the multi

Prologue

"What the hell?" I asked as I stared at the reflection in the golden-edged mirror. 

I knew what had happened. The information was right there in my head and the reality of it all was as clear as day. But still, some things were just impossible to accept. I was alive. Well, I had died, but apparently, that had changed. 

"WHAT THE HELL?" I yelled. The room seemed to be shaking as I touched my face. The man in the mirror did the same. 

My name had been Bill Terrance. His name hadbeen Array King Dane. He was living and I was dead. I was a mortal, and he was an immortal. And we were both fine and separated a few moments ago but suddenly we were one and the same

I closed my eyes, trying to steel my nerves. Could this be a dream? Nope. There was too much information in my head for all of this to be a dream. I wouldn't be able to imagine understanding all of the things I suddenly knew now. How could I imagine reality-bending laws or god-like powers?

"WHAT THE HELL!!" I yelled again, and this time I could tell that the room was shaking. And it was my yelling that caused it.

"Alright. Okay. Alright," I said, pressing my hand against my chest as I tried to calm myself down. I started parsing through his memories, trying to figure out what had happened.

"Reincarnation? No, not exactly reincarnation. Something else?"

My face scrunched in horror as I realized what had happened. 

"Oh damn," I mumbled, staring disappointedly at the man in the mirror.

It wasn't quite reincarnation, not really. It was more like a half-assed death if anything. It was more like a botched organ transplant of the soul, except instead of switching out something like the heart or the kidneys, some dumbass had switched out the brains instead.

The dumbass in the mirror stared back. 

I'd read books about this, fictional stories about warriors in magic China land and all the great adventures they'd go on. Stories filled with power, women, pain, treasures, tribulations, more women, and an absurd amount of restaurant disputes. But…but those were all stories weren't they? It was one thing to read fiction and it was another to live it. 

I looked the unfamiliar man up and down. 

Dane's body was immortal and infinitely better than mine, but it still felt wrong somehow. I lifted my arm and watched the man in the mirror reflect my actions. It felt strange and almost alien to see something mimic me so well. 

But, strange existential horrors aside, he was damn handsome. He had short black hair, a sharp face, and a muscular build. The ethnicity wasn't something I could put a direct finger on, but it was a mixture of Scandinavian, Asian, and African, though I don't know if anyone could be described by those labels anymore. 

After oogling myself for a bit, my next thought was how. How had this happened? How was this all real? Was this real, or was it some strange dream I was coughing up at three in the morning? It didn't feel real, but

I got the answer as soon as I thought of the questions. 

Fundamental truths of the multiverse and all of reality suddenly sprouted in my head. And for a moment, a temporary but excruciating moment, two different bits of two different souls pressed together as they became one. 

It felt like I was thinking for the very first time, as if everything before now had been a hazy barely conscious dream. Knowledge rushed into my head as untold eons of experience pressed against my existence. My understanding of reality was rebuilt and I saw the ends of infinity. The world shrank as I outgrew it and the universe felt small. Laws, Daos, the very fabric of reality, all of it unraveled before my eyes and everything was laid bare. 

There weren't words to describe the experience, but I didn't need words. I wasn't thinking in words, and in fact, I wasn't thinking. Thinking seemed too small of a description to explain what was going on in my head. It was enlightenment and understanding far beyond the limits of a mortal. Rebirth. Readjustment. Awakening. No, something even more than that. Something I could only feel and not convey. 

And that was when I was truly born. The two separate souls finally clicked together, like puzzle pieces finding their place, and suddenly I felt whole.

I looked back into the mirror and I saw myself staring back. This was the face of Array King Dane, a man who had reached the twelfth rank of cultivation. A man known throughout all of the multiverse, even by those of the seventeenth rank, the God-Imperiums

Dane had reached a rare pinnacle in cultivation, soaring far above most. He was a strong and reclusive cultivator. And he was considered young for his cultivation stage, but everyone in the higher realms were considered to be extremely gifted in one way or another. 

But he was different. He had crafted his own legend. He'd fought young masters and stolen treasures from clan elders. He had lived a life of legends and myths, having many adventures and joys, many highs and lows. 

Just thinking about the number of things he'd seen in his lifetime would have broken a mortal's mind. And yet Bill's life was also there, the strange dullness of it all shining brightly against Dane's amazing stories. It was strange. You'd think an immortal's memories would outshine and replace a mortal's, but each seemed to be equal in my soul, part mortal and part immortal. 

My eyes scanned the Palacium. The place was huge and full of gold resources most would kill to get, yet it was empty. Dane had never been one for company, sexual or platonic.

I looked down at the black ring on my left hand. It was initially a cursed item called the Ring of Repelling. Dane had been cursed with it in his younger years, but he eventually grew fond of the damn thing and strengthened it to work on his higher cultivation stage. The man had been puritanical in how he would deal with sex, and the ring was his way of dealing with women, or "distractions" as he had called them. 

It was a little prudish if you asked me, but I was glad that I wouldn't be inheriting multiple realms' worth of abandoned wives and all the baggage that would have brought. But on the other hand, this did put me in the running for being the multiverse's oldest virgin.

I decided to take the ring off. 

So one might wonder, if Dane was so strong and powerful, how did he die? Was he betrayed? Was he attacked by demonic cultivators who wanted his divine artifacts? Did he blow himself up while fighting off an ancient beast in a pocket dimension?

No. Dane was an Array Master. And one of the fundamental rules of being an Array Master is that you didn't set up an array in your soul. You could set up an array to contain a soul. You could set up an array to digest or contort a soul, or even set one up on your soul. But you don't set up an array in your soul, because it just couldn't be done. It was like trying to plug in a keyboard to your brain, the two just weren't compatible.

The soul was something of a spiritual body. The body has organs and organ systems that handle certain jobs like delivering nutrients and digesting food. The soul has the same things, but instead of food or nutrients, it dealt with consciousness and all of its complexities. Dane, in his experimentation, had broken his soul and I was the resulting mixture of him and some random piece of consciousness floating in the void.

Now, normally this wouldn't have been as big of a problem as it was. You could always heal, especially immortals whose very goals revolved around staying alive for as long as you can. Or at least until another immortal found and killed you in secluded meditation, which was bound to happen if you lived forever, but that hadn't been the case for Dane. 

No, Dane had accidentally completely shattered his ego which was like the metaphysical brain of the soul. It defined your sense of self and during that experience parts of Bill's decaying soul settled into his. After that, Bill's ego took the place of Dane's, and the rest of them fused together to create whatever abomination I was now. 

"You don't fuck with your own soul," I mumbled, still staring at the mirror.

If I were still Dane, I'd close my eyes, cross my legs, and cultivate for the next few millennia. If I were Bill, I would go out and adventure across the universe, searching for the fantasy-like journey this world could give me. 

But I wasn't either of them. I had Dane's experience and had seen more magic than people had ever written about back on Earth. And I had Bill's taste so there was no way I was just going to sit here and do nothing for thousands of years. Besides, it wasn't like I needed to cultivate. I was already an immortal and even though I wasn't at the pinnacle of all cultivation, I was more than strong enough to live peacefully and out in the open for a few trillion years. 

But there was a problem with that, no matter how long-lasting that peace was, it would always be temporary. That was the nature of cultivation. To cultivate, you need resources, to gain resources you must fight, to fight you must get stronger, and to get stronger you must cultivate. It was an endlessly repeating pattern that everyone in the sport fell to, regardless of power or strength. 

Even the God-Imperiums, who were five full stages above me at the seventeenth stage and were capable of spawning universes with one breath and destroying them with another, even they cultivated diligently in fear of one another.

The thought wasn't just mine, it was something Dane had considered as well. He had grown tired of this world, tired of all the fighting and raging. That was why he was so carelessly playing with arrays in his soul. Dane, in his last moments, had felt indifferent about death and danced with it of his own volition. 

I looked away from the reflection and looked around at my surroundings. There wasn't a lot laying around. Everything in the Palacium automatically sorted itself and the city-sized palace was cleaned and guarded by arrays. 

