Karl's actions had done far more than shock the Living Tribunal.
They had sent enormous waves throughout the entire Multiverse.
After all, the First Firmament had gone all out this time.
It had directly dispatched more than ten thousand Aspirants.
Even for an existence as powerful as the First Firmament, that was no small investment.
And those incredibly powerful Aspirants had not disappointed it.
They had plunged the Multiverse into a bloody storm.
After all, not every universe was like the Main Universe, overflowing with powerful beings.
Some parallel universes that had developed along weaker paths might not even possess a single Single-Universe-level powerhouse.
Against the Aspirants, what could they possibly do?
The Aspirants themselves stood at terrifying levels of power.
Any weaker being who encountered one would simply be killed instantly.
And it wasn't only the inhabitants themselves.
Even their universes were mercilessly destroyed and devoured by the Aspirants.
With such an enormous number of them rampaging throughout the Multiverse, entire universes were being extinguished.
Naturally, none of the living beings inside those universes had any chance of surviving.
In only a single day, the number of intelligent lifeforms that had died throughout the Multiverse had become impossible to calculate.
In an ordinary world, slaughter on this scale would have been considered an unimaginable atrocity.
The Aspirants' actions were unquestionably monstrous.
But...
To existences such as the Living Tribunal and the Five Great Gods, things looked somewhat different.
Countless universes were born and destroyed every single day throughout the Multiverse.
What the Aspirants were doing had merely accelerated that process.
Before long, however, their slaughter began attracting the attention of the gods.
No matter how deeply some beings had hidden themselves throughout the Multiverse, a disturbance of this scale could not remain unnoticed forever.
The Five Great Gods still did not personally intervene.
Those who took action were primarily their subordinates, Celestials, and various other gods.
It could be said that the entire Multiverse had fallen into chaos.
Even in the Main Universe, several days passed before the turmoil gradually began to settle.
Many powerful beings who had remained hidden throughout the Multiverse for countless years finally emerged.
Unfortunately, not every universe possessed the Main Universe's depth of power.
Against the Aspirants, many gods suffered disastrous losses.
Several ancient gods were even killed outright.
And that did not even include the damage left behind by their battles.
The traces created by battles between multiversal-level beings might remain for trillions of years without disappearing.
The very structure and terrain of the Multiverse had been permanently altered in countless places.
By the time the fighting finally began to die down, everyone involved still felt lingering fear.
This time, even gods who normally preferred to remain uninvolved had been forced to act.
At that moment, Demiurge had gathered with several gods aligned with the forces opposing the First Firmament.
Among them were Gaea and the Vishanti.
"How bad were your losses?"
Demiurge asked.
Gaea and the Vishanti both wore ugly expressions.
"Aside from you, which one of us didn't suffer terrible losses?"
"Most of the followers under my command were wiped out."
The Vishanti's expression was particularly unpleasant.
For an immensely powerful god, losing so many followers was still extremely painful.
Those followers represented countless years of accumulation.
Every powerful god had large numbers of Sacred Spirits beneath them—or, in other terms, apostles and saints.
Most of them had originally been the souls of believers.
The Ancient One, for example, had become one of Eternity's Sacred Spirits.
For a mortal soul, that was practically an instant ascension to a completely different level of existence.
Those capable of becoming Sacred Spirits or apostles were invariably among the most outstanding souls mortals could produce.
Even for powerful gods, souls of that quality were not easy to obtain.
And during this battle...
The Sacred Spirits serving the Vishanti had been almost completely wiped out by the Aspirants.
"Damn it! Those Five Great Gods..."
"Normally they enjoy all the privileges of their positions, but when something this serious happens, they refuse to personally intervene."
"Hmph. At this rate, they don't deserve to occupy the positions of the Five Great Gods."
The Vishanti was clearly furious.
Demiurge merely shook its head.
"They can't simply intervene whenever they want."
"Those are the rules."
"Since the Five Great Gods occupy those positions, they naturally can't act entirely according to their own desires."
Demiurge continued.
"Besides, the entities occupying those positions aren't necessarily eternal."
"Over all these years, even the Five Great Gods have changed more than once."
The Vishanti remained dissatisfied.
"Hmph. Even so..."
"With something this serious happening, surely they could have done something."
"Maybe those bastards actually were interfering from the shadows."
"Otherwise, how could the Main Universe have gotten through this so smoothly?"
Demiurge frowned slightly.
"You can't quite put it that way."
"Didn't you notice that something else was happening over there?"
The Vishanti looked skeptical.
"You mean those Celestials?"
A faint look of disdain appeared on the Vishanti's face.
It was obvious that the Vishanti didn't think particularly highly of the Celestials.
Demiurge thought about it.
That was understandable.
The Celestials might act incredibly imposing wherever they went, but ancient gods such as these had always regarded them as something of an upstart race.
Could the Celestials really have slaughtered so many Aspirants?
Impossible!
Absolutely impossible!
"Then what exactly happened?"
The Vishanti looked increasingly puzzled.
Demiurge smiled.
With a wave of its hand, light suddenly appeared before them.
Countless images began floating within it.
This was one of Demiurge's extraordinary abilities.
It could directly extract enormous amounts of information from the laws of the Main Universe and reconstruct that information as visible scenes.
It demonstrated Demiurge's profound understanding of the laws governing reality.
And, more importantly, it allowed Demiurge to obtain information without having to personally investigate anything.
Demiurge had originally been expecting to hear a few words of praise for such a display.
But before it could say anything...
It noticed that the Vishanti had suddenly gone completely silent.
"What's wrong?"
Demiurge and Gaea both looked over.
"Look."
"Isn't that kid Karl?"
The Vishanti stared at the image.
"Hm?"
Demiurge and Gaea immediately turned toward it.
The image expanded.
What appeared before them was precisely the scene of Karl facing more than a thousand Aspirants.
Karl merely waved his hand.
The surrounding environment underwent an enormous transformation.
The Aspirants around him were dragged into his control as if they had almost no ability to resist.
For a moment...
The three immensely powerful ancient gods were completely stunned.
"That kid is terrifying."
"How did he become this powerful?"
"Those are Aspirants! How can they look almost helpless in his hands?"
The Vishanti exclaimed in disbelief.
The Vishanti already knew quite a bit about Karl.
That was precisely why the scene made even less sense.
Karl had clearly not been anywhere near this powerful before.
Yet now he was directly hunting Aspirants as though they were ordinary opponents.
Only a few days had passed.
How had he suddenly become this strong?
With power like this...
Hadn't he already reached an utterly absurd level?
Could it be...
Had this kid broken through again?
The Vishanti suddenly felt an indescribably sour sensation inside.
Who exactly was supposed to be the ancient god here?
This was completely unfair!
(End of Chapter)
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