The air at the mouth of the cave was noticeably colder, a damp, sepulchral chill that clung to Saitama's already tattered jumpsuit like icy fingers. The sickly purple glow of the runes carved into the rock around the entrance pulsed with a slow, malevolent rhythm, casting grotesque, shifting shadows that danced like tormented spirits. The stench emanating from within – a complex miasma of sulfur, ancient dust, decay, and something else, something acrid and metallic like old blood mixed with ozone – intensified, making his nose wrinkle in distaste.
"Seriously, Bigfoot needs to air this place out," Saitama muttered, waving a hand in front of his face. "Or invest in some heavy-duty air freshener. Maybe 'Mountain Pine' or 'Ocean Breeze Blast.' Though, given the neighborhood, 'Volcanic Brimstone Bliss' might be more fitting."
He peered into the darkness. The cave mouth was a jagged maw in the hillside, leading into an oppressive blackness that swallowed the faint ambient light from the forest. He couldn't see more than a few feet inside. The giant, three-toed footprints led directly into this Stygian abyss.
"Okay, so, etiquette," he mused aloud, tapping a gloved finger against his chin. "Do I knock? Is there a doorbell? Probably not. Seems more like a 'trespassers will be disintegrated' kind of establishment." He looked around. No doorbell. No knocker. Just jagged rock and ominous, glowing symbols.
His stomach let out a particularly loud, mournful gurgle, a sound that seemed to be absorbed by the hungry darkness of the cave.
"Right. Food first, existential dread later." He took a deep breath, mostly held it to avoid the worst of the smell, and stepped forward. "HELLOOOOO? BIGFOOT? YOU HOME? GOT ANY CUP NOODLES? OR MAYBE SOME OF THOSE LITTLE CHEESE CRACKER SANDWICHES?"
His voice, usually capable of booming across city blocks, seemed to be dampened almost immediately upon entering the cave's threshold, as if the very air within was a thick, sound-absorbing blanket. Only a dull, flat echo came back to him, devoid of resonance.
Undeterred, Saitama took another step inside. The transition from the dim light of the forest to the near-total blackness of the cave was abrupt. For a moment, he was effectively blind, relying on his other senses. The chill deepened. The floor beneath his boots was uneven, natural rock, sloping slightly downwards. The silence, once he stopped shouting, was profound, broken only by the faint, rhythmic drip of water somewhere in the unseen depths and a very faint, almost sub-audible hum that seemed to vibrate through the stone itself – the same deep, rhythmic pulse Sorceress Elara had detected earlier, now much, much stronger.
As his eyes slowly began to adjust, aided by the faint, residual glow of the purple runes at the entrance and, oddly enough, a very subtle luminescence emanating from strange, crystalline formations that grew like grotesque fungi from the walls, he started to make out the rough shape of the passage. It was wider than it looked from the outside, a natural tunnel that twisted and turned, descending deeper into the earth. The giant footprints were still visible, pressed into the damp, packed earth of the cave floor.
"Guess he really doesn't want visitors if he lives this far in," Saitama commented to the oppressive darkness. "Maybe he's shy. Or just really committed to this whole 'mysterious hermit' vibe."
He continued walking, his boots crunching softly on grit and small, loose stones. The air grew progressively colder and staler, the metallic tang more pronounced. The crystalline formations on the walls became more numerous, their sickly purple-black light providing just enough illumination to navigate by. They pulsed in time with the deep hum, like diseased organs in the body of the earth.
He rounded a sharp bend in the tunnel and paused. The passage opened up into a vast cavern. So vast, in fact, that he couldn't see the ceiling or the far walls. The only light came from the pulsating crystals, which were larger and more numerous here, growing in jagged clusters from the floor and walls, casting the immense space in an eerie, shifting twilight of bruised purple and deepest shadow.
And in the center of this cavern, clearly illuminated by a particularly large cluster of these malevolent crystals, was… something.
It wasn't Bigfoot.
It was a structure. Or perhaps, a throne. Or maybe an altar. It was hard to tell. It was a towering, jagged edifice of the same dark, crystalline material, pulsating with the same internal light. It rose from the cavern floor like a cancerous growth, sharp, obsidian-like spires reaching towards the unseen ceiling. And upon this throne-altar-structure, something was… draped.
