The golden light in the plaza's far corner faded. Where it had been, a tower stood. Several thousand meters tall, dwarfing the Imperial Palace, dwarfing everything around it, a white jade column that caught the light differently from any ordinary stone.
It belonged to the Holy and Light faction now, its aura clean, but its silhouette was what it had always been: the Myriad Starfall Tower. It was the same God Level building that could scan the void and locate any Divine Kingdom hidden within it.
He looked at it for a moment. Then he thought about what came next: the Evil Pantheon in three or four days, the Elf Queen Aurelyss arriving for the artifact trade and alliance talks, the Scepter and Armor still waiting for their upgrade, the three evolution spheres still burning overhead.
He had a lot to handle. First, he decided to view the Myriad Starfall Tower's status panel.
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[Myriad Starfall Tower • God Level Building]
[Effect 1: Greatly increases loyalty of the Aetherium Empire's citizens to the Divine Emperor Kazehaya Haru]
[Effect 2: Greatly enhances the Aetherium Empire's influence across the Endless Continent]
[Effect 3: Greatly increases cultivation speed of Aetherium Empire's citizens]
[Exclusive Effect: Scans the void world, searches for Divine Kingdoms hidden within it, and locks onto their coordinates.]
[Hidden Effect: Greatly increases the Dimensional Demons' hatred toward the Aetherium Empire.]
_____________
Four effects and a hidden effect. By raw count, it didn't match the Holy Light Temple, but that wasn't the Tower's function. Three of those effects were bonuses he'd take without complaint, but he hadn't built the tower for any of them. He'd built it for the exclusive effect, the one that no other building in the universe could replicate.
Whatever the Dimensional Demons had done right, and they hadn't done much that was worth acknowledging, they'd built something remarkable here. He teleported to its top floor.
The tower's interior wasn't habitable space. Every floor was covered wall-to-wall in god-level runes, each layer linked to the ones above and below it. The entire structure functions as a single mechanism with the top floor being the control room.
A figure was already there when he arrived. Female, long black hair, snow-white dress, a pair of light wings. She was not a person but a phantom, and clearly aware that he could tell.
She bowed, "Your Majesty. I am the Protoss born from the tower's Sacred Heart, the purified version of the Demon Nest's Heart. I control all functions of the Myriad Starfall Tower."
"Your name?"
She raised her head. The face was flawless in the specific way that constructed things sometimes were, "You may call me Estelle, the Star Spirit."
"Estelle." He nodded, "Activate the tower and scan the void. Find every Divine Kingdom you can locate and mark them. Separate the ones with masters from the ones without."
"Yes, Your Majesty." The tower shuddered once, barely perceptible, and then every rune on every floor ignited simultaneously, light cascading upward through hundreds of levels. A beam shot from the summit, punching through space, into the void beyond.
A holographic sphere materialized in front of him: a three-dimensional image of the void, vast, gray and featureless. Then a point of light appeared in the gray. Then another. Then three more.
Estelle identified each one as it appeared. The first: a Lower True God's Divine Kingdom, its master was still living, marked gold. Two more gold points followed. Then appeared three red ones: masterless Divine Kingdoms, and their coordinates were locked.
"Can you identify the owner of a Divine Kingdom?"
"No, Your Majesty. I can detect a God's rank and their affiliation. Figuring out their identity is beyond my ability."
He considered this. It was less than ideal but more than enough. Their affiliation plus rank was sufficient. After all, there were a handful of High Gods affiliated with the Evil Pantheon. Finding a Supreme God's Divine Kingdom narrowed it even further. When the three Evil Supreme Gods arrived in a few days, finding their kingdoms afterward would be quite straightforward later.
"Continue scanning." He said, "Mark anything unusual, not just Divine Kingdoms."
"As you command, Your Majesty."
He thought about the Throneveil Shrine, the ancient ruling body of the Endless Continent, staffed by the Titan Gods of that era. Legends said that there was a God King at its head—the Titan Ancestor!
If that God King had fallen, and if his kingdom had drifted masterless in the void for hundreds of thousands of years, its accumulated wealth would dwarf anything the current Titan or Dragon Pantheons could hold.
One Divine Kingdom, properly excavated, would solve every resource problem the Empire had.
Haru didn't need to find it today. He just needed to keep the tower running. Next, he called Yvonne up and she arrived quickly. The particular reverence in her bearing that came from genuine faith rather than obligation.
"Three masterless Divine Kingdoms have been located." He told her, "Estelle will give you the coordinates. Go see what's in them."
"As you command, Lord Almighty."
She took the coordinates from Estelle and stepped through space into the void.
Haru descended from the tower. The scan would continue on its own schedule. The Divine Kingdoms would keep on getting located, and the wealth would follow.
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