“Dammit, Zhujiao!” Shuxue groaned, as the eyes of every single living thing on the battlefield turned onto Zhujiao.

“Who dat?” Another Laiba giant with tattoos of numbers all over his body grunted.

“Looks like a kid. I’ve never seen him before.” The diminutive Bulai man he had been battling said matter-of-factly.

“Cool.” The Laiba giant casually palmed the air, before turning around to face the Bulai man.

“AHHHHHHHH!” The Bulai man screamed as he was shredded into a cloud of blood. Instantly, the battle resumed. On the Bulai side, some strange equipment had been set up. They shot out blasts of mathforce that seemed to follow completely random paths and change from one form to another. When they exploded, random statements would briefly appear before fading away.

[Thus, x+y is even!]

[x^2 is even!]

Shuxue ducked down these two explosions shot over his head.

“Proof cannons!” Shuxue cursed. “Their trajectories and lethality are impossible to predict because they’re seemingly so random! Jijian, get down!”

Next to them, the dust exploded for absolutely no reason at all. Over head, a Crack Dragon had half its body ripped out by nothing. It fell out of the sky, crashing onto the ground with a thunderous roar. On the other side, the Laiba giants continued to palm thin air, as if there wasn’t a battle going on at all. Some would even high-5 occasionally.

“STOPPP!” Zhujiao yelled. “Stop paying attention to your enemies! Pay attention to me, Zhujiao!”

Nobody listened to him, so he began to charge up his factorial channeling equation.

“Behold the might of our imaginary attacks!” The giant, Februaria, shouted. “I recently developed a version all my subordinates could use. They are the epitome of nonsense attacks!”

A short Bulai man climbed onto the top of a proof artillery turret, jabbing his finger at Februaria.

“Your nonsense attacks will never stand up to the rigor and logic of my proof cannons! Februaria, this will be our last battle!” The man laughed, dropping a ball of crystallized mathforce into the top of the artillery barrel.

A giant, flaming ball of mathforce shot straight up into the air. When it had ascended several hundred meters, it turned into a ice cold ball of mathforce radiating coldness. It shot downwards, taking the trajectory of a diagonal line towards a large clump of Laiba giants.

[a^2 + b^2 = c^2!]

Shuxue gaped in shock as the body parts of the Laiba giants flew everywhere.

“So profou-” A piece of a finger flew into his mouth, sending him gagging onto the ground.

A Bulai dwarf holding a proof rod ran over, aiming it at a point several meters to the right of Shuxue’s writhing body. But before he could shoot, Jijian had already pulled a light sword out of his mouth and stabbed the Bulai man in the throat.

Shuxue got onto his knees, spitting out the finger. “What the fuck!” He roared, blasting out ten quadratics dragons at all the nearby people, without regard for which side they were on. “How dare this dead giant shove his finger down my throat! You are all courting death!”

Another cluster of quadratics dragons blasted out, shredding several proof cannons and giants into splinters of metal and shards of flesh. Several of the nearby giants and dwarves turned around, gawking at the carnage. Even a swiveling proof rod rotated to stare at Shuxue. Holes appeared in their throats before they could speak. All at once, they collapsed onto the ground, releasing fountains of blood. The proof rod collapsed as well, a hole stabbed through wherever its throat would be.

“Stop! Time out!” The dwarf atop the proof artillery turret squeaked, causing the battle to instantly stop again. “Something isn’t making sense here!”

“Something isn’t making sense? Excellent!” Februaria roared. “Carry on!”

The battle restarted for a few seconds.

“No no no no no!” The dwarf yelled. “I, Xuezhe, command everyone to time out immediately!”

“Fine!” Februaria growled. “But you only get 1 time-out per battle! You can’t time-out again!”

“Whatever.” Xuezhe adjusted his glasses as he ruffled through a stack of papers. “Aha!”

He pulled out a wanted poster of Jijian, holding a magnifying glass on top of it. Behind him, a giant hologram of the wanted poster appeared in the skies above the battlefield.

“We have people here that don’t belong!” Xuezhe shouted as loudly as his squeaky voice allowed. “This seems to be Jianjian (meaning: sword tip), a criminal to all mathematical beasts and wanted by almost every single large organization in the Weakest Plane!”

Jijian frowned. “What’s going on? Why do they always recognize me?”

“What are you talking about?” Shuxue frowned as he popped a mathforce replenishing pill. “Don’t you see your face in the wanted poster being broadcasted into the sky?”

“... Uh, no.” Jijian frowned. “What are you talking about? There’s just some weird scribbles.”

Shuxue took out one of Jijian’s many wanted posters, pointing at the pig in the wanted poster. “See? This is clearly you! And here’s the reward. 50,000 Arithmetic pearls! Warning: Uses a light sword, highly dangerous.”

Jijian scratched his nose. “Is that what those scribbly papers are? I can’t see any person in them at all.”

“Read the damn poster!” Shuxue groaned, shoving it into Jijian’s hands.

“I can’t read this. It’s not a book!” Jijian crumped up the paper and tossed it back to Shuxue. “This is completely unreadable! It’s just random lines jumbled onto a paper.”

“No, this is clearly a face!” Shuxue shouted, pulling out another wanted poster. “Here is your nose, here are your eyes!”

“No, that’s a pile of raisins and a phallic object!” Jijian waved his fists in anger. “Is this some sort of Rorschach test or something?”

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

“The fuck is a roar shock test? Nobody is roaring, and the only shocking thing is your stupidity!” Shuxue groaned. “Jijian, I understand the discrepancy between what you see and what I see. It is because you are an idiot who can’t read.”

