When Asura opened his eyes, he found himself in a wasteland devoid of a single blade of grass. Shaking his head, he stood up and saw Zenki and Goki lying asleep nearby.
"Hey, Zenki! Goki!"
As he shook their bodies, calling out their names—
"Lord... Asura?"
"Big Bro..."
Both looked dazed at first, but the moment their gaze shifted past Asura, their expressions hardened, and they leaped to their feet in combat stances.
"Awake, are you?"
A voice called out from behind. Spinning around instinctively, Asura saw that monster, Kai Heinemann, standing with both hands shoved casually into his pockets.
"You're—"
"Ah, no need to get on guard. I only came to inform you of the situation."
"The situation?"
"Yeah. What you might call an unforeseen accident..."
Kai Heinemann trailed off, resting a hand on his chin for a moment.
"No, perhaps that isn't quite right. Since this Compendium reacted, could it be that I actually wished for this? No, considering what happened with that idiot prince, surely that can't be it. Still, the fact remains that it did pique my interest..."
"Hey!"
"Right. My intentions hardly matter at this point, do they?"
The monster looked down at Asura and his companions with freezing eyes.
"Your deeds sicken me to my core. Under normal circumstances, I would have slaughtered you without a second thought. That you survived is purely my whim—nothing more, nothing less. Given my position, I cannot simply overlook what you have done. Therefore—"
Pulling a wooden stick from thin air, he pointed its tip toward Asura and his kin.
"I'm going to beat that rotten attitude out of you completely! Norn, stretch time here to its absolute limit!"
"Roger that, yesh!"
A white-haired girl floating idly raised her right hand, gradually dissolving into the background like smoke.
"Consider this your punishment as well. I won't make it easy on you. Struggle as hard as you can."
Following those words, which felt eerily familiar, a tremendous impact slammed into Asura's gut. Heaven and earth flipped in a dizzying blur.
"Guh!"
Somehow scrambling back up, he snapped his head up to find Kai Heinemann standing before him, wooden stick in hand.
"Listen well. You will not be permitted a single moment of rest. If you let your guard down, expect instant death. If that kills you, then so be it. That's all there is to it."
Kai Heinemann vanished. In an instant, Asura was sent rocketing skyward once again. And right before his eyes, Kai Heinemann hovered with his left fist clenched and elbow drawn back.
"Owooooooooohhhhh!!"
Letting out a beast-like howl, Asura and his kin began their seemingly eternal torment.
Just how much time had passed? For what felt like an eternity of endless years, Asura was relentlessly thrashed by the monster with nothing but that wooden stick. He lost count of how many times he suffered fatal injuries. Each time, the slimes restored him in an instant. Those slimes were Healing Slimes. Once kin to Apollo, their abilities had been so thoroughly broken that they were supposedly sealed away at the forefront of balance-breakers in that vile dungeon. At first, endless questions had raced through Asura's mind—wondering why these sealed Healing Slimes were serving Kai Heinemann—but over time, he stopped thinking about it altogether.
He simply lived an endless cycle of being healed, only to be beaten down again.
As Asura lay immobilized from another round of near-fatal wounds, Kai Heinemann strolled up to him.
"Looks like your expression has improved a bit."
He offered the critique while lightly tapping the stick against his shoulder. At first, Asura had desperately tried to run. But at some point, a shift had occurred deep within him.
"I'm gonna land a hit on you, no matter what!"
Landing a single blow on him. That had become the sole purpose driving every swing of his sword.
"A hit on me, is it...?"
Kai Heinemann looked down at Asura with an intrigued expression.
"You really are a rare breed. But unfortunately, weak as you are now, no amount of time will ever make that possible."
Kai Heinemann was merely stating a cold, hard fact. He was right. Landing a blow on this guy was something that, with their current gulf in power, would never happen even if heaven and earth turned upside down. In fact, it wasn't just Asura. Even Beelzebub, who prided himself on being the strongest, was likely in the same boat. Making this man get serious was...
"I swear I will!"
As Asura roared, Kai Heinemann turned away, glancing back over his shoulder.
"I won't hold my breath, but I'll be waiting."
Murmuring with a hint of loneliness, his entire presence vanished into thin air.
Only after enduring that endless beatdown did Asura feel as though he finally understood, just a tiny bit, the true monster known as Kai Heinemann. What the man had always been yearning for. And how that desire would never, ever be fulfilled.
"Lord Asura."
"Big Bro."
To his sworn brothers gathering at his side, Asura rasped:
"Damn it... He's insanely strong..."
Tears welled in the eyes of the two gods as they nodded silently. It was the same shared frustration, but deep down, the meaning behind it had shifted.
"I am definitely going to land a hit on that bastard!"
Without bothering to wipe away his blurred vision, Asura shouted at the top of his lungs. Aside from becoming the strongest King, it was perhaps the first true goal he had ever set his sights on.