I Will Teach You How to Hunt Gods

Chapter 731 - 26: Ultimately Unchanged

Thus, before sinking once more into a long slumber, the Monarch used his remaining will and power to make his final arrangements.

He tore open the barrier of real space and, in the cracks of time and space, created a stable space outside the real world, maintained solely by his will.

The Supreme Heaven.

In truth, the Supreme Heaven is no blissful Heaven; there are no angels here, no endless luxury and splendor. It is only a prison, an empty, icy void.

In essence, it is a cage of self-exile; only here would the Monarch no longer affect the real world.

At the same time, he burned the last of his lucid will, branding several iron laws, each containing the power of absolute rules, into the underlying laws of the real world like searing marks, and endowed them with mechanisms for self-operation.

For example, the Order of Non-Belligerence that forbids High Tier Death Gods from fighting at full strength within cities; for example, the Voter Act that grants every commoner the right to elect a mayor; for example, the Supreme Heaven Code, which decrees that any individual whose power reaches a Tier Seven True God Domain must enter the Supreme Heaven within a hundred years and may not remain in the real world for long.

There were also several decrees concerning resource distribution and the safeguarding of basic rights.

After doing all this, the Monarch exhausted his last trace of lucid will. His colossal body slowly solidified upon the cold throne of the Supreme Heaven and fell into eternal slumber.

He entrusted the responsibility of guarding the world to these cold rules.

At first, these iron laws, imbued with the Monarch’s final will, did indeed exert a powerful deterrent.

Though the world had lost the suppression of its mightiest being, no one dared to lightly test these rules.

The Order of Non-Belligerence protected the safety of the cities; the Voter Act gave regime change a relatively civilized framework; the Supreme Heaven Code ensured that the "ceiling" of the real world would not grow too high.

Survivors continued their lives within the framework of these rules. Technology recovered slowly, Nest City expanded in scale, and society seemed to maintain a fragile stability.

However, the Monarch had miscalculated after all.

He underestimated human greed, and even more so underestimated the contempt that those with power hold for rules, and their desire to trample upon order.

The Apprentice Death Gods who had narrowly escaped the purge quickly discovered the "gray zones" and "operable spaces" within the rules.

Order of Non-Belligerence?? As long as you don’t strike directly "within city limits," it’s fine.

They could set traps outside Nest City, forcing opponents to leave the protected zone before making a move; they could use Mind Control, economic coercion, staged "accidents," and other "non-combat" means to eliminate rivals and oppress commoners... they even exploited loopholes in the definition of "densely populated areas" to make moves on the fringes of the slums.

As long as they controlled the scope, the backlash of the law was not impossible to endure or evade.

The Voter Act? That became the biggest joke. Powerful Apprentice Death Gods propped up obedient puppets to take office, while they themselves manipulated all resources and instruments of violence from behind the scenes.

The so-called "mayors" were often nothing more than mouthpieces for the interests of Death Gods and megacorporations.

The Supreme Heaven Code? The problem is, reaching Tier Seven is unimaginably difficult. With inheritance severed and resources scarce, even grazing the threshold of Tier Six is already one in ten thousand.

For the vast majority of Death Gods, this law might as well not exist.

A new class system was rebuilt at astonishing speed.

Death Gods who possessed the Power of Sequence, along with their families, swiftly seized the great majority of society’s resources and power, becoming the new privileged class.

They lived in the clean, bright upper districts of Nest City, enjoying the best food, healthcare, and entertainment, dumping all dangerous labor entirely onto the people below.

They drafted laws in their own favor, kept private armies, and trampled at will upon the dignity and lives of commoners.

Their struggles with one another, though constrained by the Order of Non-Belligerence from waging all-out battle in the city’s core, were, in the shadows and in their plunder of resources, more intense than ever.

Technology did indeed advance, Nest City grew larger, and productivity improved somewhat, but nearly all this so-called "progress" served the new upper classes.

The commoners at the bottom still labored in factories corroded by acid rain, breathing foul air, eating low-grade synthetic food, and living in cramped, filthy lower districts like ant nests.

They were still the exploited majority; only, the exploiters had changed from "technocratic elites" or "warlords of chaos" to those "Lord Apprentice Death Gods" who wielded Soul Power.

Yun You once again beheld that all-too-familiar world.