The sky above the Isle of Trials had turned a bruised, violent shade of violet, choked by the collective spiritual pressure, astral dust, and kinetic friction of seventy thousand hostile combatants closing in from every conceivable horizon. The canyon floor, once a rugged testament to natural stone and ancient earth, was now a glass-fused crater of smoking energy residue. Surrounding the six members of Team Thunder was an endless, suffocating sea of red optic sensors, glowing weapon runes, and bloodthirsty chants.
Seventy thousand elite participants—every surviving rival faction, scout squad, assassin guild, and regional powerhouse remaining in the tournament—had formed an inescapable, multi-tiered ring of death. Their collective auras created a gravitational drag so intense that even breathing felt like inhaling crushed glass.
Yet, right in the absolute center of this apocalyptic pressure cooker, standing shoulder-to-shoulder amidst the looming shadow of total annihilation, the atmosphere within Team Thunder was bizarrely, maddeningly casual.
Thunder turned his head slightly, his electric blue eyes piercing through the ambient haze as he looked toward Ninten. The wild-haired berserker was currently twirling his dual crescent blades with a nonchalant flick of his wrists, completely ignoring the seventy thousand enemies loading their spells and cocking their kinetic artillery.
"All right, Ninten," Thunder called out, his voice cutting cleanly through the rising roar of the surrounding mob. "You've got seventy thousand angry fighters locking their crosshairs right on our skulls. What's your play here?"
Ninten paused his blade-spinning. He blinked once, scratched the back of his head with the flat edge of a crescent weapon, and then flashed a grin so wide and unhinged it practically defied geometry.
"Oh, that?" Ninten chuckled, his voice echoing with absolute comedic confidence. "Well, I looked into the administrative tournament backend earlier while you guys were busy styling on Team Suleiman. Turns out, if you actually kill a participant—well, 'kill' in terms of system parameters—they don't actually die permanently. The examination grid's fail-safe protocol forces an immediate system ejection. They get completely eliminated from the exam, their scores get wiped to absolute zero, and they fail instantly. But permanent death? Zero percent chance. Actually, wait, let me rephrase that: the system's safety net makes the dying possibility negative one thousand percent. They're entirely safe from flatlining, but their exam careers are thoroughly vaporized."
Mark adjusted his visor, his cybernetic lenses shifting focus as a dry, unimpressed monotone escaped his lips.
"I already knew that rule, brother," Mark said, his arms crossed over his armored chest as he analyzed the incoming radar telemetry of the seventy thousand hostiles. "That is standard tournament administration protocol for extreme casualty prevention. But knowing that seventy thousand people are about to swarm us doesn't magically solve our geometry problem. What exactly are you planning to do with that information?"
Ninten's grin stretched even wider, his eyes flashing with a chaotic, manic brilliance.
"Simple!" Ninten announced proudly, tossing his weapons into the air and catching them by the hilts with a dramatic flourish. "Since the system won't let them permanently die, and since they're kind enough to group up in such a nice, dense, target-rich environment, I'm going to do a little bit of programming modification. I'm going to merge an absurd, game-breaking number of legendary characters, mythic avatars, and absolute-tier gaming abilities directly into my own system core to forge the ultimate, most overpowered combat form in existence. Once I transform into that walking copyright infringement, you guys just need to clear a clean tactical pathway for me. I'll dive headfirst into the mob, drop Martis's ultimate—Decimation—on a high-density cluster, get instantly system-reset by the backlash, and then wake up completely broken and start deleting these seventy thousand jokers one by one!"
Gic, who had been quietly adjusting his ceremonial vestments while reciting a low, protective halal chant, suddenly raised a hand and cleared his throat.
"Hold on a second," Gic interrupted, his expression deadpan and entirely serious. "Before you start fusing with half the video game multiverse, I need to establish a very strict operational boundary. You know my code. I cannot, under any circumstances, strike or intentionally harm a female participant. It goes against my spiritual oaths."
Ninten turned to Gic, nodded sagely as if discussing a vital corporate merger, and patted the paladin on the shoulder.
"Ah, fair enough, Gic! Totally respect the principles," Ninten agreed readily. "Here's the deal: you just do whatever you want with the male combatants. Beat them up, throw them around, baptize them with your halal chants, whatever floats your boat. But you keep a strict eye on the perimeter and protect me from any female fighters while I'm channeling this ridiculous fusion. Sound like a plan?"
Gic nodded firmly. "Deal."
"Alright then," Thunder sighed, shaking his head with a fond, exasperated smirk. "If you're going to break the game, Ninten, we might as well give you the stage to do it. Mark, Dent, Gic, Fi—let's set up a defensive perimeter. We'll carve out the landing strip for our resident mad scientist."
