he had consumed. "I am… Ascendant!" He clenched his fists, and tendrils of pure shadow writhed around them, solidifying into vicious, crackling claws. He felt invincible. He felt like a god.
It was at this precise moment of ultimate, universe-altering hubris that Saitama knocked on his door.
Or rather, what happened next could be loosely interpreted as a "knock."
Saitama reached the large, rune-etched iron door leading to the sanctum. He could feel a faint vibration coming from it, a low hum of power. "Sounds like a party in there," he mused. He tried the handle. It didn't have one. He tried pushing it. It didn't budge.
"Locked," he concluded. "Guess I gotta use the special key." He raised his fist. He wasn't even going to bother with a "Normal Punch." That felt like overkill for a door, however important-looking. He just… tapped it. A single, light tap with his knuckle, like rapping on a neighbor's door to borrow a cup of sugar.
The door, forged from enchanted steel alloy three feet thick and sealed with curses that could wither the soul of any who touched it, instantly imploded. It didn't fly off its hinges. It didn't break apart. The point where Saitama's knuckle made contact became the epicenter of a catastrophic structural failure that propagated through the entire door in a microsecond. The metal, stripped of its molecular bonds, turned to fine, metallic dust, which was then sucked into the sanctum by the sudden pressure differential with a soft whoosh.
Prelate Malakor, who had been reveling in his newfound godhood, was suddenly showered in a fine grey powder that used to be his impenetrable sanctum door. He froze mid-pose, his ecstatic expression morphing into one of utter, baffled disbelief.
Saitama stepped through the now-empty doorway, dusting off his hand. He looked around the darkened, desecrated chamber, at the shattered crystals, the arcane circles now filled with dust, and at the glowing, shadow-wreathed figure of Prelate Malakor.
"Whoa," Saitama said, looking at Malakor's glowing runes and writhing shadow claws. "Cool special effects. Is this, like, a rave? Or a Halloween party? Your costume is pretty neat. Very… evil wizard-y." He then sniffed the air. "Still doesn't smell like noodles, though. Just… angry purple."
Malakor stared at the bald man in the yellow suit who had just entered his sealed, warded, impenetrable sanctum by apparently disintegrating the door with a polite tap. The sheer, casual impossibility of it was a bucket of icy water thrown on the roaring fire of his divine ascension. The whispers of the void in his mind, which had been promising him dominion and power, suddenly fell silent, replaced by a single, profound, instinctual sense of… 'oh, crap'.
"You…" Malakor finally managed, his layered voice trembling with a mixture of rage and a dawning, deep-seated terror. "You are the Tempest. You are the one who has brought ruin to my sanctuary!"
Saitama looked at him, then around at the ruined chamber. "Hey, don't blame me for the mess. Most of these rocks were already broken when I got here. And that door was clearly not up to code." He then focused on Malakor, his expression turning slightly more serious. "So, you're the head bad guy, right? The… Evil Noodle Hoarder?"
Malakor's mind, currently grappling with concepts of stolen abyssal power and the nature of godhood, struggled to process the question. "The… what? The Noodle Hoarder?!" The sheer, mundane absurdity of the accusation, coming from the being who had just laid waste to his entire fortress, was so jarring it almost made his newly acquired cosmic power short-circuit.
"Yeah," Saitama said, nodding earnestly. "The guys at the palace told me. You and your cult… you've been stealing all the Oriana Lightning Broth noodles. Hoarding them here. For… evil purposes, probably. Like… eating them all yourself without sharing. Which is pretty evil."
Prelate Malakor, now a vessel for the power of an ancient abyssal entity, a being who stood on the cusp of challenging the very gods, found himself speechless, accused of being a common, selfish snack food enthusiast. The indignity was almost more painful than the destruction of his monastery.
"You DARE?!" Malakor finally roared, his voice shaking the very stones of the chamber, his rage overcoming his fear. "You speak of… NOODLES?! I am Malakor the Ascendant! I am the will of the Abyss made manifest! I am the Herald of a New Age of Shadow! And you will be the first sacrifice upon its glorious, blood-soaked altar!"
He lunged, moving with a speed that was no longer human, a blur of shadow and malevolent purple light. The shadow claws on his hands extended, crackling with abyssal energy, sharp enough to tear through reality itself. He aimed a vicious, disemboweling strike at Saitama's midsection.
Saitama watched the attack come, his expression unchanging. "Yeah, yeah, new age of shadow, blood-soaked altar, blah blah blah. Heard it all before. Look, just tell me where the noodles are, and we can skip the whole 'me punching you into next Tuesday' part."
