Divine Path System

"Master, friendly fire! Friendly fire! Nexus scouts are attacking our scouting squads."

The peace on the sleek, aquiline ship glowing with the green of a forest was broken by the nervous voice.

"Grnnn!"

The ship shook, a deep cry bellowing in the space, sending ripples across the neigboring star systems.

A new spacequake would be recorded today by the civilizations nearby, had they not been at an existential war that killed most of them.

"Grnnn!" "Grnnn!" "Grnnn!"

The smaller ships following the mother ship were blasted away, some sustaining minor damage and others major.

The master of the ship narrowed his eyes and his aura enveloped the large structure. "Shhh, it's alright. It's alright."

Even those gentle words were spoke in an authoritative tone. Surprisingly, the ship calmed down.

"This…" The scout captain swallowed nervously.

The legends seemed to be true. This wasn't a ship, it's the great bird Veridian itself! It's the fruit of a rank 9 scientist who wanted to build something as great as dragons.

"M-Master, the friendly fire with Nexus forces," Shaking himself out of the shock, the captain continued. "My team lost too many already."

"Captain."The master was only three feet tall and seemed to lack even a pound of muscle on his body.

But the eight feet tall captain, shredded like a champion, felt an ovewhelming pressure from the dwarf.

"You were enlistened by a recommendation letter, weren't you?"

It was a shameful secret, no matter how open reccomendations were. The captain was repeatedly warned by his family not to reveal his entry.

The Genesis Empire might've remained united after the fall of Keman but it was corrupted beyond measure. Asherah simply couldn't inspire the same fear to maintain the minimum standards.

"Rather than being a scout member for some time and then getting your due promotion, you're directly made a captain. It shows." The master's voice wasn't harsh. It was soft, delicate even.

But it was heavy, scary and omnious, like the whisper of a giant beast.

There was something more than his rank 9 power, perhaps it's the scent of blood, perhaps it's the ingrained authorit, but the captain couldn't even think of lying.

"Y-Yes, Master. I came through reccomendation."

"Indubitably." The master nodded, nonchalant and indifferent.

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The captain heaved a sigh of relief. He'd have been punished harshly in the older days but now, maybe these things were allowed?

"The friendly fire—"

"There is no friendly fire." The short man's three eyes glowed with a golden light and his voice grew low. "The day Jai fell, we are no longer allies."

The captain shivered, eyes widening at the realization of what's to come.

"Any proper leader would've seen this long ago. Don't be surprised." The master shook his head.

"B-But once this war ends, the a-alliance, the confederation will—"

"We can't stop the chaos. If the fires are destined to burn through Eden, so be it." The master said softly, the strength always present in his voice seeming to weaken with those words.

"T-Then our scouts…"

"Tell them to disengage if it's in the range of divine rankers. We…do not want to provoke the Nexus or Mors." The captain spoke, eyes showing complicated emotions. "We're not in a position to provoke them."

"Roger." Even as he muttered that word through instinct, the captain couldn't help look at the ship master in shock.

Frustration filled his heart at such cowardly order and then anger. As he turned around, his raging heart suddenly cooled down as a thought struck his mind.

'Ah, I see.'

Recommendation was still a crime. But the master simply didn't care anymore. His thoughts were on the chaos ahead.

On the chaos not even a celestial rank 9 like him could hope to stop.

No, not just him, perhaps even the strongest divine rank 1 wouldn't be able to stop the horror that's about to come.

Nexus and Mors, now without an external enemy to keep them all in check, would have no reason to not stretch their claws against a weakened Genesis.

All Mother Asherah, despite all her attempts, was the weakest among the three rulers.

And rumors say, no, not just rumors, the captain himself had seen that great phantom that day, the phantom that was said to stand over the entire galaxy.

The great phantom had injured All Mother Asherah. And she was still recuperating. The war couldn't come at a worse time.

Even though their army was nearly as good as the other two, their leader was the weakest.

Supposing they won more than they should, it'd only provoke the divine rankers from the two empires to take action.

"If he has such power to injure her, why doesn't he support us in the great war? How can there be anything greater than the fall of Jai and security of Genesis?"

The captain whose entire life had been spent as the talentless prince of his province couldn't understand.

But it wasn't the fault of his intellect or his small horizon.

Even his superiors and their superiors, all the way to the divine rankers except Asherah did not understand why that man didn't show up in this great war.