I raised my right hand in front of me and swiped in a grasping motion. A crushing force grew from my hand and a black void grew from my palm, devouring everything from things to light. The Palacium collapsed, vacuuming itself into my closed fist, and in my hand appeared a small black stone containing the depiction of a golden-white castle.

The small barren planet that I'd made my base for the past few hundred thousand years held very little value to me. It was just one of the many rocks I visited, nothing particular about it except for the fact that it was far removed from almost all other life in this universe. There was no sentient life in this universe, though I could feel a rising qi density, so that was bound to change sooner rather than later.

I patted my chest and switched out my robes for some nice stealthy, enchanted, protective clothing, and flew into the sky. As I left the atmosphere, the world beneath me exploded with supernatural energy as array after array activated in the vacating process. 

The protective fields disintegrated, and with them, all evidence of me ever being here. The process went on for about an hour before the brown ball beneath me settled down looking as abandoned as the day I'd landed on it. 

Without a second thought, I turned and flew beyond light speed across the universe, wondering where I was headed.

It didn't take me all that long to figure out what I wanted to do with myself. As I soared through the void of space, it occurred to me that all I wanted was peace. I just wanted a place where I could kick my feet up and not worry, a place that I could call my own. 

So I would make that place, and I would pursue my own peace with the same vigor and diligence as these cultivators who pursued their next advancement. I would still cultivate of course, but cultivation wouldn't be the end goal, merely the means. 

As I stood there, my body being carried by a sword piercing through both space and time, I thought. I thought about exactly what it was that I would need to pursue this peace. I thought about all the clans and sects in the multiverse. I thought about the factions that swayed them. I thought about the Divine Beasts swimming through galaxy clusters and the God-Imperiums in their Celestial Realms. They were the most powerful cultivators in all of reality, but even they fought for resources, nipping and taking from each other like too many piglets competing for their mother's last teet. 

The problem was that I'd eventually get dragged into the fight. That was the flaw of eternity, eternity brought down everything. If the chances of someone ever finding me in some remote corner of the multiverse were one in googolplex, well that was practically guaranteed to happen given enough time. No, if I wanted peace, I had to guarantee it. 

So if I wanted to stay alive, the best course of action would be to have an unbreakable defense, something even the God-Imperiums would not test. I needed a retirement plan so solid that it could withstand the selfishness and cruelty of the cultivator's world.

Chapter 1 Enlightenment and Decadence

It was said that the multiverse had cycles. That it would wane and wither and die, only to be reborn once more from its cosmic corpse. It was said that the reality we now knew was only the stable ground between two extremes and that eventually even this world would fall and existence would be born anew.

Creation myths were prevalent within the larger multiverse. Many sects worshiped strong cultivators as gods, and that went even more so for God-Imperiums. But out of all of the beliefs that congregated throughout the multiverse, none were as strong as the worship of the Primordials. 

The Primordials were the four beings that preceded the multiverse. They were those that had broken past the last cycle and pushed forward onto this one. They were Gods, and not in the metaphorical sense either, Gods with a capital G. Beings like them made people like me look like mortals and even their fellow God-Imperiums strived to equate to them in power and influence.

They were Tree, Beast, Insect, and Human. These were not the names of their species but rather the names of the Primordials themselves. It was us who were named after them, and they were the shout that the multiverse echoed. They had been there first before anything had been and they had shaped everything that came after. 

It was why you could find reflections of them in any life-bearing universe, even one that was completely depleted of ambient qi. You would find plants, bugs, and animals anywhere, and humans would pop up alongside them. It was also why culture and languages were so similar to one another. It was said that the Primordials had initially shaped reality by merely existing at its highest level and that their strength made their qi echo into the very core of existence. 

And though that was a very mythical interpretation of a behavior qi did naturally exhibit, it was somewhat true. The stronger you are the more impact you have on the multiverse. It was why you saw African, Asian, and European culture in every developed human society ever. The first few human God-Imperiums that came after the Primordials had been of varying cultures, and those cultures had also echoed throughout the multiverse guiding the rest of humanity to follow in their footsteps. 

Nothing was a direct reflection of course, but it was a reflection nonetheless. Out of the first beast came phoenixes and dragons, and after that came a myriad of others and humans had also split into numerous groups of elves, dwarves, and neanderthals. The variety of insects and plants was outrageous, but since they reproduced at a much higher variety than humans or beasts, it made sense that they outnumbered us in species. 

It was similar with culture and language with each civilization having a large amount of differences with one another but a surprising amount of similarities as well. Clothing, language, food, people, animals, bugs, and plants, all of it was influenced by the God-Imperiums, who were in turn influenced by the Primordials, and that was why they were Gods with a capital G.

Anyways that's beside the point. 

The real star of the moment was me floating in my little pool of primordial qi. Well, I wasn't floating in it, more wading in a space suit. You couldn't touch primordial qi, otherwise, it would go rotten. It was called primordial because it was the stuff that everything else was made out of, the metaphysical base unit of the multiverse. 

It was time, space, matter, laws, daos, souls, and everything in between. It was existence without information, unflavored and untouched. If everything in the universe was a differently flavored potato chip, then primordial qi would be Salt and Vinegar. Everything else had a quality to it, primordial qi didn't, and that was why the stuff was so damn valuable. It could become anything and everything. It was infinitely versatile but because of that, it was infinitely rare. 

One of the reasons the stuff was so hard to find was because finding it was a surefire way to ruin it. Primordial qi was meaningless, literally. No quality, no nature, just plain old stuff. And while that made it extremely valuable, it also made it extremely volatile. It desired meaning and if it came into contact with something that already had it, well, it would quickly adopt it as its own. And everything aside from primordial qi had some sort of nature to it, even touching it with your divine senses would ruin it immediately. 

The only way to truly interact with the thing was to not touch it, which is a hard thing to explain. But if I had to explain it, I'd say it was like wearing a space suit made out of nothing to wade through a pool made out of something. 

This whole process was heavy on the metaphysical side, but I had worked out a way to interact with primordial qi myself. It was a challenging complex mobile array, but the project was harder than anything in recent memory and forced me to grow new skills, so it was a win-win overall. 

The goal had been to study primordial qi and all of its capabilities. Maybe even replicate it, if I could. But holy shit was this stuff weird. How do you study something without any meaning to it? I mean, it was a dumb endeavor, to begin with, but I was hoping for something. Some form of enlightenment or understanding, but it was hard to glean information from something uninformative. 

I had thought, naively, that I could learn something from it at my current rank but that seemed to be my arrogance speaking instead of my common sense. 

Then the question was, what do I do now?

I could sell this location. It'd go for a pretty penny at the right auction houses and I knew sixteenth ranks would pay me their right nut for this place. I'd seen one of them marry off their whole bloodline just for an unverified reservoir of primordial qi. They were crazy about this stuff, but I'd never known why.

But that idea was shot down pretty quickly. Every time one of these things was discovered, the discoverer would get the attention of the multiverse and every asshole from all corners of reality would know their name, and I couldn't afford to have those types of eyes on me. Not with what I was planning. 

I could use it, though it wouldn't be of much use to me. I'd been spending the last few trillion years as time to gather all the materials I would need, so it would be a waste.

Maybe I should just blow it up?

The thought was a little ridiculous, but I've been feeling more ridiculous lately. Sure it'd be a waste, but there would probably be some insight in the action. I'd witnessed the recreation of countless universes in my time, but I'd never seen the initial spawning of one. That would be a strange experience, a direct look at the creation of everything. 

I thought about it, my power flirting with the void that separated me from the primordial. Dane would have never done this. He would have tried to store the stuff or leave it until he needed it. 

But then again, I wasn't Dane. 

There was an explosion, which I imagined would have been ear-shattering if not for the lack of time-space and matter for the sound to travel through. And with that, where there had been almost nothing, suddenly, there was everything. Primordial qi disappeared as it took on meaning and shape. It was an almost instantaneous reaction but with perception like mine, I watched it all unfold like a feature-length film.

The primordial qi divided, changing from one to two. The first division. There was no real nature to either chunk of qi, aside from the nature of opposites. Then each half divided once more and again, and again, and again, and again. Eventually, every bit of qi was as different as every other. From complete unity to complete division. From Yang to Yin. 

