That the Perpetual Motion Engine had shown up again was shocking enough, but to see the Humanity's Final Trial and the Humanity's Final Hope both manifest in the same person? It defied the very scale of miracles the Little Garden could contain.
Shakyamuni, the Twin Goddesses, and the Three Pure Ones all stared wide-eyed, their worldviews shattering to dust.
"I always knew we'd see this day," the Lord of White Night sighed, "but he still manages to surprise."
"Mm." The Halloween Queen nodded.
They had been the first to notice Riku's Perpetual Motion Engine divinity and had long suspected he would someday descend upon Little Garden as a Humanity's Final Trial. Later, when he summoned the Perpetual Motion Engine itself and even brought it to heel, the shock dulled. But this? To be both the harbinger of doom and the emblem of hope? Neither of them had imagined that play.
"With things where they are, the result's set in stone," the [Disboard] cadre traded glances, smiling as they looked to a world-weary World Dragon Kurīma.
On the other side, Shakyamuni's face was grave.
"My terms are simple," Riku said, lips quirking. "Your body and soul will belong to me from now on. You'll live as my slave."
"What!?"
As his words fell, a chalice-shaped mark [Disboard]'s sigil bloomed on Kurīma's pale shoulder.
Kurīma pressed her lips into a line and said nothing. She'd known yanking that man into a Gift Game was a gamble with horrible stakes, but she hadn't expected the penalty to be this severe.
"A member of the Solar King Group [Avatāra], founded to end Eschatology itself, enslaved by a demon lord…" Kurīma's face twisted with unwillingness and helplessness.
She'd done this to herself. Convinced she'd found a counter, she'd ended up betting and losing herself. If the rest of [Avatāra] learned of it, they'd roast her forever. Mortifying didn't begin to cover it.
As for revenge, she didn't even consider it. There was no path to victory. Riku was simply… unsolvable.
"So this really is a one-sided defeat," murmured the gods from the rank-and-file up to Indra Shakyamuni, the Twin Goddesses, and the Three Pure Ones, all wearing the same heavy gloom.
After this defeat, Little Garden would surely be blanketed in darkness.
"Shakyamuni. Twin Goddesses. Yuan-Shi Tianzun. Lingbao Tianzun. Taishang Laojun," Riku called, eyes sweeping the sky. "Well? Do you keep fighting? If you want a death match, I'll oblige and wipe you out to the last. If you surrender, I can be merciful."
The air tightened again. The gods trembled, courage bled dry beneath the crushing despair.
"…We surrender." Even Shakyamuni's lips quivered as he forced the words out, face white, eyes ashen.
"We also surrender," said the Three Pure Ones, heavy as lead.
"I'll speak for [Thousand Eyes]: we surrender," the Twin Goddesses added with a sigh.
The [Disboard] ranks erupted in another towering feat under their leader. They had torn open the Heavens, smashed the Buddhist Order, the Taoists, and [Thousand Eyes], and even broken the Solar King Group [Avatāra] that came to the rescue. To force so many peak communities to yield, who in history had ever accomplished that? Only [Disboard].
"Wise choice," Riku said, amusement tugging at his mouth.
Shakyamuni and the others held their tongues. What choice did they have? Refuse, and they'd be annihilated for nothing. Better to preserve what strength remained if not to oppose [Disboard], then at least to meet the crises Little Garden would surely face.
Of course, that assumed [Disboard] had no intent to destroy Little Garden outright. Otherwise, everything was moot.
"My demand is simple," Riku went on, almost playfully. "From now on, each year you will pay tribute to [Disboard]."
Rage flashed through every divine face. Tribute. In mortal terms, it was what vassal states offered a suzerain or what subjects rendered their sovereign. In Little Garden: a subordinate community's offering to its protector.
In other words, he was declaring them vassals of [Disboard].
Seeing the gods and immortals snap from terror into angered indignation, Riku's smile sharpened. "Life or death, I'm letting you choose."
A killing chill rolled across the sky. Everyone shivered and remembered their place: losers to the core, with no right to negotiate. Fish on the chopping block.
Shakyamuni and Yuan-Shi Tianzun traded bitter smiles and swallowed this tyrant's treaty.
"And you, Twin Goddesses?" Riku glanced at the silent pair. "Do I have [Disboard] march over and erase [Thousand Eyes]?"
"…You win." With a long, helpless sigh, the Twin Goddesses yielded. In Little Garden as it stood, there was no community left that could resist [Disboard].
At those words, the gods and immortals collectively dimmed, adrift and gutted of will.
"As for the tribute particulars, Athena, that's you." Riku nodded to the crisp, battle-bright goddess.
"Understood." After a war this costly, she intended to wring every last drop of advantage.
"Next up, one last thing." Riku's lips curved; everyone watched, [Disboard] and [Seven Heavens] curious and eager, the gods and immortals fully on edge.
From his storage, Riku drew a card.
The Dragon Ball Super Angel Vados.
"Summon Vados." He spoke lightly.
