Saria’s scream still hung in the air, rippling out over the battlefield.
Al stared at me, breath caught in her throat, her face frozen in disbelief.
Origa and Zora stood wide-eyed, overwhelmed by quiet despair, as if they had just witnessed something irreversible. At the center of it all, Gyogyon basked in the moment, wearing a wicked, ecstatic grin.
“Huh?”
“What?”
Gyogyon’s grin faltered and his eyes went blank as he stared down at me in stunned silence. I glanced around and saw that he wasn’t the only one: Saria, Al, everyone had the same look of total confusion.
“W-What’s going on here?” Yaiba muttered, speaking aloud what everyone else was clearly thinking.
“Impossible! Why?! Why aren’t you gone?! Why are you still standing there as if nothing happened?!” Gyogyon howled.
“Uh, more importantly, what did you do?” I asked.
Saria and the others had looked like their hearts were about to shatter. But to be honest, I still didn’t understand what they were all so worried about.
As far as I could tell, nothing had happened.
“I mean, seriously,” I continued, “I don’t even know what that was supposed to be. You reached for my head, and then… what?”
“Y-You absolute anomaly!” Al shouted. “He erased your rock tentacles like they were nothing! You should’ve been more cautious!”
“Anomaly?!”
I couldn’t help snapping back at that, but okay, fair. I guess I could see how things looked. Since the tentacles had just crumbled apart, Al and the others must have thought Gyogyon was some unstoppable monster now. And considering I was the only one who could summon weird nonsense like “rock tentacles,” seeing that get neutralized probably made him look even more terrifying.
But hang on, doesn’t that also mean I’m the one who usually looks like the monster?
Wait… Is that what they really think of me?
As I started spiraling down that delightful train of thought, Gyogyon finally let go of my head and stared down at his own hand in utter disbelief.
“This is… This is impossible! I-I truly possess the power of Mu-Yu! The power of the divine itself! With this, I should be omnipotent! I should be able to erase all things… How could this be stopped?!”
“Someone like you could never lay a finger on Seiichi-sama.”
The voice echoed, calm and absolute, through the air.
At first, I thought it was just my usual internal announcer. It was spoken so smoothly, so naturally, that I assumed it came from inside my head. But this time, it was different. This voice wasn’t meant for me alone.
“What—?! Whose voice is that?!” Gyogyon shouted, spinning in place, searching the sky with wide, panicked eyes.
“Amazing! It feels like it’s echoing directly inside my head!”
“Huh?”
Saria’s eyes sparkled with wonder, but that wasn’t the surprising part.
Apparently, the voice that usually only spoke in my mind, the one I’d come to think of as the announcer, was now audible to everyone.
Wait, what?
My brain fumbled for an explanation, but before I could make sense of it, all attention turned to Gyogyon. Of everyone here, he seemed the most shaken by the voice.
“W-Who?! Who dares speak to me like that?! Show yourself, if you have the gall to mock me!”
“The fact that you can’t even perceive my form says everything I need to know about your limits.”
“Wha—?!”
Okay, hang on… Announcer? I’ve never seen your form either, y’know?! Do you even have one?
The situation was spiraling into chaos, and honestly, I had no idea where to even begin objecting. Meanwhile, Gyogyon’s voice grew louder and more frantic.
“Do not mock me! I possess the power of Mu-Yu! The limit, a concept that defines the finite, means nothing to me now. That means I can evolve endlessly! With that power, I shall…”
“And?”
“Huh?”
That single deadpan word landed like a slap, stopping Gyogyon in his tracks. Honestly, I felt the same way; the rest of us were just as thrown off. If what Gyogyon was saying was actually true, then he might have become something beyond reason. I mean, sure, I’d eaten the Fruit of Evolution, so I knew a thing or two about growth, but infinite evolution? I had no idea if that was even possible for me.
Yet the announcer didn’t flinch. Their tone stayed perfectly neutral, as if stating the obvious.
“Infinity, nothingness, finitude… They all lead back to Seiichi-sama.”
I-I’m not Rome, you know?!
“The infinity you claim, the limits you deny, the void, death, all of it—everything—exists under Seiichi-sama’s dominion. No, not even that. We simply serve him by our own will. Should he deem your existence unnecessary, then so shall it be.”
W-Wait, hold on! Time out! What is happening?! I don’t understand a word of this!
If what the announcer was saying was actually true, then what would happen if I denied the concept of death? Would that mean no one would ever die again? This was way beyond “I visited the underworld once” levels of insanity!
Since when did I turn into something like that?!
Actually, as I thought about it, maybe it had been that way for a while.
“And another thing,” the announcer continued coolly, “you speak of ‘evolution’ so lightly. But do you truly understand its origin?”
“W-What?” Gyogyon muttered.
“Across all worlds—what you and Seiichi-sama would call the omniverse, dimensions, all of existence itself—every capacity for adaptation, learning, imitation, growth, and evolution, along with every ability, trait, concept, and authority, exists for one reason alone. Every being that possesses these things does so for a single purpose.”
The voice sharpened, heavy with absolute certainty.
“Seiichi-sama is their origin. All those who inhabit the omniverse merely borrow their power by his grace. As for you… You are less than the residue scraped from the bottom.”
“N… N…!”
Hold on… origin?!
I’m still a teenager?! I haven’t even lived that long! Are we even talking about humans anymore?!
The content had gone so completely off the rails that no one aside from Gyogyon and the announcer could even follow it anymore. And that included me, the supposed centerpiece of this conversation.
Still glaring into the sky, Gyogyon shouted back, forcing his way through the shock.
“W-What does it matter?! If I evolve beyond that lower lifeform—!”
“Meaningless,” the announcer interrupted flatly. “The more you evolve, the more that evolution becomes Seiichi-sama’s power.”
“Huh?!”
“Huh?!” I echoed.
“Why are you surprised?” Al snapped at me.
Because this is the first I’m hearing of it!
While I stood there reeling, the announcer pressed on, utterly merciless.
“Do you understand now? No matter how much trash-tier power you acquire through evolution, the gap between you and Seiichi-sama will never close. No, there was never a gap to begin with.”
The words landed like a verdict.
“After stripping away the evolved power you gain, Seiichi-sama evolves. And it doesn’t end there. Even now, while you waste his valuable time here, countless beings across other dimensions and omniverses are continuing to evolve, grow, and adapt.”
My throat went dry.
“Seiichi-sama evolves by the same amount. And on top of that, all the power gained by those evolved beings also becomes his. By his mercy, those unrelated to him may continue their growth undisturbed…”