I was familiar with this stuff. This was called chaos qi and it was infinitely more common than its primordial counterpart. While primordial qi was stuff without meaning, this was stuff with too much meaning. Every single ounce of qi here had a different law tied to it, a lot of them were nothing more than bits of remixed information, completely and totally useless, but some of the stuff was familiar. 

There was gravity, nuclear fission, and some strange variation of electromagnetism. It was all a jumbled ball of chaos. Sure there was meaning here, but there was also a complete lack of order. If primordial qi was like an uncut puzzle board with no picture on it, then this chaos qi was a puzzle with infinite pieces that were taken from other puzzles. It was a mess. 

Yin and Yang. Chaos and order. That was what birthed everything. Life, existence, laws, even people, were a mix of these things. Chaos was difference, changes, division, and order was unity, sameness, dullness. One without the other was entirely useless. 

Existence, at least the useful kind of existence, couldn't exist on one of those things alone. We needed consistency to keep the world together, some form of order. But too much order and we would all be reduced to one meaningless blob, primordial qi. It was as organized as anything could be, so similar that it lacked all meaning of its own. Because to have meaning, to have value, things needed to have contrast. It was like how blind people couldn't imagine color, not because their brain couldn't process light but because they had never seen a difference, black wasn't a color for them because black was color, and that destroyed color itself. 

But chaos was the same, too much and everything would crumble. Order was the leash that kept the world together and chaos was the thing that was meant to divide it. None of this was new to me, but still, this was different. There was something more here.

My body shuddered and my soul shook as all I had seen and witnessed flowed through me. Existence, reality, time, people, everything, was just and inbetween, even us so-called immortals. And in that moment, that small instance of eternity, I saw what all of those sixteenth ranks must have been searching for. 

The pattern that was not a pattern, the rise and fall of everything. 

The eventual decay and rot of eternity.

All of it unraveled itself before me, and I felt something I hadn't felt in a good long while. 

Growth. I felt a tremor in my qi as I went up a realm and I broke through to the thirteenth realm. 

********

1,000,000,000 years later

I was almost done, it had taken me so long but I was almost done. I couldn't even remember when I started on this endeavor, but that happened with immortality, at some point you get so old alone that you forget to remember time itself, and it slips by an epoch or two when you're not looking. 

But this would be my last stop. 

I looked, staring at the massive galaxy cluster. This was the Divine Beast Emporium, a large clan spanning throughout the multiverse, even having a presence in the lower realms.And this place here was their center of operation, the Divine Killaguan Seal. This whole universe was under their jurisdiction, and that was evident if you looked closely enough. Almost every planet here had life on it, and all the stars had at least twelve planets orbiting them constantly. Each planet sat in their own respective Goldilocks zone and hosted whatever lifeform had been deemed worthy on their backs. 

There were portals everywhere, each hauling in new beings and hauling out old ones. This whole place was a collection of life. Beasts, humans, insects, or plants, they could all be found here, and you could buy them if you had the proper wealth. Of course, you could sell them here too. The criminal underworld here was the largest slave trade in the multiverse. All of it was approved and constantly monitored by the Divine Beast Emporium, though they would never admit to that publicly. 

I looked at its center and saw the oblivion that was sealed there. It was Killaguan, an eldritch monstrosity at the level of a God Imperium. It was a malicious corruption of laws and orders that was so chaotic and convoluted that its mere ability to exist was considered a miracle. I looked away. Very few things could make people as old as me sick, and that thing was one of them. I'd been here before, anyone who had surpassed the ninth realm had made their way here at one time or another. Materials were needed and the Divine Beast Emporium was the best supplier in the universe. But I was disguised this time and I held back my cultivation level to the ninth stage, making sure not to stand out.

The giant galaxy cluster was a habitat, a sort of terrarium display case for any customers that might come and want to buy their wares. In it were countless planets, each of them harboring many different lifeforms and beasts, some of them naturally grown while others were selectively raised. It was the best place to buy and trade any form of life.

I made my way to a small golden light just at the edge of the cluster, approaching the planet with trepidation. The planet itself was huge, bigger than most stars in the universe and it had an infinitely diverse population. This universe was a peak realm, able to compare to the best clans and sects out there. If you wandered the realm below you'd find all types of people with all types of stories walking around. I stood out a little as an unaffiliated ninth-rank wandering into the planet, but that was okay. In a place like this, standing out just a bit was a perfect way to fit in.

I flew across the planet's atmosphere, my body being carried by my sword until I reached a large, continent-sized city. It was grand and indescribably beautiful, but I'd seen it all before at this point, and I didn't care to see it again. I focused on keeping my head down and flew quickly.

The grandness of this place couldn't be explained with words. There were castles and pagodas everywhere, each of them reaching wide into the sky and hosting an innumerable amount of people. Some restaurants served anything from dragons and phoenixes, some even served humans though those weren't out in the open. One place sat upon the back of a tenth-rank celestial turtle. These were majestic beings, said to float through the space between universes, but here they were mere steeds of glory. 

Though for all its glory, this place was a ticking time bomb. You could say the wrong thing, piss off the wrong person, hell you could even glance at a girl the wrong way and suddenly be thrown into a life-and-death fight for no reason. I wasn't worried. I was far too old and too strong to be thrown into these petty displays of power, but caution was warranted. 

Finally, I made my way to the center of the city district. There was a giant black and blue steeple at the center of it all. The building was taller than any mountain on the planet and extended deep into the sky, pushing past the clouds and condensing into a small sun. This was where the God Imperium lived.

I had to be careful here. I was strong but I was walking very close to the strongest now. If I pissed somebody off, I would be swatted out of existence by forces that I still couldn't quite fathom.

I went to a smaller building. The building itself was still immense in size but it was much lower than the steeple.

"Honored master," a soft voice spoke. "Allow me to serve you and fulfill your needs during this time."

I looked to my left to see a beautiful girl bowing to my side. Her lips were cherry red and her skin had a golden tan to it that seemed to make her glow. A part of me, the part from Bill, was astonished at her beauty. No one he had known on Earth had ever come close to being this good, but Dane had seen better. Dane had seen women so entangled with the law of beauty and seduction, that a mere breath from them would be caught and sold as a drug that gave the highest pleasure.

I nodded and gave her a piece of jade.

She took it from my hands and sent her sensing into it to see the list I'd composed. Her face was calm, but I could see both stress and joy dancing in her eyes.

"All of this Honored Master?" She asked.

I nodded.

"The estimated cost-"

"Will not be a problem," I cut her off.

"Of- of course, Honored Master. I was not implying that it would be, it is merely that the price should be known before the transaction. If my words have displeased you I can-"

"It's fine," I interrupted. "I am not insulted. Just go fetch me my wares."

I almost added please at the end of that statement, but that would make me stand out even more. Politeness to those beneath you was taken as weakness in the cultivator world.

I understood the girl's concern. The species and beasts that I wanted were quite rare and expensive, but the amount that I had asked for would make it so that my purchase would probably be the most expensive one they've had in a few months. It didn't compare to their highest sales, but this sale would be an opportunity for the girl to get a promotion within the clan. Hopefully.

I could see people being greeted by all types of people when they flew in. One man was greeted by a large and beefy man that walked straight up to him and kissed him on the cheek. Another lady was greeted by a young boy. Another found himself in the arms of a gorgeous woman who wrapped herself around him like a piece of cloth. Those were the perks of being strong. People would do almost anything to please you, and the woman in front of me was no different. Her beauty, strength, and allure, were all meant to be tools of the Emporium to make my experience 'enjoyable.'

These greeters had most likely been raised from childhood to 'serve' whatever master called upon them. The Emporium raised its workers like they did their animals. Every greeter here was a specimen, a delicacy meant to be tasted by the shoppers, tools of pleasure and nothing more.

Disgusting. That's what this world was, pure and honest nastiness.

"This Mei Shan greets Honored Master," the girl said.

She had returned this time, followed by a host of servants. They were all women, each of them draped in beautiful suggestive clothes. Mei Shan was amongst them, her outfit had changed significantly and she walked with a sultry strut.

"Honored master, this Mei Shan's master wishes to speak with you in private to further discuss the logistics of your wares."

