"Life really is a tangle of coincidences," Kayden commented, and the eyes stared at him.
"Everything intertwines in the end. All paths are doomed to repeat the past." That sentence caught Kayden a bit off guard. "You’ve built an impressive path. I’m unable to help you with anything further at this point. Any interference from me could ruin a masterpiece."
Kayden understood perfectly what the being in front of him was saying. Could the Celestial Monarch help him become a peak god? Yes—probably without much effort. But the big issue was that doing so would entirely cut off Kayden’s potential. He would never again be able to break certain personal barriers that only his journey could overcome.
"This was just a friendly hello... and also not such a friendly goodbye." The aura of the eye turned dark over Kayden. "There can only be one Monarch. Grow and face me. There is no space for two of us in this existence."
Kayden couldn’t even respond to the eye’s challenge. Before he realized it, he was back beside the living being made entirely of bones. The two stood still in the skies while Kayden tried to organize his thoughts and understand the magnitude of the confrontation that awaited him in the future...
"Who are you?" The aura of the Celestial Monarch was completely imprinted on Kayden. When the boy disappeared, the god didn’t even flinch—he just stood there, waiting.
A being capable of snatching Kayden right from under his nose wasn’t something he could handle. He hadn’t even been able to sense the space shifting before Kayden vanished. That automatically put his mind on alert—but later, it relaxed. A being of that level didn’t even see him as an ant.
What that god didn’t expect was that it was one of the Celestials. The Celestial Monarch’s aura was unmistakable, especially for those who had witnessed the battle between monarchs—something only a minuscule number of gods had ever seen.
"Kayden Heart." Once again, there were no titles, no grand introductions—Kayden didn’t need them. The titles the heavens had bestowed on him screamed from his aura.
"Do you understand the meaning of meeting the Celestial Monarch?" Kayden shook his head. He was still trying to absorb everything that had happened. "Do you at least understand where you are?" Again, Kayden shook his head.
This was information that hadn’t been given to him—nor had he asked. Eventually, it would reveal itself to him. These were things that would inevitably come to light, and it seemed that moment had finally arrived.
"Let’s speed things up." The god didn’t wait for Kayden’s words and began performing massive spatial jumps. Each blink of an eye took them across entire universes. Every second made Kayden travel farther than he had in his entire life.
Atherion was vast—so vast there were sincere doubts about whether it was infinite. To this day, not a single god has managed to travel its entirety. Even the great organizations couldn’t reach all of Atherion’s expanse. There were always new environments and stronger people somewhere.
Their journey took about a week at that speed. The distance they crossed was simply insane—there was no logic to the size of this world. The bone god traveled at an extremely calm pace to recover from the speed he had used to find Kayden.
When they entered a certain area, everything changed. The speed dropped significantly, and Kayden could see unique cities and forests rising. Most impressive was the average level in these cities. There wasn’t a single mage without ten lightning marks. Even children were ten-lightning mages. The pets were ten lightning mages. The base level here was simply the perfect peak a mage could reach.
Kayden passed through many cities, and all shared the same impressive pattern. The streets were wide, brimming with energy, and the buildings seemed to glow with a soft light. Everywhere he looked, people—and even animals—naturally displayed the power of ten lightning marks, as if it were common. Everything was organized, clean, and intense, radiating power. It was as if that part of Atherion lived on a level the rest of the world hadn’t even imagined.
The space they had crossed wasn’t vast, but it was impressive. It became clear to Kayden that this was an organization focused on quality, not quantity. They stood at the top with a small number of mages capable of rivaling the influence of trillions.
The two flew for several hours at low speed. Kayden observed dozens of different cities with diverse cultures. The only thing they all had in common was the average power level—something completely terrifying. Yet... there wasn’t a single soul capable of matching his strength. Not even one mage could make the hairs on Kayden’s hand rise.
The deeper they went into the territory, the more powerful the mages became. The average level continued to rise. After a while, gods began to appear, and even they all possessed ten lightning marks. That was just as terrifying. Gods at this level had insane peak power and even greater potential.
Eventually, only gods remained in the cities. There wasn’t a single mortal in sight. Every time they passed through a city, thousands of eyes focused on the two of them. First, they would greet the god beside Kayde, then shift their attention to the boy. His titles were like two massive suns—it was impossible not to see them.
Kayden didn’t care at all about the gods surrounding him with their senses, their looks, their whispers, none of that mattered to him, they were gods, but in his eyes they were nothing more than ants in an immense world of ants.
Their titles were visible to anyone who looked, the news had not yet reached that place, so seeing a god-killer title on a mortal was something extremely strange to everyone, it didn’t make the slightest sense.
It only took a few hours at low speed for them to reach what Kayden thought was the center of the organization, it was a huge mountain...
Author’s note: I’ll try to keep it to one Chapter a day again.