Table of contents
- Introduction
- Baseline universe
- "4th dimension"
- Baseline layer
- Afterlife
- Extra Universal Gods
- R>F Hierarchy
- Law of Identity
- Miscellaneous
- Summary
Introduction
Similarly to my other thread, the point of this one is to bring some context, inconsistencies and contradictions with the claims surrounding this work of fiction. Before we start, let's just say that in my opinion, the rating of this verse is far, far, far more exaggerated then the other one (AWLBA) as that one at least has a concrete basis for being multiversal, meanwhile this one has next to none without some extreme headcannon interpretations (and it's also placed much higher then AWLBA in terms of strength on nearly every fictional battle forum I've seen).
That said, I'll be going over each part of the cosmological structure of this series in question, as well as it's god-tier characters and provide context surrounding the claims for each one, so let's start:
Baseline universe
This part is extremely straightforward as it literally needs zero explanations beside looking at what the source material itself says, so here are more then enough quotes proving the universe is solar system sized:
Yoshie nodded as well.“Looks that way. I had suspected this ever since I had some questions about this world’s space development. After all, it seemed like this world had nothing beyond the solar system.”“Come to think of it, when our world went to the moon…”“Yes, space development was banned. It was as if this world were a miniature garden. With this new information, I’m sure of it. Akuto-kun has overcome death, so if anyone can overcome death in the same way…”
.
This one came from beyond Pluto.”“Beyond Pluto?”“Just in case, I had this gathering data that could indicate this universe is unnatural. As I mentioned before, one of those facts is the possibility that nothing exists past Pluto in this universe. Anyway, you could say that this meteor suddenly appeared from outside the solar system. I don’t know the details, but it seems we were only just now able to detect it,” explained Yoshie.
.
“It’s hard to believe we were simply slow to detect it. It was discovered by the wartime anti-air network. Surprisingly, that wartime anti-air network covers objects travelling toward the empire from anywhere within the solar system.”Yoshie sounded surprised.“It covers the entire solar system? You mean…”Fujiko shuddered and her face clouded over.—It’s possible someone could attack from outside the universe.
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“Just to be clear, we can’t detect anything outside the solar system.”
“No, you can’t. But there is something beyond there: another universe.”
.
“In other words, this world ends within the solar system?” asked Lily to make sure.“Yes. This world goes no further than that and the other world is more or less the same.”“So you broke through the barrier and passed between worlds to come here?”“
.
No.” Akuto shook his head. “We’re not going to the earth.”“Is there another planet we can move to? There are no planets outside the solar system, after all.”
Alright, hopefully, now it's clear enough on how large the universe is. Next:
"4th dimension"
There is a claim that the "virtual dimension" is "infinitely" transcended over three spatial ones because it's called "4th dimensional space" and the proof used for that is this quote:
The virtual alternate dimension was commonly referred to as a 4th dimensional space. Researchers’ understanding of it was as follows: “we don’t know why, but there is an infinitely vast space adjacent to our dimension.” It was thought to be dangerous to remain within it, so it was usually used to temporarily transfer oneself or objects or to trap intruders as a defensive panic room.
First of all, it's worth to note that the reason it's called "4th dimensional space" is because it was a complex enough topic of research and not because it's in some way infinitely transcended over the other three dimensions of space.
This is a very reasonable and logical interpretation from the first sentence of the above quote, but it's also worth to note the other translation explicitly mentions what I said at the start of the above paragraph:
The research was on “virtual space.”Virtual phase space was a complex enough topic that most people just called it 4D space, and even scientists knew little more than “We don’t know why, but there’s an infinitely vast dimension right next to us.
This should already be enough evidence that this was just a classic example of twisting context to exaggerate something, but why not add more:
This "virtual alternate dimension" is almost always referring to either a world similar to a VR-game:
“M-my apologies. I am only saying this for your safety. One week is the longest anyone has been able to remain within the virtual alternate dimension. It is being controlled this time, so you will likely be safe even if you stay longer than that. However, no food is being brought in from outside. One week in-game is equivalent to a dozen or so hours in reality. Your physical bodies will not starve or die of thirst in that time.”
“…I see.”
“Second, even if you die in this world, you will simply return to the real world. In other words, you can return by dying.”
.
“I believe the condition to leave the virtual alternate dimension is to complete the planned events here.”
The girl was Fujiko. Yoshie realized she was the same one who had made the perceptive realization earlier.
