Chapter 8: The Shattered Ceiling
The training moon orbiting my palace was no longer a moon. After three hours of "light" sparring with Vados, it had been reduced to a shimmering ring of pulverized stardust and heat-distorted silicon.
I hung in the vacuum, my breath steady despite the 65\% power surge vibrating through my skin. I wasn't even using the full extent of my Hakai. This was pure, raw physical pressure—the byproduct of being Soulbound to a universe that was currently undergoing an industrial and biological renaissance.
"You're holding back, Vados," I grunted, wiped a smear of violet sweat from my brow.
Vados adjusted her halo, her expression shifting from her usual playful smirk to something resembling genuine focus. "On the contrary, My Lord. I am currently utilizing a level of output I haven't touched since your brother tried to 'redecorate' the Sacred World of the Kai two millennia ago."
She lunged. Her staff moved in a blur of celestial light, a strike intended to paralyze the nervous system. In the past, I would have had to dodge or rely on a crude shield. Now, I simply caught the staff.
The impact didn't move me. The shockwave traveled through my arm, into my core, and was neutralized by the sheer density of my ki.
"My Lord..." Vados murmured, her eyes widening. "You didn't just block that. You absorbed the kinetic frequency."
"I told you," I said, my voice dropping to a rumble that shook the nearby star system. "The Tungstens. Their density is part of me now. Their resilience is my resilience."
I pushed back, a simple shove that sent the Angel skidding through space for several hundred miles. I stood alone in the dark, realizing a terrifying truth. I didn't feel the gap between us anymore. I felt... peerless.
"Vados," I called out as she stabilized. "Am I...?"
"The strongest God of Destruction?" She flew back, her staff glowing as she ran a comparative analysis against the recorded power signatures of the other eleven. "According to the current metrics, My Lord... you have surpassed Lord Beerus by a margin of twelve percent. Belmod and Quitela are no longer in your bracket. You are, effectively, the apex of the divine order."
The realization should have been intoxicating. I should have been laughing, planning my "triumphant" visit to Universe 7 to rub Beerus's snout in the dirt. But before I could even crack a smile, the space behind us didn't just ripple—it tore.
The Guests from Nowhere
A jagged rift, white as a dying star, opened in the center of the debris field. Two figures stepped out, draped in robes of a color I didn't recognize—a shifting, oily iridescent hue that defied the standard divine palette.
The first was an Angel, taller than Vados, with hair styled in sharp, horizontal fins. The second was a God of Destruction who looked like a cross between a deep-sea crustacean and a crystalline dragon.
"Lord Champa of the Sixth," the Angel spoke, his voice sounding like two glaciers grinding together. "I am Elara, Attendant of the Sixteenth. And this is Lord Xylo."
I blinked. I looked at Vados. Vados looked at me. Her staff was flickering, unable to pull up a file.
"The... Sixteenth?" I stammered, my aura flaring in confusion. "There are twelve universes. Zeno-sama erased the others eons ago. There is no Sixteen."
The crustacean god, Xylo, clicked his mandibles. "Is that what they told you? How quaint. The Great Erasure was a pruning, not a felling. We have lived in the 'Blind Spots' of the Great Priest's eyes for cycles you couldn't comprehend."
"We are here," Elara interrupted, "because the Universal Indices have shifted. A 'Soulbound' anomaly has spiked the multiversal average so high that the Blind Spots are becoming visible. Your growth, Lord Champa, has rung the bell."
The Grand Summit
Elara held out a scroll made of compressed stardust. "You are summoned. Once every century, the Council of the Eighteen meets to discuss the equilibrium of the Void. Since you have effectively broken the power ceiling of the 'Lower Twelve,' your presence is no longer optional."
"Eighteen?" I shouted, my head spinning. "Twelve plus six... you're telling me there are six entire universes hiding in the closet this whole time? And Zeno just... forgot about you?"
"Zeno-sama forgets many things," Xylo rasped. "But the Great Priest does not. He is the one who maintains the veil. And he is the one who wants to see the God who dared to bind his soul to the mortals he was meant to destroy."
I looked at the scroll. The seal on it was a symbol I'd never seen—a circle with eighteen points, all converging on a single, black center.
"Vados," I whispered. "Did you know?"
"I... I am an Angel of the Sixth, My Lord," she said, her voice uncharacteristically shaken. "My knowledge is tied to my jurisdiction. If the Great Priest willed a secret to remain a secret, even we are kept in the dark."
I felt a cold sweat prickle my neck. I was the strongest God in my neighborhood, sure. But I had just found out the neighborhood was a lot bigger, and the neighbors looked like they ate Super Saiyans for breakfast.
"Pack the 'Golden Squad,'" I told Vados, my eyes fixed on Xylo. "If we're going to a meeting of eighteen Destroyers, I'm not going as a guest. I'm going as a threat."
"Are you sure, My Lord?" Vados asked. "The power levels coming from Lord Xylo are... difficult to quantify."
"I don't care," I grinned, though my heart was hammering. "I've spent a year building a universe. I'm not letting some crustacean from a 'Blind Spot' tell me where the ceiling is."
The Multiversal Expansion