Chapter 1 - Prologue 1 - The Red Sovereign

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Hello, new reader.

This novel isn't really what you may call an exciting work. It's slow-burning, maybe dull, a bit hard to read, and has slice-of-life elements. Not really the elements of a popular novel. Despite that, I still hope you give it a try for at least the first 20 chapters.

Anyways. On to the story. Please, enjoy.

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Celestial Realm – Okuba Plane

*CRASH* *BOOM* *SCREAMS*

A man is awaken from his deep meditation when he hears explosions and screams all throughout his domain.

"Sovereign! Sovereign!" One of the man's aides storms inside his cultivation room in panic.

"…" The man gestures his subject to calm down as he expands his spiritual sense to its limits.

With his spiritual sense, he is now able to see that the entirety of his celestial plane is under attack. He sees that all of his important cities and empires are being razed. Planets and stars being slowly wiped out with untold number of mortals pulverized as collateral damage. Saints, Deities, and Demigods are dying left and right both from his and the attackers' side.

"T-this… Cultivators?!" He is in disbelief, wanting to deny the truth of what he is seeing.

He can feel spiritual signatures belonging to both rightful and evil cultivators from the side of the attackers. Not monsters or demons, but fellow cultivators, are wreaking havoc in his celestial plane.

While one of his cultivators can match 5 of the opposing cultivators of the same level, his realm will inevitably collapse as the joint efforts of other forces are now upon him and his people.

"How dare..." The man's body glows and is ready to explode before his aide stops him.

"SOVEREIGN! CALM DOWN! If you make a move, other sovereigns will make their move too!" His aide pleads.

"..." The man calms down, but his anger is still ready to blow. After coming up with a plan, he points his little finger at his subject. A ray of light then shoots out from his finger and hits the aide's forehead.

"S-sovereign…" The aide feels his spiritual energy and body rise from the level of a demigod to a true god.

"Secure my treasures. You can touch them now." The man orders the aide.

With that, the aide disappears to oblige with the order.

"Gather." The man then sends a spiritual message to all of his most powerful subjects throughout his celestial realm.

A moment later, various portals and space-time movements fills the man's cultivation room.

"Sovereign." 125 High Gods appear and they quickly kneel down.

The man can only swallow his guilt, looking at the blood bathed High Gods. He figures he must have taken them away while they were defending weaker citizens.

"Get up! Get in formation and move!" The man says both sonically and spiritually. With his spiritual sense, he sends images of his plans and formations to his subjects' minds.

"As you wish." Immediately absorbing the plans, the subjects start synchronizing their souls immediately.

A few moments later, they complete a formation, and subsequently leave to start what could be their final mission.

The man then also calls on his most powerful True Gods that are still alive and he enhances their strengths to combat what is about to come.

-

"With this, we can kill a middle stage sovereign. Let's not waste time." The leader of the formation of High Gods says in excitement.

"KILL!" The rest of the 124 high gods scream as they start their slaughter.

Because their master added space-time laws in the formation, the high gods are now able to fly 1000 times the speed of light; faster and quicker than Lesser Sovereigns.

(A/N - To keyboard quantum physicists; this is fantasy.)

"Okuba's High Gods!" All of the attackers, all being powerful and informed true gods, immediately recognize the high gods and they start retreating immediately.

Many of the attackers also pull out arrays and light them up in various ways.

"Our High Gods are coming!" The attacking True Gods celebrate when they received confirmation of their distress calls.

*SCREAMS*

The attacking cultivators cannot celebrate for long however. With the speed of the newly enhanced and in-formation Okuba High Gods, they are able to smoothly wipe out over half of the attacking True Gods in only a few breaths.

Okuba's True Gods, also receiving their sovereign's formations and enhancements, have also just arrived and are taking care of the fleeing enemies.

"Where are our High Gods?!" The remaining enemy True Gods scream in despair.

"They're here! We're saved!" An enemy True God quickly celebrates as hundreds of portals start appearing in Okuba Plane's skies.

"True Gods! Retreat!" The leader of the enemy high gods commands.

"True Gods, secure our people!" Okuba's leading High God also commands to their side to avoid further casualties.