I nodded after some careful consideration. It was this way with large purchases. You buy from a clan and the clan wants to establish some bond so that you'd buy from them again. Loyal customers and all that. 

I knew they'd assume that I was a representative of some large clan somewhere but I didn't care much either way. My goal was to get what I needed and get the hell out of here.

I walked with them, catching the occasional peeking glances flying past my direction. It was considered rude to use your divine senses in places like this, so everyone saw with their eyes and listened with their ears instead of swaying their sights far above you.

We arrived at a large door. It was big and golden and shiny and was practically screaming of power and position, which meant that it was most likely held by some small man who wanted to think of himself as big.

I almost sighed as I saw the man at his desk. He was everything you'd expect of an arrogant Son of Heaven. He wore expensive shimmering clothes and had small priceless jewels and artifacts hanging casually about his person. You could probably start a successful middle-sized sect with all the wealth in this room, but unfortunately, it would never be anything more than decoration.

"Hello, fellow Daoist! Forgive my intrusion into your business, this Kin Jey heard of your request and sought to meet you in private."

Kin Jey. Flashing his family name already.

"It is an honor to meet one of the Jey Clan's Scion," I replied, giving a traditional half bow. The man didn't return the gesture.

"I was looking over this list you had given us and I wanted to discuss some things with your request fellow Daoist."

"Ah, of course, of course. I am merely a humble customer."

"Humble?" He asked a little arrogantly.

"This purchase is far from humble, my friend. The things you are asking for, not only are they rare, but they are also dangerous, very dangerous."

Kin Jey paced around as if he was concerned about the sales. I wasn't stupid. I'd dealt with politics before and I sincerely hated it, but that was also why I had learned to master it.

Kin Jey didn't have a good reason to call me. That was obvious. My purchase stood out in many ways, but not enough to deserve severe inspection. The lifeforms I was asking for were dangerous, but that would be none of their business for the most part. It's not like the Emporium cared about the consequence of their sales.

No, what Kin Jey wanted was what I had. Here he was, a cultivator sitting so close to the top of the pecking order, a direct descendent of a God Imperium, yet he still preyed on those he deemed weak.

A part of me wanted to tell him the truth. I wanted to tell him that I was just a lone cultivator spending all my resources on a big project. I wanted him to send a group of cultivators to chase me, or better yet, I wanted him to try to kill me himself. Then I could put him down for his ungodly selfishness and end him like the thieving dog that he was.

I put up a farce.

"Ah yes, we are aware of the strangeness of these requests. My clan did stress the utmost secrecy and significance of this request, however."

"Oh?" Kin Jey questioned.

"Surely your clan would trust the Jey Clan with their reasoning for such things?"

He was bargaining up, asking for a lot more than what he wanted.

"I am afraid that I was not given heed to such knowledge. This lowly one was sent to merely fetch the wares."

I denied him.

"Ah, such is the way of the elders I suppose, in your clan or mine," he replied.

I again gave a half bow to show respect.

"What is fellow Daoist's name, by the way?"

There it was. If he knew my name, he could look into my clan. And depending on the strength of my clan, he would figure out if he would kill me or let me go.

"I am sorry but even my name is meant to be clandestine. The clan would prefer our purchases go unnoticed by everyone, lest our enemies see our plans."

"Ah," Kin Jey spoke, nodding his head in false wisdom.

"Well, fellow Daoist, it would be better if I knew your name, but if not, then I shall sow some good karma with gifts. Surely then we will meet again."

"Oh do not trouble yourself, this one is not worthy of such things," I replied.

"No, no. I have caused trouble for you, I am sure. Mei, prepare yourself and your sisters, surely this honored master has some use for concubines."

Chapter 2 Arrogance and Deceit

This man was testing me, though I doubt he knew it.

"Oh, your kindness is abundant Kin Jey, but I don't believe myself to be a man capable of many wives," I chuckled. 

"Men, perhaps?" He asked.

"Oh no, I am not a carnal man, Master Kin."

"A shame, then give them away to your family. They are of a delicate breed, born of our more fertile lines. I'm sure they will serve you well," he replied with a nonchalant wave.

I couldn't help but feel some sadness for the women at that moment. These people were born to be his toys, raised and taught and schooled to serve his every need. They worshiped him as if he were a god, and now he was throwing them away, donating them to me like they were nothing more than secondhand shoes.

"Well, I can not shame the scion of the Kin clan by rejecting such beauties. My clan will be most thankful for these gracious gifts," I said with false humility. 

I felt disgusted at myself for taking part in this but I didn't really have any other options. Besides, I could give these women a better life. I knew plenty of matriarchal societies that would take them in and raise them as one of their own, but it still left a bad taste in my mouth to act as if I respected him.

The man waved off my compliment. 

"It is not worthy of such gratitude, fellow Daoist. Though in truth, I should be the one thanking you for your patronage. Ah but I do have some urgent business to see to so unless anything else is necessary…?" He said letting the question hang in the air.

"Yes, yes, I thank Master Kin for taking care of my wares. May you have trust in your Dao and growth in your qi," I said, giving him a half bow.

"And power in your heart and strength in your blade," He finished, returning the bow.

As annoyed as I was with the interaction, I wouldn't be able to shave a single hair off of his body in this place. It was warded beyond reason, and it used runes instead of array points so I lacked the expertise to break through it.

The women, unaffected by their sudden transfer of ownership, followed right behind me. The one called Mei Shan walked with her head aimed at the floor and her footsteps remaining even, almost unnoticeable. 

I tried to pry into her aura to see what she was feeling, but it was as still as could be. I frowned. Aura was hard to control. It was the qi that naturally leaked from your reservoirs and out into the real world. And because it was your qi, it reflected your current state of mind, if you were nervous, it would be nervous. If you were happy, it would be happy. It reflected your emotions and could even manifest them into actions if they were strong enough. 

But there was none of that with her. Her aura remained calm and collected. There were aura cloaking techniques, but that wasn't what was happening here. She wasn't cloaking her aura, she was controlling it, which was akin to controlling your emotions themselves. The aura reflected the emotions and her aura reflected nothing.

"Mei Shan, right?" I said. 

She nodded, tailing just slightly behind me. 

"Do you have any family or friends here?"

She shook her head. 

"No honored master, my sisters are all I am permitted to have," she said, gesturing to the bowing group around her.

I nodded.

"Then prepare my wares and yours, we will leave as soon as we can."

"Right now? Would you not like to rest or spend the night-"

"No," I interrupted. "I would like to leave as soon as we can, provided that it'll bear you no troubles?"

She nodded, as if not having heard that last part, and left with her group. I waited for them in a very large room with a bed wide enough to build a house on. I had suspicions as to why, but I didn't bother entertaining them. 

That Kin Jey had been of the ninth rank and he was young too. I had done my research before coming and though I hadn't initially recognized the man, I knew his name from some of the wider news distribution networks in the multiverse. I was personally subscribed to three news distributor sects and each had mentioned him in their report at one time or another, usually for suspicion of an unjustified murder or insulting a high-ranking sect member. In this world, the latter was considered the worse of the two crimes.

And taking all that information along with all of this. Well, it didn't take a complex mind to figure out what was going to happen. The women, the room, the inquiries, all of it pointed to one conclusion.

"Oh well," I sighed.

The women reentered the room. They had changed, now wearing less flirtatious and much more regal-like traveling clothes. Each of them also carried a minor spatial ring filled with their own supplies. 

"Honored Master, we have gathered your materials," Mei Shan said, bowing down in front of me. Her hands were lifted above her head and carrying a small golden ring.

"Get up," I said as I took the ring to inspect it. I had already given Mei the payment for the items when I had asked for them, and though I could have paid a little less if I bothered to bargain, leaving this place took a higher priority. I looked around, scanning the girls who stood behind me. They were all at the peak of the fifth rank, which made sense, immortal servants were as rare as they were precious. But that meant that I would have to protect them through interdimensional travel.

"Do any of you know any voidwalker techniques?" I asked the group of women. 

"No honored master, we were not meant to leave this realm," Mei Shan responded.

