The moment those playful words echoed across the arena, a wave of sheer, paralyzing terror swept through the entire stadium.
Kallen and his noble faction stumbled backward, their faces turning completely pale. The arrogant, triumphant smiles they held just seconds ago vanished instantly, replaced by absolute dread. The sheer pressure radiating from Haruto's new form was so heavy that it felt difficult to breathe.
Down on the track, Ivory, Bellona, and Lustra stared at him, completely wide-eyed and bewildered. They shook their heads in utter disbelief, their minds racing to make sense of the transformation. Why has his hair grown so long? Why did his eyes turn crimson? And what is this terrifying, colorful aura? They couldn't understand what had just taken over their leader, but the raw power humming in the air was undeniable.
The thousands of spectators in the stands sat in a
stunned, breathless stupor. The wealthy elites who had just been loudly cheering for Kallen's brutal victory went completely silent, their mouths hanging open. Nobody dared to utter a single word.
Up in the VIP pavilion, tears of pure relief and confusion spilled down Princess Lilith's cheeks. She gripped the stone railing, her heart pounding as she stared at the glowing figure below. Is that... really Haruto? she wondered, her voice caught in her throat.
Right beside her, Aetherna let out a joyful, triumphant cry. A brilliant smile broke across her face, filled with absolute pride for her owner. She had trusted him all along, and he had delivered a miracle. Rutherford, on the other hand, stood entirely frozen, his jaw dropped as he felt the cosmic weight of the energy filling the colosseum.
Even the highest rulers of the kingdom were completely rattled. Fredrick and the King snapped to their feet, their usual royal composure shattering instantly. Next to them, Seraphine's cold, unreadable mask finally cracked. She stared down at the arena floor, completely wide-eyed, unable to comprehend how a commoner candidate had just unlocked a level of divine power that shouldn't even exist in this world.
Up in the luxury box, Gelli's throat went completely dry. Her breath caught in her chest as she stared down at the blinding, colorful flames radiating from the track. But within seconds, the shock in her eyes morphed into a brilliant, opportunistic spark. She had seen a lot of things as a master merchant, but this surpassed everything.
"A reincarnation..." Gelli muttered under her breath, a sharp grin slowly returning to her face. "A literal vessel for a god... I should have known from the moment he manipulated the capital fields. He isn't just a glitch. He is a divine reincarnation."
Down on the track, Kallen's face twisted into a mix of pure rage and panic. He looked at Haruto's pristine, glowing form, completely losing his mind. "Haruto! This is impossible! Your body was completely ruined! Your life bar was finished! How the hell are you standing up right now?!"
The entity controlling Haruto tilted his head, looking around the arena with a playful, completely spaced-out expression. "Huh? Me? Oh, right... yeah, I'm Haruto! Haha! And you must be... Kallen, right? Yeah, definitely Kallen."
Kallen's veins popped on his forehead. He thought Haruto was mockingly playing dumb just to humiliate him in front of the crowd. "Don't play games with me! Look at the interface! The crown already detached! You lost the duel, you trash!"
The entity inside Haruto slowly raised a hand, wagging a finger with an incredibly casual shrug. "Lost? You really need to check your math, elite boy. My life bar never hit zero. It held steady at exactly 1 HP. And in the grand architecture of numbers, 1 is infinitely larger than zero. As long as that 1 remains, the file is live."
The entity smirked, the crimson eyes flashing dangerously. "And as for my life pool... which baseline health are you even talking about?"
SNAP!
Haruto casually snapped his fingers.
Instantly, a deafening thunderclap echoed across the sky as the master interface violently glitched. Every single person in the stadium snapped their eyes to the giant floating health counter.
The miserable 1 / 1,000,000,000 HP baseline suddenly began rolling forward at a speed the server couldn't even process. It rapidly filled up to the maximum one billion cap, but it didn't stop there. The digits kept multiplying, fracturing the visual boundaries of the layout screen.
1,000,000,000,000... 1,000,000,000,000,000,000... 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000...
The numbers expanded across the entire horizon, completely running out of screen space. The text box warped and shattered under the pressure of an infinite, immeasurable data pool that simply refused to stop climbing. The absolute absurdity of the sight left the entire crowd's eyes feeling like they were going to pop out of their skulls.
