At first the life of a God King had been exciting. It didn’t take long for news to spread of Darius’s death and his subsequent ascension. The other great powers of the multiverse felt the change as soon as it happened. Alex’s ascension had sent out a pulse of energy throughout the multiverse, one that could only be perceived by the strongest of Creation Gods, but this was enough for the news to spread far and wide. The first to react were Darius’s closest allies, whether it was for revenge or in hopes of striking him down while he was weak so they could take his power for themselves, Alex could not say, but with his perceptions still on the planet he just escaped he saw four peak creation gods appear and begin searching for traces of him.

Alex wasn’t worried, they would likely find the traces of space chi from his technique but it didn’t matter. They couldn’t follow him to where he was going. He had felt a calling from a higher plane, a plane above the Heavenly Plane which all Creation Gods resided in. This was a plane that no one could follow him too. One needed to be in the True God realm to travel to the Heavenly Plane or be taken there by someone or something of that realm or higher. He was now going where only a God King could go, and since there were no other God Kings to follow, he would be safe and have time to recover.

Arriving in the new plane Alex decided to have a quick look around before he went into meditation to recover. The plane was incredibly dense with chi, this density far exceeded the Heavenly Plane, beyond just density it also contained the new chi of his realm as well. This was all to be expected, higher planes had higher chi density and greater realms of chi than the planes below it, but that wasn’t the only difference Alex noticed, the plane was deserted, no matter how far he extended his senses he couldn’t sense a single other living creature. He found countless planets, pocket dimensions, natural treasures, celestial formations, everything you would expect in a plane of existence except life, not even a tiny micro-organism, as far as Alex could tell he was the first living thing to ever step foot in this plane.

This was odd, very odd, like the records kept from the first to ascend to new realms there were records detailing the discovery of new planes. While there had never been any of the enlightened races found within a new plane there had always been life. Beasts and monsters would roam free with no civilizations to stop them. Sure some beasts would have high levels of intelligence, even to the point they could communicate with cultivators. There were even mythical beasts which had equal or greater intelligence to the enlightened races. But here in this new plane there was simply nothing.

Another thing that struck him as odd was the name of the plane. The same as when he ascended to his new realm Alex instinctively knew the name of this plane. It was called the Zenith Plane. Zenith was a word used to describe things at the highest point, something that stood at the zenith stood with nothing above them. Many people throughout the eras had claimed themselves to stand at the zenith of something or another, knowledge, power, riches, there was always some ignorant old cultivator who thought they had nothing left to gain in their path, they were always wrong of course, there was always farther to go, more to obtain, if you can’t find anything greater than you just weren't looking hard enough. Keep trying and you will always find more, a new peak to climb. But the name of this plane was not given by some ignorant mortal, it was given by the universe, and even Alex didn’t understand how the universe could name something but the names had always been accurate and consistent. But maybe this was an exception, or maybe he was misinterpreting the name. It could be that this plane was the zenith of this multiverse, and there were countless other multiverses out there which would come together to form an even higher plane. If there was one thing Alex believed, it was that there was always something greater, always more power to be gained, and more realms to ascend to.

Alex had been wrong, there were no more realms, at this point he was 99.9999% sure that he had truly reached the peak of existence. There was always that small, small chance he was wrong but after 200,000 years 195,000 of those spent at the peak of the God King realm without even seeing so much as a hint of a higher realm, he had to concede.

Darius’s forces did eventually rally, they had even roped in 2 other large factions to assist them. While they couldn’t reach him in the Zenith realm the entirety of Alex’s faction was still spread throughout the lower realms. His recovery went faster than expected, in a matter of days he was back at 100% and was ready to test out his new powers. In those few days his faction had been pushed back a fair bit, the combined forces of 3 of the multiverses top factions was nothing to scoff at. But as soon as Alex descended the tides of battle shifted in his favor.

It wasn’t just that he was far more powerful than any individual from his enemies side, a gap in power could be overcome by numbers, it was the fact that no one knew how to deal with his new chi. Jumping large realms in combat was hard, it was even worse with the higher realm having access to a higher realm of chi. To account for this faction had studied the various realms of chi and developed tactics to give the lower realms a fighting chance. But this was a new realm of chi, and no matter how great of a strategist the enemy had, you just couldn’t create an effective strategy against a new realm of chi that fast. With this disparity in combat capabilities the war was over within 10 years, an incredibly fast war for large factions of the multiverse.

After the war came a long period of ass kissing, every faction wanted good relations with Alex. As the only God King having him on your side would be a guarantee of safety for your faction. As a child Alex would have reveled at all the attention he was being given, countless gifts of incalculable value, women and even some men sent to be his mistresses, promises of absolute allegiance, all of this and more was brought before him, in his mortal years he may have died of pure excitement. As he was now, nothing presented to him seemed appealing, everything he would need to progress existed in the Zenith realm, which only he could access, and as a peak power in the multiverse there had never been a shortage of people throwing themselves at him in hopes of gaining power through intimate relations. As for the offers of allegiance, he accepted a few but most other factions couldn’t offer him any support, if he took everyone up on the offer he would spend all his time traveling between universes putting down wars, with a new plane to explore and a realm to advance through that was the last thing he wanted.

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So Alex did what he always did in these situations, and delegated all the responsibility. Primarily to Amara, his assistant. Amara was an odd Creation God, she did not walk the martial path like most high realm cultivators but followed an administration type path. Her chosen nature was that of order, and the concepts behind that nature stumped even Alex.. But that wasn’t important, they had known each other for 5,000 years at this point and she was the main reason Alex had been able to hold together a faction despite his tendency to disappear for periods of time to cultivate. Amara had a weird love for administrative work, it wasn’t like many with power who got their enjoyment from ordering people around, Amara enjoyed the order that resulted from her actions.