Without a voidwalker technique, traversing the void was the equivalent of walking into oblivion. The void wasn't some vast empty space in between universes, but rather emptiness itself. It was nothing. It lacked space-time and all of the other physical laws a physical body relied on to survive, so if I just took the girls with me. Well… they wouldn't make it out the other end.

But that meant I would have to carry them in a life-storing spatial ring. There was nothing wrong with that, but it felt demeaning in a way, to transport them the same way I was transporting beasts. 

"Alright, I'll have you travel in this spatial ring then. It shouldn't be too long, just a mere moment from your perspective."

The women all nodded in compliance. It didn't matter to them. I doubt anything did aside from my approval. 

I waved my hand and all of them were sent into the ring. It was the ring the Beast Emporium had given me, and it was the only ring suitable for transporting that many lifeforms across the void. It would keep each life form separated in its own minor pocket dimension, and their safety would be guaranteed while traveling through the void. 

Making my way out of the building was only the first step, after that, I had to navigate through the eternal metropolis and make my way to the outskirts of the city before I could take off. It was rude to fly through a place like this, and even if I didn't give a rat's ass about manners, the people here did and many had died for a lesser insult. I used movement techniques to travel through the millions of buildings that littered the place. The city must have had the surface area of multiple planets, and though it was a thriving goliath of the multiversal market, it still felt too big. 

I finally got off of the planet and past the star system, going at speeds that light could only dream of, until the galaxy itself was visible. I kept on going and going until the galaxy cluster was nothing more than a faint shimmer in the sky and everything it contained seemed like a distant star. While the Emporium did technically own the realm, an endless universe was a tough thing to police. So there would be fewer eyes monitoring me out here.

Though that didn't really mean much when I was in the same realm as a God-Imperium, but putting distance between me and the Beast Emporium was more of a show of caution rather than a protective measure. It would make it harder to follow me on the off chance that someone decided to tail me. I was being followed of course, but I had to act like I didn't know that. 

I pushed, weaving myself out of this space-time continuum. My own voidwalker technique kept me safe as I traveled through the void. Though at my current stage, I could travel through the void without and come out just fine, but most of my equipment would be destroyed almost instantly so I had to take caution.

Navigating the multiverse was actually somewhat intuitive. There was the term 'The Fabric of Space and Time' back on Earth. That saying actually had more truth to it than not.

Universes were like blankets, big thick eternal blankets. If you wanted to teleport, you would fold a small piece of that blanket in half and pierce through, popping out on the other side. The multiverse in comparison was like a giant stack of blankets, made up of infinite layers of individual space-time continuums. There were many ways to travel through it, but the most common one was to navigate from one known universe to another, taking small steps until you reached your known destination. 

There was a reason for that. Even though the void didn't have space or time, it did have a distance of sorts. It's hard to explain in normal terms, but most cultivators knew it as relative existence. The void separated things. If there was void between two things, then those two things didn't exist relative to one another. But the more void one thing 'moved through,' the closer it got to another plane of existence, until eventually, you shared the same plane of existence as something else. It's all very complicated, but the point is that one does not want to get lost in the void. There were monsters there, eldritch horrors of untold nightmares. Things like Killaguan and strong celestial beasts that could tear me apart with a mere thought. It was scary and dark, and it was the jungle to end all jungle. Overall, the multiverse was scary, and hopscotching to known universes was a proven way to keep yourself mostly safe and unharmed. 

Anyway, strange existential horrors aside, it was actually fun to hop from one realm into another. It took a bit of skill and finesse to actually figure out where you were heading and how to get there, that was the reason most people never found their way out of the lower realms, that or death.

Speaking of which, I paused as I leaped through what must have been the thousandth realm that I'd traveled through since I left the Emporium. One thousand realms, and yet they were still following me. 

"Alright," I said with a tired sigh. "Come out."

I didn't speak these words seeing as I was hovering in empty space. I merely projected them loud enough for the hiding idiots to pick up on. 

"He he he," a slimy voice projected. 

"Fellow Daoist's abilities are truly capable, and to think I thought you just a fortunate vagabond."

Kin Jey stepped out from the void of space, his body materializing covered in ebony blue armor. The man looked different at the moment but only superficial. The kingly and regal robes had been switched for battle-ready armor, and his sword gleamed with starlight as if it was eager to cut. Aside from that, he looked collected and normal, as if he had been following me to give me back some spare change that I had accidentally overpaid. 

His entourage followed behind him, each of them decked out in similar equipment, though none as flashy as his. There were men, women, and even beasts, though most of them had a small slave collar bound onto their necks. The strongest person here was of the eleventh-rank dwarf who wore a sleeveless armor set that extended into a kilt that covered his legs. He had no slave collar on.

"Why are you following me?" I asked. It was a stupid question. I knew the answer, I always knew the answer. 

"Ho? Fellow Daoist, show some manners in your questioning. I am, after all, the scion of the Kin clan. Do remember that even if I can cut you down, there are many fates worse than death," Kin Jey said with a smile. 

I snorted. It wasn't meant to be cold or mocking. I just found the kid's ego to be a bit funny, but it made him frown really badly. 

"I followed you to assure your safe travels, but it seems that you have spat in my face once more. For this insult, you shall die."

********

Kin Jey frowned. He didn't really need an excuse by now. His entourage knew the plan well, even if they refrained from discussing it openly. He would find a target and he would follow them to a place far outside his home realm, and when he felt they were open and alone, he and his group would strike under the pretense of an insult. And though none of that was necessary anymore, particularly with their well-hidden killings, old habits die hard. 

The reason was generally something inconsequential, but it would be enough to avoid punishment within the sect if he was ever found out, though he rarely was these days. He had only been found out the first few times and after that, he had learned to hide his pursuits and make sure his killings happened far outside of his home realm, where there were no witnesses. 

Kin Jey was talented in this regard. He could probably find fault with the way his shadow moved if he wanted to. This man, however, warnted none of his exaggerated reasoning. His arrogance and curtness were reason enough. The bastard stood there, surrounded, outnumbered, outranked, and yet not an ounce of fear or remorse. And it wasn't an act either, his aura exuded weariness and irritation, as if this interaction was some tiresome errand he was just trying to finish.

"Well," the man said with a tired tone as he stared into the sky. "Let's get this over with."

"Very good! Very very good!" said Lom Gont. The small dwarf stepped forward, his face burning red with fury. His eleventh-rank aura flooded the place, his strength pushing down on everyone except Kin Jey. 

"I would ask for your name but it is fitting for you to die an unknown death. This Lom Gont will bring you to your end. You have courted death, but today she will embrace you."

"Just hurry up already," the man mumbled with clear irritation. 

Kin Jey seethed. This arrogance, this self-importance, it disgusted him. How can one man think so highly of himself even in front of death? He was going to die, that was as clear as qi itself. And he had to have known that unless… No that wasn't it. He would have known as soon as he met him if that was the case. But still, you never did know with those bastards. 

"Before you die, I would like to know, do you pursue the Dao of Madness?" Kin Jey asked.

"Nope." The man responded with an irritated look. 

"Then where did you find it?"

The man looked at him curiously. "Find what?"

"Your arrogance," Kin Jey said with a smile. 

"I'm not arrogant," the man replied. 

"Oh?"

"Nope. I'm just honest."

Kin Jey smiled and looked at Lom Gont. 

"Make it slow," he said, loud enough for the man to hear him. 

Lom Gont nodded with a vicious smile. A cudgel materialized within his right hand and a long hooked blade on his left. Kin Jey smiled. The dwarf was capable of putting on a good show when he wanted to and this man seemed to bring out the desire in him. 

"Wield your blade dreg, so at least you might die fighting."

The arrogant bastard looked at the sword in his right hand. It was a thick double-edged longsword that had a rather uneven blade. That was strange. Kin didn't remember seeing the man bring out a blade.

"Nah," the man said, tossing his sword at Lom Gont. 

Lom Gont snatched the weapon out of the air with anger. His muscles bulged and his qi flared as he held both his swords and his opponents in the same hand. Fury overtook his face at the disrespect, and Kin Jey smiled. This man was an eternal fountain of disrespect. If he didn't have a reason to kill him before, he definitely had one now. 

