Conflict: as a verb, kuhn-flikt. As a noun, kon-flikt. Across time and space, from galaxy to galaxy, universe to universe, reality to reality; the pronunciation stays the same. For human-types, sentient bacterias, or even eldritch gods from beyond the hold of physics and linear space; the word means the same.

This is no coincidence, for it has nothing to do with language or culture. It is a name, belonging to a being older than most anything. He did not define the word by choice, but by embodying it. Conflict is the name of what the vast majority of living beings in all the universes could call a god.

Said god was slumped over on his couch, toasted out of his fucking mind.

His chiseled jaw was resting against the holo-table, helpfully displaying visual feeds and statistics involving the most recent assessment. It had only just started and was still processing the souls of the citizen's from hundreds of worlds across roughly 20 billion years.

No matter how powerful the system was, it would take a while. About a month or two, maybe. It was the slowest, most painful part of the process, as the sponsors were not allowed to do jack shit until every last soul went through the wringer.

In a second, three million souls were processed. About a fifth of them proved compatible and were injected into a section. The rest 'died', their souls and energy tossed into a well of energy for reincarnation. Or as food for some of the aforementioned eldritch gods, but nobody cared what happened to the empty.

Conflict sighed and struggled to right himself, accidentally knocking his Space Weed™ off the table. He sighed again. He had been doing that a lot, lately.

He looked around, blinking slowly, trying to remember why the fuck he had decorated the room as he did. The only tasteful decision was the far wall. It was a pure glass window, illuminating the star of the show, the earth-like planetary mass, named B5-62. The bidding war for the rights to a real name was still underway, so they were stuck with the system-generated name for now.

It was in the Goldilocks zone of a G-type main-sequence star, yet was 40 times bigger than the true-earth template. It was roughly the same size as true-earth when B5-62 was first discovered, but an increase in landmass was an obvious side-effect of mashing a bunch of planets and planes of existence together.

All those different planets from separate galaxies in individual universes shined various colors, creating a tapestry of purples, reds, blues, and everything in between. It made for excellent interior lighting.

The decor was very cyberpunk chic, lots of digital displays, and hard lines. A shitty synthwave remix of a 1980's true-earth song played softly, on a sound system that somehow sounded better with artificial age. A god didn't even need a holo-table, sound system, or even a physical space at all, but he made it anyway. It was hella cool, and also facilitated easy communication with his fellow gods as they laughed or gasped at the candidates below.

Said gods populated the room along with him, although they were all deathly silent, waiting on the same thing he was. Love was relaxing on the very same couch, filing her nails. It was her usual time-passing ritual, despite the fact that she is a transcendent being who could just will her physical vessel's nails to shrink. Conflict could say the same for his cheap Space Weed™ though, so he couldn't judge.

The nail-filing didn't really suit her image, considering she was almost 7 feet tall of pure chiseled muscle. If her physical body actually followed the laws of physics, she would probably weigh a good 350 pounds, not an ounce of fat in sight. The nail filer looked like a toothpick in her hand. Her hair and eyes were pink, her signature color ill-suited to her general appearance.

Knowledge was floating in the air, scratching his grey beard, wizened face scrunched in concentration as he focused intently on his tasteless incest doujinshi that he held in his other hand. Everybody there had known each other for eons and knew better than to try ribbing him for his taste in literature.

It never ended well.

The last member of this particular batch was Nature. Her legs were crossed as she sat on the opposite couch, tapping her studded leather boots to the beat of the song. She wore all black and had more studs across her person than a tetsubo. Black eyeliner, black lipstick, and white face powder added the cherry on top on the 'trying way too hard to be goth' look.

Her t-shirt said 'Save the Trees' in big, distorted English lettering. It looked like the font an awful graphics designer would use for an even worse death metal band.

Nobody said a word as the silence stretched on. The hologram in the center continued to spin, numbers flying by too fast for anybody but a god to perceive. Not that any of them cared to, as they were all perceiving time at its normal rate, trying to make the wait go by as fast as possible. They were all waiting for the same thing.

And just like that, it happened. The holographic display stopped spinning, and they all received the same system message at the same moment.

Stolen novel; please report.

'All Denizens Processed.'

'4.1 Trillion base population processed. 3.54 Trillion failed initial Assessment. Purged excess'

'Transcendent and Sponsor access granted. Standard interference protocols enacted.'

'Transcendents on duty: Please ensure a healthy competition. Have a good time!'

Conflict shot up, immediately purging the false high from his physical body. His arms shot up into the air, red hair waving wildly. "Woohoo! Fucking finally, that took forever!"

Love smiled, though it looked more like a grimace oh her face. "About time. Let's see how tough this iteration is."

Nature slowly scooted forward. "Man... I hope it's not one of those...um...industrial worlds. Those sucked."

Knowledge seemed suspiciously engrossed in his 'literature', so Conflict willed it away. They were in his domain, after all, as he was the host of this particular iteration. As such, he could do whatever he wanted. Knowledge wailed in agony. "Onii-chan, no!"

