Caelus stood atop the canopy of the Six Paths Samsara Ambrosial Arbor that pierced through the void, his grey hair and hem snapping in the energy storm, his molten-gold eyes gazing down upon the battlefield.
The chaotic behemoth, the Five King, roared. Slifer the Sky Dragon circled the heavens, its thunder-summoning bombs charged and ready; Obelisk the Tormentor stood upon the earth, its divine fist clenched tight.
Without the slightest panic or fear, a curve rose at the corner of Caelus's mouth. He slowly spread his arms, his magnetic voice resounding through heaven and earth in all directions.
"I come to save."
"I come to shoulder."
"I come to bear."
"I let the birds soar into the high skies, crossing childhood, playing the song of Finality, offering everything to——"
"The Aeon of Finality!"
On the main trunk of the Ambrosial Arbor, those countless crimson nine-magatama Rinnegan instantly blazed with a light eerie to the utmost, and an immense, matchless spatial repulsion, like an invisible giant hand, came crashing down thunderously upon the roaring Five King.
——Shinra Tensei!
The Five King's massive body abruptly stalled, as if mired in a viscous swamp of space-time. The howls from its five heads carried a trace of imprisoned fury, its movements visibly slowing.
The Ambrosial Arbor's roots, like activated giant pythons, drove their sharp fangs into the Five King's body, greedily devouring and sucking away the beast's mighty life energy and evil power, weakening its might.
"Sure, he now holds an honorary Glory P43-grade title in the Strategic Investment Department, but aside from me, Caelus hasn't met a single colleague from any other department. Who told him all that?"
The amber Topaz in her hand radiated a warm, resilient glow, raising a barrier to fend off the shockwaves scattering across the battlefield. Topaz tilted her head up at that figure atop the tree, murmuring in confusion.
She'd never even recited the department's lines, had she?
And who was this "Aeon of Finality"?
"And that Giant of Light... that kind of energy form and fighting style—just what sort of existence is it?"
Earlier, Topaz had only seen Ultraman on Xianzhou's news while gathering intel related to Caelus.
Now, with the Aether Spirits shifting from virtual to real, she finally realized just how special this unknown life form was.
Tiga, its whole body flowing with holy golden radiance, was like a moving beacon of light, calmly taking a step forward.
Facing the destructive thunder-summoning bombs the Sky Dragon rained down—like the wrath of the gods in the mythic age—Tiga neither dodged nor evaded.
Boom, boom, boom, boom——!
Each bolt held terrifying energy enough to vaporize mountains. The thunder, dense as a downpour, slammed viciously against the Shining Body Shield, erupting into eardrum-shattering roars and turbulent energy.
Yet that seemingly flimsy barrier of light, like the sturdiest Wall of Sighs, merely rippled in faint layers, ————!
Of course, this was not the truly Idealist Shining Tiga that gathered the light of hope or the light of the heart.
Not even Bronita could create that kind of miraculous power.
It was merely the Shining Mode—Tiga's ultimate-output state, entered after fully unleashing its light-energy reserves under the special chip protocol support Bronita provided.
The Shining Body Shield, meanwhile, was a high-intensity energy defense protocol Bronita designed based on Shining Tiga. Though it lacked the absolute invincibility of Idealist power, its defensive performance already ranked among the finest on the current battlefield.
Only...
Caelus glanced at the residual thunder bolts deflected by the Shining Body Shield.
That runaway energy hadn't fully dissipated; instead it slanted off and blasted into a distant viewing platform.
BOOM!!!
A scorched crater several hundred meters in diameter exploded open, scalding blasts of air carrying molten metal shards and soil surging skyward. Good thing Topaz had her barrier—but the aftershocks still needed to be kept in check.
"How about it? My friend, surprised?"
Giovanni spread his arms and let out an utterly delighted laugh.
"Quality answer: bored out of my mind."
Caelus curled his lip.
"Ahaha~ What a heartbreaking answer that is!"
So said Giovanni, yet his tone couldn't have cared less. He gave an exaggerated bow with an elegant spin, a smile brimming with malice on his face.
"This game has no quit button now, but you don't need the hassle of clearing all one hundred floors~ You only need to, right here——"
Straightening up, he lightly tapped his own temple with a finger, his eyes gleeful:
"Defeat me, and the Aether Spirits' realized state will be lifted."
