Gojo's smile was a problem.
Goku felt it instantly. The man's ki—no, it wasn't ki. It was something else. Something cold and negative, but impossibly vast. It felt like staring into an endless, dark ocean. He wasn't radiating power like Frieza or Jiren; he was a hole in the universe that was full to bursting.
Anos Voldigoad's crimson eyes narrowed, his perception dissecting the newcomer on a fundamental level. He didn't see energy. He saw a technique. An infinitely layered barrier woven from the concept of paradox itself. Any attack would slow to a complete stop before it ever reached him. He had weaponized the idea of infinity. Ingenious. And profoundly arrogant. Anos approved.
"And here I thought the fun was over," Gojo said, stretching his arms over his head with a theatrical yawn. "Nice of you guys to break open a door for me. My dimension was getting a little boring."
"Another one?" Asta shouted, pointing his massive sword at Gojo. "Are you a good guy or a bad guy?! Decide now so I know whether to beat you up!"
Gojo pointed a finger at Asta. "You. Muscle kid with the anti-magic swords. Loud. I like it. A solid 7 out of 10." His gaze slid to Goku. "You. Spiky hair, brimming with enough positive energy to power a country. Eager. Simple. 8 out of 10." He looked at Saitama. "And you. Baldy in the cape. No energy signature at all. Either you're the world's strongest civilian or you're… interesting." He smirked. "Let's give you a question mark for now."
His blindfolded gaze finally settled on Anos. The smirk widened. "And you. Mr. Brooding Demon King. You feel like the final boss of a game I'd actually enjoy. You're not just strong. You're changing the rules of the room just by standing there. That's fun."
"I am merely restoring the syntax of a poorly written sentence," Anos stated, his voice calm. "You, however, appear to be a grammatical error." He took a single, casual step forward.
The air between them warped. It was a silent clash, a battle of absolute principles. Anos's aura, which commanded reality to obey, pushed forward. It encountered Gojo's Infinity and… stopped. It couldn't rewrite a law that was, by its own nature, an unending recursion. Anos could tell reality that 2+2=5, but Gojo's very existence was an endless series of fractions between 2 and 3. You can't reach the end to change it.
Gojo, in turn, could feel Anos's power pressing against his Infinity. Not trying to break through it, but trying to convince it that it didn't exist. The Six Eyes were processing trillions of bits of information per second as he analyzed the demonic source law pushing back.
It was a perfect, conceptual stalemate. A cold war fought and concluded in a single step.
Gojo's grin became razor-thin. "Ooh. I really like you."
While the god-tiers were posturing, Tanjiro knelt beside Mob, who was now sitting on the ground, hugging his knees. The ???% state had receded, leaving a pale, trembling Shigeo Kageyama in its place.
"Are you okay?" Tanjiro asked, his voice gentle. The boy's scent was a whirlwind of terror, confusion, and a bone-deep exhaustion. "That was your power, wasn't it? The ramen shop."
Mob flinched. He nodded, not looking up. "I-I didn't mean to. It just… happened. I wanted things to be normal again."
"I know," Tanjiro said, offering him a small, reassuring smile. "It's okay to be scared. We all are."
Meanwhile, on the comedy side of the battlefield, Kazuma was having an aneurysm. "Did you see that?!" he hissed at his party. "The blindfolded pretty boy just showed up and had a staring contest with the demon king and now they're best friends! We're surrounded by protagonists! We are side-characters in our own apocalypse!"
Aqua sniffed haughtily. "His energy feels impure! Defiled! It must be the work of an evil spirit!" She put her hands together, a brilliant blue light emanating from her. "Sacred Turn Undead!"
A beam of holy light shot out and splashed harmlessly against Gojo's Infinity, a meter away from his body. It didn't even register.
"Wow," Gojo said without looking, "did someone throw a water balloon?"
Aqua's jaw hit the floor. Kazuma just buried his face in his hands.
