The moment Goku's tongue made contact with Ea—the Sword of Rupture, the pinnacle of Gilgamesh's treasury—the universe didn't just break. It hiccuped.
A sound like a dial-up modem screaming into a megaphone echoed through the Nexus Mall.
"MY TREASURE!" Gilgamesh shrieked, his arrogant composure completely shattering. He dropped his golden goblet of wine. "YOU DEFILED A DIVINE CONSTRUCT WITH MONKEY SALIVA! I WILL ERASE YOU FROM THE THRONE OF HEROES!"
"Wow," Goku mumbled, his tongue turning numb. "This jawbreaker is really spicy! It tastes like... geometry."
The Resolution Drop
Suddenly, the world flickered.
"Uh oh," Deadpool said, holding his hands up. "Soum! Tum better check your internet connection! We're losing bandwidth!"
The high-definition, cel-shaded anime reality instantly dropped to 144p. Everyone's faces became blurry smudges.
Then, it dropped again. 8-Bit Mode.
"MY POLYGONS!" Deadpool screamed. He was now a collection of chunky red and black squares. He looked down at his pixelated hands. "I look like I belong in a 1980s arcade cabinet! Where are my beautiful, expressive eyes?! How am I supposed to convey complex emotional trauma with only three pixels?!"
Saitama looked completely unchanged. His bald head was just a smooth, white, 8-bit circle. "Honestly, this is fine," he said in a retro, synthesized voice. "Less detail means I don't have to worry about drawing my facial expressions."
The Ufotable Spike
Gilgamesh was vibrating with 8-bit fury. "I REFUSE TO BE RENDERED IN THIS PEASANT FORMAT! GATE OF BABYLON!"
Gilgamesh pumped so much magical energy into his treasury that he accidentally hijacked the entire fanfic's budget.
In a flash of blinding light, the 8-bit world shattered, replaced by the "Unlimited Budget Works" art style.
Everything was suddenly hyper-detailed. The mall floor reflected light like a wet mirror. Sparks flew through the air in slow motion. Even the dust particles had individual shadows.
"Whoa!" Tanjiro (Demon Slayer) yelled, swinging his sword just to watch the beautiful, glowing water effects trail behind it. "This feels like home! Look at the dynamic lighting on my forehead scar!"
"Oh, thank god," Deadpool sighed, rubbing his now incredibly detailed, high-resolution spandex. "Tum really came through with the Patreon donations, Soum! We look expensive! I can see the individual fibers on Goku's torn shirt!"
The Chains of Heaven (and Spatulas)
Gilgamesh wasn't finished. "You will pay for your insolence, spiky-haired mongrel!"
Golden portals opened all around Goku. Glowing, divine chains—Enkidu, the Chains of Heaven—shot out, wrapping around Goku faster than he could chew. In seconds, the Super Saiyan was bundled up like a very muscular, orange burrito.
"Hey, I can't move!" Goku laughed, squirming against the divine chains. "Are we playing a game? Because I'm getting kind of hungry again."
"Die, ape!" Gilgamesh roared, pulling a massive, golden halberd from the portal.
Before Gilgamesh could strike, a hand tapped him on his golden armor.
It was Saitama. He was holding the solid gold bar Gilgamesh had thrown at him earlier, along with a high-end, non-stick cooking spatula he had just grabbed from a nearby Williams-Sonoma store.
"Excuse me," Saitama said, his face returning to its simplified, blank expression despite the hyper-detailed lighting around him. "Do you have change for this? The register is empty, and I need this spatula. I'm going to make okonomiyaki later."
Gilgamesh slowly turned his head. "A bald commoner... dares to interrupt my vengeance... for kitchenware?"
"It's a really good spatula," Saitama defended. "It's heat-resistant up to 500 degrees."
The CGI Nightmare
"Cueball, don't provoke him!" Deadpool yelled, running over and trying to pull Saitama back. "He's got that 'I-summon-dragons-for-fun' look in his eyes!"
"I WILL INCINERATE YOU BOTH!" Gilgamesh screamed, his anger overloading the budget once again.
The beautiful, high-definition lighting sparked, sputtered, and died.
"No, no, no!" Deadpool panicked, slapping the fourth wall. "Soum! Tum gotta do something! He's draining the server!"
The screen went black for a split second. When the lights came back on, the unthinkable had happened.
The animation had turned into... Terrible, Early-2000s 3D CGI.
Everyone looked like shiny, poorly-rigged plastic dolls. Their mouths moved completely out of sync with their words.
"Oh god," Deadpool gasped, his CGI model clipping through the floor. "It's... it's the Berserk 2016 anime style! Or worse... Ex-Arm! My mouth is moving but the words are coming out two seconds later!"
"What... is... happening... to... my... muscles?" Goku asked, his low-poly arms awkwardly flapping against the CGI chains.
Gilgamesh looked down at his golden armor, which now looked like it was smeared with yellow mustard. For the first time, the King of Heroes looked truly terrified.
"My... my beauty... it has been... downgraded!"