"This~ is a special privilege that belongs to you alone, you know!"
A drawn-out tone, a brilliant smile.
"Did you rename yourself Giovanni Akihiko Kayaba?"
Caelus asked, cupping his chin:
"Then if I admit defeat, can you let the data field of the realized Aether Spirits stay forever?"
Caelus, having spotted the catch, fixed his blazing gaze on the tall, burly Giant of Light and the Mashin Mecha.
"If you tossed these onto a construction site, how many laborers could a single Ultraman replace?"
Especially Tiga, whose number of skills couldn't be counted, and the all-purpose Master Gao.
"Duck-Duck was complaining to me the other day that Belobog is developing way too fast and there's already a severe labor shortage. And Belobog really is sparsely populated right now—these Aether Spirits are exactly what we need to solve the pressing crisis!"
"So many Aether Spirits—drag them all off to the construction sites to pour concrete, out to the wilds to break new ground—how efficient that'd be."
Caelus chuckled.
If he had the choice, he didn't want to play Pokémon.
I wanna play Phantom Beast Pal!
"And besides..."
Caelus's sharp gaze caught a corner of the spectator stands.
On the way here, he'd already seen many trainers with pretty waifu-type and furry Aether Spirits, as well as Gardevoir-like Aether Spirits.
And now, discovering that their own Aether Spirits had become real!
There was actually a trainer who, right in front of the surrounding spectators, began performing acts on his beautiful Gardevoir- and Diancie-like Aether Spirits that would need to be censored to pass review.
Was he planning to move to another planet to live after the tournament?
Bronie scanned it with Aether Editing.
Damn, and it's even male!
Its skills were [Charm][Lick][Water Gun]...
Are these seriously the skills for raising a normal Aether Spirit, you bastard?
With skills like these, gender really didn't matter—and a male wouldn't get pregnant, either...
Humanity's fetishes truly are limitless!
"Of course you can. But if you lose, all the Aether Spirits will gain their own will, and the protocol forbidding them from harming humans will fail too, you know."
Giovanni laughed.
"Fine~ fine, then I'll play along with you."
Caelus sighed with regret.
In that case, it wouldn't be Phantom Beast Pal anymore, but a tower-defense game to stop the monsters from storming the city.
"Since they've all become real existences, then..."
Caelus performed a Leap of Faith from the kilometer-high canopy. Below, the towering Super Granzort abruptly raised its head.
From the center of its enormous crown, a beam of pure azure light shot skyward, precisely enveloping the plummeting Caelus like a guiding celestial ladder, drawing him into the core cockpit.
"I'm going in too!"
A hexagram energy array lit up beneath Caelus's feet. He stood steadily at the array's center and raised a hand in an empty grip.
A divine sword flowing with lava's radiance slowly rose from the array's core, gripped firmly in his hand.
"So the sun will not set, I fly up to the heavens and seize away your light."
Caelus produced a limited chip crafted by Bronita, pressing one onto the Super Magical Sword while the other turned into a streak of light shooting toward the distant Sword King Ryujinmaru.
"Unconcerned with choice, unconcerned with survival or ruin."
Struck by the chip, the Sword King Ryujinmaru regressed to its original Ryujinmaru form, and the King's Sword in its hand—which could cut through anything—became a meteor, crossing space to precisely collide and fuse with the Super Magical Sword in Caelus's grip.
Amid a soul-shaking clang of gold and iron, a flaming greatsword appeared, wreathed all over in world-burning flames, capable of severing space, time, and fate.
"In this moment, the ideals of the multitude converge into a single grand wish."
Light energy and lava erupted, gathering and taking shape behind the Mashin, forming a great red cape woven from magma and radiant flame, snapping in the wind and draping down with majesty.
"Brahma Mashin Drive, bestowed upon this body—the Sword King enters the abyss, drawing the blade to save the world."
Caelus, piloting the Super Granzort clad in its magma-and-light-flame cape, pointed the world-saving-flame-burning greatsword in his hand straight at Giovanni, who stood atop Obelisk the Tormentor's head:
"Step forth—this is the Emblem of Salvation!"
Cling——!
The blade's edge abruptly turned, the flaming greatsword pointing at the vast heavens with resolute momentum!
