DeSaad swallowed hard as he reread the instructions and methods for the mind-uploading technology. His expression froze, and for the first time in countless years, true unease filled him.
Realistically, unless one stood on the edge of death and desired to leave behind a fragment of their existence, no true scientist would favor this technology. Mind-uploading was nothing more than the creation of a digital replica.
Would an ordinary being truly enjoy the existence of a clone? Certainly not. For most, the idea of a copy, one that thought and behaved as they did, was not only unsettling but abhorrent. To DeSaad, the sentiment was no different. A digital duplicate of himself was not him. It was an echo. And yet, the value of such a creation could not be denied.
A deeper, darker thought gnawed at him. This technology could replicate almost every ounce of his technical knowledge and expertise. While these uploaded minds might lack the spark of innovation that he occasionally brought to his research, their sheer computational speed and tireless analysis would nearly equal his own capacity.
And if that were the case, what worth would he still hold in Shin's eyes?
On Apokolips, the fate of the worthless was absolute.
He considered feigning obedience, perhaps slipping in a quiet corruption of the data, embedding a flaw into the digital consciousness that would eventually sabotage the process. But then Shin, with that calm, terrifying demeanor, lifted the Lasso of Truth. At once, DeSaad felt his defiance freeze inside him like molten iron quenched in ice water.
He could not lie. He could not deceive. He could not hide behind subtlety. With that golden rope binding the truth itself, Shin would discover everything.
If DeSaad tried to tamper with the process, the Lasso would reveal it. And when it did, his end would be the same as the other New God whose corpse still reeked of divine blood and burned flesh.
Grimly, shoulders sagging under the weight of inevitability, DeSaad began the process of uploading his mind into the system. All the while, a single fear pulsed in the back of his consciousness: that when he was finished, Shin would look upon him with cold disinterest and say, "You are no longer needed." Then, with one motion, strike him down.
Time became meaningless. For most mortals, the idea of mind-uploading was simplified into a crude image of donning a helmet and letting machines scan the brain. In truth, the procedure was infinitely more complex. Every spark of thought, every synaptic connection, had to be translated into code. Entire archives of memory had to be restructured into a language that machines could comprehend. Even the smallest fragment of knowledge had to be preserved with flawless fidelity.
The more vast the knowledge, the denser the web of experience, the more demanding the task became. And DeSaad's mind was complicated. He had lived longer than most civilizations, his intellect sharpened through war and the endless horrors wrought by Apokolips. His brain was a library of technological blasphemies.
Yet even with such complexity, DeSaad's nature as a New God gave him advantages. His brain processed information with superhuman efficiency, and his body allowed him to sustain the strain without collapsing. What might have taken centuries for a mortal scientist, he endured in mere hours.
After three hours, the task was complete.
When he lifted his gaze from the machine, DeSaad felt as though he were kneeling before an executioner. But Shin, silent as always, simply touched the Lasso of Truth to him and confirmed the work was clean. There was no deceit. No tampering.
With a faint nod, Shin dismissed him.
Relief nearly broke DeSaad's knees.
Apokolips itself, the world that had stood as a monument to tyranny, was vast beyond Earth's comprehension. Its sheer size made the conquest of it seem an impossible task for one individual. But Shin was not just an individual.
In truth, the difficulty was far less than it appeared. The very structure of Apokolips' society made it vulnerable. The majority of the planet's inhabitants were not rulers but slaves, broken beings stolen from countless worlds and remade into war-fodder. The true power of Apokolips rested in the hands of a mere few thousand New Gods.
And when those few thousand surrendered, the rest would follow.
Some resisted, of course. Pride, arrogance, or simple defiance spurred them to stand against Shin. But news traveled fast, and the death of Darkseid spread like wildfire. Each New God who fell was another nail in the coffin of defiance.
Even when one of them struck down one of Shin's Wood Clones, it did not matter. Shin descended in person, obliterating the defiant with overwhelming strength, then plundered their soul into his own arsenal.
The pace of conquest was relentless. Where wars on Earth dragged on through supply lines and travel, the combatants here moved faster than mortal eyes could follow. There were no long campaigns, no wasted marches. In three days, Shin had broken the planet's will.
They called him King.
But titles meant little to him. Shin had no interest in wearing a crown or basking in dominion. Apokolips was not valuable as a throne but as a forge. Its arsenal of machines, weapons, and technologies outstripped anything found in the worlds of One Piece, Naruto, or even Earth. Here was a foundation for innovation, a base for power.
He had already envisioned its future. The scientists he had collected, along with their digital counterparts, would remain on Apokolips. Here, among the burning forges and endless laboratories, his technological heart would beat.
Nor was Apokolips isolated. It was the center of an empire. Thousands of other planets lay under its shadow, many overseen by New Gods who had not yet returned to the homeworld. Three to four thousand of them lingered elsewhere, spread thin across conquered stars.
The sheer scale of Apokolips' dominion was staggering. For every New God, there were ten or more worlds subjugated. Entire planets had been reshaped into war machines, their populations twisted into demonic legions.
Shin could not comprehend the reasoning. Why turn every conquered world into a factory of slaughter? Why not rule them, guide them, or at least leave them to prosper?
The New Gods numbered less than ten thousand. Each could have claimed a world as their own, living in abundance for eternity. Yet under Darkseid's iron will, they had been driven into endless war.
The answer was clear enough. It was not the nature of the New Gods themselves. Like all beings, they bore pride, envy, greed, lust, sloth, wrath, and gluttony. They were no different than mortals, save for their strength and longevity. Left to themselves, they might have lived as indulgent and chaotic as the Olympian gods of myth.
It was Darkseid, in his obsession with conquest, who had molded them into this nightmare. His will had been law, his vision a chain that bound their nature to war. Without him, the mask would fall away.
In truth, Shin preferred it that way. The Olympians, with all their vices, reflected human nature more accurately than the rigid tyranny of Apokolips. If these New Gods fell into decadence and folly, so be it. That was better than destroying worlds for no reason.
Shin had no desire to command their armies of demons, nor to maintain dominion over arsenals of nightmares. He possessed the Divine Tree. With that weapon, he could reshape planets, harvest chakra fruits, and build power in ways Apokolips had never imagined.
Why bother ruling an empire of monsters when he could transform it into something far greater?
For Shin, conquest was not an end. It was merely another step.
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