Without wasting another microsecond, Ninten planted his boots firmly into the glass-fused stone, closed his eyes, and began the incantation of the Anomaly Merger.
It wasn't just a simple transformation; it was a reality-warping, data-shredding glitch in the fabric of the Isle of Trials. Ninten's body began to shimmer, casting blinding pulses of multi-colored light as he forcibly ripped, copied, and pasted the core identities, skins, lore, and divine mechanics of the most broken entities in gaming history directly into his own mortal shell.
"Initiating systemic overload!" Ninten shouted, his voice distorting into a multi-layered chorus of roars, mechanical whirrs, and divine chimes.
First came the outer visual and combat framing: the blood-soaked, war-hardened battle-armor of Martis in his legendary God of War skin, layered seamlessly over the molten, magma-dripping demonic frame of Thamuz in his The Annihilator skin. Over that terrifying foundation settled the serene, floating celestial divinity of Lunox in her Divine Goddess skin—though Ninten wisely stripped away her gentle pacifism, keeping only her universe-folding, reality-shifting cosmic powers. To anchor the sheer mass of this unholy union, the towering, mechanized mechanical-chassis of Johnson in his Sovereign of Realms skin snapped into place like a titan falling from orbit, turning Ninten's silhouette into an armored, engine-revving juggernaut of metal and plasma.
"That's just the aesthetic!" Ninten yelled over the howling winds of his own creation.
The inner powers began to flood in. The raw, god-slaying, infinite-rage fury of Kratos from God of War fused with the multi-armed, planet-shattering wrath of Asura from Asura's Wrath. The primordial, world-creating omnipotence of Arceus from the Pokémon pantheon intertwined with the desolate, unending perseverance and roll-frame invincibility of every single main protagonist from the entire Souls series (Dark Souls, Bloodborne, Demon's Souls, and Elden Ring). Topping it off like a crown of absolute absurdity was the mythical, staff-wielding, cloud-stepping divinity of Sun Wukong straight out of Black Myth: Wukong.
And as if that wasn't enough, Ninten pulled the ultimate developer console cheat: he absorbed every single mobility, utility, healing, shielding, boosting power, passive trait, and defensive skill from the entire history of gaming.
FLASH! BOOM! CRACKLE!
The energy drain was astronomical. The sheer concentration of so many game-breaking mechanics trying to fit inside a single human-sized framework caused a massive localized blackout across the island's holographic leaderboards. Sakti reserves that could have powered a small galaxy were sucked dry in a single, violent vacuum. Ninten dropped to one knee, panting heavily, his body glowing with a blinding, iridescent light that made it impossible to look directly at him.
"Hoo... boy," Ninten wheezed, his voice echoing like a choir of angry gods. "That... that took literally all my Sakti. But hey... this is my ultimate form. At least for today."
Thunder crossed his arms, looking down at his glowing, multi-rendered teammate with an amused grin. "All right, anomaly. Your hardware is fried, but you're glowing nicely. Let's create the window for you to execute."
The seventy thousand fighters outside the perimeter, sensing that something catastrophic and rule-breaking was happening inside Team Thunder's formation, began to roar in unison. Their commanders raised their arms, preparing to unleash the mother of all opening salvos.
"Now!" Thunder barked.
Moving with lightning speed, Gic scanned the nearest edge of the advancing mob, pinpointing an overconfident, low-ranking scout who had pushed too far ahead of his squad. With a swift movement of his hands, Gic chanted a glowing, halal spiritual binding chain that shot out from the earth, wrapping tightly around the weakling's ankles and yanking him straight into Team Thunder's defensive zone.
"Got one," Gic announced smoothly.
Before the poor participant could even process what was happening, Fi blurred forward like a human kinetic missile. With a brutal, perfectly calculated martial arts combo, Fi hammered his glowing fists into the weakling's ribs, cracking his defensive aura and driving him to his knees with a concussive shockwave.
"He's tenderized," Fi grunted, stepping aside.
Ninten, dragging his massively overloaded, game-glitched body forward, raised a glowing hand infused with the combined wrath of Kratos, Asura, and Martis. With a final, triumphant smirk, Ninten brought his hand down in a devastating execution blow.
THUD-CRASH!
The weakling's health bar—metaphorically speaking—hit absolute zero. The system's safety net instantly triggered, flashing a blinding white light around the participant as he was forcefully ejected from the exam in a pillar of digital pixels, his score zeroed out completely.
And in that exact microsecond, the game-breaking passive effect of Ninten's Anomaly Merger activated.
DING! DING! DING!