Or rather, multiple somethings.
They were bodies. Dozens of them. Pale, desiccated, and contorted into unnatural positions, seemingly fused with the crystalline structure itself. Some were humanoid, clad in scraps of rusted armor or tattered robes – knights, sorcerers, unfortunate adventurers, perhaps. Others were… not. Twisted, bestial forms, creatures of the Deepwood that had clearly met a horrific end, their carcasses now part of this grotesque monument. Thin, translucent tendrils, like solidified shadow, snaked out from the crystal, piercing the bodies, seemingly drawing something from them. A faint, almost invisible vapor, shimmering with captured life force, drifted from the corpses towards the apex of the crystalline structure.
Saitama blinked. "Whoa. Okay. That's… a lot of lawn ornaments. And not the cheerful gnome kind, either. Definitely a health code violation. And probably several counts of murder. And illegal dumping. This guy's got a rap sheet a mile long."
He scanned the cavern. No sign of Bigfoot. Or anyone else, for that matter. Just the grotesque crystal throne and its silent, desiccated audience. The giant footprints he'd been following led right up to the base of this horrifying structure and then… vanished, as if whatever made them had simply been absorbed into it.
"Huh. So, Bigfoot is the lawn ornaments? Or maybe he's the interior decorator?" Saitama mused, genuinely perplexed. "This is getting weird. And still no snacks."
His gaze drifted upwards, along the jagged lines of the crystal edifice, towards its peak, where the stolen life energies seemed to be coalescing. There, nestled amongst the sharpest spires, was a large, ovoid object, roughly the size of a small car. It was made of the same pulsating, purple-black crystal, but it seemed… denser, more opaque. And it throbbed with a slow, powerful, almost hypnotic rhythm, in time with the deep hum that permeated the entire cavern. It looked disturbingly like a giant, unhatched egg. Or a heart. A monstrous, crystalline heart.
As Saitama watched, a fissure appeared on the surface of the ovoid, a crack of deeper blackness against the purple glow. It widened, and a thick, viscous fluid, black as tar, began to ooze from it.
"Oh, great," Saitama said, his voice flat. "It's leaking. Hope that's not important. Or, you know, gonna explode."
The psychic chorus, the gestalt consciousness of the slumbering horror deep below, which had been observing Saitama's approach with a mixture of predatory amusement and detached curiosity, now felt a flicker of something else. Surprise? Annoyance? It was difficult to categorize an emotion from a being that perceived reality on such a vastly different scale.
The deep hum in the cavern intensified, the pulsating crystals flaring with a brighter, more aggressive light. The air grew heavy, pressing down on Saitama with a tangible weight. The temperature plummeted further, frost beginning to form on the tips of the crystalline spires. The very shadows seemed to deepen, to coalesce, to writhe.
From the base of the crystal throne, where the giant footprints had ended, the shadows began to churn. They swirled and solidified, rising up like black smoke given monstrous form. Two points of malevolent, crimson light, like dying embers fanned back to life, ignited within the swirling darkness. The formless mass began to take shape, elongating, thickening, sprouting appendages.
It was the maker of the footprints. Or rather, what was left of it, now animated by a far more sinister power.
It rose to its full, terrifying height – a hulking behemoth easily fifteen feet tall. Its body was a grotesque mockery of a humanoid form, seemingly cobbled together from shadow, rock, and splintered bone, all held together by the pulsating purple-black energy that coursed through it like diseased veins. Its head was disproportionately large, a misshapen lump with a gaping, toothless maw from which the foul stench intensified. Its arms were long and thick, ending in massive, three-taloned hands, the claws themselves jagged shards of the same dark crystal that formed the throne. These were the "circular indentations" Zenon had found – not footprints, but the impact points of these colossal, crystalline fists as the creature had moved. This was a 'Chasm Guardian,' a mindless construct animated by the will of the slumbering horror, tasked with protecting its sanctum.
The Chasm Guardian fixed its glowing crimson eyes on Saitama. A low, guttural growl, like rocks grinding together in the belly of the earth, rumbled from its gaping maw. It raised one of its massive, crystal-tipped fists, the purple-black energy flaring around it. This was not an invitation to chat about snacks.
