The Weight of a Decaying Realm

The center of the Otherworld war lay on a colossal planet known as Seourina. Countless towering temples, built in a futile attempt to recapture the glory of its prosperous past while easing overpopulation, packed the surface so densely they seemed to choke the sky itself.

The communal temples called Co-op looked impressive at first glance, but in reality they were miserably inconvenient. Thousands of gods were crammed into a single structure. Most facilities were shared to conserve vitality, and even sleeping quarters were communal. Complaints were endless. Yet with space so scarce that not even Main Gods—let alone Creator Gods—could have private temples, there was simply no other choice.

Worse still, the endless bloody rivalry with the traitors left the ruling class no room to worry about the comfort of lower gods. The Lower Gods, unable to understand the burdens of their superiors, poured into the streets in ever-growing numbers, venting their endless grievances.

The marches and protests of hundreds of thousands of lower gods filled the avenues, their angry voices rising all the way to the highest communal temple, Epki, where they disturbed even the Creator Gods of the Supreme Committee.

Unlike ordinary gods, Battle Gods could not be mass-produced. They required talent, and above all, deities specialized in combat authority were extremely rare in the Otherworld. The cause was known, yet impossible to fix. It was the side effect of forcing everyone to live in the communal Co-op temples that prioritized the collective over individual strength.

Still, with fifty million High Gods crammed into a mere regional universe, there had been no other option. And so, to settle things with the traitors—who possessed several times more Battle Gods—the Creator Gods themselves had no choice but to become stronger. Yet the current situation only seemed to be making them weaker.

It was the same situation the Creator had faced when he handed over operational authority so they could train to defeat Jinri. The Main Gods could no longer handle the complaints of the lower gods, and control had become impossible. The combined power of the lower gods now surpassed what the Main Gods could suppress. Watching the Main Gods repeat the very mistakes they themselves had once made left a bitter taste in their mouths.

With things below in such disarray, any hope of focused training to grow stronger was gone. Instead, they only grew more anxious and drained.

The original governing structure of the Otherworld had once been extremely simple. The Creator, holding absolute command and dominion, oversaw everything while the Creator Gods beneath him simply ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠carried out orders. Such a monolithic system worked well enough in peaceful times without external threats, but it was helpless against sudden crises.

That weakness had now become reality.

The Void Realm had once paid the Otherworld no mind, even though it teemed with unimaginably powerful Battle Gods. They had dismissed it because of the Body Reconstruction limitation that reduced divine power to one ten-thousandth. But after Jinri chased down the fugitives and demonstrated absolute might even at one ten-thousandth strength, everything changed.

The real problem was that the Creator himself had stepped forward with his subordinate Creator Gods to stop Jinri—only to be completely captured.

Though useless in the end, the Creator had been released after paying an enormous territorial compensation. Immediately afterward, he established the Supreme Committee to act in his stead and selected one hundred powerful Creator Gods to entrust with dominion. It was a desperate measure to buy time so he could focus on his own training—to develop an authority capable of opposing Jinri despite the one ten-thousandth power reduction.

However, raising the Creator’s divine power and authority required an unimaginable amount of vitality, far beyond what anyone could easily provide.

Yet the Creator Gods who first received delegated authority did their utmost.

They desperately developed the current world, generated vitality, and offered it up.

If the Creator grew strong enough to defeat Jinri, the ones who had received his power would be granted even greater glory and territory than they currently possessed. Grinding their teeth, they had endured.

Very few beings were willing to suffer present hardship for future glory.

The coercive policies and excessive vitality harvesting required for rapid development had provoked widespread discontent among the lower gods, eventually sparking a civil war. It was a mistake born from failing to realize that such rapid reform demanded even stronger control and military force.

There were many other reasons for the Otherworld’s collapse, but the conclusion was simple.

In their desire to wash away the humiliation suffered at Jinri’s hands, they had chosen rapid development similar to the Void Realm. But lacking the power to suppress the resulting side effects, they clashed with the opposition faction and tore themselves apart in civil war.

Civil war—the most worthless and wretched form of conflict during wartime—was truly horrific. The Supreme Committee, seeking to concentrate all power on the Creator and themselves to gain strength against Jinri, had been branded cruel exploiters by the majority opposition. The resulting civil war left nothing behind.

The Creator Gods chosen by the enraged Otherworld Creator were certainly powerful, yet they could not completely overwhelm the opposition, who were backed by the majority of Battle Gods.

The speed at which they killed the opposition could not keep up with how quickly new enemies appeared.

The opposition, in turn, could do nothing against the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Creator Gods supported by the Creator. They had to be satisfied with subduing some of them and seizing partial dominion. Meanwhile, the Creator Gods fought even harder to reclaim what had been taken.

The civil war dragged on for a long time—nothing but slaughter and destruction in the hope that the other side would eventually surrender the dominion and ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠authority first granted by the Creator.

With such a meaningless ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠war raging, proper territorial management was impossible.

