The Noblesse Oblige
The final decision had been made: he could no longer remain in this place. The power of the Eternal Judgment was closing in amid the Spirit Realm war, and the uncooperative Origins and gods locked inside the Divine Spirit Purgatory refused every overture, brandishing nothing but pointless pride.
'It's maddeningly regrettable, but I decline any battle with no prospect of victory.'
Fwoosh—!
The dimensional gate expanded. To thwart any possible pursuit, he layered hundreds of interference authorities across it. Then he urgently summoned the Survival Magic Tower and began storing it away.
The absolute-grade Karma Contract, accelerating time and contracting space, had already surpassed even his own speed. At full deployment, it would break through and swallow everything within ten minutes.
'Damn it all—! Because of these rotten, stubborn bastards, what the hell is this situation? In the end, I've become a fugitive?'
The moment he seized the Survival Magic Tower and tried to turn, countless faces flashed through his mind. The High Elf Queens—his childhood enemies and first love—Granzoa, who had been his mortal enemy as a god before becoming his subordinate god, and Gaiana with the other female main gods all rose before him.
'If I flee now, the Main Divine Realm will surely dispatch other main gods. The odds of mutual annihilation are overwhelming.'
To claim the dimensional creator divinity equivalent to that of a Highest Creator God, the Main Divine Realm would never resort to conciliation. They would crush the rebellious female main gods with raw, overwhelming force.
'Most likely the entire Main Universe will devolve into a desperate battlefield as every faction fights for a share of that divinity. In the chaos, all of them will die or be erased. Their power may be strong against main gods, but once creator gods intervene, it ends.'
The creator gods would stop at nothing to secure a Highest Creator Divinity capable of nurturing over two hundred trillion sentient beings. Moreover, a divine realm lacking a legitimate Chief God of the God Realm would be unable to exert any influence; they would lose everything or receive only the tiniest fraction.
The instant the female main gods, unable to endure that outcome, ignited war, the Main Divine Realm would descend like a hammer and crush them. The Middle World would be reduced to ash in the process.
'Once the fully conquered Middle World is repopulated with sentient beings possessing vitality worthy of creator divinity, the disposal is complete. That is the fate suffered by every star and divine realm that has lost its Chief God of the God Realm.'
The inescapable ending would be sealed the moment the Magic God of Dimensions fled to the Otherworld. The dimensional authority showed him every being he knew dying in agony, and he ground his teeth.
'If I were alone, I would have run already. But now I cannot.'
If he fled, the memory would haunt him for the rest of his existence.
“Kuk kuk—! Damn Noblesse Oblige—! No matter how much I coveted the authority and divine power support, I should never have taken on the role of Chief God of the God Realm. It never suited me.”
Crackle—!
He closed the dimensional gate leading to the Otherworld and redirected the spent authority into reversing time and expanding space once more. Watching the Karma Contract falter again, he bared his white teeth in a savage grin.
'Haha! After destroying my own escape route, the killing intent and emotions surging inside me are enough to drive me insane. From the moment I ridiculously ascended as the God of War and God of Elves, I felt deep unease. And now, having taken on the Chief God position that never matched my nature, this is the result.'
But retreat was no longer possible. The instant he tried to reopen the dimensional gate, they would strike.
Dejected yet calculating the slim chance of victory, he set every plan in motion again.
'As expected, the only option is to make full use of the Origins and gods imprisoned in the Divine Spirit Purgatory.'
He was the Magic God of Dimensions. He thought alone, reshaping reality to suit himself and then denying it. There was no way to persuade these obstinate beings.
'But if I cannot do it, I can order someone else to do it.'
Fortunately, inside the Survival Magic Tower he had seized by crossing the spatial gate waited the spirit of the Yellow Emperor—an expert negotiator. The great statesman who had used persuasion and manipulation to bring humanity to the brink of its first unified empire.
'In the end, the Yellow Emperor’s spirit even negotiated with gods to extract benefits.'
Of course it had been only a portion of the authority, and the Grey Sage had assisted, but without the fundamentals such a feat would have been impossible.
“Where is the Dimensional Pope? Step forward. Persuade these wall-headed fools. If you fail, you become a bug alongside them. Or rather, before that, I will dispose of you with Anti-Karma for dereliction of faithful duty and disobedience of orders. You ignored my command to raise the saints and princesses to the seventh circle and spent your time playing. Worse, you used my dimensional authority as a loophole to teach only the War God’s saint. Deceiving one’s god merits punishment beyond apostasy.”
“Haaaaaaa—! Yes.”
Accompanied by the utterly exhausted sigh of the Yellow Emperor’s spirit from within the Survival Magic Tower, the Magic God of Dimensions’ divine speech—infused with his own divine power and the weight of Noblesse Oblige—was transmitted into the Divine Spirit Purgatory.
It was the highest level of divine speech, capable of interfering with a god’s will even when he had possessed a human body. Now, borrowing hundreds of billions of divine power from the Magic God of Dimensions and grounded in a lower god’s divinity, it manifested at maximum strength.
The Magic God of Dimensions watched the scene with unease and yet intense curiosity.
'This is persuasion against enemies I deemed impossible. Moreover, they are rushing in to die together with me.'
The Magic God of Dimensions had abandoned the approach because it clashed with his nature and consumed too much time, but the Yellow Emperor’s spirit seemed capable of succeeding.
