"Hahaha!"
From beneath Giovanni's mask came a voice laced with delighted laughter:
"Just as I thought—the one able to stand before this humble servant in the end... is you! My friend!"
"Your radiance is truly dazzling!"
Bowing slightly, Giovanni's tone brimmed with pride:
"To witness such a grand spectacle—this humble one is... utterly gratified!"
"By your words, you must have cherished your Aether Spirits, then?" Caelus said, eyes crinkling in a smile.
He very much wanted to lift that mask and see just how many faces were underneath.
"Heh heh~"
Giovanni let out a low chuckle, one hand pressed to his chest, bowing slightly, his posture impeccably sincere:
"I am but a small private merchant from Epsilon Star, wandering the vast galaxy, conducting trifling little bits of business."
"Through fortuitous coincidence, I did indeed manage to collect some... extraordinary Aether Spirits."
Straightening up, Giovanni's voice carried a certain solemn, promissory weight:
"After all, as one of the celebration's patrons—and the most devoted fan of "Aether Front"—this humble one wishes only to ensure one thing..."
Giovanni elegantly spread his arms, as if embracing the entire seething arena:
"To witness a truly perfect celebration, and to let every participant feel the charm of the game."
"The charm of playing the game with cheats?"
Caelus gave a slight nod, the corner of his mouth curving upward: "Bring it on!"
"Then, allow this humble one to embarrass himself and summon first."
Giovanni bowed gracefully, pinched a flowing Aether Coin between his fingertips, and with a seemingly light, casual motion, tossed it upward.
Ding-dong!
The coin flew up, yet showed no sign of falling—as though drawn by some invisible force, it defied all reason and kept rising higher and higher.
The sky changed with it: boundless dark-red cloud vortices gathered and spun madly above the arena, forming a colossal storm's eye that blanketed the heavens.
Thunder rolled ceaselessly; a web of lightning and howling wind covered the firmament.
"Descend!"
Giovanni's voice pierced the wind and thunder: "Slifer the Sky Dragon!"
"Roooar——!"
The dragon's roar shook the heavens; blood-red scales gleamed in the Aether-light as its ferocious, majestic head broke through the cloud vortex.
Winding hundreds of meters long, the massive dragon body coiled with golden thunder, tearing through the storm as it spiraled down, each beat of its enormous crimson wings whipping up devastating hurricanes.
"Awaken! Obelisk the Tormentor!"
The earth trembled like a war drum being struck; a sky-piercing pillar of blue light shot up from the ground, and a towering blue god tore open a dimensional rift to descend into the world.
Its deep-blue divine body, muscles knotted like the hardest mountain ranges, its trident-shaped crown pointing straight at the heavens, radiating supreme divine might; a pair of enormous wings on its back symbolized absolute power, and jagged spikes jutted backward from its arms and shoulder guards.
Not done yet!
Giovanni continued summoning: "Come forth! Awaken! Beast that rends the earth—the super-ancient monster Golza!"
"Super-ancient dragon Melba, cosmic sea beast Reicubas, mystic beast Gan Q, cosmic battle beast Super C.O.V!"
Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!
Five world-ending giants, each of a different form and radiating primordial ferocity, stood shoulder to shoulder on the dueling field.
Together with the two God monsters, their mere existence exuded such a tyrannical aura that it seemed to crush the very heavens; the apocalyptic scene plunged the entire arena into a deathly silence.
In the audience stands, an alien spectator suddenly leapt to his feet, trembling all over like a sieve; the ice cream in his hand went 'plop,' dropping squarely onto the gleaming bald head of a chubby uncle in the front row.
The melting cream slid comically down the bridge of his nose, but the bald uncle didn't notice at all—like everyone else, he just gaped stupidly, eyeballs bulging as if about to pop out of their sockets.
"凸(艹皿艹 )!"
Caelus's expression instantly twisted, and he abruptly threw up his middle finger:
"I fucking knew it was you! Aha, God of Fun—hijacking someone's account, huh!? Inka, right!?"
Even if Giovanni were the Elation Emanator, there was no way he'd have seen these creatures; pulling out one or two might've been a bluff Caelus could reluctantly buy.
Damn it, fine—the traitor dragon and the Obelisk giant, whatever.
But those five together—you bastard, are you trying to fusion summon the Five King!?
"Then let's have a match!"
Caelus swept his big hand, and Aether Coins shot out like a goddess scattering flowers, bursting with dazzling brilliance!
"Shine! Ultraman Ace, Goss·Corona, Goss·Solar Eclipse, Tiga!"
"Super Mashin·Sword King Ryujinmaru! Sun Crown·Soul of the Earth·Super Granzort!"
"Lord Ravager·Immortal Fruit! Divine Tree·Ten-Tails!"
Within layer upon layer of surging, interwoven roots, golden flames rose with a blooming lotus, then transformed into a colossal female figure.
