“What are you supposed to be?”
Just as Al was in the middle of chewing me out, the guardian deity turned, his eyes sharpening like drawn blades as he fixed a glare on the alien floating high above us. His voice rang out with the formal edge of a warrior demanding answers.
The alien looked down at us with a smug, icy expression before speaking, his voice layered with arrogance and theatrical grandeur.
“I am Gyogyon, King of Planet Gyogyo, and the destined Great Emperor of the Universe. Bow your heads, you pathetic lower lifeforms. How dare you stand before me?”
“W-What?!”
The instant Gyogyon’s words thundered through the air, the Guardian Deity, Tsukikage, and even Gonbei dropped like stones. It was as if some unseen force had slammed into them, pressing them down with crushing gravity. Their knees hit the ground hard, and they couldn’t rise.
“Guardian deity!” I shouted, instinctively moving to help.
“Seiichi-dono…” he gasped, his voice strained. “Are you… unharmed…?”
“Yes! We’re all fine!”
“But… how are we not affected?” I muttered, watching as both Yaiba and Tsukikage stared at us with stunned, pained eyes. Gonbei’s brow twitched, sweat beading at his temples.
They were clearly in agony, but the rest of us stood untouched. Even Saria looked around, puzzled but perfectly composed.
From above, Gyogyon’s voice crackled again, this time thick with contempt.
“Hmph. You defy my command, you insects? You dare resist me? Such audacity… deserves only death.”
“Seiichi!” Saria’s voice snapped through the tension.
In that split second, a grotesque bloom of tentacles burst from Gyogyon’s back. Dozens, maybe more, twisted through the air like living whips and shot straight for me.
“GAH! That’s disgusting!” I shouted, lurching back as the first tendrils slashed toward my face. My skin crawled just looking at the wet, rubbery things that squirmed with too much life.
As I ducked a second strike, a chipper voice called out behind me.
“Oooh! Master!” Lulune’s eyes sparkled like she’d spotted a gourmet feast. “Those totally look like squid or octopus legs, right?!”
“How do you even see that right now?!” I shouted, still dodging like mad.
“Can I eat one?!”
“You’ll poison yourself!”
Yeah, okay… tentacles, fish-skin shimmer… Sure, I can see the squid comparison. But you take one look at that alien freak’s face, and it kills any appetite. This ain’t seafood. It’s space horror.
Still, seafood or not, those tentacles were definitely hostile. Slippery as they were, they came at me fast from every angle.
“All right, that’s enough!” I growled, raising my blade. “Let’s hack them down!”
“Rahhh!” I charged, slashing hard, but the moment my sword hit one, it rebounded like it had struck a spring-loaded trampoline.
“Ugh, gross! These things are way too rubbery! I can’t cut through them cleanly!”
“Take this!” Saria yelled, landing a heavy punch that sent a tentacle flying in a wet spiral. “Al! Try punching them! They go flying if you hit ’em right!”
“That’s just you, Saria!”
“Mhm… Al’s right. But if we use Zora’s power, we can just break them.”
“Yeah, good point. Zora, think you can handle it?”
“Y-Yes! Leave it to me!”
As Zora’s eyes began to glow, one tentacle after another turned to stone in midair. With precision and force, Al stepped forward and shattered them one by one, her attacks slicing through the petrified limbs like glass.
Watching us from above, Gyogyon’s face contorted in disgust. His brow furrowed deeper, lips curling with loathing.
“You would dare destroy the sacred limbs of my noble form? Such insolence! Do not think death will come easily to you!”
In the same moment, even more tentacles burst from Gyogyon’s back. But unlike the fish-shaped beams fired by the Four Heavenly Kings earlier, these weren’t bizarre energy projections; they were blinding lances of pure light. Crackling like lightning, laser blasts shot from the tips of his new limbs, raining down on us with lethal intent.
“Yeah… Okay, those definitely look like they could kill me in one hit! Just saying!” I shouted, narrowly dodging a blast that turned a boulder into molten slag.
