Distances between planets collapsed as space kept tightening. The galaxy's outer rim blurred, like an invisible hand was kneading it into a ball.
Stars, planets, comets—everything lost its orbit.
They spun out of order. They slammed into each other. They compressed. They shattered.
Tatsuki's spatial compression intensified, and in the blink of an eye the galaxy's structure began to fail. Gravitational balance between stellar systems snapped, triggering cascading interstellar catastrophes. Under the pressure of space collapsing in on itself, massive black holes formed—devouring everything in their path.
At the galaxy's core, star after star detonated, erupting into dazzling light.
Tatsuki didn't stop.
His power kept climbing, and the galaxy's destruction arrived like a verdict.
When it finally crossed a critical threshold, the galaxy exploded—not with fireballs and smoke, but as a catastrophic release of cosmic energy. Matter was crushed and twisted into an impossibly dense energy field that expanded outward at terrifying speed, generating shockwaves that tore through the region and rewrote everything they touched.
Hundreds of billions of stars were ripped apart in an instant, blooming into supernovas like a savage, glittering chain reaction. Elsewhere, matter collapsed into even larger black holes, swallowing the remnants with manic hunger.
In that chaotic, apocalyptic detonation, life inside the galaxy was nothing but brittle dust.
The interstellar bugs that were mid-transfer.
The swarms ravaging planets.
Not a single larva or adult survived.
The galaxy's end brought pure, indiscriminate annihilation—no living thing could exist in that environment, only vanish inside it. At the edges, entire starfields were shredded and erased into nothingness.
Inside layered, overlapping pocket dimensions—
"Whew…"
Tatsuki lowered his arms and let out a long breath.
That was the first time he'd ever truly pushed the Spatial Origin at full throttle.
In barely a minute, the galaxy had become a chaotic wreck of broken star-regions and endless darkness.
"God, that felt good."
His eyes flashed, bright and sharp.
For the first time in a long time, he felt fully satisfied—way more than even punching a planet apart.
Then the universe immediately punished him for enjoying himself.
[SEVERE WARNING! SEVERE WARNING! SEVERE WARNING!]
[Detected a player maliciously destroying the game map!]
[Detected the player has entered an out-of-bounds map region!]
[The Apocalypse Game strongly condemns the player's behavior!]
[The Apocalypse Game will now apply punishment!]
[Detected: Overpowered player. Punishment will be doubled!]
[Re-evaluating player's true combat power. Apocalypse Points will be recalculated and synced accordingly!]
[Detected: prior to recalculation, the player was projected to obtain 3,500 trillion Points illegally.]
[After syncing to true power, the player should obtain 700,000,000 Apocalypse Points!]
[After punishment: reduced to 350,000,000 Apocalypse Points, plus a RED CARD WARNING!]
[All players will be forcibly repatriated immediately!]
[Due to this destruction, the Apocalypse Game will enter maintenance. All deducted Apocalypse Points will be used as maintenance costs.]
[The Apocalypse Game hereby urges players to follow the rules. Do NOT imitate the destructive behavior of the overpowered player!]
[The Apocalypse Game once again strongly condemns the overpowered player's behavior!]
"Huh?! Are you fucking kidding me?!"
Tatsuki's eyes went wide as he started cursing up a storm—then he was forcibly kicked out and the game slammed shut.
"I'll fucking find you!"
He slammed his desk and shot to his feet, radiating pure, feral rage.
Every head in the classroom snapped toward him.
"Tatsuki-kun—what's going on?" Shizuka Hiratsuka asked from the front. She set down the chalk immediately, eyes sharp.
Only then did Tatsuki snap back to reality.
He was out of the Apocalypse Game. Back in the real world.
In a classroom.
During class.
He exhaled, reined himself in, and forced his tone down. "Sorry. It's nothing—I just had a bad dream. Please, keep going, Ms. Hiratsuka."
Ding-ding-ding-ding!
The bell rang at the perfect time.
Shizuka picked up her book, then looked straight at him. "Tatsuki. Office. Now."
Yumiko, Yukino, and Megumi all wore complicated expressions.
They were in the know. They knew exactly what had happened.
Not long after Tatsuki left, they'd all heard the Apocalypse Game's first warning. Nobody needed to guess—Tatsuki had done something that triggered it.
They'd thought the game was about to auto-terminate and send them home, and then—they saw it.
The endless void lit with stars.
The planet beneath their feet detonated.
They were unharmed, standing there watching the universe itself… and then it got even crazier.
The light drew their eyes, and it felt like the entire cosmos caught fire. Those stars that were supposed to be distant and untouchable were suddenly bursting in front of them, one after another, like a grand fireworks show for the end of everything.
After that, the Apocalypse Game went from warnings to condemnation—with zero real danger to Tatsuki's life, but it butchered his rewards.
They knew that was why he'd exploded in class.
Sure, what he did was absolutely a cheat-level, game-breaking move, and those points weren't "legit" by any normal standard…
But going from 3.5 quadrillion to 350 million?
Who the hell could see that and stay calm?
They'd become this strong with tens of thousands of points—so what did trillions even mean?
They couldn't imagine it.
Yukino quietly sighed. If it hit Tatsuki like this, he had to be feeling awful.
She glanced down at herself, then made up her mind: tonight, she was going home with him. She was going to comfort him.
…
"Sigh…"
In the office, Shizuka sat on the edge of her desk, lit a cigarette, took a slow drag, and let the smoke curl out as she studied him. "Alright. Talk. What happened?"
She wasn't here to scold him for swearing.
She knew who Tatsuki really was, and the moment he'd snapped in class she'd guessed it—something abnormal had happened. Bringing him here was just giving him a place to cool off.
"Yeah…" Tatsuki sighed.
Before she could react, he leaned in, snatched the cigarette right from her lips, and put it in his own mouth—slouching against the desk with a world-weary, fed-up look.
"…?"
Shizuka stared at the cigarette between his lips.
Forget whether he should be smoking—she'd literally just had that in her mouth. Was he seriously doing that right now?