POV: WORLD / ANNOUNCER
The sky above the Tournament Arena fractured—not shattered, not torn—rearranged.
Massive continental plates floated into position, oceans suspended in spheres, gravity wells pulsing in layered gradients. The arena was not built.
It was declared.
Across the world, every registered Supernova feed locked onto the same image.
This was not entertainment.
This was selection.
Every participant had been scanned. Every sigil indexed. Every lane classified.
Apex-tier only.
Where the laws of physics became negotiable. Where the System permitted violence it would otherwise erase. Where survival was the minimum requirement.
The Tournament of God had begun.
---
POV: TOURNAMENT PARTICIPANTS
Platforms drifted into alignment.
Combatants materialized across zones—heroes, villains, independents, mercenaries. Some radiated confidence. Others hid terror behind bravado.
The arena reacted to presence.
Reality stiffened.
Power density increased.
A psychic overlord tested the air—his construct buckled. A gravity manipulator adjusted stance—his sigil flickered, then stabilized. A temporal warper hesitated.
> "This place…"
"…it's fighting back."
The System was watching.
---
ANNOUNCER (SYSTEM-BOUND)
> "Welcome, contestants, to the Tournament of God."
"Preliminary Phase active."
"Rules are simple: Survival is mandatory. Advancement is earned. The arena will escalate."
A pause.
> "Interference is impossible."
Somewhere, the System hesitated.
---
POV: DIOKA & GUAKULIA (OUTER PERIMETER)
They weren't on a platform.
They weren't in a zone.
They existed just outside the arena's declared boundaries—where the System's authority thinned.
Dioka leaned back on invisible air, chewing something she absolutely did not register as carrying.
> "Wow," she said. "It's louder than I thought."
Guakulia watched the arena carefully, eyes narrowed—not amused, not impressed.
> "It's dense. The System's reinforcing everything at once."
Dioka tilted her head.
> "You saying it's… scared?"
> "I'm saying," Guakulia replied, "this is the most control it's ever exerted."
Dioka smiled.
> "Cute."
---
FIRST GLITCH (UNATTRIBUTED)
A top-ranked Hero launched an opening strike—clean, efficient, perfectly indexed.
The arena absorbed it.
Then—misaligned.
The platform rotated half a degree too far. The Hero landed wrong. His sigil flared, then stabilized.
> "What—?"
No alarms. No suppression. No visible interference.
Just… wrongness.
System diagnostics looped.
> Stability: nominal.
Cause: unresolved.
Dioka blinked.
> "…Huh."
Guakulia frowned.
> "That wasn't you."
> "Nope."
They watched more closely.
---
POV: ARENA / SYSTEM RESPONSE
Combat intensified.
Reality bent as expected. Damage thresholds rose. Survivors adapted.
But small inconsistencies began stacking.
Timing delays. Sigils activating late. Environmental responses misfiring by milliseconds.
Not enough to fail.
Enough to unsettle.
> "This arena's off," someone muttered. "It's like it's… thinking."
The System corrected. Again. And again.
---
POV: DIOKA & GUAKULIA (QUIET REALIZATION)
Dioka stopped joking.
> "You feel that?"
Guakulia nodded slowly.
> "Yeah."
They weren't causing the distortions.
The Tournament itself was reacting to something it couldn't categorize.
Something present.
Something them-adjacent.
> "We're not even playing," Dioka said softly. "And it's already bending."
Guakulia exhaled.
> "If we step inside…"
They both knew the rest.
---
ENDING BEAT
The preliminaries continued.
Heroes adapted. Villains escalated. The arena grew more violent, more alive.
From afar, factions watched with awe and fear.
But beneath it all, the System logged an unresolvable variable.
> Observation: External pressure detected. Classification: None. Action: Monitor.
Above the battlefield, just outside the rules—
Two anomalies watched.
Not interfering. Not competing.
Waiting.
Because once they entered…
The Tournament of God would stop being a contest.
And start being a problem.