The entity stepped forward, waving his hands elegantly like a performer concluding a grand masterpiece. He took a theatrical, deep bow toward the audience.
"Come on," Haruto's voice echoed, dripping with Sirehtea's playful arrogance.
"That was an incredible show. Where is my applause?"
BOOM!
The entire commoner stands completely exploded into a deafening, frenzied roar. The crowd went utterly wild, screaming Haruto's name so loudly that the stone colosseum began to vibrate.
The golden crown remained locked perfectly atop Haruto's white hair. His health pool was now completely beyond human comprehension, and the system recognized the duel was still fully alive.
BZZZZZZZT!
Before Kallen's faction could even attempt a counter-strategy, the backend server executed a sweeping layout cleanup. Instantly, all the unnecessary noble players who had flooded the track to celebrate were forcefully teleported back outside the grid lines, crashing into the spectator queue.
The battlefield was instantly wiped clean once more, leaving a terrified Kallen entirely isolated on the narrow track, staring up at a literal, infinite god.
"Taste the spirit," Haruto whispered, his crimson eyes gleaming as the multi-colored divine fire roared around him.
Despite the terrifying display of infinite numbers shattering the sky, Kallen clutched his head and forced another frantic, desperate laugh. He pointed a shaking, blood-stained finger at Haruto's crown. "No! You're wrong! You are still my slave! It was the absolute law of the Wizard Quest—the claimant gets ownership of the loser's entire faction! Your power belongs to me now! The system's branding is already on you, so you can't touch me!"
The entity inside Haruto tilted his head, a look of pure, unadulterated annoyance crossing his face. "What? What did you just call me, you little brat? Did you actually just use the word 'slave'?"
Kallen, trying to force confidence back into his voice, stood his ground. "Yes! You became my servant the moment your crown dropped! The master-slave protocol is active in the server architecture. Your attacks literally cannot damage your owner!"
Haruto let out a sharp, mocking sigh, looking at Kallen like he was the most pathetic thing in the world. "Are you completely illiterate, or just plain stupid? Look at the sky screen. The match never actually ended. Because my life bar dropped to 1 HP under that massive pain-link load, the server logic lagged out and assumed my life was deleted, handing you a temporary, unverified win status. You were never the permanent victor."
Haruto stepped forward, the snowy white strands of his long hair swaying in the rising wind. "Consider those past few minutes as the ultimate mercy period of your miserable life. And as for your precious master-slave restrictions preventing my attacks..."
Haruto slowly raised both of his hands toward the sky.
BOOM!
The entire colosseum violently convulsed. The heavy white marble floor beneath their feet shattered into a million jagged pieces as deep, cavernous fractures ripped across the active track. Blinding geysers of red, blue, and green aura erupted from the cracks, tearing the arena's floor completely apart. The raw, cosmic pressure was so immense that the physical geometry of the map was turning into dust.
"Let's see if the system's little restriction can actually stop this," Haruto sneered, his voice echoing like absolute thunder.
The moment his immense divine energy detonated across the grid, a massive shift occurred in the spectator queue where the eliminated players were stationed.
Toya, Ivory, Bellona, and Lustra suddenly gasped, clutching their chests as a warm, electric current surged through their veins. Ivory immediately activated her high-tier stealth and sensory magic to run a quick diagnostic on their status profiles.
Their jaws dropped. The dark purple, glitching [SLAVE] titles that had been forcefully branded onto their status windows were violently cracking, dissolving into pure white static before vanishing entirely. The systemic chains Kallen had placed on their autonomy were completely shattered.
Even more shocking, the fraying threads of their mental and spiritual bonds with Haruto violently snapped back into place, locking back into his central data core. But it didn't just restore their old connection—as the dual-core energy of Creation and Nothingness pulsed through the link from Haruto's side, the four companions felt a colossal wave of raw power flood their systems. They stood in the spectator stands, completely rejuvenated, feeling twice as powerful as they had ever been since the match started.
Toya looked down at his glowing hands, a fierce, triumphant grin breaking across his face.
"The master-slave contract is broken... Kallen's authority is completely gone!"