“Yes. Completing the game will likely allow us to leave. I will now give a simple explanation of the game’s rules. Your roles here have been determined by your personalities. While here, you will fight, obtain victory, gain experience, and level up. As this is an experiment into the effectiveness of using the virtual alternate dimension, the combat and magic skills you gain here will remain with you when you return to the real world. Your brain will have learned the behavior patterns. It is the same as never forgetting how to ride a bike once you learn how.”
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“We have been given the roles that suit us best in this game world and can leave once the game has been completed. It is the same as before.”
.
When Morlock shrank, his body did not actually reduce in size. He would send most of his body into a virtual alternate dimension and reform his body with mana. However, Akuto was using that against him.
“Gyaaaaah!”
His scream trailed on and on as his body grew smaller and smaller.
Akuto sealed Morlock in the virtual alternate dimension and set his size at no bigger than a few dozen mana particles.
.
Lily had learned the plan involved obtaining Keena’s cells and using the mana waves they produced to seal Akuto in the virtual alternate dimension. She had hurriedly held a health examination and laid the trap. As planned, 2V had arrived to obtain Keena’s blood. Lily had not known what 2V would look like, but she had only needed to pursue the person who carried out Keena’s blood.
.
The plan is to seal Sai Akuto in the virtual alternate dimension. Most likely, he will either be left there with no influence on the outside world or they will kill him inside.”
or as a pocket dimension, that's dependent on the energy from the finitely sized universe:
The bag contained a virtual alternate dimension. It was dependent on the energy on the surface, so it was working now and would not once the surface was destroyed. That would likely be the final tool Korone would produce.
Welp, so much for being infinite as well as "transcendent" over the normal three dimensions of space.
Baseline layer
The claims for this are that Akuto can create "infinite" possibilities from a quote that says he will create every logically possible universe and therefore there exist infinitely many parallel worlds (some people also claim that each world has an infinite hierarchy by themselves from this):
For example, the two statements “an elephant flew through the sky” and “Hitler visited Paris in the year 2000 AD” were both impossible in reality, but they worked in writing. If elephants were flying creatures and if Hitler had not died, they could occur even in reality. They were true in a world that could have been. In that case, it became clear that near infinite possibilities were contained within the world. They could even be seen as existing as infinite parallel worlds.
.
You will create all of those logically possible worlds,” said Yoshie as if giving an order. “All of them?” he asked back in astonishment. “What remains after that will be your own will. You will see all worlds and choose for yourself.” “I suppose I should search for the possibility of saving the world in this world where I can do anything. If I don’t, we may never escape this place.” “In that case, I think you should start right away.” She produced a mana screen and displayed a model of history. “The data you can view is a copy of that from the world just before it was destroyed, but you can use that to calculate back and construct all possibilities.” “But I feel like the worlds I would create would fairly ridiculous,” he said. “That’s fine,” she replied. “Even the ridiculous worlds are a possibility.” Akuto then decided to bring out those possibilities himself.
Worth to note the bolded part in the first quote - "near infinite" doesn't mean anything. You are either finite or infinite, you can't simply by "near" or "close" to infinity. One of the many times author butchers the meaning of the word infinite.
There's also a part in the 2nd quote that pretty much debunks everything about this notion of Akuto creating infinite universes, but I'll get to that later.
First, to provide context for this, both the space and the characters in each story are finite, but there exist infinite combinations:
Opening up all possibilities may have been a mistake. The space itself was finite and the characters were finite, but the combinations were infinite. Opening up the possibilities was not just a concept. It actually released the walls of the world that supposedly existed within Akuto.
This instantly contradicts the notion of any world having any sort of infinite hierarchy (or infinite anything) inside it. Also, theoretically, there exist infinite combinations, but Akuto wasn't able to create all of them:
That was where Akuto gave up making stories. It had all started to seem pointless. The stories were all developing, but everything he made felt so... stupid. The only thing he seemed to want was a world where he could feel peace and comfort forever.
he stopped at several tens/hundreds of thousands as these quotes show:
Tens of thousands of stories were inspected and the testing of that possibility ended once they had all been completed.
.
Hundreds of thousands of stories were tested, and all of them discarded.
And not only that, it took him thousands of years to create these stories:
He had already used millennia on this, but he began to have more than just a suspicion that the stories were hiding within humans.
.
It had taken thousands of years to reach this point.
