Solo versus squad—nay, scratch that, it’s solo versus an entire army.

That was more or less the nature of the struggle against the Civilization Annihilation Game by Kagaseo, the kami of the Stars who was also known as Amatsu-Mikaboshi, the August Star of Heaven.

Originally seen as merely an irrelevant kami from an insignificant planet who was coping on his own fault of getting too attached to the mortals who worshipped him and grieved a great deal upon their extinction, Kagaseo earned the ire of the entire establishment after he forcefully broke in out of nowhere and stole the Game’s property, Astarte, in the midst of a torture-themed side content called Gaiden created through the Audience’s voting before the main part Nihonkoku Shoukan storyline started. As she was the focal point of the Gaiden, Astarte’s theft enraged the Audience. The clamor for her immediate return echoed, but this cocky kami thwarted every attempt to reclaim her so far, eliminating enforcers sent by the Game for retrieval. With each encounter, the Game recognized this interloper’s escalating threat level, fueling both its growing realization and hatred toward him: Amatsu-Mikaboshi is an unrealistic kami and thus deserved cold-hard annihilation from existence like the obscure deity he was supposed to be.

However, Kagaseo covered his tracks and hid his existence well, causing the Game’s enforcers to grasp at straws trying to locate him and retrieve their stolen property.

❖⟐❖⟐❖

“WHERE ARE YOU……?”

“WE WILL FIND YOU……”

“NO ONE IS SAFE……”

“THE GAME MUST COMMENCE……”

He had just seen Meteos Roguerider off, but as he was confronted with a widening crack in space-time before him, Kagaseo took a deep breath and readied himself for the impending confrontation, feeling a sensation akin to a heart beating hard as the thrill of the fight kicked in due to his chosen form of that of a human.

“This is getting tiresome, but let the culling begin,” he growled.

To avoid the Game’s attention as much as possible, he made every effort to veil the disruptions he caused on others, such as the ongoing one at Ars Goetia and the imminent interference plan on his newfound allies’ planet, Yggdra. However, Kagaseo’s use of divine power would inevitably make him flash like a beacon amidst the cosmos that the Game can track, and it appeared that his adversaries were slowly becoming more adept at trying to pinpoint his location. Kagaseo’s allies from Yggdra, Ashir and Mirook, still needed to be brought up to speed before they could become a proper resistance force, while Astarte, the only ‘god’ who allowed Kagaseo to consider the world they governed as his home, was still incapacitated. Ultimately, Kagaseo found himself as the sole pillar of reliance in this situation for now.

Beneath Kagaseo’s continued observation, the crack finally fractured like shattered glass, allowing the black tendrils of rot and darkness to burst forth to swipe at the Star God. Yet with ease, he simply sidestepped to avoid the predictable attack, and not long after that the tendrils immediately retreated into the rift in space-time. Having observed the move many times, Kagaseo recognized it as a preliminary move before whatever entity waiting inside that hole emerged and made its intentions clear.

‘…It’s just a distraction,’ Kagaseo shook his head, immediately leaping high to avoid a blast that he sensed to have come from behind him. With a blue-tinted explosion of energy flashing from the corner of his vision, Kagaseo landed and quickly somersaulted backward, dodging the roundhouse kick of a red armored boot inches from his face. Then, following his instincts, his hand shot out to deflect a punch that came from a black armored gauntlet. A roaring sound like a small explosion reverberated the moment Kagaseo’s follow-up straight kick met this assailant’s chest, loud amidst the stillness of the ethereal space he and his uninvited guests were in.

The being(?) who was the receiving end of Kagaseo’s powerful attack retreated and floated a meter from the ground alongside two others like them. A grin began to form on Kagaseo’s face. For the Amatsukami who banished him from ancient Japan, he was seen as a savage just like how the Yamut regarded the Linto tribe who worshipped him. However, he couldn’t help himself from grinning like mad.

“It’s going to be a big haul, eh?” amidst a sense of mounting fatigue, Kagaseo remarked in a taunting tone. Despite his relaxed stance, however, he was on guard, eyeing the three enemies facing him one by one.

