POV: DIOKA
Dioka sat sideways on a drifting arena fragment, boots kicking empty air.
Below him, the preliminaries were no longer clean.
They were slipping.
Timing windows collapsed.
Attack arcs curved unpredictably.
Platforms drifted just slightly off expected vectors.
Nothing obvious.
Nothing provable.
But enough to ruin confidence.
> "Alright," Dioka muttered, twirling a shard of crystal between his fingers,
"now it's interesting."
A high-ranked elemental surged in from Dioka's blind side, launching a layered fire sequence—perfect spacing, excellent control.
Dioka didn't even look.
He flicked the shard.
The flames twisted upward—not canceled, not destroyed—just… redirected.
They spiraled into a vertical column that slammed into two nearby contestants mid-jump.
Chaos rippled outward.
Dioka blinked.
> "Huh. That wasn't supposed to do that."
He grinned.
---
POV: GUAKULIA
Guakulia hovered higher, arms folded, eyes half-lidded.
He wasn't watching fighters.
He was watching corrections.
The arena adjusted gravity.
Then over-adjusted.
Then corrected again.
A telekinetic elite attempted to bind him—clean construct, layered anchors, impressive control.
Guakulia stepped forward.
Not through it.
Between it.
The construct fractured—not shattered—like a misaligned equation collapsing under its own assumptions.
The telekinetic staggered, control slipping, and slammed themselves into a drifting platform.
Guakulia tilted his head.
> "Your math assumes resistance," he said quietly.
"Bad premise."
---
POV: ARENA SYSTEM / ANNOUNCER
The arena's internal stabilizers spiked.
Telemetry flickered.
> "Minor deviation detected."
"Cause: Environmental fluctuation."
"Correction in progress."
The announcer hesitated mid-broadcast.
> "…Contestants are reminded to—adjust for arena variability."
Static crackled.
Somewhere deep in the System, error buffers filled faster than expected.
---
POV: PARTICIPANTS
Panic hadn't arrived yet.
Confusion had.
> "That should've hit." "Why did the platform move?" "Did the gravity shift again?"
A Rank 7 reality manipulator attempted to stabilize a zone.
Reality bent.
Then… folded sideways.
Not violently.
Just wrong.
The manipulator screamed as their control collapsed.
Dioka sneezed.
> "…Oops."
---
POV: DIOKA & GUAKULIA
They drifted closer together without meaning to.
Dioka laughed under his breath.
> "They think it's the arena."
Guakulia nodded.
> "The System will blame itself before it blames us."
Attacks flew toward them.
None landed.
Not because they were blocked—
but because trajectories subtly changed.
A rock nudged.
A gravity pulse shifted.
A platform slid a meter left.
Cause and effect dissolved into coincidence.
---
POV: OBSERVATION DECK — HERO COALITION
Commander Roval stared at overlapping feeds.
> "This isn't sabotage."
Lieutenant Mara swallowed.
> "Then what is it?"
Roval zoomed in on two empty regions of space.
Unregistered.
Untargetable.
> "…Pressure," he said quietly.
"Something's applying pressure."
---
POV: LOW-TIER PARTICIPANT
A rookie lost footing as gravity flipped.
They screamed—
—and landed safely on another platform.
Heart pounding, alive.
They looked up.
A silhouette waved casually.
> "You're good," Dioka called.
"Try not to overthink it."
The rookie stared.
> "…Who are you?"
Dioka had already turned away.
---
POV: GUAKULIA — FIRST RECOGNITION
A top-ten ranked combatant noticed.
Not the attacks.
The pattern.
They launched a coordinated strike—gravity, fire, psychic bind—timed perfectly.
Guakulia raised one finger.
The attacks overlapped.
Interfered.
Collapsed into each other.
The backlash sent the combatant crashing into a platform's edge, unconscious but alive.
Guakulia exhaled softly.
> "There," he murmured.
"Someone finally looked properly."
---
ENDING — THE FAULT LINE OPENS
The preliminaries staggered on.
Elite fighters adjusted.
Mid-tier competitors panicked.
Low-tier participants broke.
Above it all, the arena pulsed—stable, functional… strained.
Deep within the Supernova System, a new flag appeared:
> Deviation exceeding predictive tolerance.
Cause: Unresolved.
Recommendation: Observe. Do not engage.
Dioka stretched.
> "Okay," he said, smiling.
"Now it's warming up."
Guakulia watched the arena bend ever so slightly.
> "And now," he replied,
"they'll start asking the wrong questions."
The Tournament of God continued.
And for the first time—
the System wasn't sure it was in control.