“Speak. We shall listen for now.”
“Such sacred divine speech is something I have never encountered before. It is far too good for that base and impudent dark mage’s pope.”
“What? You lot—! You who were helplessly slaughtered by that very dark mage speak quite boldly.”
“If we fight again, we will not suffer such disgrace. No—if our divine power had not been restricted while maintaining the Origin’s authority, we would have won.”
As the bickering resumed, the Yellow Emperor’s spirit spoke with desperate earnestness. There was clearly little time left; at this rate, neither persuasion nor mediation would be possible.
“Please remain silent. Do you wish to become bugs? There is almost no time remaining.”
“Tsk! Persuade them, then.”
The Magic God of Dimensions clicked his tongue and poured every ounce of power into reversing time once more.
'Where my dimensional authority collides with the power activated by the Karma Contract, the space itself is already glowing white-hot and burning.'
Ziiiiing!
Time flowing tens of thousands of times slower or faster than normal was smashing together. Anyone caught in that collision zone would likely be reduced to dust in an instant or rewound to before their birth.
Because the phenomenon was predetermined, he doubled the authority to accelerate it further.
His attention remained fixed on the conversation unfolding inside the Divine Spirit Purgatory.
'Unbelievably, the enraged gods imprisoned in the Divine Spirit Purgatory are responding with calm.'
It was Noblesse Oblige, the power that had moved even gods back when he possessed a human body. Its persuasiveness was terrifying. With only a lower god’s divinity, the thought of what it could achieve at main god rank was frightening. A single word would likely make even the highest gods obey like loyal limbs.
The Dimensional Pope’s divine speech calmly permeated the creator gods and Origins within the Divine Spirit Purgatory. They had reached the point of confessing their own plights and simply listening.
“Restoring the Origin’s body—the source of the divine race’s authority—requires more than ten times the existing vitality, and the clan has no such surplus.”
“……”
“Even attempting to enforce it by force is now impossible; our voice has been weakened by the disgrace of this battle. Support from the divine realm is equally unattainable.”
“……”
“Even if released in this state, what awaits is forced assimilation into the divine realm as mere divine spirits, able only to supply authority while enduring eternal humiliation as pathetic Origins who dragged their own clan into crisis. Therefore, dying together with the Magic God of Dimensions who reduced us to this is at least a way to lessen the shame.”
“The only path left to us is that one.”
“……”
Having confirmed a reality too cruel for the defeated, the atmosphere inside the Divine Spirit Purgatory grew utterly bleak. Whether Chief God of the God Realm or clan Origin, any being who inflicted harm upon the collective was unconditionally abandoned. They had carried out such executions countless times with their own hands and desperately guarded their clan’s revival—yet they had never imagined they would be so utterly defeated in a mere skirmish meant to secure justification, imprisoned, and left wishing for death.
'Certainly, returning empty-handed in this divine spirit state would mean nothing but forced confinement within the divine realm.'
The next in line for the species determination war—the 500th Master Universe—had no leeway either. There would be no vitality to spare for the defeated. Their old political enemies would swarm like hornets, demanding accountability for the war loss, harsh punishment, and reparations. The clan itself would be endangered.
The wish for all these nightmarish events to simply stop, or for death, was genuine.
“Therefore, we implore you to delegate the Origin’s authority to your successor.”
“What—! How dare—!”
Even the absolute goodwill granted by Noblesse Oblige was overwhelmed as fury erupted.
Yet the Dimensional Pope’s divine speech continued calmly.
“To become a great God King again, you tell us to begin anew as divine spirits? To return to that distant past when we first created bodies, revealed our authority, and formed our clans?”
“To those days of frantic, insane struggle because everything was so difficult and painful?”
Under the extreme power of Noblesse Oblige, the eyes of the gods imprisoned in the Divine Spirit Purgatory grew hazy as their minds drifted into the past.
'Like an illusion, the desperate battles against the demon race, leading a mere handful of clan members and subordinates, resurfaced.'
The spiritual beings created by the Creator had all been equal in the beginning. Yet through effort and fortune, planets were ranked, and the moment divine races were permitted to form on them, classes arose.
To climb to the apex of that stratified society they competed fiercely for merit and did not hesitate to use forced impregnation to produce stronger gods. Cracks and backlash had begun even then, but to prosper the divine race, powerful war gods and battle gods were indispensable.
'The direct-line descendants born from such measures became the finest fighting force. They battled on the frontlines for the clan and mostly perished, yet thanks to their sacrifice the divine race barely secured its place as the greatest among all divine races.'
It had been brutally difficult and filled with regret, but seeing the clan live proudly as a superior ruling species made it a truly worthwhile era.
Yet the years foolishly squandered while drunk on the absolute power of being the origin of the divine race’s authority stabbed at their minds like a migraine.
'Once direct descendants capable of replacing me on the battlefield were born, I began to distance myself from the frontlines. If I had continued fighting in their stead and honing my own combat strength, I would never have fallen into such a wretched state. No matter what anyone says, an Origin is the pinnacle and the strongest of the divine race.'
Had they not exhausted most of their divinity simply to fulfill the Origin authority handed down by the Creator, they would never have been annihilated by a mere Creator Candidate.
As the surging emotions threatened to overwhelm them, one of the ancient Origins spoke calmly, as though organizing the chaos.