A cascade of triumphant, level-up sound effects echoed across the canyon. Because Ninten had legally "eliminated" a participant while fused with every cheat code in gaming history, his system core didn't just reward him—it fundamentally broke the scaling laws of the universe. His power level spiked exponentially, his multi-layered skins glowing with hyper-saturated neon energy, and a terrifying, world-shaking aura erupted from his frame.
The anomaly had officially begun.
Far away from the chaotic center of the battlefield, high up on the grand observation balconies reserved for tournament overseers, academy directors, and team masters, the atmosphere was nothing short of absolute, unadulterated panic.
The massive holographic screens projecting the live tactical feed of Sector 4 were flickering wildly under the sheer data-load of Ninten's impossible transformation.
Bucky, the fiery, muscular captain of Team Suleiman, slammed both of his massive fists onto the stone railing of the balcony, cracking the reinforced masonry. His eyes were wide with sheer disbelief as he stared at the screen showing Ninten glowing like a nuclear reactor.
"What in the absolute name of the ancestors has happened down there?!" Bucky roared, his voice trembling with a mixture of shock and residual humiliation. "That shouldn't even be mathematically possible! What is that... that Freak of a teammate actually doing?!"
Beside him, standing with her arms neatly folded inside her billowing royal sleeves, was Mistrife, the legendary mentor and tactical matriarch of Team Hira. Her usually cold, unreadable expression was broken, her eyes wide as she watched Ninten's anomalous energy signature dwarf the surrounding mountains. She wasn't just shocked; she was genuinely, deeply terrified—not for herself, but as her gaze drifted toward her six royal granddaughters currently trapped on the battlefield.
"The spatial-temporal density of that fusion..." Mistrife whispered, her voice uncharacteristically tight. "If he unleashes that power uncontrolled... the girls are going to be caught in the blast radius. He's going to turn the entire valley into glass."
As the masters murmured in rising panic, a slow, deep, immensely proud chuckle rumbled from the corner of the observation deck.
Lucky, the veteran powerhouse and senior member of Team Thunder, leaned back against a marble pillar. A massive, arrogant grin stretched across his face as he crossed his arms, basking in the sheer, terrified bewilderment of the surrounding academy directors.
"Relax, everyone, relax," Lucky scoffed, waving a hand dismissively as he adjusted his collar. "Y'all are acting like you've never seen a little bit of creative game-breaking before. Let me educate you on a little history lesson, since your memories seem shorter than a goblin's attention span."
Bucky turned his head sharply, glaring at Lucky. "History lesson? Seventy thousand fighters are about to get vaporized by an absolute lunatic, and you want to talk about history?"
"Listen, you hotheaded giant," Lucky said, his voice dropping an octave, carrying the heavy, echoing weight of ancient legends. "Almost a thousand years ago, during the legendary Grand Continental Tri-Millennial Exam, Team Khalid walked onto this exact proving ground. Their captain was none other than the mythical Khandaker Al-Khalid—the absolute apex predator of his era. And do you know who was in that team with him? Me. Al-Khalid. My brother. Mistrife right over there. And one other person whose name I won't bother spelling out for you."
Mistrife glanced sideways at Lucky, a faint, nostalgic shadow crossing her icy features.
"We faced an alliance of sixty-six thousand elite fighters," Lucky continued, his chest swelling with fierce, unbroken pride, his eyes gleaming with the memory of blood, thunder, and victory. "A literal 5-versus-66,000 death march that everyone said was mathematically unwinnable. And you know what Al-Khalid did? He didn't blink. He didn't retreat. He single-handedly carried all four of us through the meat grinder, carving a path through sixty-six thousand enemies like a hot knife through butter. That was a thousand years ago. And today? Today, his spiritual descendants, his bloodline, and his chosen brothers are standing on that exact same soil to finish the story." Lucky pointed a finger at the main holographic screen, where Ninten was beginning to move. "Al-Khalid's legacy isn't just surviving the gauntlet. It's rewriting it. And today, they'll show you what a true five-man—nay, six-man—slaughter looks like."
Back on the battlefield, Lucky's words felt like a prophetic decree.
Ninten, now completely consumed by his Anomaly Merger form—a terrifying blend of Martis, Thamuz, Lunox, Johnson, Kratos, Asura, Arceus, Wukong, and every gaming mechanic ever coded—stepped forward. The ground beneath his boots didn't just crack; it vaporized into fine, glowing atomic dust.
"Time to clear the board," Ninten murmured, his voice echoing with the resonance of ten thousand stacked game engines.
He didn't just fight; he orchestrated a systematic, mechanical massacre. Utilizing the hyper-mobility of Lunox's cosmic drift combined with Wukong's cloud-step and the raw, unstoppable momentum of Johnson's Sovereign of Realms vehicular transformation, Ninten transformed into a streak of multi-colored, apocalyptic light that tore directly through the frontline of the advancing army.