Kallen stumbled backward, his eyes wide with absolute panic as he stared at the glowing, white-haired figure. "Wait... who the hell are you?! You can't be Haruto! That thin voice, that long hair... you're someone else entirely! Changing your look won't save you!"
The entity inside Haruto sighed, shaking his head in deep disappointment. "Ugh, seriously? I am so done listening to your pathetic nonsense. It doesn't suit my taste at all. It's been ages since I last visited the human world, and I honestly thought I'd get to flex my power a little bit and have some fun. But you? You're just making this incredibly boring."
Haruto didn't even lift a hand. He simply flicked a single finger toward Kallen.
BOOM!
An invisible force slammed into Kallen like a high-speed train, launching his body across the track. He flew through the air and crashed brutally against the far boundary wall, hacking up digital static as he rolled onto the floor.
"Now then," Haruto said, his crimson eyes gleaming with a lethal, playful malice.
"Let's give you a small taste of your own medicine. I'm going to let you experience just 50% of the agonizing pain you inflicted on my body earlier."
SNAP!
He casually snapped his fingers.
Instantly, Kallen let out a blood-curdling shriek as his entire body convulsed on the ground. The sheer, crushing weight of the neural feedback hit his brain all at once. Dark red blood instantly began pouring from his nose, eyes, and ears, his life bar flashing a violent, critical warning as he collapsed into a motionless heap.
Up in the stands, the spectators gasped, covering their mouths.
"Did he... did he just kill him?" someone whispered in pure terror.
"Oh, come on, don't go dying on me just yet," Haruto chuckled. With another effortless snap of his fingers, the roaring, multi-colored divine aura around him suddenly calmed down, and the deep cracks splintering the arena floor instantly sealed themselves back together, returning the field to perfect stillness.
Haruto slowly floated up into the air, hovering above the ruined track. He raised a single index finger toward the sky, and a massive, invisible wave of spiritual energy began to expand outward from his tip, shaping into a colossal dome above the entire stadium.
Outside the grid, Ivory and Aetherna's eyes widened in instant recognition.
"This is bad... it's Mind Manipulation Magic!" Ivory yelled, her voice filled with urgency.
"He's going to rewrite the consciousness of everyone in this arena!"
Without wasting a single frame, Ivory channeled her newly amplified double-power, projecting a massive, high-tier defensive magic barrier around herself, Toya, Bellona, and Lustra to shield their minds from the incoming divine wave.
Up in the VIP sector, Aetherna acted just as fast. She unleashed her full spirit energy, expanding a gigantic, shimmering barrier that safely enclosed Princess Lilith, the King, Fredrick, and Seraphine within a protective sanctuary.
Gelli, realizing the extreme danger of having her own mind wiped or manipulated, didn't hesitate either. She quickly activated her personal master-merchant security terminal, raising a dense, high-grade magical shield around her luxury box just as the invisible wave of divine force began to wash over the remaining, unprotected crowds in the stadium.
FLASH!
A massive, pure white light detonated from Haruto's raised finger, washing over the entire colosseum in a silent, blinding wave. The moment the light touched the unprotected stands, tens of thousands of spectators—nobles, elite students, and faculty members alike—instantly slumped forward in their seats, falling into a deep, synchronized sleep. The chaotic murmurs and panic vanished, replaced by an absolute, dead silence.
As the light faded, the long white hair and crimson eyes vanished. Haruto's body gently floated back down, his boots touching the cracked marble floor as the colorful divine aura completely receded.
He stretched his arms, looking around at the massive stadium full of sleeping people, and spoke in Sirehtea's distinct, smooth voice.
"And that's a wrap. What an absolute mess. Honestly, I wanted to show off a little bit more, but I think it's time. Also, this human body is surprisingly durable."
The entire arena was a ghost town of unconscious bodies. But inside the few protective domes, a handful of people were still wide awake, staring at him in utter disbelief.
Behind Ivory's barrier, Toya, Bellona, and Lustra stood frozen, their mouths open. Gelli breathed a sigh of relief behind her luxury shield, her mind intact. And up in the grand VIP pavilion, Princess Lilith and Aetherna were perfectly fine.