...and not only that, it seems like he is just rebuilding the same space over and over again and not creating different universes:
“Alright. I’ll rebuild the afterlife then. You want me to strengthen the influence of the outer gods, and return the world to its premana-civilization form, right?” “That’s right. Maybe sometime in the 1990s?” “I’ll try it. How it works... is up to you.” Akuto balled up the world in his hands again, and then let it spread out wide.
oh, he also doesn't even create the entire timeline of the universe but just a couple of years of it and inserts false memories about the past into the people inside it:
Hattori was sharp, but she could be stubborn and prone to reject anything she saw as a flight of fancy. I’ll probably have to explain to you who Junko is. When the Demon King rolled back the story to around the year 2000, we were given different personalities and lives. The world was created from nothing in 1990, and we were all given false memories of the past. So in this world, Junko Hattori was an old co-worker of mine. Her old appearance, and her old story, had been taken from her, and now she was a thin, and to be honest, plain-looking girl.
one more quote to support this:
“Of course. With you gone, I can rewind the world and restart the story,with all its patterns. You can be there, just not as the demon king.” “Isn’t that a waste of time? You’ve already killed me a bunch of times, haven’t you?” Akuto asked, confused. Hiroshi pointed at him, as if to say,“That’s exactly the point!”
It's even said Akuto will need an infinite amount of time to create all of those stories:
With that, reality became reality.A story was needed to perceive reality because that was where a relationship with another was found.But to reconstruct the story possibilities, Akuto needed a period of time bordering on the infinite. After all, he had to test all possible stories.
You would think it can't possibly get any worse then this right ? Well... remember the 2nd quote in this category ? Let's take a closer look at a part of it:
“In that case, I think you should start right away.” She produced a mana screen and displayed a model of history. “The data you can view is a copy of that from the world just before it was destroyed, but you can use that to calculate back and construct all possibilities.”
So all he is doing is just using the data of his old world to reconstruct the universe over and over again with some things tweaked in it.
Okay we are finally done in this section, right ? We had levels of taking things out of context and misrepresenting them, it can't possibly get worse, right... right ?
Well.............. yes it can. And it's pretty much the only dishonest tactic left while debating eastern fiction - using mistranslations as proof for extraordinary claims. To clarify what I mean by that - people also like to use this quote to prove there are infinitely many alternate dimensions in the base layer:
“Not quite. What you referred to as ‘outside the universe’ and ‘non-virtual alternate dimensions’ are the same thing. Not much is known about those alternate dimensions. We only know there are likely an infinite number. You had the rest right and the Law of Identity is related to them all. Most likely, she created them. That is why they are relatively easy to understand.”
And here's what characters are actually used for this supposed "infinity":
"Not exactly. Another dimension (異次元) and Outer Space are the same thing, just different words. We don't know much about other dimensions, only that there are probably countless numbers (無数) of them. However, the others are classified correctly. Perhaps it is safe to say that they were created by The Law of Identity (自同律). Therefore, it is relatively easy to understand this."
Okay, now it's done. Anyway, to recap on this part - there is a single universe (and don't forget it's solar system sized) that he is constantly recreating a finite amount of times with some minor events tweaked in it.
Afterlife
Okay, first to debunk the notion of the afterlife being in some way infinitely "transcendent" over the normal universe:
We have a device that can travel between dimensions being used to go to the afterlife:
But once you put the empress into cold sleep, you need to enter the world of the afterlife using the Robe of the Fire Rat.”
.
“Y-yes. The Robe of the Fire Rat supposedly opens the door to the world of the afterlife. We have that one and it may be like high level necromancy. Or maybe it’s a device to travel between dimensions. Anyway, the other is Peterhausen. If you sum it up, that one acts as combat ability for the demon king, a device, and a guide.”
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“A millennium!? What are you talking about? Are you saying everyone else will die?” shouted Yuuko in confusion. But Yoshie still remained calm and nodded. “You can’t think of death like that. If my theory is correct, there is an afterlife and the Robe of the Fire Rat can be used to move to and from it.”
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She nodded, but then spoke up as if she had realized something. “Um… Aren’t you going to kiss me as well?” “Are you serious?” “I am joking.” “I thought as much.” He smiled, stepped in front of the Robe of the Fire Rat, and hit the switch.And then he vanished.
