The Cartenone Temple trembled—not from impact, but from continuity.
The walls didn't crack.They looped.
Light folded back into itself as the domain stabilized, layers of endless playback overlapping like transparent screens. Every movement left an afterimage, every sound echoed twice—once forward, once backward.
Crunchyroller finally moved.
Not by stepping forward.
By playing.
The air filled with a low, flowing hum, like an infinite transmission with no source. Symbols—ratings, metrics, view counts—cascaded through the space, orbiting him like law.
"Engagement detected,"Crunchyroller said calmly."Efficiency required."
The first pulse washed over the team.
Not force.Assessment.
One by one, half of them froze mid-motion.
Their outlines flickered.
Crunchyroller raised a single hand.
"Irrelevant to narrative progression."
The frozen figures didn't scream.They didn't resist.
They were cut from the stream.
Their bodies flattened into pale silhouettes, then collapsed into drifting static—data without presence, echoes without weight. Where they stood, the domain rewound itself, pretending they had never been there.
Brush turned sharply.
"—Where did they go?!"
No answer came.
Not even silence.
Crunchyroller's gaze shifted, unreadable.
"Not erased,"he corrected."Skipped."
A second wave rolled outward.
This one weakened everything.
Power ratings plummeted. Skills stuttered. Abilities activated half a second too late. Even movement felt delayed, as if reality itself was buffering.
Infinity Compactor's voice echoed faintly through the domain, distorted:
"You are fighting the medium itself."
Crunchyroller floated higher, his form breaking into flowing light and reforming again—never the same shape twice.
"You struggle because you believe all characters matter,"he said."But only those who sustain the stream remain."
Brush clenched his fists.
The Chosen One's power reacted—then stalled.
For the first time, his strength didn't answer fully.
Crunchyroller noticed.
"Ah,"he said softly."Even protagonists can be dropped… if retention fails."
The remaining team regrouped instinctively, backs nearly touching. The absence of the erased half weighed heavier than any wound.
This wasn't a defeat.
It was curation.
The domain pulsed again—stronger this time.
From the shifting layers of the Cartenone Temple, new pathways unfolded, each leading toward deeper conflict.
Crunchyroller's voice echoed from everywhere and nowhere:
"Proceed,""Your final arc has begun."
And with that, the stream advanced.