Kaion woke up to the sound of Grin yelling, "Kaion! Get up, you lazy lump of cosmic chaos! There's a giant chicken on the roof again!"
Kaion groaned, pulling his blanket over his head. "Tell the chicken to take a number. I'm on vacation."
"Vacation?" Grin burst into his room, holding a frying pan. "You've been 'on vacation' for three weeks! The world doesn't stop just because you beat the Voidbringer, you know. There are consequences to messing with cosmic forces!"
Kaion sat up, rubbing his eyes. "What consequences? We stopped the Voidbringer, saved the universe, and I even got my shirt cleaned. Mission accomplished."
Grin smacked the frying pan against the wall for emphasis. "Yeah, except for the part where the Voidbringer's defeat left a power vacuum, and now every two-bit villain, rogue demigod, and giant mutant chicken thinks they can take over the universe!"
Kaion blinked. "Wait... the chicken's mutant now?"
"Yes!" Grin said, exasperated. "It's glowing and breathing fire!"
Kaion swung his legs out of bed, stretching. "Alright, alright. Let me grab my hero T-shirt."
"No time for that," Grin snapped. "Just get outside before the town becomes a giant omelet."
Kaion stumbled out of his room, still half-asleep, and joined Raya and Selene in the street. They were already mid-battle, dodging streams of fire as the enormous, feathered monstrosity clucked menacingly from the rooftop.
"Finally decided to join us, huh?" Raya said, slicing through a smaller flaming chicken with her energy blade. "What were you doing? Napping through the apocalypse?"
"Hey, I earned that nap!" Kaion protested, summoning his energy to deflect a fireball. "Did you see what I went through last season?"
Selene rolled her eyes. "Focus, you two! This isn't just some random mutant chicken. Look at its eyes."
Kaion squinted. The chicken's glowing red eyes seemed unnervingly familiar. "Wait... is that... Void energy?"
"Exactly," Selene said. "It's like a remnant of the Voidbringer's power. We didn't destroy it completely. It's leaking into the world and corrupting everything it touches."
"Great," Kaion muttered. "So, we save the universe, and now it's falling apart because of leftovers?"
"Less complaining, more fighting!" Raya yelled, leaping onto the chicken's back and wrestling it to the ground. "We need to figure out how to contain this stuff before it spreads!"
Kaion sighed, launching an energy blast at the chicken. It squawked loudly, flapping its fiery wings and sending feathers everywhere. One particularly large feather smacked Kaion in the face, leaving him spluttering.
"Feathers! Why does it always have to be feathers?" he grumbled.
Grin appeared next to him, holding a makeshift flamethrower. "You think this is bad? Wait until you see what's happening in the next town. They've got a Void-infused duck."
Kaion stared at him. "You're kidding."
"Wish I was," Grin said, lighting up the flamethrower. "This is just the beginning."
With a final combined effort, the team managed to subdue the mutant chicken. It dissolved into a cloud of dark energy, which Selene quickly trapped in a glowing crystal.
"That's one down," she said, looking at the crystal with concern. "But there's more where this came from. We need to find the source of this Void energy before it tears the universe apart."
Kaion groaned. "Can't we just have one week without a crisis?"
"Apparently not," Raya said, patting him on the back. "Welcome to being a hero."