He couldn't remember the last time he'd seen Lom Gont so furious. He had told the man to take it slow, but now he was worried that Lom Gont might not kill the bastard at all. There was a chance that he would take the man's soul and store it in an eternal pain prison, gifting the arrogant bastard eternal torment. Oh well, pride has its consequences. The man had been warned, after all, Kin Jey had told him earlier. 

There are many fates worse than death.

Lom Gont moved, slowly approaching the man through the void of space. 

"Your arrogance truly knows no-" Lom Gont paused for a moment, and then, he bulged. His skin stretched from beneath his body and it almost looked like his bones were trying to make their way out of him. And then, the man popped. Black chitin-covered tentacles pierced through his skin and wrapped around his body and cocooned him in. 

Kin Jey and all the others leapt, pushing themselves a good distance from Lom Gont. Thoughts ran through Kin Jey's head as he backed away. What was this? What had happened? Had the man attacked? Did he have reinforcements? 

"It can wield itself," the man muttered tiredly. 

Then the sword moved, making its way to one of the beasts with perfect accuracy. The edge of the blade split open, from one side of the hilt to the other, to reveal a large row of teeth, tongues, and flesh. 

"An eldritch weapon!!" the beast screamed an instant before the blade's mouth came down upon them. Thousands of eyes bloomed on the flat side of the weapon, each of them peering into Kin Jey. He shivered.

"FORMATION!" He yelled, and all of his people surrounded him in a battle formation, every one of them covering him at all sides. Kin Jey shuddered. He had seen eldritch beings before. His ancestor had even tamed one, the Great Beast Killaguan. But this was different. This thing sought to kill him, and that was a whole new experience. 

The man now had the blade in his hand. Though calling it a blade might have been too much. It was more of an amalgamation of flesh tied together at one singular hilt. It wreathed the man in eldritch fury, yet the man himself seemed undisturbed. 

His face was unchanged. It was the same tired face he let out earlier. An annoyed frown. 

"Speak!" Kin Jey yelled from his protective group. "Who are you?"

The man flickered and his entire left side of protection burst into a stream of blood and flesh.

"Scatter!" Kin Jey screamed as he pushed himself away from the group. But at this point, no one was listening to his orders. The man had attacked before they had even blinked, and while some were strengthening their defense, most were circulating their voidwalker techniques to push themselves out of the realm. 

"Honorless bastards!" Kin Jey screamed as he too pushed to leave the realm. But before he could fully activate his technique, he heard a scream. One by one, every single person or beast who had tried to exit the realm simultaneously crumbled. Each of their body caved in on itself and into a circular swirling pattern until there was only a small ball the size of a sand grain left where they stood.

Kin Jey stopped channeling his own voidwalker skill and looked to the man. There were about seven of the original entourage left, and the strongest among them had already been killed. It was clear that Kin Jey had failed. And not only had he failed, he had failed exceedingly. Almost every one of his bodyguards were dead, and those that hadn't weren't worth bringing home. His sect would be sure to punish him for this.

"Honored Master, I see my flaws and apologize for testing your strength. But if you push forward, surely my ancestor's wrath will fall upon you."

The man frowned. 

"Old Tai Jey? Please, I must have killed over ten of his descendants. That bastard doesn't give a rat's ass about you."

"You dare!?"

"He's got billions of descendants, a whole realm full of them. What makes you so different?"

Kin Jey was furious. Killing his men had been a severe insult, but this, this was worse. 

"I am a direct heir, son of Lien Jo Jey and grandson of-"

"He's got millions of direct descendants as well. And who cares if you're an heir, immortals don't age. It's just a nice fancy title. Nothing more. At the end of the day, you're just a little jewel on the old man's neck, sort of like those women you gave to me actually."

Kin Jey's jaw tightened. Who was this man, to so brazenly insult him so? This arrogant self-righteous mite dared to stand against his Divine Beast Emporium. Kin Jey had been kind, but this was too far. He may have been of the ninth rank but he was no weakling, and regardless of this vagabond's words. His sect did care for him. 

Kin Jey smacked his chest and activated the hidden talisman within. It was a waste to use this attack on such a minor being, but his arrogance called for it. Strength filled his body as the talisman channeled some strange and unknown technique.

"You can only blame your arrogance!" Kin Jey shouted. "Let me send you to the depths."

A light overwhelmed Kin Jey as the qi burst out of him and engulfed everything. He was fine and unharmed, but that was quite untrue for everyone else involved. The attack had been one of a sphere-like shape, directly annihilating everyone and everything it touched without discrimination. And it wasn't small either, it had left him and trailed throughout the rest of the realm, killing all life within the universe. 

Kin Jey turned to see the small floating remains of his entourage. They had no qi in them, and even their souls had been broken down into nothingness. He smiled. This was the second-best outcome, with no witnesses he could tell whatever story he liked. And though some in the sect would know, he wouldn't be too scrutinized about the situation.

He waved his hands, collecting all the remains of his fellow sect members. His opponent must have died a long and miserable death, though he couldn't see the man's body anywhere. Maybe he hadn't died. Perhaps the bastard was only half dead, floating somewhere through this space. No, Kin wouldn't be so lucky. 

And then suddenly he couldn't move. The space froze around rendering him immobile and mute. There was a flash of blood from beneath him and an ache in his chest. Kin Jey looked down, and saw that where his chest plate should have been was the shiny edge of an eldritch sword. 

"Dumbass," the man whispered, and the blade was drawn up, splitting him whole.

Chapter 3 Cleanliness is Freedom

I frowned. What a waste of time. Wreindler tightened itself, having eaten everything the group had brought with them. The eldritch blade had been with me for a large portion of my life. I had found it when it was still young and though it was a common species of eldritch, this living weapon variation was unique to Wreindler. 

This dumbass. This self-righteous entitled moron of a cultivator had gone and made me kill him. I didn't want to kill the bastard. As disgusting as he was, it was too much trouble. But he just wouldn't stop following me, and even if I could have gotten away, that wasn't a salient option for the future. I had caught the interest of powerful people before and things never ended well if those interests were left to fester.

"Dammit," I mumbled.

But I might have made a mistake this time. 

He was a direct descendant of a God-Imperium, a prince of the multiverse, and I had killed him. What I had just done was the equivalent of murdering the president's son. This bastard was important. He was an heir and that meant that people would notice his disappearance. And though I doubted his sect would care for the loss, he was a high-ranking member of a celestial sect. 

His death would be taken as an insult by the Divine Beast Emporium, and to cultivators, that was the most unforgivable crime. They might even involve the Enki Maluth, one of the oldest investigatory sects in the multiverse. 

There were a variety of different sects and orders within the multiverse. Some stayed to themselves, never interacting with outside forces. Others were much more antagonistic, pushing and expanding, constantly seeking war and power, but a lot had learned to coexist. 

There were sects that provided trades, jobs, materials, artisan goods, anything and everything you could think of could probably be bought somewhere. The Beast Emporium was an example of such a sect. It sold lifeforms, mainly beasts, and had cemented itself with the multiversal market as the best supplier of those specific wares. 

The Enki Maluth were a similar group, but instead of supplying beasts, they supplied truth. They were known for their techniques regarding the Dao Of Truth, and they were horrifyingly capable. Divination, time resonance, qi detection, anything and everything they could do to see into the past, they would. It could be one shred of that bastard's qi floating around, or maybe a scent of that talisman he had used. They were known as the Sect of Vengeance, because of how many sects employed them to find the killers of their scions, and if the perpetrator was anyone without significant backing, then they would almost always end up dead. 

"Damn," I said as I stared into the mess of qi and faint echoes of the battle we just had. 

Cleanup was going to be a chore.

I scanned around. First I would have to destroy the realm, which would be quite easy but quite wasteful as well. 

This wasn't an ordinary realm, in fact, this wasn't a realm at all. It was an array I had made way back in the day, back when I was just a little ninth rank still making my way through the multiverse. And I had built and rebuilt it over and over again. 

I smiled thinking back to those days. Back then, I'd pissed off the scion of a middling sect, through no fault of my own. His ghostly pale girlfriend looked in my direction once or twice and that seemed to be enough for the prick to chase after me like I'd killed his mother.

