A Multiverse Journey Beginning with a Supreme Sovereign

That was right—Saigō knew that he should not have had a heart anymore.

Yet he could feel one, as though his heart was breathing in tandem with this space, saturated with the aura of life's birth.

Their rhythms reached a perfect balance, as if he were this deathly silent, dark space, and this darkness was himself.

"So where exactly have I ended up? Does this count as some kind of breathing technique too?"

Saigō mocked himself.

His thoughts never stopped. He feared that if he did not keep thinking, his will would be completely eroded in this darkness—driven mad, or dead.

Only by thinking could he feel that he was still alive. He felt as though he had become a thinking creature.

But he ultimately knew too little. He had no idea how long he thought in this darkness, yet he still failed to reach any conclusion.

Just as Saigō had no idea how much time had passed, when fear was about to completely fill his heart, a pair of beautiful, sorrowful ruby-red eyes suddenly appeared in that empty darkness.

Those eyes were so enormous that they seemed to occupy the entire darkness.

Before those incomparably beautiful eyes, Saigō's will froze completely, like an ant standing before a mighty true god.

Or as though he were facing a kind yet pitiful mother.

At that moment, countless fragments of memory flooded Saigō's consciousness.

They were battles—endless battles spanning thousands, tens of thousands, even hundreds of millions of years!

They were the Heavenly Principles, the absolute destiny borne by that endlessly fighting woman!

For she was "the woman born to fulfill the Universe's Least Common Multiple," the divine sovereign pushed into the dawn of the world to bear the burden of everything!

Light and darkness, yin and yang, good and evil, creation and end, man and woman—these were the least common multiple, and also duality!

She fought while shedding tears. She pierced through heroes' hearts, then covered that face seemingly condensed from all the beauty in the world with bloodstained hands, weeping again and again.

In a daze, a voice asked the woman a question.

It sounded like Saigō's own voice, yet it was as though he were merely asking according to some fated Heavenly Principles.

Are you sad because you hate fighting?

The woman shook her head.

Are you sad because you killed your enemies?

The woman shook her head through tears.

Are you sad because you cannot coexist with them?

The woman still shook her head.

Then why are you sad?

The woman stopped crying. Her rosy lips parted slightly as she quietly replied,

"..."

Saigō could neither hear nor make out those words.

The woman sorrowfully closed those ruby-red eyes, and Saigō's consciousness sank into silence once more.

In the instant before his consciousness vanished, Saigō finally learned who this woman was. He learned her name—

Mother of Evil Gods, Alimant!

In the year 2138, the technology of the human world had become extremely advanced.

Yet despite humanity's technological progress, one major problem remained impossible to solve: energy.

Even in 2138, humanity still could not master energy technology capable of supporting long-term space travel.

Unable to enter the universe and seize its resources, more than ten billion humans were trapped on Earth, and the energy crisis arrived as expected.

Energy shortages caused severe class divisions, unemployment rose year after year, and the entire world became increasingly unstable.

Under such circumstances, ambitious people began to stir, and a new world war seemed ready to erupt at any moment.

The simplest way to solve the current predicament was to master a new energy technology that could lead humanity into the interstellar age.

And if the legendary Third Kind Perpetual Motion Machine could be created, human civilization itself would likely undergo earth-shaking changes.

However, that was ultimately nothing more than fantasy.

With no other choice, virtual reality technology based on the internet and nanotechnology became widely adopted.

Every citizen could use their citizen ID to purchase nanomachine nutrient fluid for very little money.

By having citizens inject nanomachine nutrient fluid and enter virtual worlds, their metabolism could be reduced as much as possible, thereby cutting down on the excessive waste of resources.

This was the method nations chose at this stage to address the energy crisis, but it ultimately only treated the symptoms rather than the cause.

The ecology of society as a whole could be described by a term that had emerged more than a century ago—Cyberpunk!

Yggdrasills, a game named after the Northern European World Tree, was one of the many virtual reality games launched twelve years ago when the new policy was implemented.

At the same time, it was also one of the most highly anticipated games of that era.

However, that was ultimately twelve years ago.

"What kind of joke is this? This is the Great Tomb of Nazarick that everyone worked so hard to build together! How can you all just abandon it so easily?!"

Forty-two luxurious seats were arranged around a massive round table that gleamed with obsidian light.

A skeletal figure radiating boundless terror, dressed in magnificent robes, let out an enraged roar.

Momonga slowly swept his terrifying scarlet-glowing eyes across the forty-one seats besides his own.

He opened the guild member list and saw that only five names remained. The other four were gray, indicating that they were offline.

Momonga's fury immediately dissipated, leaving behind only endless emptiness and loneliness.

Thirty-seven people had long since left the guild completely, while the remaining four had not logged in for a long time. Momonga was the only one left in the entire guild.

Ainz Ooal Gown, a gaming guild founded by forty-two "heteromorphic" players, had once ranked seventh in the world at its peak.

The only reason it was seventh was because Ainz Ooal Gown recruited only "heteromorphic-type" players, and the entire guild had merely forty-two members.

Compared to the great guilds with hundreds of members, Ainz Ooal Gown truly counted as a small group in the game.

But precisely because they had so few members, and because "heteromorphic-type" players were always persecuted and condemned as symbols of evil,

the entire guild had become even more united. With tremendous passion, they had achieved these incredible results.