Saitama had had enough. He walked right into the middle of the Anos-Gojo stare-down, completely ignoring the warped space between them. His personal reality was so potent it just bulldozed through their high-concept power clash without even noticing.
"Okay, look, sparkly eyes, blindfold guy. You're both strong. We get it," he said, holding his hands up. "But is any of this getting me a hot meal? No. Is it getting me home? No. So can we either fix this or get on with the world ending so I can at least try to get some sleep?"
Goku appeared at his other side, clapping a hand on his shoulder. "He's right! All this talking is boring! Let's fight! The three of us! Right now!"
Before Anos or Gojo could respond to this absurd proposal, a voice spoke.
It wasn't a person. It was the world.
A cold, synthetic, and utterly impartial female voice echoed, not through their ears, but inside every conscious mind across the entire Converged plane. From the deepest halls of Nazarick to the bustling capital of Tempest.
[...SYSTEM ONLINE...]
[WELCOME, PARTICIPANTS, TO THE CONVERGENCE PROTOCOL: PHASE ONE.]
A translucent blue screen materialized in front of everyone, a sight eerily familiar to anyone from a world with games, and utterly alien to those who weren't.
[OBJECTIVE: SURVIVE.]
[SUB-OBJECTIVE: HARMONIZE THE CLASHING LAWS OF REALITY.]
[DESCRIPTION: THE INITIAL MERGE HAS RESULTED IN CRITICAL INSTABILITY. LAWS OF PHYSICS, MAGIC, AND METAPHYSICS ARE IN CONFLICT. FAILURE TO STABILIZE WILL RESULT IN CATASTROPHIC REALITY FAILURE AND SYSTEM-WIDE DATA ERASURE.]
[METHOD: 'HARMONIZATION ZONES' WILL MANIFEST. WITHIN THESE ZONES, CONFLICTING LAWS WILL BE EMBODIED BY 'ECHOES'—RESIDUAL DATA FROM POWERFUL BEINGS ACROSS ALL REALITIES. DEFEAT THESE ECHOES TO WEAVE THEIR UNDERLYING UNIVERSAL LAW INTO A STABLE HYBRID REALITY.]
[REWARD FOR PHASE ONE COMPLETION: TEMPORARY SYSTEM STABILITY. A CHANCE TO INFLUENCE THE NEXT PHASE.]
[PENALTY FOR FAILURE: YOU WILL BE DELETED.]
Kazuma's face went white. "It's a goddamn death game! They turned the apocalypse into a forced tutorial quest!"
The blue screen flickered, showing new information.
[FIRST HARMONIZATION ZONE DETECTED.]
[COORDINATES: YOUR CURRENT LOCATION.]
[GENERATING ECHOES… LAW OF 'KI' VS. LAW OF 'CURSED ENERGY'.]
The ground began to glow. Two figures began to materialize from swirling motes of data. One was massive, muscular, wearing armor, with a tail and a characteristic spiky hairstyle. The other was a hulking, patchwork creature with stitches across its face and too many arms.
They weren't real. They were constructs. Data given form. But the power radiating from them was undeniably authentic.
An echo of Broly, the Legendary Super Saiyan, roaring with boundless, primal rage.
And an echo of a Special Grade Cursed Spirit, a manifestation of humanity's fear of patchwork people, Mahito.
Goku looked at the Broly echo, a grim look on his face. "His energy… it feels just like the real thing."
Gojo looked at Mahito, his usual smile gone, replaced by a cold, dangerous fury. He remembered the real one. He remembered what it had cost them.
The system's voice returned, its tone unchangingly sterile.
[PRIMARY THREAT IDENTIFIED: IDLE TRANSFIGURATION. THIS ABILITY ALTERS THE SHAPE OF THE SOUL. DEFENSE AGAINST THIS LAW IS MINIMAL ACROSS 98% OF PARTICIPATING UNIVERSES.]
[PROBABILITY OF SURVIVAL AGAINST ECHOES: 1.7%.]
[PHASE ONE, MISSION ONE: BEGINS NOW.]