The world wasn't just stable. It was subservient.
The air around Anos Voldigoad didn't dare to move without his implicit permission. The ground beneath his feet didn't dare to crumble. This wasn't a spell or an aura. It was a statement of fact, as fundamental as gravity had been moments before. His presence had become the new base code for this patch of reality.
Sebas Tian, a being whose very fists contained the fury of dragons, was frozen. His mind, honed by decades of service and combat, struggled to categorize the man before him. He wasn't radiating power in the same way Lord Ainz did. He simply… was the source of it. Like comparing a lamp to the concept of light itself. A grave miscalculation wasn't the right word. This was an extinction-level error in judgment.
Tanjiro's nose was overwhelmed. The man's scent… it had no precedent. It wasn't the wisteria that repelled demons or the sun that killed them. It smelled like ancient stone, like a library at the end of time, a place where all stories were already written and bound. It smelled of absolute finality.
To Asta, it was even weirder. He felt… nothing. The crackling anti-magic within him, the chaotic energy of Lieb that was always pushing against the world's magic, had gone quiet. There was nothing to push against. This man's power wasn't a spell to be negated. It was the air itself. The ground. The silence. How do you cut silence with a sword?
Saitama took a step. The world didn't bend. It didn't react. He was the only thing in this stabilized zone that Anos's influence couldn't seem to touch. A single, glaring exception to the new rule.
"You're the one who fixed this mess?" Saitama asked. His tone was casual, like he was asking about a leaky faucet.
"I reinstated order where there was none," Anos replied, his crimson eyes gleaming with amusement. "You punched a hole in the law. I rewrote it. Simple."
"Oh. Cool." Saitama nodded slowly. "So, can you un-break the supermarket in City Z? I'm pretty sure I left my wallet at the checkout."
The absolute non-sequitur was so powerful it almost bent reality again. The Pleiades exchanged baffled looks. Asta blinked, trying to figure out if that was some kind of code. Tanjiro just looked confused.
Anos, for the first time, looked genuinely intrigued. "You possess power that transcends the logic of your world, yet your concerns are… groceries."
"Thirty percent off king crab," Saitama stated flatly. "It's a big deal."
Goku, however, was vibrating with an energy that had nothing to do with ki. He was practically bouncing on his heels, a massive, innocent grin plastered on his face. "Wow! You're strong, too! Are you stronger than him?" He pointed a thumb at Saitama.
This, Anos understood. A challenge, however crudely phrased. "Strength is a matter of definition," he said, his gaze drifting from Goku to Saitama. "He can break the board. I can change the rules of the game. Which is more powerful?"
"Can you both fight?" Goku asked, his mind cutting straight through the philosophy. "At the same time? That would be awesome!"
Saitama sighed. It was the deepest, most world-weary sigh in the history of the multiverse. He'd gone from a bargain sale to a dimensional apocalypse to a philosophical debate with sparkly-eyed weirdos. It was turning into a real Monday.
His gaze landed on Anos. "You talk a lot."
Then, he turned to Goku. "You wanna fight a lot."
He looked up at the broken, stitched-together sky. "I just wanna go home."
"There is no home to return to," Anos stated, his voice losing its amused edge for a fraction of a second, becoming as cold and vast as the void between worlds. "Not anymore. This… Convergence… is the new reality."
He held up his hand. An image formed in his palm—a swirling sphere of clashing universes, all held in a delicate, horrifying balance by the unseen force of the Axiom. "That thing you punched is merely a Herald. A janitor. The true problem isn't an enemy that can be defeated. It's a principle. A universal law of stagnation that has decided to rewrite itself through conflict."
Sebas watched, absorbing every word. A principle? Not a being? This information was critical. Lord Ainz had to know. Three beings, two of whom spoke of punching reality itself, and a third who could rewrite it at will. And Nazarick was caught in the middle. His mission had just changed from reconnaissance to survival.
Asta finally found his voice, shaking his head to clear it. "So we can't fix it? We can't just beat up the bad guy and send everything back?!"
"Beating things is your solution to everything, isn't it, Bakasta," a new, familiar voice groaned.
From one of the shimmering patches of reality nearby, a figure stumbled out, covered in dust, his black grimoire glowing faintly. Yuno. And behind him, Noelle Silva, her silver hair a mess. "Asta! You idiot! Did you cause all ofthis?"
They weren't alone. Figures were starting to stabilize, drawn to the anchor of Anos's power. A stoic man in a high-school uniform, surrounded by cursed spirits only he seemed to see. A boy with a chainsaw for a head who was currently trying to eat a piece of rubble. A party of four—a cynical boy in a tracksuit, a crying blue-haired girl, a panting blonde knight, and a red-eyed mage who just whispered, "Explosion…?"
The refugees of the Shattering were starting to find each other.
But as they appeared, the stability Anos had created began to waver. His power, absolute as it was, was a single dam holding back an ocean of chaos. Too many realities, too many laws, were now pushing against it.
The sky began to flicker again. A deep, psychic hum filled the air, a sound that felt like nails on the chalkboard of the soul.
And then, it started to rain.
The rain was gray, monochrome. And it fell upwards.
Gravity inverted.
Not all of it. Just… patches. Asta yelped as he began to float, while Tanjiro remained planted on the ground. A chunk of a skyscraper drifted past, turning end over end. Goku simply used his ki to plant himself to the ground. Saitama didn't seem to be affected at all. He just looked annoyed at the floating dust.
A single figure descended from the weeping, monochrome sky.
A boy in a simple, black school uniform. His expression was blank, his eyes hollow voids. He wasn't floating under his own power. He was simply ignoring the concept of down. The psychic pressure radiating from him was immense, a silent, emotional scream that threatened to shatter every mind it touched.
Shigeo Kageyama, or what was left of him in this moment, landed softly.
???% looked at the broken, impossible landscape. It felt the terror, the confusion, the loss of billions of souls. And in its own alien, dissociative consciousness, it felt the simple, desperate desire of the boy trapped within. The desire for normalcy. For things to make sense again.
The ground around him began to change. The asphalt and cobblestone dissolved. Not into dust, but into smooth, lacquered wood. A chrome-rimmed stool materialized. Then another. The very air began to smell of pork broth and miso.
He wasn't attacking. He wasn't defending.
He was subconsciously rebuilding the world around him into the one thing that had always represented comfort and safety to him.
He saw a memory of a simple ramen shop counter. And reality, desperate for a new set of rules, began to obey.