However, the guild had long passed its prime and had fallen beyond the top twenty in the world rankings.

The reason its ranking remained in the twenties despite only having five members left

was not only because the members who had quit left behind a rich inheritance, but also because the game was about to shut down and there were barely any players left on the entire server.

Today was the day the server would close.

Momonga held an exquisite staff in his skeletal hand.

The staff was modeled after the Staff of Hermes. Seven snakes coiled around it, each snake's agonized mouth holding a gemstone of a different color.

This was the Guild Weapon, the sole guild weapon possessed by every guild and the symbol of Ainz Ooal Gown. If the staff were destroyed, the entire guild would disband.

Thus, although this weapon was powerful, Momonga, as the nominal guild leader, had never used it. It had always been displayed in the room where the Supreme Sovereigns held their meetings.

Cyberpunk life in reality made people numb. Only the virtual world could bring joy and passion.

The game had been running for twelve years, and Momonga had spent the most precious years of his youth here.

That was why Momonga held such deep feelings for the Great Tomb of Nazarick and every member of the guild.

He regarded the friends who had fought alongside him as his only family, his only loved ones.

After all, in reality, he was all alone.

Momonga would not allow himself to do anything that might bring danger to the guild. Even though this staff was immensely powerful, he would never permit himself to use it.

"Today, let me be a little selfish, everyone..."

Momonga murmured to the empty room. Even though he wore only the appearance of a skeleton, one could still sense the sorrow and loneliness deep in his heart.

To Momonga, the guild members' departure and Ainz Ooal Gown's decline felt like being abandoned by his family, like losing his home. It filled him with pain.

Whenever no one logged in before, he liked talking to himself here, reminiscing alone, like an elderly empty-nester who had lost all his family.

"Still, Zarathustra and Tabula Smaragdina said this staff was designed after the appearance of the 'Staff of Hermes,' but what exactly is the 'Staff of Hermes'?"

Momonga toyed with the staff in his hand and muttered in confusion.

Zarathustra and Tabula Smaragdina were fairly like-minded.

In this numb era, those two, who both loved classical mythology, always had plenty to talk about.

Momonga once again sank into reminiscing like an old man with dementia.

Everyone had once sat here, laughing and talking. Ulbert and Touch Me were always arguing with each other, while Zarathustra and Tabula Smaragdina discussed mythological stories no one else knew.

Meanwhile, he and Peroroncino whispered about gal games, occasionally laughing in ways that drew contemptuous stares.

They had once forged the Guild Weapon together and ventured forth every day as one.

They had once faced powerful enemies together and overcome difficulties together. Even during their most dangerous moment, the entire guild had nearly been destroyed.

That had been Ainz Ooal Gown's most glorious and prosperous era.

Bit by bit, those memories resurfaced in Momonga's mind. Afraid that he would forget them all, he engraved them deeply into his memory.

After sitting there in a daze for who knew how long, Momonga stood up, his magnificent robes swaying as he left the round table.

In these final moments before the server shut down, Momonga decided to walk through the entire Great Tomb of Nazarick one more time, making it the finest memory of his youth.

Passing through the hall containing the round table, he first arrived at a hemispherical great hall behind it.

Four-colored crystals glimmered on the ceiling of the hall. Seventy-two holes lined its walls, each holding a statue.

Every statue was modeled after a demon, and the great hall was called the "Key of Solomon."

Those statues corresponded to the Seventy-Two Pillars of Demons—Golems made from ultra-rare magical metals.

These demon statues had been made under the leadership of Tabula Smaragdina, the great alchemist, alongside several demon-type players.

However, after creating more than sixty of them, they found it too troublesome and gave up.

Zarathustra was the one who could not stand it. Believing that they could not leave the task unfinished halfway through, he voluntarily completed the remaining demon statues.

"I remember that the statues Zarathustra completed were Baal, Barbatos, Baimon, Morax, Asmodeus, Cain, and Gremory, right? What else was there?"

"...Ugh, these demon names are really hard to remember."

Momonga complained and scratched his bald head.

The only one who liked this kind of ritualistic flair and setting was Tabula Smaragdina.

After passing through this hall, Momonga found a stone door before him, carved with images of angels and demons.

Pushing open the door, he was greeted by a magnificent hall.

The hall was vast enough to accommodate hundreds of people without feeling crowded. Roman stone pillars stood in staggered rows, supporting a domed ceiling high above.

The walls were predominantly white, decorated with lavish golden patterns. Impossibly grand crystal lamps made from multicolored gemstones radiated dreamlike hues.

Huge banners bearing different patterns hung upon the walls. Forty-two banners fluttered from ceiling to floor.

Beneath every banner stood a throne with a backrest reaching toward the sky, symbolizing the guild's forty-two members.

This was the deepest and most important place within the Great Tomb of Nazarick—the Throne Room!

Although Momonga was the guild leader, he was no different from the others.

Momonga clearly understood that he was not the strongest person in the guild, not the one who spent the most money, nor the smartest or most knowledgeable.

The reason he had become guild leader was simply because of his gentle personality and his serious, responsible nature, so everyone had nominated him.

It was precisely because he was overly serious and responsible that he felt lonely and unwilling to accept the guild's current decline.

Momonga stared blankly at the Throne Room. Red light flickered within his skeletal skull, and his emotions rose and fell.

At last, he let out a regretful sigh and began carefully examining the hall.