Saitama looked at the newly-formed monstrosity. Then back at the leaking crystal egg-heart thing. Then back at the monster.
"Okay, so," he said, cracking his knuckles. "Are you Bigfoot's bouncer? Or just really passionate about keeping people away from your weird, leaky egg-rock collection?"
The Chasm Guardian responded with a deafening roar, a sound that was part stone-shattering impact, part soul-tearing shriek. It charged, its movements surprisingly fast for its bulk, each step shaking the cavern floor, sending tremors through the rock. Its crystal fist, wreathed in dark energy, swung towards Saitama in an arc designed to pulverize him into a fine paste.
Saitama sighed. It was the sigh of a man whose patience for monstrous interruptions, especially when hungry, was wearing dangerously thin.
"Look, man, I just want some food. Is that too much to ask?"
He didn't even bother to adopt a fighting stance. As the Chasm Guardian's colossal, crystal-shard fist, imbued with the dark energies of a slumbering cosmic entity and capable of shattering fortress walls, descended upon him, Saitama simply…
Stuck out his foot.
CRUNCH-THWUMP.
The sound was almost comical in its abruptness. The Chasm Guardian's earth-shattering charge came to an immediate, undignified halt as its leading leg connected squarely with Saitama's casually extended red boot.
There was no give. No resistance. Just… impact. Absolute, immovable.
The Chasm Guardian, a creature of immense physical power and dark magic, found its entire forward momentum, all fifteen feet and several tons of magically animated rock and shadow, brought to a dead stop by a single, unassuming yellow-jumpsuited leg.
Its crimson eyes, moments before burning with mindless fury, now seemed to flicker with something akin to… confusion. A creature designed for overwhelming destruction had just encountered a concept utterly alien to its programming: an object it could not move, could not break, could not even budge.
The kinetic energy of its charge, with nowhere else to go, recoiled back through its own form. The crystal shards embedded in its fists and body shattered. The dark energies holding its form together sputtered and frayed. Cracks spiderwebbed across its rocky hide.
Then, with a sound like a mountain collapsing, the Chasm Guardian simply… fell apart. Its legs buckled. Its torso crumbled. Its massive arms detached and clattered to the cavern floor. Its head rolled a short distance, the crimson light in its eyes dimming, then extinguishing altogether. Within seconds, all that remained of the fearsome Chasm Guardian was a pile of inert rock, shattered crystal, and dissipating shadows.
Saitama withdrew his foot, dusting off his boot with a preoccupied air. "See? This is why you shouldn't skip leg day. Really bad for your structural integrity." He looked at the pile of rubble. "Well, he wasn't very talkative. And definitely didn't have any snacks."
His gaze returned to the giant, pulsating crystal egg-heart thing on the throne. The crack on its surface had widened. More of the black, viscous fluid was oozing out, pooling at the base of the structure. The deep hum in the cavern seemed to falter for a moment, replaced by a high-pitched, almost distressed whine that vibrated through Saitama's teeth.
**
Saitama, oblivious to the cosmic existential crisis he was causing, walked over to the base of the crystal throne, stepping over the remains of the Chasm Guardian. He looked up at the leaking egg-heart.
"You know," he said, addressing the pulsating ovoid. "You really should get that leak checked out. Could be serious. Water damage is a nightmare, let me tell you. Had a leaky faucet in my old apartment once… disaster." He tapped the base of the crystal throne with his knuckle. It felt cold, hard, and vibrated faintly. "Wonder if this thing's edible?"
The distressed whine from the egg-heart intensified. The purple-black light around it flickered violently. The entire cavern began to tremble, not from an external force, but from the sheer, unadulterated panic emanating from the slumbering horror below, now fully, terrifyingly awake and aware that something had gone catastrophically, impossibly wrong.
Saitama, however, was now more focused on a new sound. A faint scraping, shuffling noise, coming from a dark passage leading away from the far side of the cavern.
"Huh?" He tilted his head. "Is there someone else here? Maybe they have a plunger for that leaky egg-thing. Or, you know. Food."
With the same nonchalant curiosity that had led him this far, Saitama, the Unknowing Tempest, the Door Knocker of Doom, turned away from the catastrophically failing Incubator and began to walk towards the new sound, leaving behind a scene of absolute, bewildered cosmic horror.