> [Red Rank Trial – 58:47:02 Remaining]
[System Alert: Calamity Engine Booting – 27%]
[Soul Loadout: Unstable | System Balance: Critically Tilted]
The sky cracked—not thunder, but code. Lines of corrupted commands ran across the heavens as if reality itself were being debugged. Each tremor brought system glitches to life: broken talents turned into beasts, and forsaken rules screamed as their logic was devoured.
Lian stood atop the Golden Obsidian Roller, his body barely holding together. One eye was glitching out, half of his ribcage pixelated and hovering in mid-air, supported only by willpower.
Zeroth's final form was in full manifestation.
Six times they'd killed him.
Five times they'd slain his clones—each clone growing more intelligent, more emotionless.
And yet… Zeroth still stood.
Now, he had merged with his remaining three clones. His body was a fusion of armor, smoke, blood, and raw corrupted divinity. One arm was made of stolen vehicles, another from the talents of dead players. His voice came from multiple mouths—some human, some not.
> "You reached the peak. But this is where I prove the System's truth… Only entropy is eternal."
Lian activated Emergency Override.
> [Talent Fusion: Coin Multiplier + Soul Defragmentation = Infinite Gamble]
[Warning: Results unpredictable. Activation may permanently damage Host Identity.]
"I don't care," Lian muttered. "As long as he dies."
With one punch, the sky bent.
But Zeroth blocked it with a whisper. Reality bent around them. And suddenly—
Jayce was back.
Bloody, limping, one eye blinded, his laughter was hollow.
But he was alive.
"I heard someone needed a little absurdity?" Jayce grinned, holding up a ticket made of his own luck. "Bought a reroll… in hell."
Behind him, Kuro and Ria arrived, their bodies glowing with fused Talents that shouldn't have been compatible.
> [Kuro – Paradox Blade + Foresight Recall = Causality Severance]
[Ria – Unbroken Chain + Trauma Sigil = Grief Catalyst]
Zeroth growled. "You're all anomalies. This world was never meant to house this many outliers."
"Yeah?" Jayce grinned, flicking a coin with blood on its edge. "Then maybe your world… is overdue for a reboot."
---
System Event Unlocked: Full Party Sync
> [Legendary Fusion Event Triggered: Anomaly Cohesion]
[New Effect: Shared Death Immunity – Once per cycle]
[Final Phase of Red Trial Engaged – Boss Mutation: Zeroth Ascendant Form]
Zeroth laughed. Not because he was confident—because he was finally afraid.
"Fine then," he snarled, wings of corrupted light bursting behind him. "Let me show you what ascension looks like!"
He split into six again—but this time, they were different timelines of himself. One where he lost. One where he won. One where he consumed his creators. One where he erased emotion. Each clone had the powers of a world-ending concept.
And all six struck at once.
---
The battle became something that couldn't be called a fight—it was a collapse of structure. Weapons struck concepts. Blood rewrote time. Talents no longer worked as expected. One of Zeroth's forms shattered Lian's name itself, causing him to lose all identity.
Ria screamed, unleashing her Grief Catalyst.
Kuro sliced a timeline in half to save them from a death that hadn't happened yet.
Jayce, bleeding from every pore, told a joke so powerful it stalled one clone in confusion—long enough for Ria to rip its heart out and sacrifice a memory of her mother to burn it alive.
Still… they weren't winning.
---
Until the coin landed.
> [Infinite Gamble: Roll = 000]
[System Impossible Event Triggered]
The coin bounced… once… twice…
And landed on its edge.
> "Event outcome: Rewrite Anchor Located."
The system screamed.
Zeroth screamed.
The sky screamed.
And Lian's true evolution began.
> [Coin Evolution Path: Fate Diver – Final Awakening]
[Ascension Title Unlocked: Wager of All Worlds]
Lian rose—not as a human, not even a system being—but as a nexus point. His existence became a question the System couldn't answer.
"I bet everything," he whispered, walking forward through a storm of deletion and rebirth. "And this is my payout."
He reached into Zeroth's chest—not to destroy him—but to bind him.
> [Zeroth: Soul Lock Initiated]
[World Recompilation Imminent – All Players Will Be Judged]
---