However, inside Aetherna's giant, over-expanded sanctuary barrier, four other people were also wide awake, blinking in total confusion: Lilith, the King, Fredrick, and Seraphine.
Aetherna looked down at her hands, then over at the fully conscious rulers standing right next to her, and her face went completely pale.
"Oh, shit..." Aetherna whispered, covering her mouth in pure panic. In her desperate rush to protect Rutherford her barrier had accidentally grown too big, completely shielding Lilith , the King, his top commander, and the girl.
"One final task," Haruto murmured. He raised his hand toward the empty air and closed his fingers, making a sharp grabbing motion.
ZZHH-TNG!
With a small flash of purple static, Kallen's dark purple crown instantly de-materialized from his unconscious form and snapped directly into Haruto's hand. He looked down at the trophy, a dismissive smirk playing on his lips. Honestly, a piece of trash like him doesn't even deserve a brutal death from me. Nobody in this realm holds enough value to force the God of Nothingness to manually delete them. I only stepped into this world to see what was happening. But a win is a win—I officially cleared the game.
The moment the system verified the coronation claim, the giant neon boundary walls surrounding the track dissolved into thin air. Kallen's noble teammates remained slumped over in the spectator queue, completely fast asleep. But Ivory, Bellona, Lustra, and Toya were entirely free. They sprinted across the ruined marble tiles, immediately closing the distance to the center of the field.
The moment they stopped in front of him, Ivory showed zero hesitation. She dropped to one knee, bowing her head in deep reverence. Seeing her actions, Bellona, Lustra, and Toya quickly followed suit, kneeling before the divine presence occupying their captain's body.
"We honor your presence," Ivory said, her voice filled with absolute awe. "How did you find your way into this server, Almighty God of Nothingness?"
Haruto blinked, a genuinely surprised expression breaking across his face as he looked down at her. "Oh? How on earth did you see through my cover so easily?"
Ivory kept her head bowed, her sensory analytical skills fully operational. "Your residual power signature is completely different from Haruto's baseline. A multi-colored divine flame wrapped in an absolute black aura... the complete lack of standard vanity... and the fact that you instantly read Kallen's attributes as non-existent data. Your essence is the literal polar opposite of the God of Creation. It could only be Nothingness."
"Oh, wow! Spot on!" Haruto chirped, a slight blush rising on his cheeks as he twirled a long lock of white hair around his finger, suddenly looking incredibly flustered. "Geez, you really are as sharp as they say. Aetheris actually mentioned you in the database logs—you're Ivory, the brilliant tactical mind, right? And you must be Bellona, the absolute powerhouse. And Lustra, the one with the incredibly adorable face. Oh, and you're Toya, Haruto's loyal teammate!"
Toya scratched the back of his head, completely speechless. He politely nodded, trying to process why a supreme cosmic deity was suddenly acting so incredibly casual and cheerful.
Haruto giggled, stepping closer to Ivory and holding up a strand of his snowy white hair next to hers. "Look at this! We actually have matching hair colors now! Isn't that just the coolest thing ever?"
Ivory blinked, completely caught off guard by the deity's bubbly demeanor. "Uh... yes, it is very nice. Divine One, if I may... could I ask you a question?"
"Oh, don't be so formal! Ask me anything! You can ask me ten questions if you want!" Haruto replied, beaming with excitement.
Ivory hesitated for a fraction of a second before looking up. "Are you... actually a girl?"
"Yep! Sure am!" Haruto giggled cheerfully, placing a hand on his hip. "Why do you ask?"
A collective wave of disbelief washed over Ivory, Bellona, and Lustra. Based on all the ancient mythology and forbidden archives, they had always pictured the God of Nothingness as a terrifying, bloodthirsty, colossal demon shrouded in absolute darkness. They never in a million years expected the entity to be a cheerful, sweet-voiced girl casually hanging out in their friend's body.
Before they could fully process the shock, Haruto's expression shifted, his tone softening as he looked toward the horizon. "Well, we can chat about all that fun stuff later. We'll definitely meet again down the line."
Ivory bowed her head again, her voice sincere. "It has been the greatest honor of our lives to witness your presence."
"Alright," Haruto said, his playful smi
le fading as a sudden, intense seriousness took over his crimson eyes. "Let's talk business."