"Saitama, help me put this cigarette in my mouth and light it."
Right now, cigarettes were the only thing that could speed up his recovery.
"You smoke too?"
Saitama picked up the cigarette pack beside the bed and looked at it briefly. After a moment, he pulled one out and placed it between Lucien's lips. With a simple flick of his finger, the cigarette ignited.
In reality, Saitama had generated heat by rapidly dragging his finger through the air. The friction created enough temperature to light the cigarette instantly. However, his movement was so fast that to an ordinary observer it looked like nothing more than a casual tap.
"Not just one. Light all the cigarettes."
One cigarette was too slow. Lucien wanted to smoke an entire pack at once.
Saitama blinked in mild confusion, his expression a little blank. He did not ask for a reason. Instead, he simply followed the request. One after another, he placed a full pack of cigarettes between Lucien's lips until they formed a ridiculous bundle. Afterward, he lit every single one.
Lucien now looked like a human chimney.
Thick smoke poured out with every breath he took, and each puff felt like it was dragging his battered body back from the brink of death.
Pack after pack disappeared.
Gradually, Lucien's recovery speed began to accelerate.
His neck slowly regenerated.
Then his shoulders.
His hands.
His chest.
Finally, the damage throughout his lower body began to heal as well.
About ten minutes later, Lucien pushed himself upright.
His body had completely regenerated. Every torn muscle and shattered bone had restored itself as if nothing had happened.
Only his face remained pale, almost ghostlike.
Still, as he sensed the Ki within his body slowly expanding and growing stronger, a smile curled at the corner of his lips.
His near death ability had activated.
Once his recovery was complete, his strength would rise again.
Even better, everything had gone smoothly. No reincarnators appeared, and no unexpected threats arrived during the process.
"Lucien, you are indeed very strong."
Saitama watched him through the swirling smoke. He could clearly sense that Lucien's condition was steadily improving. When Lucien casually offered him a cigarette, Saitama shook his head and politely refused.
"That sentence sounds really hurtful. Don't you know who's stronger here?"
Lucien's expression darkened slightly.
Originally, he thought that adding dramatic battle music would at least force Saitama to cough up some blood.
Reality had been brutal.
Saitama's defense was simply absurd. From the beginning of the battle until now, the bald hero had not coughed, bled, or even taken a single uneven breath.
The gap between them was enormous.
"Well... you did say you'd treat me to hotpot for a month."
Saitama instantly changed the topic.
At the moment, hotpot was the only thing on his mind.
"I'm a man of my word. Let's go buy ingredients."
Lucien continued smoking as his aura slowly stabilized.
"How about some lobsters?" Saitama asked.
"We can try it. By the way, does lobster taste good in hotpot?"
"I've never tried it."
"Then we'll find out tonight. But you're washing the dishes."
"Why?"
"I'm treating you to hotpot. You can't just sit there and eat everything."
Saitama thought about it for a moment.
"That sounds reasonable. Alright."
He looked around at the vast icy wasteland surrounding them.
"But this seems like the other side of the Earth. It's pretty far."
"Then run back at full speed," Lucien said casually. "Take me with you. I'm still pretty weak right now."
Saitama grabbed Lucien's shoulder.
"Ready?"
Lucien exhaled a stream of smoke and nodded.
"OK."
Boom!
The ground exploded beneath Saitama's footstep.
The frozen earth shattered and lifted into the air as he launched forward. His running speed instantly surpassed ten times the speed of sound, and it kept increasing with every second.
And that was just him running normally.
Time passed quickly.
Before they realized it, the sky had already turned orange as dusk arrived.
Across the world, satellites and monitoring stations were locked onto the North Pole.
Every nation was watching.
"Did the energy really disappear?"
The terrifying fluctuations that had erupted from the North Pole had vanished nearly an hour earlier.
Only now did governments begin to cautiously confirm the situation.
"It's been an hour. It should be gone."
"Does that mean Earth has been saved?"
"But the southwestern region, the South Pole, the North Pole, and even the Moon were destroyed."
"Send investigation teams immediately. We need evidence."
"How could something like that just disappear? We must clarify what actually happened in that battle."
All over the world, governments and organizations scrambled to investigate.
Meanwhile, the two people responsible for the chaos had already returned to the city.
Inside a small apartment, Lucien and Saitama were preparing hotpot.
Steam filled the room.
The table was covered with ingredients.
It was a traditional dual flavored hotpot, one side spicy and the other mild. The rich aroma spread throughout the apartment.
Saitama stared at the television.
"It looks pretty serious. Did we cause that?"
The news broadcast showed footage of the devastation. Reports discussed the destruction of the North Pole, the South Pole, and even the Moon.
The media had already labeled the incident as a "God War."
However, nobody knew who had fought.
Some reports speculated about alien invasions.
Others suggested supernatural powers.
A few even theorized about conflicts between gods.
No one had real evidence.
Lucien swirled thin slices of mutton through the boiling broth while holding a cigarette between his fingers.