A warm halo blossomed. A woman stepped forth: silver hair tied in a high ponytail, faintly blue skin and eyes, staff in hand, robes unfamiliar to Little Garden.
"Good day, master," Vados said with a gentle bow and a smile.
Riku answered with a small smile of his own.
Everyone stared, stunned. Those at the top, Lord of White Night, the Twin Goddesses, Shakyamuni, the World Dragon Kurīma, the Three Pure Ones, the Son of God, the Halloween Queen, looked especially taken aback.
The newcomer carried no divinity yet radiated divinity. And the quiet pressure rolling off her made even apex beings feel… heavy.
Sun Wukong only watched, curious. The Perpetual Motion Engine remained utterly calm.
"Riku, she is…?" White Night asked first, and every ear pricked up.
"Vados. One of [Disboard]'s general and my personal attendant." Riku smiled.
Faces tightened across the pantheon. A "general" of [Disboard] meant a two-digit… or a Halloween-Queen-class rule-breaker.
"Vados rewind time and restore the fallen," Riku ordered.
"Right away." Vados tapped the air with her staff. Time flowed backwards; the dead returned [Disboard] and god-side alike.
Those slain by Humanity's Final Trials could not be restored.
Reviving [Disboard] was a given. As for resurrecting their enemies… well, fresh "spoils" were best harvested hot. And if not by Vados, many would revive by faith anyway; better to bring them back now and collect what mattered most.
"The Truth of Time. She's wielding the Truth of Time… how is that possible?" Lord of White Night, Shakyamuni, the Twin Goddesses, everyone stared, shaken. Minor temporal Gifts existed, but mass reversal to resurrect swathes of the dead? No such thing had ever existed here.
A power that could only be called a Time Truth two-digit, full-authority scope.
Complexions darkened, especially among Shakyamuni's camp. Just how many monsters did [Disboard] still have tucked away?
"Now then, those among the revived gods and buddhas: hand over your divinities." Riku's voice cut through the awe.
Shakyamuni's face tightened. For gods, demons, and astrals alike, a divinity is everything. Stripping it away was… brutal.
"You go too far," Shakyamuni said at last.
"Shakyamuni demon lords are calamity incarnate. Isn't it a joke to complain about 'too far' to one of us?" Riku's reply was ice.
The Perpetual Motion Engine's killing aura seeped into every word. He meant it.
One by one, the resurrected deities broke. They yielded up their divinities. Panic spread; the rest followed. The immortals surrendered their immortal artefacts.
Riku watched, eyes cold. Wise. Otherwise, he'd have established his authority with a bloodbath and this way, he maximised return.
With trophies collected, Riku left Athena, the Perpetual Motion Engine, Vados, and the leaders of Buddhism, Taoism, and Thousand Eyes to hash through occupation details and withdrew from the scarred, ruined Heavens.
He wasn't worried about tricks. Vados could flatten the table, and the Perpetual Motion Engine could send anyone "ascending in a spiral."
As they departed, Karyō all but bounced, eager to bring [Seven Heavens] under [Disboard]. Sun Wukong didn't object; the three of them had promised this soon after she was born.
The other yōkai kings and their hosts had no complaint either; without [Disboard], the Heavens would've crushed them long ago. Awe of Riku, fervour for [Disboard].
Riku accepted them at once as a subsidiary community. Sun Wukong took a placeholder senior-general seat; Karyō and the other kings entered as officers.
Thanks to the Halloween Queen's boundary mastery, [Disboard] returned in triumph to Celestial Citadel. The city's denizens stared at the army's newly honed killing edge and at the oppressive radiance of the Perpetual Motion Engine and blanched. Riku's aura, at least, was neatly contained; Perpetual Motion Engine's was not.
Paperwork piled sky-high; Riku dumped it on the Halloween Queen, Poseidon, Laplace, and company, playing absentee boss. They loved him and hated him for it.
When the dust settled, Riku dismissed the crowd, keeping only the Lord of White Night and the World Dragon Kurīma.
"You look… resentful," he said to Kurīma first.
"Resentful or not, it changes nothing," he continued mildly. "From today, you serve exclusively under me." He chuckled. "I do miss the 'dragon-rider' feeling."
"Mm." Kurīma's reply was a frosty hum. Even bound by the Gift Game's penalty, some pride smouldered.
"Seems you need training," Riku mused, giving her a once-over.
"Heh heh, Riku, leave the 'training' to me," White Night chimed in, far too eager. For a connoisseur of cute girls, hands-on time with a petite World Dragon was… rare.
"What are you planning?" Between Riku's teasing and White Night's unfiltered enthusiasm, Kurīma tensed, wary.
"Relax," Riku waved it off. "Just a joke."
White Night snickered. "And what's that one about?"
"Hard to explain, had to be there." Riku's grin only made Kurīma more uneasy.
"Before that White Night. A promise is a promise. Let me clear Geocentrism's lingering hazard for you." Riku's tone turned serious, and White Night straightened at once.