Dawn broke over the Crown of the Heavens not as a gentle bloom of light, but as a bloody smear on the horizon, the sun's rays struggling to pierce the thick, swirling vortex of dark magic that perpetually shrouded the mountain. A single, mournful war horn sounded from the allied camp, its long, brazen note cutting through the tense morning air. It was answered by a cacophony of demonic roars and guttural war cries from the dark fortress above. The final battle had begun.
The initial assault was a terrifying spectacle of organized violence. On the command of Lord Valerius, the great siege engines of the allied armies – massive trebuchets and Oriana-crafted clockwork ballistae – unleashed their first volley. Huge boulders, inscribed with glowing purification runes by the Magi, and massive, spear-like iron bolts arced through the sky, crashing against the fortress's outer walls with earth-shaking impact.
The Cult's defenses answered in kind. From the battlements, dark-robed sorcerers launched bolts of necrotic energy, screaming skulls of spectral fire, and great, corrosive globs of alchemical sludge that ate through earth and steel alike. The plains before the fortress became a hellscape of explosions, craters, and shrieking, untamed magic.
Through this maelstrom, the vanguard charged. Princess Iris, her silver armor a beacon of light in the gloom, led the way, Anathema held high, its golden light cleaving a path through the dark magic. Hrolf the Iron-Beard ran beside her, a roaring, axe-wielding avalanche of pure Jotunheim fury, his twin axes reaping a terrible toll on the demonic beasts that surged to meet them. The knights of Midgar and Oriana followed, a wave of disciplined steel and unwavering courage, their shields locked, their spears leveled.
The two armies crashed together with a sound that was pure, elemental chaos. The clang of swords on demonic hide, the screams of the dying, the roar of monsters, the crackle of spells – it all blended into a single, deafening symphony of war.
And at the command post on a hill overlooking the carnage, Saitama was trying to teach a very confused Royal Guard how to fold a piece of parchment into a paper crane.
"No, no, see, you have to make the mountain fold first," Saitama explained patiently, demonstrating with nimble fingers. "Then you do the valley fold. It's easy. Look." He held up his own, surprisingly perfect, paper crane.
The guard, a young man named Tomas whose hands were trembling so badly he could barely hold the parchment, just stared at Saitama, then at the apocalyptic battle raging below, then back at Saitama. "Sir… Protector…" he stammered, "shouldn't we… be… doing something?"
"We are doing something," Saitama said seriously. "We're making cranes. It's supposed to be good for your concentration." He looked down at the battle. "And those guys look like they need to concentrate. They're all just… yelling and swinging things. Very inefficient."
Sir Kaelan, standing nearby, felt a vein in his forehead begin to throb in time with the distant explosions. The world was ending, and his charge was giving an impromptu origami lesson. It was, he had to admit, perfectly in character.
The battle at the fortress gates was brutal. The allied vanguard, despite their courage, was being bled dry. The Cultists, fighting with the fervor of zealots on their home ground, were seemingly endless. For every demon slain, two more seemed to crawl from the dark recesses of the fortress. Kristoph and his knights were a rock, an unbreakable point in the line, but even rocks could be worn down by a relentless tide.
Iris fought like a Valkyrie reborn. Anathema was a blur of golden light, each swing banishing a shadow, each thrust piercing a demonic heart. But she was tiring. The sheer number of foes was overwhelming. A massive, bull-headed demon, a Minotaur of the Abyss, broke through the line, its colossal axe swinging towards her.
"Princess!" a knight screamed, trying to intercept, but he was too slow.
The axe descended. Iris raised her sword to block, knowing it was a futile gesture, her arms screaming with fatigue.
And then, a small, perfectly smooth, grey pebble struck the Minotaur squarely between the eyes with a soft tock.
The Minotaur froze. Its massive, charging body seized up. Its furious expression went slack. Its eyes rolled back into its head. And then, the entire, half-ton monstrosity simply… fell over sideways, like a statue toppled from its pedestal, landing with a ground-shaking thud, completely unconscious.
Iris stared, her sword still raised. She looked at the unconscious Minotaur, at the tiny, almost invisible, circular mark on its forehead where the pebble had struck. She then turned her head, looking back towards the command hill a mile away.
Saitama, standing on the hill, gave her a small, encouraging thumbs-up. "Nice block!" he called out, his voice carrying with unnatural clarity over the din of battle. He then turned back to his paper crane. "See, Tomas? That's what I'm talking about. Concentration. And good aim."
The tide of the battle began to subtly shift. A cultist sorcerer, about to unleash a devastating plague-wind spell, was suddenly struck in the back of the head by a very fast-moving pinecone, knocking him out cold. A pack of Corrupted Hounds, about to flank a beleaguered unit of Oriana knights, found themselves tripping over a series of small, strategically placed, and impossibly slippery, banana peels (where Saitama had gotten banana peels in the middle of a war-torn, blighted wasteland was a question no one dared to ask). A massive, writhing tentacle beast was goaded into tying itself into an enormous, unbreakable knot by a series of well-aimed acorn projectiles.
Saitama wasn't fighting. He was… tidying up. Plinking. He was the bored eye of a hurricane, casually, almost lazily, removing the most immediate threats to his allies with a series of perfectly aimed, non-lethal, and utterly humiliating projectiles, all while trying to explain the finer points of origami.
The Cultists began to panic. Their most powerful beasts were being neutralized by… acorns. Their mages were being knocked unconscious by… pinecones. A sense of profound, reality-breaking absurdity was beginning to infect their fanatical morale. How could they fight an enemy who refused to even acknowledge them as a serious threat?
In the hidden shadows on the mountain's flanks, Shadow Garden observed the proceedings with a clinical, detached interest.
"The Tempest is engaging in… 'low-impact tactical support'," Nu reported to Alpha, her voice a mixture of awe and professional confusion. "He is neutralizing high-level threats with… found objects… at a range of over a mile, with perfect accuracy. The kinetic force of the projectiles is minimal, yet the effect is total incapacitation."
Alpha watched through her own spyglass, a faint, unreadable smile on her face. "He is not fighting a war," she murmured. "He is playing a carnival game. And he is winning." This was perfect. Saitama's bizarre, non-lethal intervention was tying up the Cult's main forces, creating even more chaos and confusion, providing the perfect cover for her own teams to infiltrate the fortress from above, to seek out their true objectives.
Finally, after hours of brutal fighting, assisted by Saitama's "plinking," the allied vanguard, battered and bloodied but triumphant, secured the main gate and the lower courtyard of the fortress. A great cheer went up from the army below.
The signal flare, this time a brilliant white, shot up into the sky. The path was clear. It was time for the final act.
Iris, panting, her armor dented and smeared with ichor, looked back towards the command hill and gave a sharp, determined nod.
On the hill, Saitama saw the signal. He looked at the perfect paper crane in his hand, then at the smoking, corpse-strewn fortress. He sighed. The boring part was over. Now came the really boring part. The part where he had to walk all the way up there and punch the one guy everyone was waiting for him to punch.
"Okay, my turn, I guess," he said, standing up. He handed his paper crane to the still-stunned guard, Tomas. "Here. You can have this. For being a good listener."
He then performed another one of his deceptively casual crouches. "Alright," he said to himself. "Time to go clock in for my shift."
With another silent, effortless leap, he was gone from the hill, a yellow-and-white blur soaring towards the dark, waiting heart of the fortress, towards the final, inevitable, and almost certainly disappointing, confrontation. The storm of steel had passed. Now, the quiet, bored fist of god was about to descend.