Seventy percent of the Otherworld’s territory had become lifeless wastelands devoid of even the simplest organisms. The remaining thirty percent had been neglected amid the fierce fighting, causing most regions to declare independence or fall into the hands of other factions.

All that remained after the civil war was less than one-thousandth of the original territory.

Even that had been seized more than half by the dominant opposition faction. Pushed to the outermost edge, they had been forced all the way to the regional universe containing Jinri’s home planet.

The planet where Jinri’s Void Realm resided was at the very edge of the Otherworld—an isolated dead end. Furthermore, the numerically superior traitors had turned all surrounding space into zones of death and unrecognizability to prevent the frontlines from expanding and to starve their enemies out.

Thanks to that, routes to territories occupied by other factions were almost completely blocked.

Now even the gods could no longer safely supply themselves with vitality across vast distances. Any travel to other regions carried mortal risk. Yet they had no choice. Maintaining and advancing the strength of over fifty million High Gods was simply impossible with only the sentient beings living in this tiny regional universe.

They had to obtain more vitality from outside somehow, or they would perish.

Blocked by the traitors from projecting military force outward, the only answers were trade with the independent regions that had broken away during the civil war and commerce with other factions.

They were barely holding on through vitality-processing trade in which they held the advantage, but the independent forces were now catching up. Worse, the traitors themselves seemed ready to begin imitating the practice.

The vitality-processing trade, born of desperation, had brought a brief revival of hope. But the appearance of similar competitors made maintaining their edge no easy task.

If the traitors acquired vitality-processing capabilities on the same level, the Otherworld that served the Creator would be completely isolated and collapse.

Before that happened, they had to grow stronger by any means, regain military superiority, and sweep away the traitors’ forces.

In such a precarious situation, the very lower gods who should have supported them were instead marching in protest and venting discontent. Proper personal training and recruitment of Battle Gods had become impossible.

The bigger problem was the Creator’s absence.

The Creator, who had trusted them for the first time and entrusted them with governance and operation, was left in despair. Far from growing stronger, the entrusted Creator Gods had barely managed to survive. Some had even defected to the traitors, making it impossible to reclaim the lost authority.

The faction that had supported him to the end was already ruined and merely maintained a precarious existence.

They were furious that the only reason the traitors had not yet cut off their final lifeline was the planet where Jinri resided within their territory.

Everything they had attempted in order to take revenge on Jinri—who had ignored the Otherworld Creator and tried to destroy everything merely to punish a few fugitives—had ended in failure. The despair was absolute.

No matter how eternal a being the Creator was, having lost nearly all of his managed territory meant he could not grow stronger. Maintaining the status quo was already difficult. At this rate, he would only continue to weaken.

There was no room for improvement through normal means.

And so he had given up on everything and fallen asleep.

When the Creator lost the will to live, severed his own consciousness, and sealed himself away, the remaining Creator Gods had no options left.

They could not negotiate with the traitors who had denied the Creator simply because things became difficult. From now on, they would use any means necessary.

Unable to win a direct confrontation due to their shortage of Battle Gods, they had clung to the very root of all this chaos—Jinri—the only remaining lifeline. They had even offered dominion over the current world, only to be ignored. Then, after a long silence, contact finally came.

The good news was that Jinri would send a deputy in his place.

The Creator Gods, well aware of the overwhelming power of the 10 Mainstays that Jinri boasted of and the direct-line Eternal Beings, had been overjoyed.

Even though beings from the Void Realm suffered a one ten-thousandth reduction in authority and power due to Body Reconstruction, someone of the 10 Mainstays’ caliber would still possess enough strength to wipe out all the traitors.

Yet when the Supreme Committee saw the official letter of appointment that had been sent, their joy turned to shock in equal measure.

It was not one of the famous 10 Mainstays known even in the Otherworld, nor a blood relative. The name written there belonged to a strange god they had never heard of.

Disappointment erupted everywhere in the form of lamentation.

The 10 Mainstays each possessed over 1,000 trillion in divine power. Even after the reduction from Body Reconstruction upon entering the Otherworld, they would still wield over 100 billion. In a realm where the Creator lay dormant, that was an incomparably high figure. On top of that, they possessed authority that defied imagination, and through extreme training their combat power was said to be immeasurable and ever-increasing. Everyone knew this.

A single one of them could cleanly resolve all their current problems. So Jinri’s decision to dispatch some unheard-of god in a mere proxy capacity was naturally infuriating.

To identify who this was, they had paid a steep price. Yet the information received directly from the Cyber Realm—which no longer kept secrets and had simply shown them the footage as a “service”—left them utterly stunned.

Zzzt—! Zzzt—!

In the conference hall of the Supreme Committee—those who had been formally entrusted with dominion by the Creator—a giant image flickered into existence above the center of the room, accompanied by slight static.

It was unclear how far away the recording had been taken, but the footage rapidly zoomed in on a single point from the depths of distant space. The moment the forms of gods, far larger than the planets around them, appeared on screen, a thick stream of curses poured out.

BAAAAAAM—!

Crack—! Crunch—!

The sounds of something being smashed and beaten echoed violently across the screen.