"It was probably us."
Compared to an hour earlier, his complexion had improved dramatically.
He had been smoking nonstop for an entire hour.
Honestly, even he was starting to feel overwhelmed by the nicotine.
Saitama chewed a piece of kelp and took a sip of wine.
The wine, like everything else on the table, had been bought by Lucien.
"Lucien, you are really strong."
"Don't say that to me," Lucien replied flatly. "It sounds like you're insulting me both mentally and intellectually."
Saitama ignored the complaint.
He stared into the pot with a suddenly serious expression.
"There's only one lobster left. Do you want it?"
His gaze was sharp and focused.
Lucien twitched slightly.
Out of the ten lobsters they had bought, he had only eaten one.
The remaining nine had mysteriously disappeared into Saitama's stomach.
Lucien waved his hand dismissively.
"You can have it."
"Lucien is a good person."
Saitama immediately returned to his usual blank expression while grabbing the final lobster.
Lucien's face darkened slightly.
Without turning away from the news broadcast, he asked casually,
"Saitama, can you breathe in space?"
"No."
Saitama answered while happily eating lobster.
"Then how were you fine fighting in space earlier?"
"I held my breath."
He said it as if it were completely normal.
Lucien's eyelids twitched.
"How long can you hold your breath?"
"I don't know."
Lucien stared at him silently for a moment.
"Let's have a breath holding contest someday."
"No."
Lucien added calmly,
"I'll include another month of hotpot."
Saitama immediately looked up.
"When do we start?"
Lucien fell silent.
The two continued eating hotpot while the television kept reporting on the mysterious global disaster.
Around ten o'clock that night, Lucien returned to his own apartment next door.
It was a simple two bedroom place in a nearly abandoned building.
Very few people still lived there. Anyone willing to ignore potential danger could stay as long as they wanted.
After cleaning up slightly, Lucien sat on his bed and lit another cigarette.
His amethyst colored eyes grew colder as he thought.
He now had a rough understanding of Saitama's situation.
There was no doubt about it.
Saitama was overwhelmingly powerful.
Even when Lucien fought at full strength, he could not make the hero bleed even a single drop.
A normal punch from Saitama could explode Lucien's limbs.
A Serious Punch could reduce him to scattered fragments.
The alien conqueror Boros had died from a Serious Punch during their battle.
But Boros died because he possessed a core hidden inside his body. Once that core was destroyed, his life ended.
Lucien was different.
As long as even a single cell remained intact, he could regenerate.
That was the key difference.
Boros had a fatal weakness.
Lucien did not.
To kill Lucien completely, someone would need to burn away every cell in his body, or continue destroying him until his regenerative energy was completely exhausted.
Saitama's abilities were absurdly balanced.
Attack power.
Defense.
Reaction speed.
Dynamic vision.
Everything was ridiculous.
However, he still possessed human needs.
He had to breathe.
He had to eat.
He had to drink.
Lucien had just confirmed this himself.
Given Saitama's simple personality, Lucien was confident the information was accurate.
Still, another problem appeared.
Take breathing for example.
Saitama could hold his breath for an unknown amount of time.
Even Saitama himself did not know the limit.
Then there was food and water.
A normal human would die after roughly seven days without food and three days without water.
But Saitama clearly did not follow those limits.
For all Lucien knew, those numbers might have extra zeros behind them.
One zero.
Two zeros.
Maybe even three.
Lucien had already considered multiple ways to kill him.
Direct combat was impossible.
Even the ability of the Soul Fruit had proven useless.
That meant he had to rely on environmental factors or clever methods.
For example, position swapping.
Lucien could stab a knife into his own heart, then switch places with Saitama at the last moment.
The wound would transfer.
But even that method felt unreliable.
Saitama might possess some kind of hidden regeneration or resistance.
The chances of success were too low.
Another idea involved an extremely powerful laxative.
A terrifying chemical capable of killing demons and monsters.
But against someone like Saitama, Lucien had absolutely no confidence in its effectiveness.
After thinking through countless possibilities, Lucien came to one unsettling conclusion.
Destroying the Earth might actually be the safest option.
Even if Saitama could hold his breath indefinitely and ignore normal biological needs, there had to be a limit somewhere.
Still, the timing was not right yet.
Lucien planned to wait until the arrival of Boros on Earth.
Boros was still an important villain in this world.
There was also the possibility that reincarnators existed here.
Until he confirmed that information, Lucien needed to maintain his relationship with Saitama and make use of him.
To be honest, this was the second most troublesome Child of Destiny Lucien had ever encountered.
The first had been Subaru Natsuki.
Lucien had killed that man so many times that Subaru eventually vomited from the repeated deaths.
But Saitama was even worse.
Lucien could not defeat him at all.
The power gap was simply too large.
Even destroying the entire planet might not kill him.
For the first time in a long while, Lucien felt that this world was bleak.
Even bleaker than the ones he had visited before.
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