This magnificent posture—like a messiah descending in myth—was livestreamed without the slightest delay, by ultra-high-definition cameras placed at every angle of the arena, to every corner of the entire Galaxy Network!
The bullet-comments of the interstellar broadcast utterly exploded!
After all, the Victory Gala was itself the hottest gaming event—more popular than League of Legends at its peak back on Shenzhou on Earth—and the reach of the interstellar broadcast was unimaginably vast.
Countless star systems, countless civilizations, countless spectators held their breath in this instant.
Astral Express, observation carriage.
Old Yang was being forced to hold a cup of coffee Himeko had brewed, watching the livestream on the holographic screen.
When Caelus's mission-laden cry of "This is the Emblem of Salvation!" came crashing in alongside the image of the greatsword pointing at the sky...
"Pfft——!"
He snapped his eyes shut, fingers pressing hard against his throbbing brow.
Several seconds passed before he drew a deep, deep breath, as if to suck up all the air in the entire carriage, and only then slowly opened his eyes, a mixed expression of weariness and something indescribable on his face.
"Is something the matter?"
Beside him, Himeko—elegantly sipping her coffee—asked with concern, her gaze shifting from the livestream to Old Yang.
"No."
Welt shook his head, his voice carrying a faint, almost imperceptible fatigue:
"It's just a strong bout of déjà vu, causing hallucinations and auditory illusions, that's all."
"..."
Himeko's expression instantly turned peculiar.
This was well past the level of merely "not feeling well," wasn't it?
The arena.
Slifer the Sky Dragon sensed the threat. It opened its ferocious dragon maw, gathering thunderlight and spewing forth devastating golden lightning that ravaged everything in its path!
"Damo Kosakuramu—Sky-Covering Divine Dragon!"
The earth split open like a boiling furnace.
A three-headed dragon, formed of lava-light condensed to the extreme and carrying terrifying heat capable of incinerating all things, bore the Super Sword King Warrior soaring into the sky.
The Sword King Magical Sword, carrying flame that could burn away the very heavens, sliced through the sky and met, with flawless precision, the Thunderforce Attack brimming with divine-punishment power from the Sky Dragon's maw.
Skreee——BOOM!!!
Sword and thunderstorm collided thunderously in midair, the violent energy shockwave spreading like a nuclear blast, tearing the cloud layer utterly apart.
The close-range explosion caused a backlash upon the Sky Dragon. It let out an agonized wail toward the heavens, its massive dragon body sent tumbling by the blast's aftershock.
The lava divine dragon beneath the Super Granzort's feet roared, carrying Caelus to chase down the off-balance Sky Dragon in midair like a maggot clinging to bone—chasing and slashing!
On the other side.
The myriad Rinnegan on the main trunk of the Six Paths Samsara Ambrosial Arbor flickered with cold, arcane light—Rinnegan · Divine Fruit of Abundance—the outer-body avatar.
This was the ability Phantylia had once used, splitting off a clone with strength close to her own.
Main body and clone alike, the Ambrosial Arbor's roots transformed into myriad divine dragons, coiling overwhelmingly toward the Obelisk the Tormentor that struggled to break free of its bonds!
Six Paths · Preta Realm—energy absorption.
Abundance Dark Lotus, Destruction Dark Lotus!
Suspended Stars, Shattered Moon!
Tengai Shinsei!
The attacks of clone and main body poured down upon the Giant God Soldier like a rainstorm. The Dark Lotuses bloomed and brought annihilation; starlight fell like a meteor cataclysm, as enormous, flame-burning meteors were forcibly summoned from beyond the heavens, smashing viciously into the bound Giant God Soldier.
Tiga · Shining Eternity Form's enormous palm, flowing with holy golden radiance, clamped like an iron vise around the Five King's thick tail—the one belonging to Super C.O.V.
"Cha!"
Shining Tiga let out a battle roar, wrenching the Five King's massive body clean off the ground.
Boom!
The first heavy slam—the earth shattered like a fragile cracker.
Boom!
The second heavy slam—the shockwave leveled the surrounding ruins.
Like a giant sandbag, the Five King was violently and repeatedly slammed against the earth by Shining Tiga.
The Shining Fist struck heavily at Eye-Q.
The second brother was no more, so let the eldest brother help him beat up Eye-Q.
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