BOOM! SHATTER! WHOOSH!
He targeted the densest clusters of the enemy formation. With a roar that shook the clouds overhead, Ninten executed Decimation—the ultimate execution art of Martis, amplified a thousandfold by Kratos's rage, Asura's wrath, and Arceus's divine judgment. Two massive, glowing red crescent blades materialized from the sky, crashing down into the earth with the force of a falling meteor.
The resulting shockwave didn't just defeat fighters; it triggered a massive, automated system ejection cascade. Hundreds of combatants at a time flashed white and vanished from the exam, their scores plummeting to zero as they were spat out by the safety protocols.
Thunder, Mark, Dent, Fi, and Gic acted as the ultimate escort, clearing the flanks, blocking counter-spells, and ensuring that Ninten's path remained completely unobstructed. Gic strictly patrolled the zones where female fighters attempted to flank, effortlessly neutralizing them with non-lethal, halal spiritual seals while leaving the male combatants to Fi's brutal kinetic combos and Dent's absolute defensive walls.
It was a relentless, hypnotic display of pure, unadulterated carnage.
In less than one hour, Ninten, operating at the absolute pinnacle of his Anomaly Merger form, completely cleared the first ten thousand fighters of the enemy mob. The eastern half of the canyon was entirely empty of hostiles, littered only with smoking craters, scattered gear, and the lingering digital pixel-dust of thousands of ejected participants.
The remaining sixty thousand fighters, who had initially charged in with supreme, overwhelming confidence, ground to an abrupt, terrified halt. The sheer psychological horror of watching ten thousand of their comrades get systematically deleted in under sixty minutes broke their collective morale.
For a few tense moments, absolute silence reigned over the western ridge of the valley.
Then, the leaders of the remaining sixty thousand coalition realized something terrifying: if they stood still, they would be picked apart one by one. Panic turned into desperate, fanatical self-preservation.
"Don't let him recharge!" a coalition commander screamed from the center of the mob, his voice cracking with fear. "If we fall back, we lose everything! Channel everything! Every ounce of Sakti, every drop of spiritual energy, every spatial rune we have left! Combine it all into one! Cast the ultimate technique!"
Across the vast, sprawling expanse of the remaining army, tens of thousands of hands shot up toward the violet sky. Wands, swords, staves, and bare palms glowed with a blinding, terrifying array of clashing colors—red fire, blue ice, golden lightning, purple void energy, and green life-force.
They weren't casting individual spells anymore. They were pooling their entire, combined cosmic reserves into a single, horrific, unified incantation.
Mark's cybernetic visor flashed a violent, flashing crimson warning that filled his entire field of vision with endless lines of emergency text.
CRITICAL EMERGENCY! MASSIVE ENERGY CONVERGENCE DETECTED!
CALCULATING INCOMING OUTPUT... ERROR! ERROR! QUANTIFIABLE LIMIT EXCEEDED!
WARNING: SPACE-TYPE ATTACK FORMATION IDENTIFIED!
Mark's breath hitched slightly as his processors finally categorized the terrifying spell taking shape across the horizon. It was a technique whispered only in ancient mythological texts—the legendary, cosmos-shattering spatial-type art known across the history of Animan civilization as Big Beng (frequently referred to in historical records as the Big Bang).
It was universally recognized throughout the history of all dimensions as the single greatest, most destructive, and most powerful offensive attack of all time in Animan History. A condensed, artificial creation of a primordial universal explosion, designed to erase matter, energy, space, and time within a localized sector.
If that attack landed, it wouldn't just defeat Team Thunder; it would wipe the entire Isle of Trials off the continental map.The sky above the sixty thousand fighters began to twist inward, forming a massive, swirling black-and-gold singularity that hummed with the terrifying, foundational vibration of a dying and rebirthing universe.
Mark turned his head toward Thunder and Ninten, his voice unusually sharp and urgent.
"They are channeling Big Beng," Mark stated, his cybernetic core glowing at maximum overclock. "A full spatial-type universal collapse spell. Powered by sixty thousand combined auras. If they release that... our defenses will not hold."
Thunder stood tall, his eyes fixed on the swirling singularity in the sky, a calm, unshakable smile touching the corners of his mouth. He looked over at Ninten, whose Anomaly Merger form was humming with blinding, chaotic light, and then back to his loyal, battle-hardened squad.
"Well," Thunder said softly, cracking his knuckles as blue lightning surged across his arms with unprecedented fury. "Looks like they brought out the big guns. Good thing we brought an anomaly."
The singularity in the sky reached its critical mass, casting a pitch-black shadow over the entire Isle of Trials. The stage was set for the ultimate, universe-shaking climax.