The Shadow Dominion's Emperor sat on his obsidian throne, the very air in his throne room thrumming with a palpable, furious energy. His generals and advisors, having just reported the utter failure of the bounty hunters and the near-total destruction of his capital city, were all trying very hard to appear invisible. The Emperor's voice dripped with a low, bone-chilling menace.
"Bring me the War Champion."
The doors to the chamber, which were the size of small continents, rumbled open. A massive figure stepped forward from the shadows. He was a being of pure, brute force—a full seven feet tall, with muscles that bulged like mountain ranges and a jawline so sharp it could probably cut diamonds. His eyes glowed with the molten gold of a forge fire, and his aura was a suffocating pressure of raw power. This was Titanus Rex, the War Champion of the Shadow Dominion, undefeated in over ten thousand battles. His victories were sung in every war camp, his losses whispered about like ancient, forgotten myths.
Titanus cracked his knuckles, the sound like a dozen tectonic plates shifting. "So… I get to crush this… Aetherion?" His voice was a deep, guttural rumble that shook the very foundations of the palace.
"Yes," the Emperor growled, a bitter triumph in his voice. "On live broadcast. In the Galactic Coliseum. The whole galaxy will see his defeat, and my vengeance will be complete."
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The next day, billions of viewers tuned in. The arena, a colossal structure forged from starlight and plasma, floated majestically in orbit above a gas giant, its giant ring glowing with force fields that contained the very cosmos. The commentators, two bubbly aliens with a knack for over-dramatic flair, screamed with excitement.
Aetherion wandered in, his hands in his pockets, still chewing on a breakfast sandwich he had ordered from the last remaining food truck in the city. He wasn't paying attention to the booming voices or the cheering crowds. He was just trying to figure out where the free snack booth was.
"Hey, where's the free snack booth?" he muttered, looking around. "And is this the queue for the noodle stand?"
He looked across the table, where his opponent sat waiting. It was a table forged from meteorite steel, and it was flanked by two enormous chairs that looked more like thrones than furniture. Titanus Rex's face was a mask of cold, menacing rage. He slammed both of his colossal hands on the table. The "Arm-Wrestling Throne," forged from meteorite steel and designed to withstand the force of a supernova, rattled under the force of the War Champion's frustration.
"No, insect," Titanus's voice thundered, a sound that was somehow both a whisper and a roar. "This is your grave."
Aetherion blinked, taking another bite of his sandwich. His only response was a faint, polite nod. "Okay. Cool."
The referee, a nervous alien squid in a bow tie who was so terrified he was literally changing colors, floated up between them. Its voice, projected by a small microphone, squeaked nervously. "Contestants, prepare your arms! Please, no fighting until I say 'go'!"
Titanus' bicep bulged like a mountain range, a testament to a lifetime of cosmic-level training. The crowd roared in anticipation, their cheers echoing across the vacuum of space. Aetherion, on the other hand, absentmindedly put down his sandwich, still chewing, and placed his hand on Titanus'. He didn't flex. He didn't even grip. His fingers just kind of... rested there.
The squid referee, who was now a nervous shade of purple, took a deep, shuddering breath. "Ready… go!"
The table exploded.
It didn't shatter; it simply ceased to exist, a cloud of glittering atoms that were instantly dispersed into the vacuum of space. The force of the blow was not even a blow. It was the sheer, incomprehensible power of Aetherion's casual grip. The shockwaves from his simple motion sent a ripple of reality-bending energy across the entire arena, causing the force fields to buckle and the entire structure to tremble.
Titanus Rex, the undefeated War Champion of the Shadow Dominion, was blasted backward so fast that he left a sonic boom trail through the vacuum of space, a sight that was both terrifying and utterly absurd. The War Champion flew, and flew, and flew, until he punched a clean, Titanus-shaped hole in one of the gas giant's nearby moons, and disappeared into the gas giant's magnificent, swirling rings, a new piece of debris in the galaxy.
The crowd went silent, a stunned, collective gasp that was heard across a thousand solar systems. The only sound was the faint hum of the arena's emergency systems trying to repair the damage.
"...Is he dead?" someone whispered, the question echoing in the profound quiet.
Aetherion blinked, looking at his hand, then at the hole in the moon. "Oops. Was that… bad sportsmanship?" He picked up his sandwich again, a sad look on his face. "Well, guess I win?"
Across the galaxy, every bounty hunter watching the live stream dropped their weapons. If Titanus Rex, the War Champion, a being so strong he could punch a hole in a moon, couldn't touch this guy… nobody could. The ten trillion credit bounty had just been rendered completely worthless.
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Meanwhile, in the Emperor's palace, a royal medic was rushing over to the Emperor with a pair of sterile eye drops. The Emperor's eye was twitching so violently it was making a distinct, high-pitched squeaky noise. He stared at the holographic replay of his War Champion disappearing into a gas giant's rings, his face a mix of pure, unadulterated fury and absolute, cosmic defeat.
"…Prepare the doomsday weapon," he hissed, his voice trembling with a terrifying blend of rage and despair. "We end this… now."