With Amara handling the other factions Alex could get back to cultivating, with this new plane discovered it wouldn’t be too long before more God Kings ascended and Alex was set on getting a firm head start on all of them.

Alex had been right, it hadn’t even been a decade before the next God King ascended, it was one of Alex’s top generals, Remus, Alex had personally helped him ascend so he could lead the armies in Alex’s place. The next few God Kings were also from Alex’s faction, but not a century had passed from Alex’s ascension before another, unrelated to him, ascended. What followed was a torrent of the multiverses' top talents ascending to God King. One by one they all arrived in the Zenith Plane carving out portions of the plane for their factions. The new arrivals also began investigating the secrets of the plane. Alex had meant to do this but he had been making steady progress in his cultivation and hadn’t found the time. Great treasures were found throughout the Zenith Plane, treasures that would allow factions to raise dozens of peak Creation Gods to the realm of God King, naturally this led to an all out multiversal war, a war that spread beyond the Zenith plane and all the way down to the mortal plane.

Alex had been thrilled for the war, combat was one of the best ways to further your cultivation when on the martial path. It gave you insights into your core nature that are critical to advancing. The war lasted a long time, nearly 2000 years, at the end of the war Alex had grown to the fifth stage of the God King realm and was considered the strongest of all the God Kings. About a century ago Alex’s faction had joined an alliance with a little over half of the factions that were involved in the war, together they were able to push back the many other factions who couldn’t seem to ever form a proper alliance. They used the tried and true method of splitting your enemy and taking out the smaller chunks one by one with your full undivided force. With the war over a balance was formed, factions were given territory and claim over natural treasures in the Zenith Plane, some of the most valuable treasures were split between factions and the multiverse went back to its usual chaotic state.

This is how the multiverse had stood for the past 200,000 years, sure there had been multiversal wars here and there but they all ended the same as the first, just with some factions being replaced by others. The true powerhouses were never dethroned, they either were on the winning side, didn’t participate, or gave some minor reparations after a war's conclusion. There had been changes to multiversal law, a fun advantage to being a God King was your ability to change how the multiverse functioned. It wasn’t easy and there were a lot of limitations, not to mention that any change would be scrutinized by every other faction in the multiverse. Though some change had been instituted, tribulations, standardized language, to removal of an annoying race of rat-like creatures, all the changes were minor in Alex’s eyes. There was one change Alex did appreciate, there was now a system to help you track your progress through realms, with this Alex was able to see evidence of every step he took through the realm of God King. Sure he had enough self awareness to notice the changes himself but it was nice to see numbers go up. The system had other functions but those mainly applied to mortals and celestials not God Kings.

Once Alex had reached the peak of God King the system didn’t give him any progress on the next realm, at first he thought this was just not a functions of the system but after looking into it a bit more he found that it did in fact track progress to the next realm, even providing advice to the user. This did worry Alex for a bit, but he decided to write it off as the system not knowing anything about the next realm, no one had reached it after all so how would the system, which was made by God Kings, know about a higher realm. This confidence did not last long, and as the millennia passed by Alex lost more and more hope.

So there he sat, the pinnacle of the multiverse moping on top of a mountain wishing he could reclaim the excitement of advancement one more. He thought back to his first days as a cultivator. He and Darius had just joined the Burning Tiger Sect, an average sized sect, a part of an average sized faction. He remembered the pure joy of opening his first meridian, producing his first flame, using his first real martial technique, if only he could go back, start again, maybe try a new sect with a different nature, but that was impossible, how could a God King joining a mortal sect, sure he could create an avatar, and if he used a weak first stage Origin realm body he could walk the mortal realms once again and no one would even notice the presence of a god if he willed it. But this wouldn’t be the same, he wouldn’t be able to take on a new nature, the nature of the body he inhabited would be overwhelmed and replaced by his own, not to mention he would far outclass anyone in the Mortal Planes. Even with the weakest of bodies, thanks to his comprehension his nature, he would need to go to the Celestial Planes to find a match for him, even then they would only win due to the massive difference in chi reserves, he knew this as he had tried to do this in the past in order to get a good fight. It was like having a gun on a planet where they only had swords, sure you could take out anyone there with a well placed shot, but a sword strike can still kill you, and once you run out of bullets your kinda fucked.

Then Alex had an idea, when powering an avatar you split off a small bit of your soul to inhabit the body, for someone of a high enough realm this was a simple task and they could pilot a large number of avatars at once. You could also take the soul of another and place them in an object or even a new body, but this vessel had to be of a high enough realm to support the soul taking over and converting the vessel to match their nature which would allow the soul to still exert their power. But what if he didn’t convert the vessel, what if instead of forcing the body to adapt to the soul, he had his soul adapt to the body. This would be perfect, he could take the body of some young mortal, they wouldn’t even have to be in the origin realm. Alex almost began a ritual right then and there but he stopped. He didn’t know how to go about this ritual, especially in a way that wouldn’t just kill him. He didn’t know a lot about soul magic, sure he knew more than most in the lower planes simply due to his age, but compared to some of the God Kings specialized in the nature of the soul he could barely even be considered an amateur. This wasn’t an easy task either and as far as he was aware this was not something that had ever been done before. He would need to release his soul's comprehension of nature while still maintaining his memory and sense of self. This would not be a task he could complete alone, he would need to find a God King to help him. With a few in mind Alex set off from his peak, excited about something for the first time in a long, long time.