Floating in the air and spaced a few steps apart from each other, these unwanted visitors were humanoid in shape, decked from head to toe in a suit of armor that instead made them look more like mechanical lifeforms than man. The middle one’s armor was predominantly blue, with a red-armored companion on its right and a black one—the one whom he had just kicked—whose glowing eyes seemed to be eyeing him heatedly from its position on the left side. Each assailant’s design was unique enough to distinguish one from the other, but Kagaseo was rather uninterested in scrutinizing such nuances too closely.

“The Cocky One. We come here in fresh condition and outnumber you, fatigued from your resistance, three to one,” in response to Kagaseo, the middle one spoke in an emotionless middle-aged male voice. The way it was distorted made the words this being uttered sound incredibly grating to the Star God’s ears. “The implication of your statement is illogical.”

“Well, sorry, friend,” Kagaseo spat. “It just so happened that I have a nasty habit of defying others’ expectations. And the most gleeful I’ll be is when I do that to the Game’s enforcers like you.”

“Why are you keep doing this?”

Kagaseo turned his head toward the red-armored one.

“What you’re doing is ultimately pointless. Sooner or later, we will eventually put your temper tantrum at an end. Return the stolen property now, cease your resistance, and surrender, then we will spare your existence.”

Its eyes, emitting an intense yellowish glow that it shared with the others, found itself gazing at a pair of lavender orbs filled with defiance.

Kagaseo was inwardly filled with satisfaction. As a fruit of his efforts, nobody in the Civilization Annihilation Game seemed to realize what he was truly doing. Evidently, these goons only thought of him as a random deity who appeared out of nowhere and swiped Astarte from their possession for no discernible reason. It was, in fact, a simple concept. Achieving maximum results with minimal effort. Unlike the Game, who only dabbled in the thought of making spectacular disruptions to a system just to farm mortal suffering, giving one random soul memory from another life seemed… negligible. They just don’t understand.

“Is that right? Then I have a counter-offer: first, you tell me the cave where Shamash is hiding so that I can kill her, meanwhile I get to keep Astarte and then I kill all of you right here and the Game loses its top scorers in one fell swoop. Now that’s a good deal, no?”

“Brainless ingrate!” the black one thundered. As it did so, an eerie red glow began to emanate from the lines of its armor. “I will teach a lesser being like you a lesson that you’ll never forget! You two! What are you waiting for!? Stop wasting time and kill him!”

“Yeah, that’s right. I have more pressing matters to attend to. I got no time to play around with you retards,” Kagaseo agreed, still with the same mocking tone.

“So be it.”

Lifting its right hand high, the blue one conjured a ball of energy and immediately hurled it toward Kagaseo. Despite its speed, the Star God effortlessly deflected the initial assault with a quick swing of his hand, transforming the sphere into countless fragments that harmlessly burst far behind him. Kagaseo’s grin widened a fraction.

Shifting his stance slightly, he then sprang into action, shooting upwards as an impossibly fast blur aiming for the blue one in the middle. However, just as the blue one reacted, trying to guard itself mere moments from the incoming impact, Kagaseo’s trajectory abruptly changed course, pulling a sharp ninety-degree turn to his left and into the red-armored one. Caught off guard by this maneuver, the red one found itself at the receiving end of a clothesline, a burst of immeasurable kinetic force sending it hurtling violently to the ground, kicking up a huge pillar of otherworldly sand cloud.

Realizing the diversion, the blue one quickly recovered and retaliated. It floated away to open a distance between them while unleashing a barrage of energy projectiles, aiming to pin Kagaseo down. With graceful moves, Kagaseo avoided them, seamlessly weaving between the blasts before retreating into the sand cloud that hid his form only for numerous orange projectiles to burst from the cloud, zooming into the two enemies still floating in the air. The bout then turned into a chaotic dance where the blue and black ones maneuvered violently to avoid the attacks that home in on them not unlike guided missiles, managing to shoot down a number of them in the process. However, there were still too many of them for the two to be fully safe.

At that moment, while the red one managed to regain its bearing on the ground, Kagaseo swooped in on it and unleashed a flurry of strikes. Despite the disorienting sensation that had yet to subside, the red one managed to hold its own against this rebellious god. When their limbs locked, the two’s eyes met, and the red one saw the spark of triumph in Kagaseo’s.