"COME!!!" Okuba High Gods, high in power, welcome the attacking High Gods.

The attacking High Gods, knowing the reputation of Okuba's High Gods, do not enter chatter and start cooperating with each other as seamlessly as they can before throwing and swinging their attacks.

Okuba's cultivators do not know why other cultivators are attacking, but they are certain of one thing: they have to protect their home.

-

"This isn't good." One of the attacking High Gods mutters. They have severly underestimated Okuba's High Gods.

Being an archer, she notices from the rear that their frontline is being shaved by Okuba's High Gods with ease. Their attacking side is slowly but surely, getting wiped out.

The archer High God is not the only one who noticed this and they immediately start sending distress signals again to their respective teachers and masters.

Giving Okuba's High Gods more time will only result to their side's annihilation.

-

Okuba's Sovereign, watching this from his base, is proud of the cultivators he raised. However, he is also feeling loss at their incoming doom.

He knows that this men have undying loyalty to him and Okuba that they would rather die fighting than flee.

The man also knows that this might be his last day. The cultivators, both from the evil and righteous side of the four higher realms attacking his plane, only tells him one thing: the other sovereigns have colluded with each other to end him.

*Zmmmmmmm*

The Sovereign suddenly feels the primordial energy in his celestial plane move.

Primordial energy movement only means one thing: other Sovereigns are attempting to get through. The Sovereign knows that the intruding sovereigns will soon break through his realm's barrier.

He shakes his head and snaps his fingers to summon back his 125 High Gods.

"Wh-"

"Huh?!"

"Sovereign!"

The High Gods are dumbfounded as find themselves back in front of their master.

"You've all done well. But you cannot fight many Sovereigns at once." The Sovereign tells them why he summoned them back.

"Master, pardon my insolence, but we would rather fight!" One of the High Gods finally drops the decorum and protests, addressing the man in his more personal title.

The Sovereign then closes his eyes.

"No." He says as he influences his high gods' hearts through a primordial spiritual attack.

"Round up all of our people and leave Okuba. Take all of what I left behind at the treasury and start yourselves anew." He orders.

"M-aster." The High Gods cannot resist the compulsion and can only weakly utter their protest.

They finally realize their master's intention resorting to such an overbearing action; he has decided to stay behind and fight to hold back the other Sovereigns.

"You want to prove your loyalty? Leave! Use my treasures and become sovereigns yourselves. Prove to these forces that our ways are true! That we stood among them by our own paths! If we you all die here today, WE WILL BE FORGOTTEN." The Sovereign says, making his High Gods downtrodden.

"Your mission. Lift Okuba into greater heights than what it is today. Birth more powerful cultivators than I. This is your last order from me." He concludes, his spiritual power embedded in his words, his words embedding in his subjects' hearts.

Feeling the finality in their master's words, the High Gods finally relent, voluntarily this time, and they all kneel down.

"We serve the venerable Okuba, we speak for her, and live for her people. An ounce of loyalty to her equals the lifetime…" The high gods start reciting their pledge when they first joined Okuba and their master's service.

Soon enough, "We are the Red Sovereign's loyal subjects!" The high gods conclude.

The Sovereign, the 'All-Father' to Okuba Plane's inhabitants, or the Red Sovereign to the outsiders, had lived a very long life.

He has searched for the meaning of immortality and throughout his journey, he has been betrayed and despised many times. He himself betrayed others to assure his own survival.

Having loyal subjects like his High Gods and his citizens, people who were outsiders from their realms of origins, people who came to his plane to find their home and submit their loyalty to him, and grow under his leadership, is enough an achievement for him in his long life.

"I, the Red Sovereign, acknowledge my subjects' loyalty! Okuba accepts you. Go, serve her well." The Red sovereign responds and he raises layers of formation to his abode to give time for his people to prepare.

*zmm* With the formations up, The Red Sovereign then leaves his palace to welcome the intruding Sovereigns.

-

"Fellow Sovereigns, what have I done to suffer such injustice?" The Red Sovereign greets the 108 sovereigns who just broke through his realm's restrictions.

"Red Sovereign, you have sinned!" A gold-robed sovereign, belonging to a righteous sect, accuses.