The ferocious behemoth roared to the sky, the Ten-Tails' tails swaying with earth-shaking force, its nine-Magatama Rinnegan eyes radiating world-ending malice!
Dazzling multicolored radiance bloomed one after another—the grand holiness of the Giant of Light, the steel torrent of the super Mashin mecha, the cold death-stillness of Lord Ravager, the sky-swallowing menace of the world-ending Divine Tree... intertwining into a supreme pressure that could make even gods turn their heads.
"Hahaha! Fun! So much fun!"
In the terrifying standoff, its aura enough to freeze spacetime, Giovanni suddenly burst into loud laughter—laughter filled with pure elation, as if he were personally partaking in a long-awaited feast.
"As a ten-year hardcore player of Aether Front, number one on the full-server PVP leaderboard since launch, to battle you here—it truly makes my blood boil, yo!!!"
"Hey, mind your character consistency while you're squatting on that account!"
On the dueling field, a battle unfolded that had long surpassed any previous finals ceremony.
"Ace! Horizontal Guillotine! Target: Reicubas!"
Caelus's command was crisp and forceful.
Ace crossed and drew apart his arms; the crescent-shaped Guillotine blade sliced through space, tearing apart the frozen torrent Reicubas spat out—only to be shattered by a punch from Obelisk gathering its energy.
"Golza! Ultrasonic Beam! Melba! Destruction Ray! Crossfire!"
Giovanni waved his hand.
The horn atop Golza's head gathered space-distorting purple energy, while Melba's sharp beak spewed a scorching destruction beam; the two devastating rays converged in midair, forming an even more terrifying spiral of energy.
"Super Granzort, Earth Barrier! Sword King Ryujinmaru, cut it—slash it open for me! Tiga, sever the horn!"
Super Granzort slammed both hands onto the ground, and a massive barrier forged of lava and light energy instantly rose up; Sword King Ryujinmaru raised its right arm and, with the momentum to cleave stars, brought it down upon that spiral of energy.
Kaboom!!
The roar of colliding energy was like stars exploding; the blinding light instantly swallowed half the arena, and the shockwave spread out like a physical tsunami—even weakened by layer upon layer of protective force fields, the front-row seats in the stands were still twisted and blasted away by the invisible force!
"Holy shit!"
"Why!?"
"The Aether's been activated!"
The organizers' engineers were about to lose their minds!
"What's going on?"
Haxxor Bunny and Silver Wolf were dumbfounded too.
As hackers who had mastered Aether Editing, they understood the underlying principles of Aether Front better than anyone.
Aether Spirits are, in essence, virtual images composed of Aether and data, possessing mass—realizing the flashy duels of 'soaring the skies and racing the earth alongside your Aether Spirits.'
They can touch and harm reality, but with safety limits in place.
A bit more lifelike than playing cards in Yu-Gi-Oh.
But now, the Aether on this planet was in a state of high activation; the complex interactions among the three layers—Aether, data, reality—aside...
The result was this: the Aether Spirits on this planet were breaking free from their virtual shackles, turning from virtual to real, gaining the ability to directly and brutally interfere with the material world!
At the best seat in the audience stands, at the highest point of the ring-shaped plaza.
"Huh? The safety control protocol has failed!?"
Even Topaz, seasoned in the workplace, completely lost it in that moment, her eyes round as saucers, eyeballs looking as though they'd pop out any second.
She pressed her finger hard against the communicator at her ear, listening to the incoherent report from the IPC's emergency technical team on the other end.
"What do you mean 'aside from being able to interfere with the material world, there's basically no difference from before'!?"
"What do you mean 'at the very least they have no self-will, and the underlying logic preventing them from harming humans is still intact'!?"
Topaz roared into the communicator: "Then what difference does it make whether the protocol's been breached or not?! Right now any random skill on that field could blow the audience stands sky-high!"
"I don't have time to argue about your underlying logic! Hanging up!"
Topaz irritably yanked off her headset; right now she only wanted to charge onto that dueling field that had become a battlefield of gods and demons, grab Caelus by the collar, hoist him up, and interrogate him:
My ancestor!
What the hell did you cheat with this time?
In Topaz's eyes, the Erudition Emanator Bronita was capable of pulling off something like this... though the damage to reality wouldn't be 100% replicated—but what difference was there between the Tsar Bomba and Little Boy exploding right beside you?
But then again.
Topaz's gaze couldn't help but turn once more toward that bizarre, world-destroying battlefield.
Goss·Solar Eclipse was locked in a starry chase with Super C.O.V, energy beams carving gorgeous and deadly trajectories across the firmament.
The Immortal Fruit's Ambrosial Arbor roots entwined Gan Q's evil eye, triggering a silent explosion on the mental plane; the Ten-Tails' Tailed Beast Ball clashed against Golza's lava rays, every collision putting Belobog through a small earthquake!