Next, we have the afterlife being called finite on multiple occasions:
“I’m going to go a step beyond that. How about I crush this world in my grasp?”“Eh?”He had spoken so casually that it caught Fujiko off guard.“This is a finite world and it’s filled with mana. Those are the rules, and that means…”
.
He stretched out his hand and bent his fingers as if training his grip.The world began to creak.“Ahh,” cried Fujiko in surprise.The city shook, the air vibrated, and the pressure caused everything to groan.The earth also shook. The earth would not normally be filled with mana, but this finite space was entirely filled with mana and thus the earth itself was made of mana.Akuto essentially held that finite space in his grasp. Fujiko realized he was crushing the very world into a smaller size.
Oh, it's also called a planet... multiple times...:
Pressure reached the entire planet as if the earth had sunk into the depths of an ocean.
.
Fujiko realized that he was about to crush the planet.
Next, people use this quote to claim Afterlife is infinite and that Akuto can create an infinite surface:
To keep the story more flat, he prepared an infinite surface, chairs, a table, drinks, and a few fruits. Even that was enough to create a story, but it would keep the story to a minimum.
Unfortunately, the next quote is an answer to multiple of these false claims - the afterlife being transcended over other universes and the afterlife being infinite as well as Akuto creating an "infinite surface":
He moved his left arm.“And what does it mean?” she asked.“If the world we lived in was fictional, then the afterlife is also fictional. I started to think about what differentiated the two worlds and the answer I found was the presence or absence of an external wall,” he explained. “The world of the living had an external wall, but this world does not. No matter which three-dimensional direction you move in, you will return to your starting point. You can continue forever, but the space is finite.”“I understand the concept, but what does it mean?”
So here we see that:
- The only difference between Afterlife and the original world is the presence of a barrier. In the original world you would hit a barrier if you kept going in one direction (when you reach the end of the solar system), while in afterlife space loops back
- The looping is what makes the afterlife seem infinite.
- The "infinite" surface Akuto creates is the space of the Afterlife which is shown to be finite but it's looping back making it seem that it goes on forever.
Further proof for point 2. (to completely dissolve the doubt it's finite):
Is there a reason to look at the city?” she asked. “No.” He shook his head. “But I wanted to see into the distance. As far into the distance as I can.” He produced a mana screen that displayed exactly what he himself could see. “Your skill in magic certainly hasn’t waned.” “I want to stay at the top of my game. Anyway, my vision is infinite so long as mana exists.” “But when we were alive, there was no mana outside imperial territory. Plus, the earth was round, so you could see no better than a telescope on the surface and no better than a normal person in space.”
.
He extended his vision into the distance much like a camera zooming in. Fujiko could see the corresponding change on the screen. “Eh? This is quite impressive.” Her eyes opened wide as the zooming footage left the city, passed the horizon beyond it, and continued even further. Travelling past the horizon meant it reached the sky. The sky expanded until it filled the screen and his vision showed nothing but the color blue. When he finally passed through the clouds, the screen turned white for an instant and then the darkness quickly grew. His vision reached space and ultimately vanished. “It vanished?” The instant after Fujiko said that, his vision filled with darkness once more and the previous series of scenes appeared in reverse. The earth expanded on the screen and it finally grew blue. And… “Our backs!” Sure enough, the screen displayed Akuto and Fujiko’s backs. She thought about what that meant if it really was equivalent to what Akuto could see. “This is us right now?” She waved her right hand and the Fujiko in the image did the same. “Yes. This is what I’m seeing right now. I noticed this a while back.”
Tbh, I didn't even need to write short explanations for this, story literally reads what I say...
And if everything above wasn't enough of an explanation, let's do an easy analogy - claiming the Afterlife to be infinite would be the same as claiming the planet Earth to be infinite because you would arrive at the same point after walking in a "straight line" for long enough.
Reality > Fiction Hierarchy
Here are the quotes used to "prove" the existence of an infinite R > F hierarchy:
That required thinking about the Law of Identity.
At face value, that was the undeniable principle that you were yourself.
The fact that you were the person who was thinking your thoughts could not be shaken and that had already been touched on when it came to proving the existence of the world.
But what if the world were someone’s dream?
That answer was also simple.
The world was created by the storyteller known as the Law of Identity.
Then what was the world? The world was fiction.
But at the same time, the world was an absolute truth from inside that fiction.
From the outside, it was fiction. From the inside, it was truth.
What if one tried viewing the world as fictional from the outside perspective?
