The Great Emperor did have a physical body. He always appeared before others as a mass of flames simply because he did not particularly like his own physical form.
And so, for ten thousand years, he had never spoken to the gods in his physical form.
Until a small, unexpected incident occurred right under his nose.
One of the dragon runes beneath his flame dais developed a consciousness of his own while he was idling about.
The Great Emperor had always enjoyed teasing anything and everything. Intrigued by this rune that had suddenly become self-aware, he filled his head with all sorts of nonsense every day.
For instance, the Chief Gods of the Divine Temple were all lazy, gluttonous bastards who left him to worry about everything all day long.
Or how the Main System and its collection of systems, despite having been created from divine sense, lacked even the slightest human warmth. All they cared about were missions, missions, and more missions.
Eventually, under the influence of everything he had been taught, the little dragon rune went astray too and learned to talk back. Whenever a Chief God came to see the Great Emperor, he would make snide, sarcastic remarks, imitating what he had learned.
The Deities hated the little dragon rune so much they ground their teeth, but because of the Great Emperor, they dared not lay a hand on him.
One day, they finally got their chance.
The Great Emperor crafted a body for the little dragon rune from exceptionally pure earth element, then sent him to various domains to learn.
The Deities, who had long been itching to get back at the little dragon rune, could not care less whether taking action themselves was beneath their station. They set him up at every turn.
In every