"Sinned? Please tell me, oh Golden Sovereign. What have I done wrong?" The Red Sovereign asks with a mocking smirk.

He however, already knows that they are not here to question his sins or his realm's.

"Hosting a haven of radical alchemy and radical cultivation is enough to warrant your death!" The golden sovereign says, his righteous tone almost making his ridiculous claim sound valid.

"A place of carnal desires, theft and greed. Your celestial plane disgust me, Red Sovereign." The Green Sovereign, another Sovereign of the righteous side accuses too.

"If those are my sins, then I accuse you of murder of my innocent subjects!" The Red Sovereign argues.

"Whores, thieves, and radical cultivators. We do not consider them subjects, but vermin!" The Golden Sovereign yells through gritted teeth.

"Oh? And the carnal cultivation, poison alchemy, and the practice of mortal sacrifices of your… new friends are better?" The Red Sovereign points at the sovereigns of the evil side.

"YOU... HYPOCRITES..." He then spits out in palpable disdain back to the Golden Sovereign, the Green Sovereign, and the other righteous Sovereigns behind them.

"*gulp*" The righteous Sovereigns, unused to arguing, cannot retort.

"Let's drop the act. We want your treasures! We want everything!" The Iron Sovereign, who cannot tolerate the meandering talk anymore and he speaks up for his evil side.

The Iron Sovereign's words are that much obvious to the Red Sovereign. The so-called treasures that the Iron Sovereign is referring to are the 'radical' cultivation and alchemy techniques that the Red Sovereign himself made and passed down throughout the eons to his subjects.

While they righteous sovereigns called his methods radical, the Red Sovereign knows that his devised system of cultivation and alchemy are revolutionary which he did not want outsiders to learn. He especially does not want to share his knowledge to these cultivators in front of him who kicked their own talented people out just because those talented people's revolutionary ideas.

These so-called radical methods led to his celestial plane earning riches and power that the other Sovereigns and their people could only envy.

Despite knowing all of this, the Red Sovereign does not know how to argue with frankness of the Iron Sovereign.

He is also surrounded by 108 sovereigns, so he knows that talking will achieve nothing but delay the inevitable.

The number 108 is also important as he knows that many of the deadliest formations in the four highest realms require 108 cultivators' cooperation.

*VwoooOOMM* the Red Sovereign and the others suddenly feel another sovereign arrive.

"Red Sovereign, my friend. Please just hand them your treasures." A sovereign wearing black smoke as robes, says as he reveals himself.

The Black Sovereign being a cultivator of the evil side, however is not the Red Sovereign's enemy.

"No, friend. Take a moment to understand what is happening here." The Red Sovereign shakes his head.

"STAY OUT OF THIS, BLACK SOVEREIGN! You are outnumbered." The Iron Sovereign says.

The simple demand tells the Black Sovereign the important message.

"You have all lost your minds!" He gasps in disbelief.

*Thunder*

"Fellow Sovereigns!" A Sovereign in white robes also arrives.

"White Sovereign." The Red Sovereign greets.

"Red, Black." The White Sovereign greets back, her voice subtly calming all of the Sovereigns present.

"Black and White. Do you choose to stand by the Red Sovereign? Your allies are present here." The Gold Sovereign asks.

"I will as you have all lost reason! The Red Sovereign is our only chance in having a new Overlord! So, why?" The White Sovereign scolds the others in fury.

"The prophecy is a lie, White Sovereign. How long has it been? How many Sovereigns came and went? Where is the so-called Demon Overlord? Why have they not attacked yet? Hm?" The Green Sovereign raises an opinion and excuse shared by the 108 Sovereigns to justify their attack.

"Why then have we not eradicated the demons yet? There might not be a Devil Overlord now, but we have to give birth to one to be ready!" The Black Sovereign counters.

"They do not even have Sovereigns! You are speaking nonsense, Black. The infinite realms are big enough, so we have not found their origins yet. But we will, eventually, and with Red Sovereign's arts, we will finally eradicate them." Iron Sovereign counters back.

"So why am I getting the feeling that not only are you here to take everything I have, you also want to end me? Why is that, fellow Sovereigns?" The Red Sovereign speaks up once again.