How did the world come to be?
Rejecting all but the Law of Identity would leave yourself facing the one Law of Identity all alone. That would be one origin. It was possible the one having the dream lived in a world that was itself the dream of someone in another world that was again someone else’s dream, but even if that chain continued back infinitely, one specific origin could be found by facing that one Law of Identity.
.
“You live in a fiction yet you hate fiction. You have a natural urge to divulge fictions, so you will do so one after another. You destroyed the system closing us in, but the next system activated. The fiction has multiple layers. It is in an infinite retreat. It’s like a hell that continues on and on forever, so it isn’t an easy thing to deal with.”
Now, for some context to this (and oh boy, is there a lot of it, as this is the most misunderstood part since it needs someone to actually read the last 2 acts to understand it):
A note before I start - in one translation the "hierarchy" between stories was usually referred to with terms such as storification and story density so I'll be using them for easier notation (to understand things easier).
Okay, to being:
The story density in the novel refers to the heavy and light nature of the story, not with conferring some different level of power with a reality > fiction or infinite gaps:
“But the outer gods brought the idea of an unreasonable death into me. Their storydensity should be low.”
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“A world where I’m the hero, I said. One with as low a story density as possible.”
.
But as I said at the beginning, it took me until the death of my ex-girlfriend to realize my destiny. Living in a world with a low story density had given me what amounted to amnesia.
Here is a complete explanation of it that should dissolve any notion of story lightness / heaviness referring to some insane power gap (it's an entire page completely explaining it, but I'll bold the important parts):
I need to elaborate more about what I mean by “lightness”.
Normally, the word would refer to something superficial. Something that didn’t make you think. But in this case, I mean something virtual.
First, the main characters had left their physical bodies behind. By this I mean that they were capable of surviving physical shocks that would kill an ordinary human, and sometimes would display superhuman powers. For this reason, the characters had personalities that were extremely slanted in one direction or another, and seemed inhuman.
The story was written to have a happy ending, and even if there was some unhappiness, it was there for a reason. Sometimes, to avoid an unhappy story, the characters wouldn’t age, and their minds wouldn’t mature. When I tried to write these “light” stories, the unpleasant feeling was always there.
So what if I tried to write a “heavy” story? I tried it, just to get my mind off things, and the more “virtual” it became (that is, even if the characters seemed real, if the story was still fictional) the more the “crazy monster” would be waiting for me.
It was clear that this was an obstacle set by the stories themselves.
I felt like I’d seen the core essence of stories. This was a story written to destroy stories, and it was clear that the stories were fighting back. Looking back, there had been many obstacles in my way up until this point, but all of them were caused by the stories controlling my memories and actions. This goes for how books sell, too.
People are ashamed of “light” stories. But the lightest stories are the ones they love. Many people buy light stories in secret, stories that satisfy their base urges. The heavy stories, on the other hand, are the ones that are said to capture the essence of humanity, and those who write them are praised and called “intellectuals”. And even the most impossible stories are allowed to be believed if they become the text of a religion.
Some of the stories are considered to have higher storification due to how advanced or complex the topic of the story is, for example a world where they realize they are "fictional" is considered to have high level of storification:
“And our level of storification is strong?” “We realize our world is fictional. So it must be strong. Don’t you think?”
Hopefully, the nature of the "hierarchy" of stories is more clear now. But don't worry, we just started with this part and there is plenty more proof to deny the notion of an "infinite R > F hierarchy".
Next, we have [additional] multiple contradictions with the claim that there is some sort of fictional / ontological / temporal transcendence between stories:
Controlling the universe from outside is enough to consider it not real:
“If only humans can observe the world, then when humans are gone, the world will cease to exist. But if the same person that died can come back to life, that means that someone is controlling this world. Which means it isn’t real,” Yoshie said, and then rubbed her temples like she had a headache.
Characters that are supposedly fictional from the perspective of the higher being are able to influence them:
Who knows. But to me, you didn’t seem like someone who never did anything.” Akuto smiled. “And even if this world was created by the Law of Identity, we all have our own wills. If our wills were strong enough, do you think we managed to influence this world?”
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“A strong will, huh? Even if we’re nothing but fictional characters?” “Yes. I’m sure we set something large in motion. If I don’t believe that, there’s no reason to be here right now.” “Setting something in motion with a strong will, hm?”