He swore he would kill me. He even made a Dao Vow claiming that he would 'show me pain and terror beyond my wildest dreams.' The tough part was that he was actually a rank above me, so I had to set all of this up in advance and lure him out here afterward. 

And that asshole had been pretentious too. He had tried to kill me at every realm I hopped to, so I almost died about seven times before he finally got into this one. And even then, his talisman was an attack sealed in there by his sect's patriarch and had been one of the twelfth-rank. 

Since then I have reworked and remade this array countless times. It had started out as a complex illusion array that would make a person think they were in a realm as soon as they had entered it. Then eventually, it became a pseudo-reality. It mimicked the nature of a realm so much that at this point it could be categorized as one, at least at first glance. 

You couldn't cultivate or grow anything here and the natural development of life was definitely not going to happen within this place. Simply put, this universe wasn't natural, so it wouldn't have those traits that naturally developed universes tended to show.

And now I would have to destroy it.

I gripped my blade and closed my eyes and felt. Arrays were complicated. They were, at their core, an imitation of cultivation. A pull and a push. That's how cultivation started. You pulled qi into your dantian, filled it up, then refined it. And to use your qi, you pushed it, either to your limbs or weapons or organs. 

Arrays were that same push and pull technique extended to outside of the body. Eventually, you learned to make that push and pull a self-sustaining process, and then you learned to push and pull other things it would be confusing at first, but since everything was qi, it was possible. And then you learned to manipulate laws and Daos and that's where the fun began.

I felt the key array points, they were the conglomerations of laws that kept the universe together. Time and space, and a bunch of minor laws that governed the interactions of subatomic particles. Weak nuclear force, strong nuclear force, gravity, electromagnetism, and a bunch of other things all hotchpotch together to keep the realm afloat. 

If a universe was a functioning healthy human being, then this was a Frankenstein's monster with a brain that only knew how to breathe. It was barely a realm, but it got the job done. It granted me controls that made battles infinitely easier. I could entrap people with it, like I had done to Kin Jey's group, killing them as soon as they tried to leave. 

I could also strip the place of ambient qi or turn off the realm entirely and toss whoever was in there with me into the void, which was lethal to the unprepared. I was almost godlike in this realm, and it gave me a degree of flexibility that my fighting lacked. I was an array master, jack of all trades, master of none. And as well-rounded as I was, that meant fuck all for combat. 

And even then, I had almost died when the talisman went off. That was a full-blow fifteenth-rank attack that would even leak into the void, meaning if I had just left the realm, I still wouldn't have made it. This was the power of a celestial sect. They must have had hundreds of thousands of bastards like Kin Jey. After all, an eternal sect was bound to have an immense number of descendants. But even then, he still had defenses like this. 

I pulled, rearranging the array to self-collapse. And it did. The realm crumbled like a piece of paper. Stars, planets, galaxies, all came together and huddled into a single point. Existence shook and shivered as the fundamental laws of reality collapsed, and everything dissipated. 

The qi jumbled up together in a sea of unsustainable laws, and I stepped into the void. 

I could feel the realm rot. It was a process I'd witnessed countless times, even causing it on a few occasions, but I never got tired of seeing it. Universes were sustainable bundles of qi production within the void. They were things that grew and prospered, and in some cases lived. And when they popped and burst back into the nothingness from which they were born, they'd rot into a jumble of nonfunctioning qi, and that was when the jungle ate. 

The immense amount of qi pushed, echoing out through nonexistence, and I could feel them come. 

A myriad of creatures swarmed in my direction. The group suddenly pierced through the void and into the body of the dead realm. Ants, worms, dragonflies, centipedes, and anything with more than four legs and an exoskeleton managed to work its way into the thing. 

The bugs were always first. Then the celestial beasts and eldritch creatures mixed into the fold as well, each consuming whatever they could before more of them pierced into the area. I watched in wonder as all types of creatures swarmed the area. 

The thing that interested me wasn't their strength. No, I was stronger than all of the creatures here by at least two ranks. Rather, what captured me was their existence. These were interdimensional beings, some cthulhuian in nature. Creatures that could tear at the minds of mortals with a single glance. 

And yet, the void had stronger creatures than them. These were ants, and the jungle had lions. I'd seen some roaming wild God-Imperiums before, and the only reason I had lived then was because I was too weak to be noticed. These creatures in front of me were the bottom feeders of this ecosystem. They were at the bottom of the food web, eating abandoned realms or freshly fallen universes. 

I watched as they tore through the qi, each gulping down their own portion before turning and trying to steal from the others. As soon as the qi became limited, the weaker ones fled, knowing that the stronger ones would turn to them and try to hunt them down. 

And then there was only the strong left with a few brave weaklings pecking around unnoticed. But eventually, everything was finished and the creatures either fought each other for scraps or scattered back into the void. 

That was called a feeder wave. If there was ever a spill of giant qi anywhere within the void, these bastards would sense it and come running towards it all at once. They were like ants to a slice of cake, and once they got there, they would clean out everything they could. 

I remembered when this had been the most terrifying thing I'd ever seen. I had just hit immortal when I'd left my realm, and I'd run into one of these frenzies while wandering through the void. A wave of tenth-rank creatures thundering through the void was a horrifying sight back then. 

But now, I was able to hide my existence from them. I could even end them if I wanted to. 

This could have been an ego boost to some but that wasn't the way I looked at it. To me, it was a humbling experience. I looked at these creatures and I remembered what they were, how scared I had been the first time I'd seen them. I remembered the fear and horror I'd felt when I first saw them. 

I remembered how small I felt. That was an important feeling for someone like me. When you lived as long as I have, you tended to get a pretty big head. I had just destroyed a realm, a universe, something with infinite space-time.

As much as I hated the cultivator's mindset, I understood it. Actions like this were enough to convince any man of their own greatness. But that feeling, that insignificance, and horror, that was something I needed to be reminded of every now and again. 

I am nothing in the grand scale of things. 

I smiled at the thought and walked through the void to my first home. 

********

The planet of Ah-Marin stood in the void of space. It was large, almost a billion miles in diameter, and it hovered surrounded by stars and nebulas on all sides. A planet of this size shouldn't have been possible. It was too big, and anything this big should have just collapsed in on itself and became a star but the qi surging in its center allowed it to defy gravity and keep itself stable. 

Most giant planets had something in their center keeping them afloat. In Ah-Marin's case, it was a simple but rudimentary qi gathering enchantment laid out far before I was born. But that was how all giant planets worked. They all start out as a normal-sized planet or asteroid and some cultivator would settle down there, setting his formations to gather all the ambient qi, and then he'd die or leave and the qi would continue to gather and with a whole lot of luck, and a little bit of human interference, you'd get a big star sized planet. 

The main sects on that planet guarded the formation, setting up whatever things they could to make sure no one got down there, so it was all very well guarded and stable, but entirely unnatural. Well, as natural as plastic-eating bacteria, I guess. 

Ah-Marin held its own white suns in orbit and had an almost uncountable set of moons and asteroids circling around it. Some asteroids would occasionally fall out of orbit, but only the really big ones ever made it to the ground, but most of them never made it through the planet's atmosphere.

We used to call them moon falls back when I was a mortal, and I'd almost been killed by one early in my cultivating career. I had been sitting on a small mountain pass when a meteorite started to fall in my direction. I ran as fast as I could, and had I been any slower, I would have died. 

I chuckled. I had been scared then, running around like a headless chicken, counting on luck to make it to the next rank. But looking back, it all felt a bit nostalgic. Chasing after immortality, and fighting off greedy sects and clan elders, it was all so simple in a way. My goals felt noble and righteous, and my conviction felt unbreakable, carrying me through a near-infinite amount of pain and suffering needed to make the next rank.

And here I was now, tired and worn. 

I waved my hand and released Mei Shan. I didn't want to trap her for as long as I had but I had to destroy the self-destruct enchantment that bastard had left on the ring before I let them out. 

"Honored Mast-"

"Bill," I corrected her. 

"Honored Bill," Mei Shan said, floating in the air and giving me a gracious bow. Her acting was spot on, but her aura betrayed her. There was shock and surprise, but mainly, there was a whole lot of fear. 

