Deer King

The **Deer King** appeared in 2015 manga called *Toriko*. The Deer King (鹿王 *Kaō*) is the only known and the world's strongest Sky Deer as one of the legendary Eight Kings, presiding over Gourmet World's Area 5, where it protects NEWS, Acacia's Full Course Menu Meat Dish.

The Deer King is a dark- and smooth-skinned deer creature of gargantuan size, enough to be able to casually trample over mountain ranges with a casual forward march. It is most distinguished by its massive forest that grows along its back akin to a mane, being the highest on its head and growing lower, lesser towards the back. Out of the mane's top jut the tips of a few dozen thin, light-colored antlers, several of which are two-pronged. That aside, the Deer King's skin is orange, scarred, and it has a face veiny to the sides and elongated due to its long nose, as well as long ears whose tips are covered in the mane, heavy nasal and eyebrow muscles, and very slanted eyes, which have dark scleras and light, pupil-less irises, and look somewhat feminine due to their long eyelashes. Finally, the deer has at least 14 powerful legs in pairs, which due to the long torso appear quite short in comparison.

The forest spreading on its horns and back is known as the Food Region Forest.

While not much is known about the Deer King, it is lauded in narration as the calmest, gentlest member of the Eight Kings. Such demeanor is preserved by the several hundreds of mighty creatures living on its back, which prefer banding together and fighting anything that dares nearing the Deer King in its stead to seeing the king enraged, for they fear its incredible power.

During the Human World conflict, the Eight Kings sensed a new power coming, that being Toriko's. Despite sensing the almost insignificant power, all of the Eight Kings became aware of it.

Just after the Heavenly Kings, Komatsu, and the Hex Food Beast Knights captured AIR, Heracles takes no chance of missing an opportunity to give birth, so she quickly ends the battle between her and Toriko and proceeds to consume the high amounts of fresh air that has blanketed Area 8. After giving birth, the new foal proceeds to travel on the Rainbow Bridges and once more revives the age old tradition of the Herac Response. As the foal lets out its mighty voice to let its presence be known, the Deer King, along with the rest of the Eight Kings, hears the call of the young Herac.

As "Whale King" Moon makes its move on Gourmet World, Zebra, in Area 5, becomes alert as the very land that he and Tengu Brunch are traveling on begin to move. Sensing the Whale King's movements, the Deer King awakens from its slumber and begins to make its own move as well, traveling the lands while carrying Zebra and Brunch on its back.

When the Blue Nitro's attempt to keep the demon Neo docile within Acacia fail, seven parts of the demon revive and Neo scatters them across the world. One of the demons that was scattered lands on the continents of Area 5, the land where NEWS is located. The Deer King senses the presence of the demon and the creatures on its back become active as they prepare to fight for their king.

Unfortunately hundreds of these fierce guardians fall prey to the ravenous appetite of Neo's demon part, and this triggers the anger of the Deer King, who proceeds to utterly decimate the Neo piece into complete nothingness through manipulating space-time itself, swiftly ending the threat in a matter of seconds.

The Deer King joins the other Eight Kings in attacking Acacia.

## Powers and Abilities

As one of the Eight Kings, the Deer King is among the strongest creatures alive, its Capture Level ranking fourth highest among the eight, at 6450, just below the Wolf King's, the Dragon King's, and the Whale King's.

A prominent hint to its tremendous power lies in the very ecosystem atop its back, narration describing its forested mane as the "foremost nest of mighty beasts in Gourmet World." The forest houses hundreds of Gourmet World's strongest predators, most of which have Capture Levels beyond 4000, including such beasts as a purebred Devil Serpent and a purebred Ashurasaurus (which have Capture Levels of 5100 and 4990 respectively and can harm even a Neo-powered Acacia), or a King Land Shark (which would not hesitate attacking another of the Eight Kings). All those beasts collaborate in fighting on the Deer King's behalf so as to have it not get mad by any means, not wanting to experience its "truly dangerous" powers.

Otherwise, the Deer King's offense includes firing blasts of electricity-like energy, most likely Appetite Energy, from its eyes towards a target in a ray-like fashion. It is first used to stop Neo from eating a bit of GOD, shooting the blasts alongside massive attacks from the other Eight Kings. Those attacks cause a vast explosion equal to a sizable portion of the Earth, but fail to harm Neo in any way, since the latter reached its true power through GOD moments before.

Besides, like the other seven Kings, upon confrontation against another extremely powerful creature, most often of a "king" species as well, the Deer King will cause a vast Emperor Ring to be formed in the skies. Also, while seemingly lacking any kind of potent Intimidation while calm, it is hailed as being actually able to cause such strong Intimidation that it implants itself into the very ground, making the very ground afraid, from a mere footprint, while remaining so potent that even after thousands of years, that footprint will emanate so strongly with the Intimidation that even descendants of the Eight Kings or the Four Heavenly Kings will tremble and sweat in fear from being near it. On the contrary, when in a good mood, the land where the Deer King will have tread may become a veritable paradise for beasts of all kinds to gather.

* **Back Channel:** If the Sky Deer does get angry by any chance, it can conjure up and trap its opposition in a unique Back Channel that speeds up the passage of time rather than slow it like a normal one. This acceleration rapidly ages and starves the target; however, the effects can be countered by another Back Channel. The act of creation also happens incredibly fast, catching off-guard a piece of Neo and even Acacia. The space is quite massive, exceeding the Deer King's own size and requiring a few seconds for Acacia to escape. The acceleration of time is variable: when the Deer King confronts a piece of Neo, hundreds of millions of years pass in a few seconds and when the Deer King confronts Acacia, a thousand years pass per second. Additionally, the Deer King can have select creatures, presumably itself included, be completely unaffected by the time acceleration.
* **Awareness:** The Deer King, along with the other of the Eight Kings, has a "sensitivity" to nature far superior to all others, allowing it to sense the minutest occurrences of whatever kind might affect it negatively from across the globe, all in the name of self-preservation. Being able to sense and anticipate such dangerous events as natural disasters, predatory threats, or even just changes in weather or the rise in power of far weaker beings than itself (namely Toriko at the time) is what has set the Deer King apart from its relatives, and what allowed it to respond accordingly to oncoming extinctions several times.