“So you’re one of the greatest players of the Game…” it heard the entity in front of it hissed with a devilish grin. “Hehehehahahah! I’ve been waiting for you to come after me! Taking even one of you down will be a big haul indeed!”

So this entity’s tactic was to single one of them out to thin their numbers, the red one concluded.

“Don’t get so full of yourself,” the red one retorted amidst the creaking noises of the armor that strained against the Star God’s pressure. “In the end not even fantasy gods will withstand the glory of—"

Kagaseo roared before it could finish.

“AAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!”

A burst of pain, and the red one wailed.

The Star God, still gripping the red one’s arms, yanked his hands outward at the same time the red one’s agonized screams came out, forcefully tearing both of the red one’s armored arms from its shoulders. Even as the red one’s blood, long since turned black as tar from whatever original color it had due to consuming copious amounts of mortal suffering, gushed violently from the grievous wounds, Kagaseo swung one of its own severed arms in a wide horizontal arc against the red one’s head like a grotesque weapon. The sound of metal beating against metal echoed, and the red one’s helmet cracked upon the impact letting black blood seep through it as well.

“………”

Staring at the battered, red-armored entity now dropping to its knees on the ground, Kagaseo felt a brief surge of grim satisfaction. However, the bout was not over yet.

Warned by his senses flaring, Kagaseo reacted, seizing the limp body of the red one and using it as a makeshift shield against another volley from the blue-armored one. The red armor, now marred and dripping with its own blackened blood, served as a shield against the onslaught. With each energy projectile that impacted the red one, Kagaseo felt the force reverberate through his improvised protection.

Amidst the unsettling sensation, the black-armored one descended from the air intending to swipe at him from above. In retaliation, Kagaseo hurled the red one’s body at it. However, the black one’s agility managed to avoid the makeshift projectile with a swift barrel roll in midair that left the red one crashing into the ground. Seizing the opportunity, the black one closed the distance between it and Kagaseo with incredible speed.

Readying himself on the ground, Kagaseo lunged forward and met the black one’s assault with a flying side kick. While they both recovered themselves from the ensuing impact, the Star God noticed the black one’s forearms began spewing jets of black flames before meeting its powered punch with his own. He then ducked, avoiding a diagonal swipe that was followed by another, deflecting it to open some distance from the black one.

Before the black one could ready another jet-powered strike, Kagaseo charged his right arm with light energy and capitalized the long windup the black one made to hit it square in the chest, repelling his wide-open enemy with great explosive force.

‘If this interloper could be eliminated here, at least Amatsu-Mikaboshi will no longer be a threat to the continuation of the Game,’ the blue one thought, observing the black one struggling against what was supposed to be an exhausted entity who had been through many fights. The red one, lying some distance away, was surprisingly still active. But the blue one couldn’t care less about it, nor the black one. In fact, it hated them both.

Unleashing another energy projectile attack, it fired at the moment Kagaseo and the black one began their clash again, engulfing them both in disorienting explosions. As soon as they subsided, the black one managed to block Kagaseo’s straight punch, but the Star God spun on his heel and swung his arm horizontally through it, once again slamming the careless black one right in the chest armor. His enemy immediately retaliated with its own attack, powered by the jet-black flames to form a long energy blade, but Kagaseo ducked and spun once again to deliver another horizontal chop to the black one’s open abdomen.

‘I can’t read his moves!? What is this!? I thought he’s supposed to be weak!?’

Unable to accept the fact that it had been overpowered by a lesser being multiple times, the black one snarled, its mouth plate splitting open with spewing black flames.

Kagaseo let his body drop, rolling to the side to avoid a dark beam. In retaliation, his hand shot out, launching an energy crescent that hit the black one and sent it flying.

“What is this? Even the top-scorer Gamers are surprisingly easy to dispatch,” the Star God taunted.

“Grr! You dare to mock me!? I won’t let things end like this!”

Observing Kagaseo relentlessly pressed against the black one, the blue one calculated the odds and decided that discretion was the better part of valor.

“Amatsu-Mikaboshi, it seems that you are indeed a dangerous threat,” it declared. “You need to be finished before it’s too late, but we cannot afford to risk further damage. Execute retreat at once and regroup. Next time… I promise you will be terminated for good.”

