Five thousand years passed, and every member of the Blue Star team, save for Solanky, had reached the peak of the ancient devil-god body, arriving at the perfect level of creation and destruction. They appeared above the treasury of the god realm's void, where the full vastness of the realm spread out beneath them. Below, a rock fragment stretched a hundred thousand light-years across, dense with countless residences — though one stood apart from the rest. The team surveyed it from the void, disbelief settling over them as they sensed over a billion beings at the mysterious level and several trillion more at the level of a dimensional god.
A beam of light streaked toward them and resolved into Starix. "Ah, if it isn't the Blue Star team. Follow me to headquarters — and where's your team leader?"
"He has something to attend to," Beast God answered. "We've come today to officially join the ranks and to help apprehend old man Zenom, but the source goddess summoned us first." Starix nodded and led them toward the towering structure, and within seconds they arrived, following him into the hall of the residence.
Inside, they found a row of thrones, each engraved with a name. Starix gestured toward a set bearing their own, and they took their seats to await the return of the other ancestors from the battlefield. Star God turned to Starix. "I assumed the void realm was another realm devoid of life, sitting above the god realm — so why do I see so many planets and universes scattered through it?"
"The void realm is devoid of life," Starix said. "What you're seeing is only five percent of its outskirts — the boundary layer between the god and devil realms. It permits existence, unlike the deeper void, which can't sustain even creation and destruction-level beings; there's no spiritual energy to draw on there. Within the void proper, you can unleash any technique freely, but without a weapon, brute strength alone can't so much as shake its space, let alone break it."
The team took this in with quiet astonishment, though they knew they were the exception — their inherited memories carried a technique built precisely for this: an escape art known only to the ancient devil-gods, the Void-Severing Escape Method. One by one, the grand elders of the god realm began to materialize across the remaining thrones, their numbers climbing into the mid-thousands.
The Blue Star team stared in disbelief. The god realm was said to hold only a hundred sects in total — which meant the other nine hundred grand ancestors had been living in disguise all along, hidden trump cards held in reserve should the demons ever breach a sect's defenses.
Elena appeared on a throne beside an empty one. "Congratulations on your ascension. This is the main headquarters of the god realm, where the future of our realm is decided. Everyone you see here stands at the level of a god of creation. You've been gathered today because five thousand years have passed — the mission to capture and kill Zenom begins tomorrow, and you are the only ones fit to carry it out."
Tee rose and addressed the grand ancestors. "I am Cilia, deputy leader of the Blue Star team. Our leader, Solanky, remains in seclusion, so I speak for the team. My specialty is divination and tracking. I ask that every grand ancestor hold back the moment old man Zenom reveals himself — any interference risks unraveling our plan. Observe, and relay the feed to us live. Nothing more."
A murmur rippled through the elders who hadn't witnessed the team's earlier display, doubt evident in their voices. Elena cut through it. "None of you here could face old man Zenom and hope to capture him — you'd only be digging your own graves. Reliable sources say the devil-god he inherited was the most cunning of them all. Cilia, continue."
Cilia nodded, glancing toward her teammates. They teleported to her side as one, weaving hand seals and chanting in an unfamiliar tongue. Seating themselves in a line, eyes closed, each rested a hand on the shoulder of the one ahead — Cilia at the front. The grand elders watched in silence.
All six opened their eyes at once, shifting into their true ancient devil-god forms — the same shape as the corpse Zenom had found, save that the women bore long white hair. The pressure radiating from them pressed down on every being present except Elena; elders unaware of this transformation flinched, unable to meet the ancient devil-gods' gaze directly.
The team looked to Elena, nodded, and vanished from the hall in a single step. The instant they disappeared, Elena spoke. "They've found Zenom's location. The hunt has begun." A great glass orb rose within the hall, streaming the mission live.
The Blue Star team materialized in the lower realm, and unlike other beings of their level, the space around them didn't so much as tremble. Blade Emperor extended a hand, and every strand of karma within a thousand light-years unfolded in his mind at once. He pointed toward a distant planet, and it detonated — and in the wake of the explosion, the fleeing shape of an ancient devil-god flickered into view before teleporting away. Light Seeker only smiled, stepping back and melding into the space behind her.
The fleeing figure was old man Zenom, now fully merged with the ancient devil-god corpse and standing at the creation and destruction level. The team froze — they'd assumed the merger would take him ten thousand years to complete. What they didn't know was that Zenom had already secured the corpse's blood essence during a perilous expedition into a secret region, cutting that time down drastically.
The discovery rattled the onlookers in the hall as well. Zenom muttered to himself, "Impossible — six ancient devil-gods, each carrying the aura of a clan leader? Could they have left behind a legacy for others to inherit? No — impossible, that would still require the blood of a living ancient devil-god, or the blood essence of the original leaders, and I made certain every drop they left behind was destroyed. Unless—" The thought hadn't even finished forming before Light Seeker manifested out of nothingness before him and drove a fist into his gut.
Zenom was sent hurtling backward, but he steadied himself mid-flight, wove a seal, and melded into space to escape. The instant Light Seeker had made contact, she'd woven her own seal, invoking an ancient devil-god technique — the Karma Induction Tracing Art — capable of tracing a being's past, present, and every branching future.
She relayed Zenom's likely next position and possible moves to the rest of the team, and they teleported ahead to intercept him. Light Seeker gave chase at a speed that outstripped instantaneous teleportation entirely, and even at that velocity, the fragile space around her showed not the faintest distortion. The onlookers in the hall watched in open astonishment — such a feat was beyond any of them.
Zenom felt her closing the distance and cursed himself inwardly for never having learned a proper escape technique, having assumed the basics would suffice against the god realm's powerhouses. Sensing eyes on him from afar, he pushed his speed higher still, crossing several multiverses of the lower realm before weaving another seal and vanishing — only to reappear in the blue ice region, where Beast God sat waiting on a fragment of space rock, smiling.
Beast God vanished and reappeared beside him instantly. Zenom threw up a barrier just as Beast God's claws raked sideways across his waist, hurling him into the distance. He rose, teleported again, this time veering off his original path, convinced he'd finally slipped the Blue Star team's net. He hadn't. Every move he made had already been accounted for. He reappeared in a universe near the border of the god realm — and his heart lurched. In the distance stood all six members of the Blue Star team, smiling with quiet malice.
He understood, then, that there was nothing left but to fight or be erased. Zenom laughed. "Never thought it would come to this. I won't go down without a fight." He drew a spear.
Blade Emperor regarded him coldly. "Let's see how long you can hold out. Don't disappoint me." The two closed the distance in an instant, and the moment their weapons met, an entire universe spanning 230,000 light-years began to crumble — every planet, star, and moon within it obliterated as though consumed by a supernova. Zenom staggered, hands trembling, understanding at last that the six beings before him had fully merged with their ancient devil-god forms and mastered every technique bound to them.
Blade Emperor appeared before him and unleashed the Collapsing Neutron Star Strike. As the blade fell, Zenom found himself frozen, unable to move. He closed his eyes, hesitating for a heartbeat — then detonated his inner world's power, his strength surging to match the team's own perfect creation and destruction level.
He tore free of his paralysis and thrust his spear forward with the Fate-Piercing Thrust. Spear met blade, and the resulting boom dwarfed the first collision entirely — the already-shattered universe collapsed further still, the entire region reduced to a void. Blade Emperor and Zenom traded blow after blow, their clash spilling into the void itself, cracking and warping it with every strike. The grand elders watched in shock; the void was known for its resilience — no force they knew of could leave so much as a mark on it.