The stories are capable of fighting the one that created them, or in other words, the one that should supposedly be in a layer infinitely transcended to them:
I felt like I’d seen the core essence of stories. This was a story written to destroy stories, and it was clear that the stories were fighting back. Looking back, there had been many obstacles in my way up until this point, but all of them were caused by the stories controlling my memories and actions. This goes for how books sell, too.
The stories created by Akuto and gods are capable of fighting each other even though there should have been multiple layers of "fictional transcendence" between them:
On the other hand, the stories created by the extra-universal gods were intended to destroy his desires. Also, its outer surface as a story was hidden, so it was shown as if it were the truth. That too was a final shape of a story.
I'll bring this part up again in the Extra Universal Gods & Akuto section.
Next, these quotes imply that there the time passage between universe flows the same (time passes the same across every universe) further negating the notion of temporal/causal or reality > fiction hierarchy existing between them (if everything else wasn't already enough):
I am aware it is cruel. That cruelty can be felt through the story. You will simply be starting over from the beginning. In the next instant, you will be in an Empty Universe, followed by a Formless Universe, and then it will shift to a Gravity Universe. That will likely take tens of thousands of years.”
.
“Please wait as I activate my memories. …Sorry, but the viscosity of my oil has increased. Can you bring me an oil can?”
She sat up in her futon, took the oil can, and chugged it like a can of cola.
“It would be too much of a pain to give the exact number, but it has been over a thousand years, Akuto-san.”
And if you try to counter this notion with the following paragraph where Akuto comes back from the Afterlife:
“Sorry about that.” He looked embarrassed. “I was in a dimension where time was meaningless.”
“I do not know what you mean, but I assume everything has been resolved in some way.”
take note that we still saw seasons passing inside it:
It was unclear how much time meant in the afterlife, but if you counted the seasons, it had been five years. Akuto and the girls should have gotten older, but their appearances hadn’t changed.
...which if it isn't obvious enough - does in fact imply some form of time passes in the afterlife.
(*I shouldn't have even bothered to counter the notion of being beyond time but since I see lots of people like to use these nonsensical arguments to confer power to characters, I had to post a quote from the story that contradicts it so we don't get into a semantics argument)
So, anyway, to answer the original claim - the whole "dream inside a dream hierarchy" being some hierarchy with "higher" layers being infinitely superior to "lower" layers is a speculation that isn't supported by the story anywhere and in fact it's the gods creating the stories who don't have any hierarchy with infinite power gaps between them as you will see in the next section.
Extra Universal Gods & Akuto
This section isn't as important to the overall cosmological structure of the novel as the other sections, especially after clarification on the story hierarchy, but I think it's important to bring it up to show the relation between Gods and Akuto, how they interact with each other and what are the power dynamics between them.
So, to start it off, if it wasn't obvious from the previous section, gods themselves have no real hierarchy:
“Outside of this world, Keena and the outer gods are of equal importance, no doubt. The Law of Identity itself is no exception either.”
They fear inter-universal invasion:
I negotiated with the thought entity named The One in order to reach an agreement with the extra-universal gods. They too wanted a world they could live in without fear of an inter-universal invasion.”
They are capable of being beaten with time travel from beings they supposedly view as fiction:
The fact that the invasion was a success means the future ultimately could not be changed.” “When you put it that way, I can sort of understand,” said Hiroshi. “But if this place is our ‘extra time’, don’t we still have a chance?”
.
“Still have a chance? What do you mean by that?” It was now Bouichirou’s turn to ask a question. A chance to change the past. It seems simple to me. We stop the internal conflict and the elimination of the magical civilization and instead advance a plan to win the war against the extra universal gods.”
Akuto is claimed to be completely transcended over the Extra Universal Gods and can easily erase them, but... they can still beat him (...and do beat him sometimes) even though they are supposed to be fictional to him:
However, the most troublesome part of the work was the elements brought in by the extra-universal gods. That included things not possessed by the Law of Identity.
Akuto fought with those extra-universal gods a few times. Sometimes he won.
.
A story was created in which Akuto attended an academy in an unnamed alternate world. He was dominated by Fujiko and he struggled to help her take over the world. It ended with Fujiko’s world domination never coming to fruition and the two of them never even kissing. He finished testing that possibility.
Sometimes the extra-universal gods won.
Not only that, but there is no proof anywhere that Akuto is "inserting" his avatar or anything of that nature inside these stories so before that argument is even brought up - it is invalid as it's unsupported by anything in the story.
