The Divine Beast Emporium was vast. It contained many things, planets, galaxies, minor realms, and habitats of all sorts.

  But there was nothing wild about it. That was what the Seer of the Void saw, and she saw everything.

  That was her nature. She was a sixteenth rank being, a God King. And her’s was the domain of truth, which was a very risky business to peddle.

  The Enki Maluth was a good example of that. Their ancestor had been slain and their sect had been integrated, which was better than the absolute annihilation that most truth sects faced.

  But she wasn’t in the business of mere truth for truth’s sake. She was a Seer, a diviner and she had a place in the eyes of the God-Imperium. Or at least she knew where she could and couldn’t be.

  It was said that God-Imperiums hated other God-Imperiums the most because it was only their peers that could cause them harm. Because of this, and because of the Second Pact of Life they could not trespass into each other’s domain.

  One God-Imperium couldn’t peer into the powers of another. It didn’t matter the reason or the simplicity of the act. To intrude on the domain of another God-Imperium was an insult. The few times it did happen was when the insult was meant to be given or the power between the two Imperiums was enough for one to oppress the other, and even that was rare. But for a God King? Well, it was the difference between a man breaking into your home and an ant slipping through the cracks.

  Though an ant might go unnoticed, she would not. Any God-Imperium she spied upon would feel her nature, and she was small enough to be allowed. If a God-Imperium truly wanted to hide something, she would never be able to perceive it. She was a formality in their eyes, a way of using someone else’s power to avoid insult.

  She grabbed her staff, a thing made of old wood and blessed by the Fey of the Cosmic Forest, and she readied herself. She was being watched, that she knew. Tai Jey was not the type to hide his eyes.

  She had felt him from within the void, from the steps of her home near the lower heavens.

  He couldn’t reach her there. She was under the protection of another there, under the land of the Blessed King of Camelot, Lancelot. Another binding nature of these beings. There were many unclaimed realms in the multiverse but of the celestial realms, those places from which power overflowed, they were claimed.

  Claimed and governed. Some by sixteenth ranks, but most by God-Imperiums, and only in their realms could you live protected from the others. And even then, you were under their behest. That was celestial kingdoms where certain rights were guaranteed were highly sought after.

  Lynoria had been the first to provide that, but as time went on, many God-Imperiums did the same. Camelot had been built by King Arthur and then abandoned for Avalon. But both were fertile with God Kings, as was any other appealing place. Most God Imperiums had such rules if only to nurture cultivators who might one day become future God-Imperiums.

  Tai Jey was not one of those. His was the domain of enslavement and ownership. His was the power of control and all who lived within his realm did so under his allowance and will.

  The Seer could immediately feel that overwhelming pressure the moment she stepped into the realm. It weighed on her like a collar, pressing her down with divinity.

  Stolen novel; please report.

  She bowed, a formality, but one Tai Jey wouldn’t let go.

  The realm was infinite in size, but that meant nothing. A celestial realm could be the size of a small room, physical space was only a minor detail to beings of her stature. What mattered more was qi, both the quantity and quality.

  And within this realm, God-Imperium qi flowed. It flowed from Tai Jey and Killaguan, like water flowing from an eternal oasis. Lower-ranked beings couldn’t sense it, not even of the fifteenth rank could grasp the truth of these beings, and she knew that she hadn’t fully grasped the true nature of these beings either.

  Her staff shivered and she shivered with it.

  The problem with God-Imperiums was they were all powerful if unbothered by someone of equal rank. Without others of their kind to limit them, they owned you and all you held. Thankfully for the Seer, she needed to be free from the powers of the God-Imperiums to be useful. If she was beholden to them, then she would be nothing more than an expression of their power and her formality would turn to insult.

  But even then she still needed precaution. While Tai Jey wouldn’t claim her as his own, she still had methods to ensure her own survival. The first of those methods was that she wasn’t all here, not truly. Half of her soul lay within Camelot, protected from Tai Jey’s influence, and with it were all of her secrets and truths, including her name.

  This part of her contained a part of her core, her essence, and if it were destroyed or devoured, it would cost her greatly but the trade-off was equal for Tai Jey. God-Imperiums had need of lesser ranked beings. They were limited by each other, controlled by the Second Pact of Life, but free cultivators not tied to their powers were able to move as they pleased.

  Some God-Imperiums were freer than others, like Wu Kong or The Dethin Witch, but even they had their limits, lest they cause conflict and war. They had their agents of course and while those under them couldn’t act as freely, they were still able to act. So God-Imperiums created sects and governed kingdoms, hoping to bring people under their political power while still letting them be of their own will.

  Which, strangely enough, made Tai Jey one of the less influential God-Imperiums. He liked to mark those under him with his power, limiting their actions within the grander multiverse. While those servants couldn’t directly associate with other God-Imperiums or enter their lands, they could interact with any underneath them.

  Lancelot was one of those lords who made their lands attractive to beings of the Seer’s caliber. She felt comfortable enough to leave her main body there at the very least.

  But Tai Jey was the opposite, everything here was marked with his being, almost soaking in it. There was a strong sense of security here, she could feel that. She could-

  Her staff shook and the thought halted.

  Another precaution. As a Seer, she saw much more than she should. Some things, the God-Imperiums wouldn’t hide. And sometimes, ever so rarely, she could see their secrets.

  It wouldn’t be due to their inability to hide something but rather due to their ignorance.

  They didn’t know what she knew, and while this form of the Seer knew very little. It still knew. Something here had triggered some baren knowledge within her, but the staff had erased it. If she had arrived at the conclusion, at some truth the God-Imperium was trying to hide, she might not have made it back home.

  What the Seer did not know was that the staff remembered. It remembered the observation but not the conclusion. The Seer did not know that the staff and her when rejoined with the other half, would see the observation and conclusion to the fullest. And when she did, she would recognize the security here, the obsessiveness.

  Tai Jey was watching everyone and when that was paired with why he had called her here, it would result in nothing. No true information would be gleamed and she would then realize that the staff had wasted its time.

  But still, it was an important precaution. There were thoughts she could not have around these beings, ideas she could not think.

  But she had seen nothing today.

  And the staff, while not powerful, was more than anything she owned alive. It was blessed by the fey of the cosmic forest, wood of wood, thing of wild. It served no one but her and if Tai Jey would try to claim it, it would shatter before he could. That ability to resist a God-Imperium alone made the staff the most important thing she owned.

  God Kings like her, that is to say, free agents that were tied to no one, needed something like this to deal with God-Imperiums.

  The Seer of the Void, the woman who had put away her own name, and the lady of truth who understood just how dangerous truth could be, walked into the domain of a True God and kneeled.

  is 15 chapters ahead at the five-dollar tier(up to chapter 116) and 30 chapters ahead at the ten-dollar tier(up to chapter 131)

  Volume One is finished on and Volume Two chapter 1 is up.