That light and shadow beyond the limits of imagination, that power that shook the stars, that ultimate showdown fusing myth and sci-fi into one furnace... was an unprecedented spectacle of grandeur!
"If I were a spectator, I definitely wouldn't want to move an inch right now; even getting caught in the aftershock would be worth it to see this scene."
Topaz tossed her hair, a complicated smile forming—laced with awe, heartache, regret, and more.
"At the very least I have to guarantee the lives of the spectators present."
She gripped her own Preservation cornerstone—the Topaz Gem.
Thankfully she reacted quickly, using the power of Preservation to shroud the dueling field layer by layer.
On the small-airship commentary platform, the host's hand holding the microphone trembled as if he had Parkinson's, his face pale as paper, beads of cold sweat rolling down his forehead, lips quivering, unable to piece together even a professional fake smile.
His brain had nearly crashed, leaving only instinct to drive his vocal cords into broken syllables:
"S-spectators, friends... this... this... this..."
His voice carried a sob and utter bewilderment, asking the ultimate question buried in everyone's heart:
"Is this really Aether Front?!"
The audience stands were swept—like a tsunami engulfing the whole venue—by shouts in every language and every accent, mixed with extreme terror, shock, absurdity, and frenzied excitement, converging into a deafening chaos:
"Holy shit!!!"
This was the most direct, most universal, most heartfelt interjection in the universe.
"Help!!"
"Badass!!"
"Am I fucking dreaming? This is actually live?!"
"They're alive! They're alive!"
The audience stands had utterly descended into a boiling pot of porridge, brimming with terror and frenzy.
Some crouched with their heads covered in defense, some went hysterical, some were so worked up they hugged and pounded on one another, some busied themselves frantically recording this epic scene with all sorts of devices.
"Worthy of you, as expected!"
On the dueling field, Caelus and Giovanni remained undisturbed by the outside world.
"So then, how about this?"
Giovanni gave a crisp snap of his fingers.
"Golza, Gan Q, Melba, Reicubas, Super C.O.V—Super Fusion!"
The five ferocity-radiating giants on the field suddenly shuddered violently, dissolving into torrents of energy in various colors, into raw energy sources.
Five torrents of energy, like scrap iron cast into a furnace, amid a teeth-grating shriek of distorting space, were forcibly kneaded, forged, devoured, and merged, forming a brief black-hole event horizon.
"Descend, Super Fusion Monster—Five King (FIVE KING)!"
From the center of that event horizon, a ferocious and terrifying giant foot thunderously stepped out, landing on the earth of the dueling field; the ground instantly caved, cracked, and melted like a fragile cracker.
"Ha?!"
Caelus stared at that colossal thing forcibly kneaded from five ferocious beasts, radiating a violent, chaotic aura, surprise flashing in his eyes:
"You really did pull this whole thing off?!"
He smacked his lips:
"Tsk, miscalculated! Had I known, back when I fought Phantylia I should've had Stelle buy me and Ah Qi a Gaia and a Dyna."
Caelus glanced at Ace and the Solar Eclipse and Corona forms of Goss:
"Sending these two and Tiga to fight the Five King? That's outside their specialty!"
"Forget it!"
Caelus flipped his wrist, and two non-circulating chips flowing with profound, dark light appeared between his fingers—these were precisely the limited chips that the Erudition Emanator Bronita had custom-made for him.
He raised the first chip high; the chip erupted with light-devouring shadow.
"With the authority of Lord Ravager·Immortal Fruit as the base! With the boundless might of Divine Tree·Ten-Tails as the foundation! Overlay the two, construct the Xyz Network!"
"Xyz Summon——Descend, Tree of Finality that devours the sea of stars! Six Paths Samsara·Ambrosial Arbor!"
The Ambrosial Arbor roots and giant vines, symbols of Abundance, wove and coiled madly; the phantom of an enormous demon-eyed great tree, its roots plunging deep into the void, appeared. On the tree's main trunk, crimson Rinnegan eyes bearing nine-Magatama patterns snapped open one after another, coldly gazing down upon the two God monsters.
Immediately after, without the slightest pause, Caelus slammed the second chip—containing the pure law of light—onto Tiga.
"Bond of Light——with Ace, the flame of Goss·Solar Eclipse, and the power of Goss·Corona as offerings!"
Ace, Solar Eclipse, and Corona simultaneously transformed into three torrents of pure light, like a hundred rivers returning to the sea, madly pouring into Multi Type Tiga's multicolored timer!
"Herewith——awaken, the Light of Hope!"
Tiga's body erupted with unprecedented golden light, warm and vast, instantly dispelling all the gloom brought by the Five King!
"Tiga·Glitter Form!"
Caelus swept his hand: "Get 'em!"
"Mom, is this really Aether Front?"
A child asked again.
"No, this is Big Bro fighting a war of the gods."
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