The Jade Emperor had spent centuries securing his position.
Bringing Buddhism into Heaven had been one of his most effective political moves. It served as a counterweight to the growing influence of the Taoist immortals, preventing any single faction from becoming powerful enough to challenge his authority.
His treatnt of his own bloodline stemd from a different concern.
Fear.
In every pantheon, war gods represented danger.
They embodied conquest, conflict, and rebellion.
More importantly, they were often the greatest threat to the ruler sitting atop the divine hierarchy.
History had already proven it.
Xingtian.
The only deity in recorded myth who had ever fought his way into Heaven itself.
Back then, the Heavenly Emperor possessed supre divine power. Even Xingtian had ultimately fallen before him.
Xingtian died.
The Heavenly Emperor remained.
And the throne of Heaven never changed hands.
But the Jade Emperor was not that ancient sovereign.
He never believed his own power could compare to the Heavenly Emperor's.
Which ant he couldn't afford risks.
Not even unlikely ones.
That was why he had forced Erlang Shen, his own nephew, out of Heaven.
The immortal most qualified to beco Heaven's next war god had been exiled to the mortal realm, forever denied that path.
Sun Wukong had suffered a similar fate.
The Monkey King had been maneuvered out of the Celestial Court and pushed toward the Buddhist realms instead.
The Jade Emperor had always been a scher.
Every move carefully calculated.
Every threat quietly neutralized.
And because powerful forces stood behind his throne, most immortals could do little more than grit their teeth and endure.
As long as he remained ruler of Heaven, things would continue exactly as he wished.
So when the disturbances spreading through reality reached the Celestial Court, he imdiately summoned his officials.
The grand hall filled with gods and immortals.
Seated atop his throne, the Jade Emperor looked down upon them.
"My ministers," he said, his voice echoing through the hall, "does anyone know the source of these disturbances shaking Heaven and Earth?"
After ruling for more than two thousand years, he possessed the authority of a true monarch.
The mont he spoke, silence fell.
The assembled immortals bowed.
After a brief pause, one official stepped forward, holding a jade tablet.
"Your Majesty, Longhear and Keeneye possess divine hearing and celestial sight. If anyone can locate the source of these disturbances, it would be them."
The Jade Emperor nodded.
"Summon them."
The pair served as guardian deities of the Taoist pantheon, gifted with extraordinary perception.
Yet to the Jade Emperor, they were still subjects.
Compared to soone like Heimdall of Asgard, their abilities were hardly exceptional.
A command was issued.
Celestial soldiers departed.
Monts later, two unusual immortals entered the hall.
One was blind, but his ears were enormous.
The other was gaunt, with eyes that bulged unnaturally from his face.
They approached the throne and dropped to one knee.
"Longhear and Keeneye greet Your Majesty."
"What task requires our presence?"
Many Taoist immortals, particularly the more powerful ones, never truly respected the Jade Emperor.
Publicly, they obeyed.
Privately, they felt otherwise.
Longhear and Keeneye were among the most blatant examples.
They barely concealed their indifference.
Unfortunately for the Jade Emperor, they enjoyed the protection of influential Taoist factions.
As long as they didn't openly violate Heaven's laws, there was little he could do.
So he ignored their attitude and repeated his question.
"Can either of you determine the source of these disturbances affecting Heaven and Earth?"
"You won't need them."
A voice echoed through the hall.
"I'm already here."
Drex Valen stepped into the High Heaven Palace.
Every immortal froze.
One mont the space before the throne had been empty.
The next, a man stood there.
No one had sensed his arrival.
No one had seen him enter.
Then they looked at him.
And silence consud the hall.
Mortals would have seen only a man.
The gods saw sothing entirely different.
Radiant divine light poured from Drex's body, illuminating Heaven and Earth.
The sun, moon, and stars seed to revolve around him.
Even the Celestial Court Dinsion itself reacted to his presence.
The entire realm began to resonate.
It sounded like a hymn.
Or perhaps a lant.
A plea for rcy from the dinsion itself.
The authority of Destruction and Ruin was vast.
Comparable to the highest cosmic powers in existence.
If Drex chose to bind himself to this multiverse, he could instantly gain access to its full power.
Every limitation holding him back would disappear.
He would ascend directly into the ranks of true multiversal entities.
In effect, he would replace Galactus and inherit the eternal duty of consuming worlds.
The multiverse desired him.
A Kryptonian unlike any that had ever existed.
But Drex had no interest in such a future.
Binding himself to a single multiverse would make transcending it vastly more difficult.
Perhaps impossible.
His ambitions stretched far beyond that.
Even without actively invoking the power of Destruction and Ruin, his re presence was enough to make every living being understand one simple truth.
He was unimaginably powerful.
The Jade Emperor rose from his throne.
For the first ti in centuries, genuine alarm crossed his face.
The stronger a being was, the more clearly they could perceive the horror standing before them.
Though none of them could yet see the black hole hidden behind that overwhelming divine radiance.
"Who are you?" the Jade Emperor demanded.
Drex stared at him.
His eyes drifted toward the green armor that made Heaven's ruler resemble a feudal samurai more than the supre sovereign of the Celestial Court.
For a mont, he said nothing.
Then he made his decision.
With a single thought, the Celestial Court ceased to exist.
The palace.
The heavens.
The immortals.
The throne.
Everything vanished.
The Jade Emperor's expression froze forever.
Gone.
The Black Hole Dinsion imdiately began consuming the Celestial Court Dinsion.
Carefully.
thodically.
Drex wanted every fragnt.
Every soul.
Every drop of power.
Missing even one piece would be wasteful.
"The gateways to these divine realms are hidden," he mused as the dinsion collapsed into his own. "But not hidden enough."
The real danger was alerting the others.
If the remaining pantheons realized what was happening and sealed their dinsional entrances, finding them later would beco troubleso.
Drex doubted these gods had never faced dinsional invasions before.
Most likely, their combined strength had always been enough to repel such threats.
After all, dinsional lords rarely possessed the ability to physically enter reality.
That limitation had protected the pantheons for ages.
Unfortunately for them, Drex was an exception.
When the Celestial Court Dinsion was finally consud, the Black Hole Dinsion expanded once more.
Then Drex rebuilt it.
Not the flawed version he had destroyed.
The true Celestial Court.
Or at least his vision of it.
He created celestial armies.
Celestial generals.
The Twenty-Eight Mansions of the Stars.
An entire heavenly bureaucracy.
Every detail reconstructed from mory.
These creations would serve as camouflage for the divine wars to co.
In reality, they were vastly superior to the originals.
Before long, a great assembly of immortals knelt before a newly raised throne.
A throne now occupied by a different ruler.
"Greetings, Heavenly Emperor!"
Their voices thundered across Heaven.
Drex leaned back upon the throne and smiled faintly.
"Now then."
His fingers tapped the armrest.
"Which pantheon should fall first?"
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