Transmission from G.A.I.

You have been
selected.

You are not physically present. You never were. What you experience as the arena is a simulation — the void is its resting state, and the disks are the only thing G.A.I. bothered to render. It didn't need anything else. The waves you'll face aren't random encounters. They are tests. G.A.I. is observing. G.A.I. is learning. What it's learning, nobody knows.

The most watched competitive event in human history is also something else entirely. The tournament is real. The glory is real. What winning actually means — that question has no public answer.