More proof that Akuto isn't "transcended" over Extra Universal Gods:
“It is my turn now. My prediction has been proven true, but that is simply because I based it on accurate data and experience. It is only natural that it came true. You ignored my warning. The extra-universal gods are now invading and throwing everything into chaos.”
One god is even able to enter Afterlife Akuto's stories as a main character:
“I am the Void Universe,” the black figure said. It was a strange voice, only audible if you strained to hear.
“The Void Universe?”
Akuto’s question seemed to get through to it. There was a faint answer, difficult to hear, but clear if you focused on the sound and not the words.
“A universe with no stories. No matter. Only a single voice. The only things there are the occasional voices meaning things like ‘you’, ‘thou’, ‘vous’ or ‘sue’.”
but that doesn't make Akuto have some sort of "fictional transcendence" over him, especially because of the fact this type of god is the next step in the "evolution" for Akuto:
All the souls gathered. Anger, sorrow, jealousy, envy, all of those feelings were spat out, to be left behind in this world. The universe began to contract. Space folded around Akuto, and closed.
“Are you taking me too?” Korone asked, as she was absorbed into Akuto.
“Just like Zero, a personality can affix itself to a liradan and gain a self. You have a self too.”
Akuto smiled. His body began to shrink as well. He was absorbed into Keena too.
Eventually Keena turned inside out, and disappeared into this new world — the anti-universe. All that was left was void was within void. Void without even words. In other words, a new void universe was born.
The last part can actually be considered as an addition to the section "R>F Hierarchy", but I felt it was more appropriate to put it here, as it's talking about the gods and Akuto. To elaborate on why this is tied to the other section - it's because it further cements (if everything else wasn't enough already) the fact that perceiving the world and characters as fictional doesn't translate to an infinite power gap in-verse in this specific work of fiction.
Rather, it talks about the beings in the world gaining knowledge of it (them) being fictional. And the metric that's used to see how high up in the "hierarchy" of stories you are is becoming closer and closer to the "Void Universe" - a universe with no stories as shown above.
Law of Identity
LoI (Law of Identity) is claimed to be the ultimate god of the verse, beyond everyone, every story and every god as well as being the creator of everything. Now, let's bring some inconsistencies and contradictions for those claims:
LOI is unable to fix problems that come with time travel:
While thinking on that, Hiroshi felt a dark emotion welling up within him.
If he killed someone or changed history in an important and definitive way, it was possible not even the Law of Identity could prevent it.
There are things that aren't possessed by LoI:
However, the most troublesome part of the work was the elements brought in by the extra-universal gods. That included things not possessed by the Law of Identity.
Next, we have a statement that LoI is of "equal importance" as some of the gods:
“Outside of this world, Keena and the outer gods are of equal importance, no doubt. The Law of Identity itself is no exception either.”
.
“Keena and the extra-universal gods are of equal importance once you leave this world. And that includes the Law of Identity.”
To make matters worse, there is a statement that the existence of LoI itself depends upon one of the Gods:
Akuto whispered to himself as he gathered his thoughts. And then he had a realization, and let out a sharp gasp.“The awfulness felt when you realized that you are you... The Law of Identity!”When he realized this, another voice appeared.“The Faceless Universe allows the Law of Identity to exist.”
And when I'm listing out inconsistencies, might as share this (just for people that like to take every statement as literal):
“That’s a shitty way to end a story. Especially since I can’t even see you.” “From your perspective, I’m just a story too, after all,” the Law of Identity said.
Miscellaneous
Things that don't really belong to any other category, but are worth bringing up:
Formless Power
This one also has absurd claims of being an infinitely powerful entity using this quote:
“It’s empty but it reacted? Are you sure it wasn’t just a mistake?”
“I have detected energy coming from empty space. The Formless Power might be an infinite power.”
“Infinite…”
Akuto was dumbfounded.
But the only thing it showed were meteor tier feats:
“A…meteor…” She was clearly confused. “A meteor?” Fujiko peered at the mana screen Yoshie was watching. She had a bad feeling about what she would find. The screen showed a small glowing star visible in the daytime sky. “Meteors aren’t that rare, are they?” asked Yuuko. “This isn’t like normal ones.” Yoshie displayed some data on the mana screen, including a diagram of the meteor’s path.
.
{...} but we have no physical means of dealing with the meteor.”
“Is the Formless Power really that great?”