Conflict rolled his eyes. "Get your ass over here, you old bag of dicks, it's time to do our actual jobs."

The old man whimpered but huddled around the holo-table just as well.

Conflict was far, far older, but he didn't like to act the part. Every new god wants to act all sagely and omniscient, but it gets boring real damn fast. Individuality is no less important to gods than it is to anybody else. That was why they went through all the motions of having physical forms and watching a physical screen. They needed none of this, but they would likely go insane without it.

As they huddled around the table, the screens split into endless fragments, displaying hundreds of thousands of noteworthy individuals, fast-forwarded like a commercial on a replay. The gods obviously had no issues parsing the information and were having a jolly good time.

Conflict summoned snacks and drinks, and everybody laughed and cheered as they watched the newest iteration take its baby steps. It took them just 10 minutes to parse the last month and a half, and they proceeded to slow down their perspective, just enough to watch them all in relative real-time.

Love clapped her hands excitedly. "Look at this hunk! Cutting down an army to save his beloved, what a man!"

Everybody else turned to look and see what she was talking about. A tall man stood, standing his ground against hundreds of men in armor, holding nothing but a single sword. Behind him was a beautiful woman, cowering in fear. He roared some inspiring words or whatever, and continued to slash his way through hundreds upon hundreds of poorly paid soldiers.

"Gold core already?" Conflict mused. "That guy works pretty damn fast."

Everybody noted his existence. Adelmar was his name, and he might just amount to something. It took someone special for the gods to bother with a name.

"Think he's worth sponsoring?" Conflict asked.

Love looked thoughtful. "Maybe. Still, I'm hoping for a champion."

Nature piped in. "That's, like...way too early."

Knowledge nodded. "Indeed, it would be unwise to blow our loads so soon."

The watching continued, and Knowledge made a squeal of excitement. "Oh! I like this guy!"

Everybody did the same yet again and focused on what he was looking at. He was watching a blonde man, sitting naked in a quaint little hot-spring. He was using a rather unique method of information gathering, spreading out tendrils of energy and influence across an area about half a mile around him. He was sitting there silently, face distorted in concentration.

He was parsing a pretty impressive amount of information for a mortal, much less a copper core.

Conflict looked intrigued. "Not bad. I don't think you'll find anyone more suited for the role than this guy."

Everybody watched the blonde man for a moment, curious. They witnessed another man enter the springs, in which the blonde man proceeded to sexually harass.

Love smiled deeply, Nature looked bored, and Conflict rolled his eyes.

Knowledge laughed like a hyena. "Dibs!"

Conflict glowered. "Dude. Too early."

"Too late, more like. I have a hot date with destiny tonight."

Conflicts palm met face, but he ultimately let it go. He was the host, not a babysitter. What the others did was no concern to him, unless it broke the rules.

Counting chickens before they hatched was far from against the rules, it was just stupid.

The viewing party continued for a little bit, the usual routine of noting individuals and plotting fates went on unabated.

Until the door was kicked in.

Nobody even bothered to look up, as they all knew exactly who it was. A black boot with golden spurs stepped through the doorway, and in came Death.

"I cannot believe you bastards started without me."

Nature shrugged. "You were, like, told, man."

Conflict smiled sardonically. "I see you found your way here. Good job, buddy!"

Death scowled. He was very new to the position. The old god of Death was exactly as aged as Conflict was, but dipped out a mere century or two ago, which made the new Death the youngest of the main five.

By far

So of course, that meant he took himself and his job super seriously. This, of course, resulted in endless hazing.

Death stormed over to the display, and squeezed himself onto the main couch, next to Conflict. He took off his pitch-black hat, revealing his scowling face. It was boring, and not worth describing.

His gunbelt, revolvers, long coat, hat, and everything else were all black, gold, or a variation of the two.

"Hey buttmonkey," snarked Nature. "All black is like, my thing."

Love nodded. "It's true. One of you is going to have to change."

Death rubbed his nose. "I'm death. The Pale Rider. I have an image to uphold."

Knowledge snorted. "The former Death wore a pink aloha shirt and short-shorts when he was off duty. Who are you trying to impress?"

Death heaved a frustrated sigh. "The system's rules state-"

"Boo!" yelled Love.

"Nerd bitch!" snarled Knowledge.

"If you're still wearing that by tomorrow, I'm gonna force you to wear a v-string," said Conflict, face straight.

"Not even I want to see that," scowled Love.

Death looked like he wanted to cry. It didn't suit his dumb-ass face. "I get it, fine. Let's just focus on our jobs."

They all already were, even death. A simple conversation wouldn't detract from their processing abilities, and indeed, Death was almost definitely already watching from the very beginning. It's just that this particular pocket of space, the one that held the viewing party between the big five, was suspiciously hard to find.

Death watched a certain man shoot a noble right in front of the princess he was sworn to. "In fact...I already have a candidate in-"

"Is it the cowboy?" everybody asked in unison.

"Oh, fuck off."