The silence was louder than the explosions.
In the wake of Hollow Purple, a strip of the world was simply gone. No crater, no dust, no lingering energy. Just a clean, geometric cut into nothing. The air rushed in to fill the void, creating a low, mournful whistle. The new, integrated laws of reality settled into place like stones in a riverbed, heavy and permanent.
Goku blinked, the blue aura of Super Saiyan fading. He could feel it now. Gojo, the blindfolded one, felt… wrong. A humming, negative energy that was completely alien to ki, yet Goku could now perceive it as a tangible presence. A threat.
Gojo, in turn, saw the world with new eyes. His Six Eyes, already capable of processing information on a divine level, were now flooded with a different kind of data. He could see Goku's power, not just as a swirling mass of cursed-energy-like potential, but with a horrifying, almost numerical clarity. The reading was absurd. It broke his internal scale. And the bald one… the question mark next to Saitama's name in his mind had just gotten bigger, bolder, and was now flashing in bright, angry red.
A choked sob cut through the quiet.
Magna Swing was sitting up, his body thankfully back to normal, but his eyes were wide with a terror that had been carved directly onto his soul. He was trembling violently, looking at his own hands as if they belonged to a stranger. "I felt it," he whispered, tears streaming down his face. "I felt my soul… stretch. He was playing with it. Like it was dough."
Asta knelt beside him, his usual boisterous energy gone, replaced by a grim, protective silence. He placed a hand on Magna's shoulder. There was nothing he could say. "I'll kill them all," Asta swore, his voice a low growl. "Every last one of them."
"Not helping, you muscle-bound idiot," Noelle snapped, though her voice lacked its usual bite. She was just as shaken.
Kazuma peeked out from behind Darkness. He stared at the erased landscape, then at the traumatized Magna. His face was pale. "Nope. Nuh-uh. That's it. I quit." He stood up, dusted off his tracksuit, and started walking in a random direction. "This is a God-Tier problem. I'm a Tier-F adventurer with a gaggle of morons. We're out. Find someone else to save the multiverse."
Aqua gasped, pointing an accusing finger at him. "Kazuma! You can't abandon these poor, defiled souls in their time of need!"
"Watch me!" he shot back. "My contract doesn't cover fighting monsters who can turn you into a screaming flesh-pretzel by patting you on the back!"
He'd only taken three steps when his path was blocked by Gojo, who had appeared in front of him instantly. "Sorry, tracksuit," Gojo said, his lazy smile back but not quite reaching his eyes. "No one's going anywhere. You saw what happened. The system designated us 'participants'. You don't get to quit a game when the planet you're standing on is the console."
Meanwhile, Anos Voldigoad was studying the air, a faint shimmer of a system screen still visible only to his eyes. "This Harmonization… it is not a random clash," he stated, his voice drawing the attention of the other powerhouses. "It was a diagnostic. It deployed a threat that attacks the soul and another of overwhelming physical force. The Axiom is not just merging worlds. It is testing them. Stress-testing our laws of reality to see which ones are dominant."
"So it's… learning?" Tanjiro asked, helping a still-dazed Mob to his feet.
"It is forging a weapon," Anos corrected him. "A new, singular reality with the most effective and destructive principles from all of us. Imagine a world where everyone possesses the limitless growth potential of ki and the soul-damaging power of cursed energy. This isn't a war. It's an arms race, and we are the ammunition."
This profound, terrifying analysis was immediately interrupted.
"So when you hit him," Goku said, his face inches from Saitama's, his eyes sparkling with pure focus, "it wasn't ki, right? But I felt it! It was like you punched him so hard, the idea of you hitting him hit his soul! Can you do that again? On me, this time? Just a little tap!"
Saitama looked at Goku. He looked at the erased landscape. He looked at the crying magical knight and the bickering isekai party. "I am so lost," he muttered to himself. He turned to Anos. "You. Mr. Rule-Changer. Can you just make a door back to my apartment?"
"Even I cannot create a door to a place whose fundamental laws no longer exist in a stable state," Anos said. "Your world is here. It is simply… interwoven. Your apartment may now be inside that mountain, or at the bottom of an ocean that appeared five minutes ago."
Saitama's face fell. The look of utter defeat was more profound than any battle rage.
A blue screen materialized in front of everyone again. The sterile female voice echoed in their minds.
[ANALYSIS OF PHASE ONE COMPLETE.]
[PARTICIPANT DATA LOGGED.]
[THREAT-NULLIFICATION ABILITIES RECORDED: [ANTI-MAGIC], [SUN BREATHING], [CONCEPTUAL PUNCH].]
[REALITY-WARPING ABILITIES RECORDED: [SOURCE OF TYRANNY], [???%], [INFINITY].]
[UNKNOWN SINGULARITY RECORDED: [NORMAL PUNCH].]
Kazuma screamed. "It's taking our data! It's analyzing us!"
Gojo frowned. "So the system has a name for what you did, baldy. 'Conceptual Punch'. Catchy. It's completely wrong, but catchy."
[THE AXIOM'S GOAL IS ABSOLUTE. THE CONVERGENCE PROTOCOL WILL PROCEED.]
[CONTINUED INSTABILITY DETECTED. MULTIPLE REALITY FAULT LINES IDENTIFIED.]
[PRIORITY THREAT: DIMENSIONAL COLLAPSE IMMINENT AT COORDINATES [JURA-NAZARICK BORDERLANDS].]
Rimuru Tempest, miles away in his newly shielded city, saw the message. He stood up, his expression hardening. His barrier was holding, but the pressure on it had just quadrupled.
Deep within his tomb, Ainz Ooal Gown read the message on a screen projected by his magic. He gripped the arms of his throne, his internal monologue a symphony of high-pitched terror. "Nazarick?! A fault line is on my doorstep?! Is it a bug? A raid boss? A GUILD INVASION?!"
The voice continued, its tone never changing.
[PHASE TWO WILL INITIATE TO PREVENT CATASTROPHE.]
[OBJECTIVE: SEAL THE FAULT LINE.]
[METHOD: HARMONIZATION ZONES WILL MANIFEST ALONG THE FAULT LINE. CLEARING THESE ZONES WILL REINFORCE THE LOCAL REALITY.]
[FAILURE TO SEAL THE FAULT LINE WILL RESULT IN THE CASCADING UNRAVELING OF THE JURA-NAZARICK SECTOR.]
[ESTIMATED CASUALTIES: UNCALCULABLE.]
A countdown timer appeared on the screen.
[TIME UNTIL SYSTEMIC UNRAVELING BEGINS: 23:59:58]
Twenty-four hours.
Gojo ran a hand through his white hair. "A ticking clock. Great. It really is a death game."
He turned to the disorganized, traumatized, and ridiculously overpowered mob of beings around him. "Alright, listen up, you collection of plot devices and comic relief," he said, his voice taking on a tone of authority. "Here's the new plan. We find this… Jura-Nazarick place. We punch whatever stupid glowing things the system throws at us. We stop the world from ending for at least another day. And maybe, just maybe, somewhere along the way, we find whoever's in charge of this whole mess."
He looked directly at Saitama and Anos.
"And then we see if they can survive a punch."