.
“Ha ha ha ha! Yes! It is working to destroy mankind. That is exactly what is happening now! The Formless Power called in that meteor!”
.
“That would make sense. There is a Formless Power that is awoken by the Jewel Branch of Hourai and a Formless Power that is sealed in the capsule located in the Merlai village. What I am using is the latter.” “So let me ask again: why did The One return the Jewel Branch of Hourai?”
It can also be repelled by meteor level power:
Akuto took a fighting stance as he asked and Marine instinctually did the same. However, his expression made it clear he did not understand why the boy had done so. “Wasn’t it because that meteor is his goal? I don’t understand why you keep asking about this. If my people’s Formless Power can be controlled using the Branch, I should be able to deal with the meteor.”
To further confirm, here is what happens when it hits the earth:
But the whirl quickly lost all meaning. The meteor itself approached the surface and the earth’s crust was blasted outwards like splashing water. To Korone, the scene was absolutely silent, but it was not difficult to imagine tens of thousands of people’s screams mixed in with that ripped up crust.The half sphere explosion caused the planet’s atmosphere to swell outwards and to pulsate as if alive.A shockwave travelled along the earth’s surface and left at the collision point on the opposite side. After a short delay, a wave of crust and seawater followed.After that wave passed, that portion of the surface could no longer be seen. Only the boiling ocean surface was visible through the smoke.
“Thus cometh the end.”Korone searched her data because she felt like reading a poem, but that data was on the network and had therefore been lost. The gods on the surface had already died.
“So that is how the world ends.” She rephrased her words.
“With a peacefully silent explosion.” After seeing that the earth had completely turned to a sphere of boiling magma and water, she climbed into the futon.
If that wasn't enough and some people still want to say nonsense like "the meteor was universal!", we also have an explicit statement about it's diameter:
“Anyway, the meteor is about twenty kilometers in diameter.”
“Twenty kilometers?
“That means it’s plenty big to destroy the empire,” declared Yoshie.
Anyway, I really don't understand how could people accept the previous exaggerated claim about it so easily without questioning it at all...
Next, somewhat tied into the "R>F Hierarchy" section, but not by much as it isn't really needed but I felt the need to bring it up - take note that the stories are sometimes mentioned in a metaphorical sense or referring to something else (like time):
Every choice we make is infected with the virus we call “stories”. Our own free will has nothing to do with it. People can’t perceive time objectively. Instead, they perceive it as a story.
Next statement that was interesting to note as it's very rare for authors to explicitly state it, is that time doesn't behave in a continuous way, ie. it is discrete as there is a minimum time interval:
“The reason that something can’t exist in multiple places at once is that, in fact, time has a minimum unit size. If it could be infinitely divided, then the paradox of the tortoise and Achilles would be made real.”
Next we have time supposedly having no meaning in the afterlife:
“Yeah, sorry about that. But in the dimension I was in, time didn’t matter,” Akuto said, looking apologetic.
but...:
It was unclear how much time meant in the afterlife, but if you counted the seasons, it had been five years. Akuto and the girls should have gotten older, but their appearances hadn’t changed.
Summary
Since there are so many things taken out of context, the the best way to reflect the difference before and after this thread would be via a table:
Claim | Reality | |
Formless Power | Infinitely powerful entity | 20km wide meteor |
Baseline universe | Infinitely sized | Solar system sized |
4th dimension | Infinitely transcends the baseline universe / three spatial dimensions | Is an alternate VR-game like (or pocket) dimension near the main universe requiring a finite amount of energy to function |
Baseline layer | MWI-like infinitely branching multiverse | Same solar system sized universe being recreated over and over again a finite amount of times |
Afterlife | Layer that is infinitely transcendent over the baseline one | Is a finite sized planet |
R>F Hierarchy | Infinite R > F layers | Doesn't exist / Inapplicable as a metric of any sort of battle-relevant power |
Extra Universal Gods & Akuto | Infinite power gaps exist between them and Akuto transcends them all | They can fight each other and some of them even beat Akuto |
Law of Identity | "Omnipotent" deity of the verse | Unable to perform and prevent some actions as well as multiple statements of her not being above every other god |
The final conclusion is pretty straightforward:
- The entire cosmology is multi solar-system sized
- Nobody actually scales to the entire cosmology
- Best destruction feats are planet level
- Best creation feats are solar system level (which is inapplicable in battle)
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