Malakor's claws, imbued with the power to unmake matter and drain souls, struck Saitama's yellow jumpsuit.
Scrrrape.
The sound was… underwhelming. It was the sound of something incredibly sharp and powerful scraping harmlessly against something impossibly, fundamentally, un-scratchable. Malakor felt a jarring shock travel up his arms, as if he had just tried to claw through a mountain. His shadow-claws, which could rend dimensions, didn't leave so much as a single frayed thread on Saitama's suit. The abyssal energy that wreathed them simply… dissipated upon contact, like static electricity grounding out.
Malakor stared in horror at his claws, then at Saitama's pristine, unmarred abdomen. "IMPOSSIBLE! My Umbral Claws… they did… NOTHING?!"
"Yeah, this new suit is pretty tough," Saitama commented, looking down at his jumpsuit with approval. "The Royal Tailors did a good job. Very stain-resistant." He looked back at Malakor, who was still frozen in a state of shocked disbelief. "Okay, my turn."
He raised his fist.
Malakor, seeing the fist, seeing the casual, almost bored look in Saitama's eyes, finally understood. His newfound godhood, his stolen abyssal power, his grand ambitions… they were nothing. He was an ant trying to threaten the boot that was about to descend. A profound, all-consuming terror washed over him, extinguishing the last embers of his pride and rage.
"Wait—" he managed to gasp, a plea born of pure, instinctual self-preservation.
Saitama punched him.
Not a "Normal Punch." Not even a tap. Just a simple, straightforward jab, the kind a boxer might throw in practice. It connected squarely with Malakor's chest.
There was no explosion. No shockwave. No grand display of power. Just a soft, solid thud.
Prelate Malakor, the Ascendant, the Herald of the New Age of Shadow, simply… folded. The immense abyssal power that had filled him, the power that was supposed to let him challenge gods, was instantly, utterly, and silently neutralized, snuffed out like a candle flame in a hurricane. His glowing runes went dark. His shadow claws dissolved into harmless smoke. His eyes, which had been burning with cosmic malice, went wide, then blank. The layered, demonic echo vanished from his voice, leaving only the sound of a single, human gasp as all the air was driven from his lungs.
He didn't fly backwards. He didn't explode. He just crumpled, falling to the floor in a boneless heap, as limp and inert as the unconscious swordsman from the tournament. Defeated. Instantly. Utterly.
Saitama lowered his fist, a wisp of steam curling from his knuckles. He looked down at the unconscious form of Prelate Malakor. "Huh," he said, a note of genuine disappointment in his voice. "Another one-punch." He sighed, a deep, weary sound that seemed to carry the weight of a thousand anticlimactic battles. "I really thought this guy might be tough. With all the glowy bits and the spooky voice. Guess not."
He looked around the ruined sanctum. "So much for the head bad guy. Now… where did he hide the noodles?"
He began to poke around the chamber, stepping over Malakor's unconscious form. He looked behind a shattered altar, peered into a dark alcove filled with unsettling sacrificial daggers, and even lifted a heavy stone sarcophagus with one hand to check underneath. ("Nope, just a dusty skeleton. No noodles.")
Finally, his eyes fell upon a small, heavily bound chest tucked away in a corner, miraculously undamaged by the earlier chaos. It was radiating a faint, almost imperceptible aura of… something. Not magic. Not evil. Something… familiar.
"Ooh, a treasure chest!" Saitama said, his mood brightening instantly. He walked over and, ignoring the complex, soul-binding locks, simply tore the lid off with his bare hands.
He peered inside. And his eyes widened.
The chest was filled to the brim with them. Hundreds of them. Small, rectangular packages, brightly colored, bearing the unmistakable logo of the Oriana Kingdom's most sought-after export.
Oriana Lightning Broth Instant Noodles. Extra Spicy Shrimp flavor. His favorite.
Saitama reached in and pulled out a packet, holding it aloft like a holy relic. A single, perfect tear of pure, unadulterated joy welled in the corner of his eye.
"I found it," he whispered, his voice filled with a reverence he hadn't shown for gods, kings, or Titans. "The treasure. The legendary… noodle stash."
His quest was over. Justice, and a very convenient lunch, had been served. He sat down on the dusty floor, ripped open a packet, and began happily crunching on the dry, uncooked noodle block, completely oblivious to the fact that he had just single-handedly dismantled one of the most dangerous cultist cells in the kingdom, and that the echoes of his "house cleaning" were about to cause a political and arcane crisis that would make the fall of the Titan look like a minor tremor.