“Huh!?”

With that, the blue one conjured a crack and levitated away, disappearing into the space-time rift. Staring at its companion retreating, the black one scoffed, stopped fighting, and followed suit, “……Fine! This fight starts to bore me anyway!”

Kagaseo clicked his tongue, watching the crack dissipated.

Now, he was left in this realm with the red-armored one lying on the ground heavily battered. Its armor was cracking in many places and oozing the viscous black liquid that served as its blood. Approaching the fallen Gamer, he began to assess the wreck of a being before him, the corrupted blood emitted a horrible odor that still greatly repulsed the deity even after dealing with it so many times.

“In… con… cei… vable…” the armless red-armored one croaked.

Kagaseo eyed it, “You’ve got two options. Either spill the information about where Shamash is hiding, or meet your end right here.”

The fallen entity, though beaten and broken, defiantly stared back at him with its eyes.

“…The Game… is eternal…” it spat ominously.

“Another stubborn one. Well, I’ve got other ways to make you talk eventually,” he said with an air of finality.

Reaching for a belt on his attire’s waist, Kagaseo pulled an intricately designed small jar with a red rope tied around its rim. The moment he uncorked the jar and directed it over the fallen armored being, the battered form gradually transformed into glowing red particles, the jar pulling all of them until they vanished inside its confines. After that, he sealed the jar shut with a twist of his wrist to cut off any escape for the captives.

Seeing it begin to emit a gentle glow of green, Kagaseo regarded the sealed jar for a moment. Just like many of the Game’s enforcers sent after him, those he managed to defeat ended up being sealed inside this object. Even if there were some who managed to escape the bout, as long as they only tracked Kagaseo’s own signature, Astarte will stay safe and Ars Goetia will stay unnoticed until the time came.

The enchanted jar’s glow intensified briefly before gradually subsiding and Kagaseo uncorked it again. The dark liquid within, charged to the brim with the existence of many higher beings that he had sealed inside, churned. Without hesitation, Kagaseo raised the jar to his lips and took a gulp. It has an incredibly bitter taste, but as the liquid traveled down his throat, a warmth began to spread through his entire being that rejuvenated him from the weariness of battle. The kami of the Stars could feel his strength returning, his senses sharpening, and the lingering fatigue dissipating. Increasing, even, as he felt himself becoming more powerful than before.

Kagaseo let out a disgusted groan, the lavender orbs’ gaze zeroed in on the divine treasure again with intensity.

The Suet Jade Purifying Jar.

While it can turn the essence of entities sealed into it into an energy-charged liquid that can grant power equal to the sealed entities to anyone who drinks it, all that Kagaseo’s jar sealed was higher beings with black blood, the mark of their addiction to mortal misery. Even though the jar did its part in purifying their essence, some of the corruption remained, which was then further purified by the Star God’s own essence before he could even enjoy the benefits of the power boost. If he were to give this to an utterly defenseless Astarte, there would be terrible consequences instead.

She needed to be fully awake first. Before that, he wouldn’t dare.

“The difference between you all and me, is that you are too ignorant of the difference between you and me…” he declared to no one in particular, reminiscing the time long gone.

Even if his power is only good for destroying, if he can destroy the Civilization Annihilation Game…

Before it all began…

The being known as Amatsu-Mikaboshi greatly overestimated his own power. After pulling many victories, he thought that he would manage to resist by himself. But battle after battle passed, Kagaseo’s being began to betray the display of strength he had maintained. The toll of his countless encounters with the Civilization Annihilation Game’s enforcers who came to retrieve Astarte, solo versus squad, manifested in the form of a burning fatigue that surged through his human-like limbs. With each labored breath, he felt the weight of every clash. At some point, his own knees eventually buckled beneath him, and Kagaseo found himself violently slumping to the sandy terrain of his pocket dimension. Even worse, the accumulated damage to his being also manifested in the form of a trickle of blood that stained the corner of his mouth, marking his white attire’s long sleeve as he brought his trembling hand to wipe it away. He was reaching his limits sooner than he had expected.

