Keshav sat cross-legged on the bed, his fingers lightly brushing the smooth surface of the God Domain Interface on the Terminal. He hadn't checked it in two days.
Just two days.
He tapped the display. The divine screen shimmered before his eyes, updating with pulsing energy. Numbers changed. Charts loaded. Reports flooded in.
> [Time Passed in God Domain]: 170 Years]
[Total Believers]: 1,843,902
[Faith Energy per Day]: 38,517 Units]
[Dominant Powers]: Central Dominion, Starroot League, Astral Vanguard]
[Military Strength]: 15,000+ Core Cultivators, 200+ Void Knights]
[Cultural Status]: Late Medieval / Proto-Enlightenment Era]
Keshav stared.
His breath caught. His hand trembled slightly.
"Seventeen... decades?"
The visual feed activated, a panoramic view of his world displayed in real time — a sky pulsing with constellations. Vast temple cities, illuminated with crystal lattice lights, stretched across rolling plains. Pilgrims marched along starlit roads. Children trained with spiritual instructors under the gaze of Star Priests. And atop a tower of obsidian and silver, Taarak, aged but radiant, spoke calmly to young disciples.
"Voidwalker Sovereign watches. Be still. Be boundless."
Keshav sat in silence, heart pounding.
He remembered the empty land. The tribal sparks. The doubt.
He remembered his mother in his past life scoffing when he talked of building something eternal. The loneliness of a powerless existence. The pain of humiliation.
And now…
"I did this," he whispered, voice shaky. "I gave them tools... and they built a world."
Tears rimmed his eyes — not of sadness, not of exhaustion, but of something deeper. A divine emotion. The feeling of purpose made manifest.
He pressed his palm to the screen. The Terminal glowed gently, as if responding.
This is real.
This is mine.
Keshav wiped his eyes and smiled, sharp and steady.
"Not yet. But soon."
He stood up and looked out his dorm window, eyes full of new resolve.
"Now I'll make sure they never fall."
--------
Next day
Keshav's eyes fluttered open as the faint morning light filtered through the thin layer of his dorm's protective barrier. The System's internal clock pulsed softly in his mind, showing a reminder:
[Combat Assessment – Today | 09:00 AM | Arena 7-A]
His breath caught for a second as the weight of the day settled in. So, it's finally here…
The past month had felt like years—literally. With the Time Acceleration Artifact active, he had spent nearly 170 years inside his god domain. Under his direct guidance, his believers had evolved from tribal shamans to battle-hardened cultivators, theocratic generals, and arcane scholars of space.
He sat up, eyes still heavy from sleep but mind already alert.
His god domain had become a rising force—efficient, united, and loyal. Yet, as the memory of the principal's warning returned, Keshav's chest tightened.
> "Protection ends if you fail. Your secrets will be hunted."
He took a long breath, calming the storm of thoughts. "No room for hesitation," he whispered.
Throwing on his robe embedded with the insignia of the Voidwalker Sovereign, Keshav summoned the Terminal. A holographic interface bloomed into view, showing real-time footage of his domain. His high priests—the Star Council—were in meditation, warriors were training with spatial manipulation techniques, and the civilians thrived under divine order.
He allowed himself a small smile.
> "You've come far. Now, prove your world is worthy."
Keshav exited his dorm, heading toward the central teleport pad that would take him to Arena 7-A—his steps slow but steady, with the System silent yet aware.
-----
The teleportation glow faded, and Keshav found himself standing at the edge of Arena 7-A.
It was colossal—a crater-sized amphitheater carved into the living rock of a floating mesa, suspended above an endless golden void. Towering above the arena were five translucent domes, each representing different environments—forest, desert, ocean, mountain, and ruins—used for randomized battlefield scenarios.
Above the central dome, a glowing sigil marked the authority of the Divine High School Combat Council. Students from dozens of classes stood in clusters around the outer ring, murmuring nervously, while teachers and combat evaluators in divine robes watched from elevated seats etched with glowing runes.
In the center of the arena, a massive platform floated—the Combat Stage, shaped like an intricate mandala of moving plates. Runes spun slowly beneath its surface, ready to reconfigure the terrain depending on the chosen scenario.
Floating projection screens displayed names, stats, and world domains of participants. Keshav's name appeared:
[Keshav Garg – Voidwalker Sovereign | God Domain: Spatial Monolith | Combat Readiness: Scanning…]
A teacher's voice echoed across the arena:
> "Combat Assessment will begin in 30 minutes. Prepare your believers. The first round will be a 3v3 team skirmish—combatants must be from your domain only."
Keshav stepped into the prep zone. Behind him, three of his most elite Starbound warriors manifested, kneeling in reverence, shimmering with spatial energy.
As Keshav entered the designated Combat Zone, the dome above shimmered—the forest scenario had been selected. Towering obsidian trees twisted toward a colorless sky, and gravity felt slightly distorted—a side effect of the spatial terrain module.
The system marked the match:
[Round 1: Team Skirmish – Match 12]
Keshav Garg – Voidwalker Sovereign
vs.
Nira Harl – Flame Saintess
Jurian Tai – Stoneblood Warlord
Kael Vorr – Beast Binder
The opposing team's believers materialized—hulking martial warriors imbued with fire, stone, and monstrous essence.
Keshav looked at his three. They stood silently, cloaked in translucent star-thread robes:
Taarak, the Spatial Vanguard, dual-wielded voidblades.
Yali, the Starborne Mage, floated slightly above the ground, eyes glowing white.
Zhen, the Gravity Monk, his body swirling with compressed orbs of mass-bending force.
Combat Start.
Instantly, the battlefield erupted in chaos. Kael's beast charged—an armored lizard-bear hybrid—but Taarak blinked forward, void-stepping around it and cleaving across its skull with curved space, the beast vanishing in a silent implosion.
Flames erupted as Nira's warrior launched a firestorm at Yali, but the mage raised a hand. With a whisper, space folded, the fire curved and vanished into a twisting rift.
Zhen met Jurian's stone-clad warrior in brutal melee. Each punch cracked the ground, but Zhen's attacks weren't just physical—they shifted weight. A single strike sent the opponent crashing into the dirt with triple his own mass.
The crowd outside the dome was stunned. Many stood frozen as they watched Keshav's believers dismantle the opposition—not with overwhelming force, but precision, speed, and warped terrain logic.
> "Who the hell is this guy?" a student whispered. "Spatial manipulation? At this level?" "I thought he was in Class 1 with us...!"
Within 90 seconds, the match ended. All three opponents lay defeated.
A projection lit the sky:
Winner: Keshav Garg
Combat Evaluation Score: 9.3/10
As the dome dissolved, the audience erupted into murmurs. Teachers exchanged glances. One of the evaluators muttered, "If he keeps this up, we'll have a candidate for the Special University Trials."
Keshav stood still, his expression calm. But inside, his heart pounded. This was just the beginning—and the real tests were yet to come.