I sighed.

"You knew?"

Her aura trembled. It was strange, in terms of body language, she looked as calm as could be, but her aura reflected a completely different state of mind. I frowned. I knew why she was able to do that. She had been trained to, it was that simple. What repulsed me was the question of why she would possibly need to master such a skill.

"I'm not mad," I answered. "I doubt you had a choice in the matter."

Her body was frozen stiff in a bowing position. 

"Relax. I don't blame you."

She still didn't move. 

"And I won't kill you for it either. Nothing will happen to you or your sisters. You're alright."

"But… but what if he finds us?"

"Who?"

"Young Master Kin."

"He won't."

"You do not know his persistence," she said, shaking her head furiously.

"He will find you, and when he does he will… he will…"

"He won't," I said with a finalizing tone that seemed to imply my message. 

I could see the gears turning and after a moment she nodded. 

I replied with a smile. The girl was smart, smart enough to know what I had implied while also knowing not to ask for more information. I was planning to toss the girls to some of the better matriarchal sects in the multiverse, but I couldn't do that now. They could be traced back to me. 

I started circulating my qi and undoing the disguising technique that I had kept on all this time. It was tiresome, but it was a necessary step for the wandering cultivator. It took a minute but eventually my hair was its normal color and my face had settled into place. 

I had short hair, which was an uncommon fashion in the cultivator world, but I had seen a number of people die because of their hair. In the cultivator world, a fight could break out any second, and when it did, those long hair bastards were always at a disadvantage. I'd seen a person's hair blind their eyesight or get into their mouth, making them choke midway through the fight. I'd once seen a fleeing young master get grabbed by his waist length locks. His opponent had been large, and beat him to death with one hand while the other one hoisted him like a pinata. 

Yeah, my hair was much more practical. 

"Alright," I said, turning to Mei Shan.

"Let me show you where we'll be living for a while."

I guided us down to the planet. It was a vast and wide space, but it was home nonetheless. Mei Shan looked down and watched as we flew by lakes the size of oceans and hills that would make mountains look small. We passed grand sects and clans and their tournaments and elders from a distance, but mainly we saw land and mortals. Farmers farming different plants and children playing out in the fields, decorated the world, but mostly we passed by people, people trying their best to live.

Eventually, we arrived at the destination, a small valley roughly 300 miles wide. It was surrounded on all sides by a long strip of dessert, but the valley itself was cool on most days. It had forests and rolling hills and big wide mountains in certain places. It looked like a New Zealand postcard and felt like a cut scene from The Lord of the Rings, but that was the reason I had chosen this place. I, that is to say Bill, had always dreamed of living in a place like this.

I flew us to my house. It was built into a small hill, its back leaning on the massive earth behind it and it stood opposite to a lake. The house itself was three stories tall and made out the local wood and timber and reinforced with a little bit of qi. 

The house wasn't a relic, but it was a little on the older side. From the outside the walls were decorated with overgrown vines and mismatched windows. The house itself was more loppy than anything and it was hard to tell where one level began and the next level ended. It was structurally sound, but it did look like something you'd see out a fantasy book about little small men that lived in the hillsides.

"Okay, here we are," I said to them. I had brought out the rest of the women and let Mei Shan explain the situation to them. They weren't nearly as good at hiding their emotions as she was, but after a few minutes of thought transmission and explaining on Mei Shan's side they seemed to settle down. 

"Honored Bill-" Mei Shan began.

"Just Bill," I said. 

"Honored and Just Bill," she corrected. 

I sighed again.

"We are grateful and blessed to be able to serve you, and truly, we are thankful for your kindness-"

"You're not serving me," I cut in. "I don't want servants. I just need you to live here for a while until I can hold my own. After that, you're free to go wherever you choose."

"Yes, honored master," she replied, bowing below the waist. 

This was to be expected, these people only knew how to serve, after all. That was the thing they had been trained to do since birth. 

I had once freed a colony of slaves and they were in a similar situation, and I couldn't blame them. Servitude to a cultivator was far different from any mortal slavery. Cultivators weren't mortals, they weren't people that you could see at your own level and rebel against. To most beings in the universe, cultivators were the equivalent of gods and demigods in the flesh. And you didn't need chains or whips to keep people in line when you could blink them out of existence. That was how Mei Shan saw me I supposed. Even with their own cultivation base, these people were raised on servitude and dedication.

I sighed. 

"Alright, do any of you have any normal clothes?" I asked. 

I was keeping up a pretty tight disguise routine and unfortunately for these women, their clothes were a dead give away. They were dressed far too well for this region. Hell, they were dressed too well for the continent. The materials of the fabric alone would have cost a fortune, much less the masterfully crafted embroideries and accessories it had woven into it. And I was fairly certain their shoes were made of some celestial beast too. You'd think servants would get the rags and hand me downs, but I guess to celestial sects, that's what this was.

"Normal?" One of the girls replied. 

"Yeah, normal. Something plain."

"These are our travel clothes," one of them clarified. 

"You know what, forget it, Gauntlet!" I yelled.

A low thumping echoed through the place before the front door creaked open slowly. The giant ten foot tall stone golem was crouching, being careful not to break the door. He gripped the door knob with his thumb and his index finger, having to turn it delicately so as to not crush it. After a few more seconds of readjusting and reframing, like a semi truck slowly working its way through a carwash, he stepped through the door. 

"We have guests. Show them around and set up rooms for them, please."

Gauntlet looked at me for a second with what I imagined must have been a furious anger, and then he slowly turned around and started to work his way back into the doorframe.

"He doesn't talk, but he can help you get comfortable. Just stay out of the garden, that's his thing. And make sure to stay within fifty miles of the house, at least for now."

The group of women nodded and bowed in unison, then they left and stood behind Gauntlet as he worked his left leg into the building. 

I'd have to talk with this group eventually, but I didn't want to deal with that right now. It had been a long day, and I doubt I could say anything to comfort them right now. I flew, soaring up and above the sky until I could see the whole valley from where I stood. I had designed this valley myself, from the top of the mountains to the canyon scars, it was all me. 

It looked natural for the most part, but the true purpose of this place was to function as an array. This was my first line of defense against attacks and now it is almost complete. 

Being an array master was a sweet and sour position. It was great because a person's mastery of arrays wasn't really tied to their cultivation rank, that's why I was called Array King Dane, even when I was just at the twelfth rank. You could achieve power and prominence without having to reach an insanely high rank and that made it worth it in my opinion, but it also had its downsides. 

It limited your cultivation. Arrays were all about connections, tying in one thing to another to create something new that was more than the sum of its parts. It was complicated and nuanced, but it was also without a Dao. There was no cultivating the way of the array master. It was too general to cultivate. You could cultivate many things. The Dao of Karma, the connection between people, or the Dao of Cycles, studying how the seasons passed and looking at the order that always seemed to emerge from chaos, even on a cosmic scale.

But being an array master was bigger than that, it wasn't the connection between a certain set of things. It was the connection between everything. You would always look at one law and then look at another, wondering how you could tie them together and create an interesting interaction between the two.

I had a lot of Daos and laws with me, but they were all too small to be an actual forgeable path. I studied certain Daos and Laws, but that was only to supplement my understanding of arrays and my own combat techniques were limited.

There was also the fact that you couldn't power an array yourself. Arrays, even ones that are below your rank, oftentimes took more power than any one individual or group could afford to give it. Their power was environmental and taken from the natural qi around them. A fifth rank array would be like an elephant while a fifth rank cultivator was akin to a mouse. 

I looked over at the land one more time and waved. Multiple beasts appeared in front of me, all of them ranking from the fifth rank to the eleventh. They were the beasts I had purchased from the Divine Beast Emporium, and they were also the last piece of this array. 

An array didn't actually create anything, it was more like cooking. You took some ingredients and mixed them in a certain way, and you suddenly had something entirely different from what you originally had. These beasts were like tiny batteries that would give me the specific types of energy that I sought. They had Daos and laws resounding inside of them and would create ambient qi that would provide the array with the power it needs to activate. It was a little hypocritical to enslave beasts on my part, but there was a reason that beasts were beasts and people were people.