Having been forced to continuously act as a decoy to protect the hidden Astarte from the Game’s dark reach, the kami of the Stars created pocket dimensions to greet and finish off the Gamers who came to hunt him from his very essence. He knew that he would be continuously straining himself. After all, damages made to this pocket dimension, which is a certainty in the fights, is the equivalent of Kagaseo’s internal organs bursting.

Another fight, five Gamers were defeated in a single bout, but now he could barely stand.

“That was excellent. Very, very excellent,” a voice said, accompanied by the slow, steady sound of a pair of hands clapping from behind him.

While blood continued to flow from his mouth, Kagaseo turned his head to see a figure sitting cross-legged on a carpet spread out on the sand. Like him, the figure took the form of a male humanoid, sporting short spiky brown hair and a healthy skin tone that made him closer to an ordinary Homo sapiens than Kagaseo’s own pale complexion. An olive-green cloak with tattered edges was draped over the entity’s shoulders, partially concealing what looked like a set of light armor and a sash sporting glass vials of glowing green fluid, arms protected by segmented gauntlets. A small lantern with a gently burning otherworldly green flame in it was hanging from his belt.

Seeing the newcomer, Kagaseo drew a sharp breath, something that he would soon regret as the pain in his chest instantly flared with that. Coughing, the crimson droplets stained the sands beneath him. The newcomer watched, the lantern at his side flickered ever so slightly.

“You look terrible,” the entity said calmly.

“…How long have you been here?” the Star God asked through clenched teeth, struggling to push himself from the sandy ground. His lavender eyes locked onto the entity with a mixture of irritation and trepidation. Despite his own condition, he did not let his gaze waver, refusing to blink. There were no others active except for the two of them in this realm, Kagaseo noticed.

“I am everywhere and nowhere,” he said, chest shaking with a chuckle. “Even in this realm which you created, I can easily reach it if I wanted to. The question is not even how long have I been here, but why you’re seeing me here.”

The entity’s eyes were intently combing Kagaseo’s being, but it held a sense of detachment from everything.

“…What do you want? If you’re not going to offer anything, then stay out of my way.”

“Well, it’s not like I’m here to thwart you or anything,” the entity smiled. “You alone are more than capable of reaching whatever goal you have in mind. But you hesitated.”

Kagaseo scowled. “What are you talking about?”

“Look around you,” the entity gestured to the slowly disintegrating inactive Gamers around them. “Each of them is powerful in their own right. Absorb their essence and utilize their power as your own.”

Realizing what this entity had implied, his gaze hardened. “No… I can’t!”

“Are you sure?”

Kagaseo coughed hard, “……I’ve been fighting because I couldn’t live with what the Game was doing. For Astarte’s sake, I said that I was fighting to protect. If I had to draw power from them, sacrificing others to fuel my own, what makes me different from the Game, then?”

The entity shook his head, “Ah, what a load of crap. You, Amatsu-Mikaboshi, are a god with no home, everything else rejects you for simply being an outsider. Having lost everything, there’s no one who prays to you anymore. There will be no intake of positive energy to cover the energy you spend to maintain your struggle.”

“If there’s no world I can call home, then every single world can be mine! Even if I can’t… Astarte—”

Kagaseo choked on his own spit mixed with blood. Even he was helpless in trying to reverse Astarte’s worsening condition.

Laughing a little, the entity continued. “Well, fighting to protect in itself is an oxymoron thing from the start. The only thing power is good for is destroying.”

“Enough…”

“You don’t see it, do you?” the entity sighed. Then he slowly got up and stepped toward Kagaseo who was still on his knees, crouching to look at him in the eyes. “You are not rebelling against the Civilization Annihilation Game, Amatsu-Mikaboshi, but the iron rule that dictates that all worlds demand sacrifice in exchange for happiness and hope. Hell, it’s not even happiness and hope that the Game is sacrificing others for, merely unbridled lust and ecstasy! Fight to destroy that rule itself! Destroy it, and rock all worlds to their roots!”

“And you think doing it will help me?”

Before Kagaseo knew it, this entity produced a jar from underneath his cloak and held it by a rope tied around its rim, dangling it in front of him. On guard but intrigued, he couldn’t help but voice his curiosity.

“What is this?”