“Stop narrating and start fighting, idiot!” Al snapped, her blade flashing as she deflected a beam aimed for my head.
Right, sorry! That’s fair.
“If he’s coming at us with tentacles, then I’ll just—”
“Grow some tentacles of your own?” Al asked, leveling a disturbingly serious expression at me.
“No, I won’t! Why would I ever?!”
Why was she giving me that look like she actually expected me to sprout something unspeakable?!
Come on, I’m not some deep-sea horror! I don’t have anything like that growing out of me, right?
“I don’t, do I…?”
>Shall I grow them for you?
“No, I don’t want tentacles!”
The voice in my head, the mysterious inner commentator, just casually dropped that question like it was no big deal. Seriously, what kind of customer service was that?!
Could you maybe stop offering me cursed upgrades and start thinking about my mental health instead?!
Wait… What if all those over-the-top transformations I’d gone through in the past weren’t accidents? What if… What if on some subconscious level, I’d actually wanted them?
Nope. Nope, not going there. I refuse to believe that. I don’t even trust my own mind anymore!
Above us, Gyogyon’s voice crackled like a death sentence.
“You scuttling pests… How you squirm. Just die already.”
As I found myself spiraling deeper into thoughts about my own subconscious, Gyogyon’s assault only grew fiercer. More beams, more writhing tentacles, and even more chaos rained down from the sky.
No, I’m not growing tentacles out of my body. That’s never happening. But that doesn’t mean I can’t fight fire with fire… or in this case, tentacle with tentacle!
“Land! I’m counting on you!”
“You really have no sense of urgency, do you?!” Al shouted, slicing down a blast as she glared at me in disbelief.
Hey, can’t help it; it’s just my nature.
The moment I called out, the earth beneath us trembled. Mounds of soil cracked and lifted, morphing and reshaping until jagged, spiraling limbs burst forth. A swarm of rocky tentacles, each one twisting like it had a will of its own, rose to answer my call.
“What?!” Gyogyon’s voice cracked in surprise, but he was reacting too soon.
The stone tentacles surged upward, coiling around his own fleshy limbs. They wrapped, crushed, and then, with a stomach-turning wrench, ripped them out.
“GYAAARRRGHHH!”
His scream split the air.
“Whoa! That was amazing, Seiichi!” Saria called out, lifting a hand to her brow as if watching a street performance.
“Looks painful…” Origa added softly, wincing.
Saria, though, was completely unfazed. She watched Gyogyon writhing in agony like it was a mildly interesting TV show. Kind of surreal, honestly, but then again, she was originally a gorilla. That probably rewired her shock threshold.
With every last tentacle torn free, Gyogyon thrashed in midair, screaming. And just like that, the crushing force that had been pinning down Yaiba and the others faded away. They wobbled to their feet, still visibly shaken.
“Are you okay?” I asked, running over.
“Y-You saved us… Truly…” Yaiba breathed, his legs still unsteady.
“I was caught by that thing too…” Tsukikage muttered, brushing herself off with a dazed expression. “I… still don’t understand what just happened…”
“Don’t sweat it,” Gonbei grunted. “No one understands Seiichi.”
“Hey! That’s not true!” I protested. I’m like, the most straightforward guy here!
“Well, anyway, that man,” Tsukikage said, turning her sharp gaze up at Gyogyon, “if we can even call him that, is clearly our true enemy. Wouldn’t you say so, Gonbei-dono?”
“Y-Yes. That is Gyogyon-sama, the one who rules over Eikyō now.”
“Then we’re on the same page. If we defeat him, Eikyō will be free once more!”
“But Tsukikage-dono, what about Lady Muu—?”
“Indeed. Mu-Yu… That is the one.”
“!”
Suddenly, Gyogyon thrust a hand toward Lady Muu, who had been carried on Tsukikage’s back this whole time.
In an instant, she was surrounded by a shimmering, semi-transparent sphere. The glowing orb lifted her from Tsukikage’s back and into the air.