Fortunately, she was not interested in anything other than increasing her strength during this period. She did not even remember Kayden’s existence at this moment. Just like Netero and the other mages, they were all desperate. They needed to reach the peak of their existence, or they would cease to exist.
Another mage who had made almost no progress during this long time was Han, but, surprisingly, he was one of the mages who would explode in power in the future. He had spent all this time solely investing in himself. Every single day was the same—he studied the material Kayden had given him like a madman.
His strength had declined to a bizarre degree. In fact, he was at the weakest point of his career as a ninth-realm mage. A mediocre mage with nine rays would probably be able to kill him at this moment. All of this was due to the obsession he had developed with his future—he just needed a few more billion years.
Netero had also grown. The mage had practically received a slap in the face when he saw the true strength of the Emperor. Not even in his wildest dreams would he have been able to face that man. But the true peak of his strength was approaching. He had been slowly accumulating millions of laws over his hundreds of billions of years of life.
Only one god was older than Netero in this universe. The rest were not even close to his age. All this time had given him the opportunity to learn things that no mortal should be capable of comprehending. A fundamental law was being grasped by him during this time. However, his talent was not high, which made it take him an almost infinite amount of time to gather the laws. At the moment, he had 50% control over his law.
The other two ten-ray mages had also reached the ninth realm. One of them wanted to become a demigod, while the other aimed to become a tenth-realm mage. Both had absurd talent, but their strength made the task insanely difficult. All this time had only been enough to place them at the peak of the ninth realm.
It was funny how most people progressed through their realms at a much faster pace than Kayden, but when it came to their actual strength, they were not capable of surpassing him. Neither of the two mages had faced Kayden, yet they had an insane confidence in their ability to surpass him.
When Kayden reached a specific percentage of mastery over his law, he was able to climb a step on the power scale. A new world opened up for him. Kayden learned how to unbalance space around him without using mana. At this moment, he only needed to move a butterfly to destroy a galaxy.
His mastery over the law of balance was so great that he had the capability to destroy galaxies without using mana. He merely altered small pieces of existence and watched everything collapse in a crazy manner. But this was not even the craziest part—it was the effect he had managed to achieve with his lightning.
Kayden became capable of integrating his lightning with the very law of balance, making its existence infinite as long as he wanted to keep his attack alive. Kayden could literally stop controlling his attack, and the universe would keep it alive. In one of his tests, he saw a lightning bolt wandering through dozens of galaxies before finally fading away due to wear and tear. It was not truly infinite, but an attack that should have only destroyed a few galaxies ended up propagating more than ten times that amount. Not only that, but it was sustained by the universe itself.
In the end, Kayden still needed more time to truly elevate all his plans to something beyond. He still had to place his path on an even higher level. Not only that, but his lightning needed to be elevated to the level of a law. There were too many things for him to do in such a short amount of time. His best bet was clear—Kayden needed to advance in realm after squeezing out a little more and refining his path.
"Kayden, it has been a while." Kayden was destroying galaxies on a random day when he heard Thoth’s voice behind him. Along with him was someone Kayden had not seen since his earliest years in this universe.
A cat with eyes of different colors that…
The cat’s eyes were unfathomable—an abyss of existence and void at the same time. Within them, reflections of millions of souls danced, each telling a story, each whispering ancient secrets, but none truly present. They were windows to unfathomable mysteries, portals to knowledge that transcended time and reason. Looking directly into them was like staring at the universe itself, feeling it breathe in an eerie silence. There was no emotion, no intent—only the crushing weight of that which cannot be understood.
At least in the past, Kayden would have understood absolutely nothing. But at this moment, it became obvious to him that Hypnos had nothing to do with sleep and dreams. How foolish he had been in the past. Hypnos was…
"A god of souls," Kayden whispered, and the cat purred.
"Exactly, Kayden, and I see that you have made something unique out of your soul," Hypnos did not need to look twice to understand what Kayden had done with his soul. It was insane and far beyond his expectations.
"You shouldn’t be here. What happened to the gods being expelled from this universe?" Kayden turned to Thoth. If the gods were to return now, he would be completely finished.
"It’s a long story, but this universe is going to enter the divine games of another universe," Thoth began to explain. "You don’t need to worry about the ancient gods of this universe. They don’t have the capability to enter this fight. Besides, the gods cannot directly interact with the universe."
Kayden was surprised by the information he had received in just a few milliseconds. Once again, this universe was about to change. For some reason he was unaware of, everything was changing very quickly. In the past, it took tens of billions of years for shifts in power to occur.
"Each god will be able to choose one or more representatives for the challenge of the gods. At the end of 100 billion years, a massive tournament will take place. The god who achieves the best result wins," Thoth explained.
Kayden raised an eyebrow. "What’s the prize?" It had to be something absurdly grand.