The Jai Empire's princes, especially those who reached the site where Varian fought off the 7th Prince too had no idea why he didn't appear.

But they couldn't remain happy at the situation as the existing enemies were already pushing them to death.

"For the glory of God Emperor!"

"For the glory!"

Star systems lit with the glow of civilization were conquered in the span of a day.

If it's the army of Mors, every creature, including fish, animals and birds were turned into Undead.

If it's the army of Nexus, every creature was enslaved through the power of Order.

If it's the army of Genesis, they were given an option of surrender, to live as slaves for the rest of their lives with the promise to achieve citizenship through hardwork and a guarentee that their children could become formal citizens as long as they didn't have a record of disloyalty.

Genesis' move was the most benevolent of all but even that meant a life of slavery for nearly an entire generation.

Some of the Jai elites, who lived lavish lives, were already approaching the stakeholders in the army to make cooperations and gain their citizenship.

A lot of them were already promised citizenship. These elites carried enormous wealth, came from established families. And even more than the wealthy, the skilled experts from fields of space and time were given extremely favorable conditions.

Most of such experts would never be slaves. And the wealthy who were actually rich and knew how to make more money than relying on inheritance were already striking alliances with the genesis stakeholders.

The strategizers of Genesis hoped their actions would form a group of hardworking Jai race who would try to integrate into their empire.

What they created was a new group of elites. And the affect of this soon reflected back in the territory of Genesis.

If it's just this, it could still be stopped by the officers at the top of the military command.

But even the divine rankers of Genesis made certain deals with some willing divine princes of Jai hoping to secure more power in the inevitable war with Nexus or Mors.

This meant the core people under such princes would also be transferred here, preferably into good positions.

So, they couldn't stop what was happening.

Back home, it had become apparent that Genesis would barely hold any territory of the Jai Empire. And even if it did, it'd come under heavy contest from both Nexus and Mors. Eventually, they'd lose whatever territory they managed to hold.

As such, other than wealth and people, Genesis would not be holding any more land.

Even though the pie of wealth increased, far more elites were being added.

Something had to give.

The new elites of the Genesis ended up being the victims of this change.

These were new races that just established themselves in the power hierarchy of the empire. New families that climbed the political ladder. New companies that carved themselves a place in the empire's market.

Even before the elites of Jai could settle, the reshuffling of power within Genesis already began. And it began with bloodshed.

Unlike the reign of Keman, things were quite lax these days.

The divine rankers had a lot more power. They did as they pleased, not caring about the puny mortals and equally puny celestials.

So, a wave of persecution, massacres and violence were unleashed.

The new elites who were still happy thinking they rooted themselves in the core of the empire were violently and brutally uprooted.

Some only lost their positions. Many lost all lives. Some were still fighting. Most didn't have as many connections as the old elites and were thus taken aback by the unexpected wave of violence, trying to win a war that caught them off guard.

One such race happened to be humans and the the variant human races of Hortus, Hortians.

Other than the loyalist settled by Varian in a planet of Pala who remained more or less unaffected thanks to them not entering the political structure in the first place, the rest suffered badly.

Most of the humans were rooted in the neighboring kingdoms, some even going as far as the edge of the empire.

Since humanity had many high ranking celestials near the end of the rebellion, they were quite a few factions within humans.

In the empire, all these factions were quite powerful as even a rank 7 was pillar of a kingdom.

Thanks to the blessings of Hortus, humans—and related races—were able to cultivate plenty of rank 7s, not to mention many rank 6s and below.

As a result, the biggest new elite in the empire were actually humans.

Certain groups were massacred overnight while others were fighting a bitter battle.

It seemed that the subordinates of several divine rankers decided that humans must make space for the new elites.

The mysterious origin of humans previously gave them an edge over their opponents as no one could guess their history and relations.

But now that same unclear origin turned into a justification to uproot them without any mercy.

The political opponents of humans—the old powers who were in contest with them and the fallen powers who they replaced—showed no mercy under such circumstances.

Targetted by forces all over the empire, the human race as a whole was under severe threat.

While they would not go extinct, the future seemed bleak.

As a result, this group of humans, who were outside Hortus for just fifty years, ended up contacting the group of loyalists and begged for help.

Finally, a team of envoys sent by these humans across the empire followed a few loyalists who were given emergency contact by Varian long ago.

Once the contact was invoked, a light shone from the sky and seemed to verify their identities. Then, space cracked and devoured them in, taking them straight to Hortus.