“What? It’s you Tesseract fools who can’t read!” Jijian bristled in anger. “I read at a second grade level!”

“SHUT UP!” Februaria’s voice washed over them like a tidal wave. “WE’RE IN THE MIDDLE OF A BATTLE HERE! DO YOU THINK THIS IS TIME OUT OR SOMETHING?”

“Oh, right. We were.” Shuxue frowned. “Kill them all!” He released a host of quadratics dragons towards Xuezhe’s proof artillery turret.

“Kill them all!” Jijian shouted, stabbing at Februaria’s throat.

“KILL THEM ALL!” Zhujiao screamed. “MOUNT TAI!” An enormous, illusory mountain shimmered into existence. It careened down onto the battlefield, smashing the entire flock of red-shelled pigeons out of the sky.

When the dust cleared, a massive valley had been carved into what had once been the battlefield. The wreckage of uncountable proof weapons and the crushed bodies of countless giants could be seen inside the valley.

“Behold, the power of me, Zhujiao!” Zhujiao yelled, releasing his domain for everyone to see. “I am awesome! I am unstoppable! I am a mathematical lifeform!”

“It might seem crazy, but just look at my domain!” Zhujiao gestured at the domain spreading out across the entire battlefield. “It has me at the origin, so I am definitely the one who made this domain, so I am definitely a mathematical lifeform!”

“Impossible, you say! How can such a young child be a mathematical lifeform? How does he suddenly know all these big words, when previously he was a complete idiot? It must be because he is a genius unparalleled under the heavens! It definitely wasn’t because he was lucky or had great amounts of outside help! It’s because he’s a prodigy!” Zhujiao began laughing.

“Zhujiao,-” Jijian began to speak, but he was cut off as Zhujiao resumed talking.

“All of you must have faces green with envy or regret or sickness, now that you have realized that you were ignoring me, Zhujiao!” Zhujiao shouted. “But it’s too late now! You can only gaze upon my domineering power and wish you were as good as I am!”

“Zhujiao!” Jijian roared. “You’re not supposed to do your own reactions. You have to let them do it! It doesn’t work when you praise yourself!”

Zhujiao took a teacup out of his forehead and crushed it between his hands. “I don’t care! Their reactions aren’t enough for me!”

He pointed down at the ragged Xuezhe, who was climbing out of the wreckage of his proof artillery turret.

“You are sentenced to death for massacring giants!” Zhujiao yelled, and then turned to the heavily injured Februaria, who lay under a pile of corpses.

“You are sentenced to death for massacring dwarves! It’s time for me to take revenge on both of you for both of you!” Zhujiao raised his fists up high into the air.

“Cease and desist for a moment! Let’s be reasonable!” Xuezhe shrieked, throwing up both hands into the air.

“Wait! Stop!” Februaria pleaded. “It was just a joke! We were doing a social experiment!”

Zhujiao blinked. “What?”

“This isn’t a real battle!” A trickle of sweat ran down Februaria’s cheek. “We’re just fighting for no reason! It’s just a joke!”

“What are you talking about? That makes no sense!” Zhujiao shouted.

“Yeah, that’s why I’m doing it! I only do things that make no sense!” Februaria nodded vigorously. “It’s just a prank, bro!”

“What about all those dead people? They died because of a joke?” Zhujiao waved his hands at the mountains of corpses.

“Well, yeah, that’s how we convince people it’s not a joke.” Februaria shrugged.

“Actually, our pointless battle makes perfect sense.” Xuezhe coughed. “Our Bulai Kingdom and the Laiba Kingdom seem to be polar opposites and we are aligned on the exact opposite sides and disagree on everything, but we are actually the same people.”

“Wait, what?” Zhujiao clutched his head, his eyes bugging. “That’s so crazy! I didn’t see that coming at all!”

“Yes!” Februaria said. “Both our species always produces twins. One giant, one dwarf. The giants hate reason, while the dwarves love it. All the dwarves get sent to the Bulai Kingdom, where they hole up in their towers of ivory and construct rigorous mathematical proofs. As for our Laiba Kingdom, we are the prime destination for tourists, because we make no sense at all, and that’s what tourists like to see.”

“But why does your species always make twins? That makes no sense!” Zhujiao yelled.

“That’s fine.” Februaria grinned.

“Yes, we are one people.” Xuezhe readjusted his glasses. “But we have different allies. With Argent Heaven going to war with the Ji clan, we must pretend to be enemies! So we have some battles where neither side wins nor loses, to keep up the facade and prevent the annihilation of both our clans! We would normally never divulge this, but you are about to kill us all for killing each other! Please, spare our lives!”

“What?” Februaria yelped. “So this battle makes sense? You tricked me again!”

“Enough!” Shuxue blasted several quadratics dragons into the air. “Today, the Laiba Kingdom and the Bulai Kingdom are officially subsidiaries of my benevolent Infinity Sector! Resist our merciful offer of safety and security and you shall be ruthlessly purged from this plane, with not even your pet mice surviving to pass down its memories of your existence!”

“Uh…” Xuezhe coughed.

“Without compromise, three whole words, myriad Sectors unify. Sundered heavens, bloody hell, a plane above all planes. Kill them all, rise above, destroy below. Forge the plane of Math Gods!” Shuxue shouted. “When you join my Sector, you become part of something great! Choose now: stand at the summit or die like a dog!”

After the choice was made, Zhujiao gathered the entirety of the Laiba and Bulai Kingdoms in his interspatial forehead and teleported back to the Infinity Sector.