“It seems that motivating you will take a lot of effort. Consider this Suet Jade Purifying Jar to be something to even the playing field.”

As the entity spoke, he demonstrated by uncorking the jar and directing its open mouth toward the downed Gamers surrounding them. The moment he did it, the entities twisted, their essences transformed into particles that were sucked into the glowing jar.

“Drink from it.”

“………”

“To thine own self be true! If you’re about to fight against the Game, then stick to your resolve. Take a look at the Game,” the entity leaned closer. “Don’t you feel… anger? The Game and the Audience act the way they are because they’re all weaklings. They all succumbed to that rule and gave in to the cruelty of the world. If you really believe that your will is far greater than theirs, then take the power that you deserve and continue the fight!”

The jar pulsed tantalizingly before Kagaseo, urging him to take it. Slowly, his trembling hand reached for it.

“Even if my power is only good for destroying, if I can destroy the Civilization Annihilation Game…”

When the kami of the Stars began to drink from the jar, thereby converting the power possessed by his enemies into his own for the first time, the entity watched, smiling in triumph.

The death of Attarsamain should have been the final part of a trilogy—the triumphant end of a saga of suffering and despair for the Light-Winged People.

But they escaped!

Those glowing insects possessed enough mental resilience to sacrifice seven billion of their own kin to allow the remaining ones a chance for salvation, escaping from their dying planet not by space travel but by the magic of teleportation, thereby making their existence an unrealistic one. Despite the demographic screaming blood at him to correct this error and finish them off, he and his Assistant Producer, Shamash, realized an opportunity in their defiance to generate more content.

Thus, the plan for the next season was immediately born. Marketed as a sequel to the Light-Winged People’s annihilation trilogy, this season will involve four worlds at once in a competition format before the ending of this season will annihilate all four of them in a single move.

Three of the Quarter-Final Round matches had already finished. The failing season of Attarsamain’s annihilation would be one of the rounds, the “Act of Seven Days.” Another round took place on the planet that the Light-Winged People teleported to, but this required the Game to catch them mid-teleport and corrupt them to make things more interesting, thereby allowing the round called the “Rape of Ars Goetia” to start. The last completed round took place on a planet called Earth, the “Arms Race.” The ongoing round, “Dogma,” was taking place on Yggdra with a serpentine being called Noluthe as the main player. Heh, pulling a Biblical snake archetype, that last one.

When the Quarter-Final Round finishes, the Semi-Final Round can start in the post-post-apocalyptic Ars Goetia. This planet was chosen because it was a hollow magic-type world with unlimited energy called mana that can be tainted by enough artificial mortal suffering, an ideal world to farm more drugs for the Game’s demographic. This kind of world was advertised as “unrealistic” to manipulate the Audience’s sentiment into wanting to destroy this so-called “insult to realism” from the founding of the Civilization Annihilation Game.

Not only did it generate interest from the Audience, the players also got pumped up to have their preferred champion get selected to play in the Semi-Final Round. Assistant Producer Shamash’s preferred champion, 21st century Japan, a loser faction in the Arms Race round’s World War II, already had a head start through their Emissaries of the Sun God. The heroes from another world. But if anything, having the season already somewhat skewed from the start did not deter the rest of the players, who subsequently plotted to undermine and even kill each other so that their chosen champion gets to play.

It was brilliant, and the Audience seemed to like it, cheering on the ensuing carnage.

With those thoughts dancing in his mind, the Executive Producer and the founder of the Civilization Annihilation Game stood on a circular platform surrounded by floating pillars with an endless expanse of purplish nebula in the background, and around it, floating eyes that represent the Game’s Audience began to materialize one by one.

While waiting for a recent hunt’s report to come, he took the time to browse through the Game’s Hall of Fame. The finest recordings of wars, genocides, curbstomps, forced balance fights, forced imbalance fights, omnicides, and other forms of quality entertainment that the Civilization Annihilation Game created in this boring world made the Executive Producer feel almost nostalgic.

After a while, a shimmering portal materialized behind him, and as the Executive Producer turned, he witnessed two figures stepping through. These two were the blue and black armored ones, two of the three beings that were recently sent to hunt Kagaseo and retrieve their stolen property.

The Executive Producer stared at them.

