Chapter 172: Ch 172 : The Era of New Gods
While Sunny’s empire consolidated its power, a new dawn was breaking across the countless multiverses, an age where the ascension of new gods was becoming an increasingly common spectacle.
On a multiverse teeming with a many races but one stood out the most, the terrifyingly adaptive race: the Zerg.
Here, evolution was a bloody, brutal harvest. The Zerg consumed the essence of other races, drinking their blood to fuel their own transformation, stealing the talents of the conquered to add to their own formidable arsenal.
The other native races of that multiverse were not just being defeated; they were being erased, their unique genetic codes becoming mere footnotes in the Zerg’s relentless march to perfection.
The number one genius of this race, a creature whose body was a horrifying and beautiful mosaic of a hundred different conquered species, yet somehow harmonious.
This being was a legend, his name whispered in fear and reverence across thousands of years as the torchbearer of his people.
Its success was due to a rare SS-Grade talent, ’Infuser’, which allowed it to achieve perfect evolution with the smallest drop of blood, a gift that set it far above the billions of other Zerg who might consume entire worlds and never evolve at all.
As he was the first zerg who was born with infuser talent, while the other zergs died without evolving, he survived. His children who inherited this talent be it a somewhat downgraded version.
But that was enough, enough to make the zerg race reign supreme by this talent of this zerg.
At its core, it clutched a vial containing a single drop of shimmering, rainbow-colored blood—the essence of a Qilin.
"With this, I can finally evolve once again," the Zerg’s voice echoed, a sound that was a chorus of a thousand different stolen voices. "Now, no one can stop me from evolving further."
In another multiverse, this one crackling with raw, untamed energy. For nine days and nine nights, this universe had tried to kill a single man.
Dragons of pure tribulation lightning had clawed at his soul, storms of cosmic fire had sought to turn him to ash.
A man sat in the lotus position at the heart of this apocalyptic storm, his expression serene. He did not fight the tribulation; he absorbed it.
As more and more energy funneled into his being, the entire multiverse boomed, and a new, majestic aura washed over the universe he inhabited.
On the worlds below, every mortal, from the lowliest farmer to the most powerful emperor, felt the suffocating, awe-inspiring pressure of a new God.
"Who could cause such a commotion with just a breakthrough?" a voice in a bustling city square whispered, the crowd’s gaze fixed on the lightning-filled sky.
"Who do you think it could be?" another replied, as if the answer was obvious. "Is it even a question? Who else could go against the heavens with such fury that the entire universe trembles? It can only be Cai Zhen."
The chatter grew, a wave of reverence and fear, until the figure in the void finally opened his eyes.
His face was breathtakingly handsome, his every movement a flawless symphony of power and grace.
As he descended from the void and walked upon the world for the first time as a God, he, too, felt it; a subtle, constant drain on his newfound power. In the days that followed, Cai Zhen, like the card master before him, would learn the lonely truth of divinity and its limitations.
Across a million other realities, similar scenes were playing out. A new era was dawning.
An Era of Gods. And all of them, from the hungry Zerg to the enlightened Cai Zhen, shared a single, burning desire: to break the barriers of their own reality and test their strength against the other Gods of the cosmos.
[Master, another century has passed in Veridia.] Thea’s melodious voice pulled Sunny from his comprehension of law of manifestation.
"Have the preparations for the tournament been made?" Sunny asked.
[Yes, Master,] she replied, her efficiency absolute. [The contracts for all 500 million new subordinate Gods have been finalized, and their planets have been safely relocate]
[Every sentient lifeform in your territory now has access to the system, be it the lifeforms under other Gods.]
[The live broadcast infrastructure for the tournament is in place; every citizen will be able to watch their champions compete.]
[And finally, my primary scouting mission is complete. My particles have been replicated across the entirety of the Realm of Advancement. Not a single place is outside my watch. I have located every demon demigod currently residing in that realm.]
A cold, predatory smile touched Sunny’s lips. The hunters were now the hunted. "Good. Very good."
His thoughts drifted to Adam, who now spent his days on his restored world, a quiet, verdant planet nestled safely within Sunny’s subspace.
He was always by the token, speaking to the sleeping soul of Freya, a lonely vigil that had lasted for centuries.
With a sigh, Sunny took out his own green token, the one engraved with the name ’Cosmos’.
He activated it. His soul was instantly unmoored from his divine form, pulled through a river of stars, and deposited in an instant at the very center of the Realm of Advancement.
The journey, which would have been impossible for any other God, had consumed not a single point of faith. He had arrived.
He stood in an arena so vast that entire worlds could fit within its colossal walls.
He took his place on the highest seat, a throne reserved for the realm’s master, and placed his hand on a smooth, red orb that rested before him.
This orb was the control nexus for the entire arena.
With his clones left to watch over his empire, he closed his eyes and sent out his will through the orb.
It was not a shout, but a gentle, irresistible whisper that traveled through all the multiverses, through the fabric of the cosmos, and into the soul of every God who had pledged fealty to him in his home multiverse. The whisper said only one thing:
’It is time.’