“I see neither Amatsu-Mikaboshi nor the stolen property with you. What happened?”

His voice was smooth like silk, flowing pleasantly from someone with the appearance of a young adult male.

“Tch!” the black one crossed its arms in derision.

“Executive Producer… we grossly underestimated the interloper’s power,” the blue one admitted, drawing the Executive Producer’s gaze. “His abilities far surpassed our initial estimates. In the brief encounter, Amatsu-Mikaboshi effortlessly neutralized one of us. Therefore I decided that it’s prudent to reevaluate our approach.”

The Executive Producer nodded in acknowledgment. “I expect nothing less from a top scorer. If that’s your decision, then it’s alright. Not to say you’re cowards, but… sometimes, cowards do survive.”

“I analyzed Amatsu-Mikaboshi’s moves during the fight. This knowledge can be used to hunt him more effectively next time,” the blue one continued emotionlessly, ignoring the seething black one beside it.

“Indeed.”

The Executive Producer turned away, facing the floating eyes and announced, “Esteemed Audience, it seems our hunters have tasted a bit of humble pie today. But fear not, the drama only intensifies! Please continue to watch the sideshow with warm eyes—”

“What!? How long until we get to see Astarte again!? I signed up to see my idol gets tortured, not this fuckery!”

“Yeah!”

“You incompetent bastard!”

Protests echoed through the arena from the floating eyes in response.

“Executive Producer!” another disembodied voice echoed. “We demand faster action!”

“Come again?”

“…I say, we-AAAAAAAAAAAHHHH!!!”

The Executive Producer raised his hand mid-talk and unleashed a crimson lightning that gutted through all of the floating eyes. The screams of the Audience as they exploded into nothingness made way to silence once again.

“I don’t need an audience that backtalks me,” the man said, turning to the armored ones again. “That being said, knowledge is power. Worry not. If anything, it’s Amatsu-Mikaboshi who should be wary. Power makes one conceited.”

Pausing, the man nodded to himself. “Before you leave, allow me to grant you an upgrade. Something that can ensure success in your future hunts.”

“Upgrade?”

As he spoke, the Executive Producer spread his arms, calling forth dark swirling sludges that seemed to crackle with red lightning from thin air around the venue. For the first time, the armored ones felt hesitation, glancing at the emerging manifestation of mortal suffering before their eyes. Then, the man before them loudly clapped his hands and the sludges surrounding them rushed to the armored beings like a torrent, forcing themselves to seep into every crevice of their armor.

An excruciating transformation began. These armored beings felt the pain of every atom in their body being forcefully broken down and then rearranged with dark force. The agony intensified, reaching unbearable levels as their minds started to get assaulted with the collective suffering of countless mortals, their dying screams instantly made them deaf. Their own voices were drowned in guttural roars that echoed through the expanse.

“P-PLEASE…!” the blue one unexpectedly pleaded.

“What’s wrong? You wanted to play in the Game, didn’t you? You wanted this. Take it like a man,” the Executive Producer smiled.

After the process unfolded, the free will of the armored ones, apparently not resilient enough to withstand the suffering of the mortals they caused themselves, was systematically erased, rendering them puppets to the whims of the Executive Producer. The transformation was complete, leaving behind soulless husks of heavily armed mechanical entities with vacant red glowing eyes.

In place of the blue one was a steel gray-colored being, while the black one was unchanged. Their chest armors evoked the shape of a fighter jet’s nose, while their limbs and back were loaded to the brim with various weaponry. Representing two different timelines of the same planet, both of these beings’ design aesthetics were reminiscent of that of modern militaries of said planet, complete with all of their capabilities and some.

Satisfied, the Executive Producer surveyed his new creations.

“I hardly knew you two, but now, you belong eternally to me as my enforcers. Hmm… I think I will call you Gameizers…”

He first pointed toward the gray one, “Your personal name will be FREEDOM,” before turning to the black one, “And you will be NEW ORDER. You exist as a means to deliver entertainment. Embrace your roles as the instruments of destruction, and ensure that my Civilization Annihilation Game reaches new heights of exhilaration.”

With another gesture, the man sent his new puppets away. ‘Let’s see if Shamash will be inspired by this competition,’ he mused.