Zagronan sat on his throne in True Hell.
It had been a thousand years since the great disaster, as it became known.
A thousand years is not enough time to repair all the damage, so the fixes are still temporary. However, the standard functions are working just fine, with no more disruptions.
True Hell is functioning well, like clockwork.
He stood up from his throne.
"I'm going to see Lana!" he said.
Rachel sighed.
This love interest in Lana is irrational in her view.
Lana obviously doesn't like Zagronan and even hates him.
She is incapable of love and gratitude; no matter how much anyone helps her, she never pays back any debt.
Even if someone saves her from death, the next moment, she might kill the person for the pettiest of benefits.
Nobody in their right mind associates with such a demon.
Unfortunately for Zag, he is anything but in the 'right mind.'
...
Lana was lucky back then.
Her world was not damaged at all.
She looked at the boy in front of her.
He looked about 30 and was in her 'office' for a work interview.
Of course, this work interview is one of her games.
It is supposed to start a sweet love affair, in which the boy would be consumed at its end.
"Okay, talk about your past, traits, and interests," Lana asked with an enticing smile.
"Well, my past … I was born into a middle-class family; I was a bit of a troublemaker in my school years, but my grades were good. I like to workout when I'm angry or stressed out. Also, one of my hobbies ... " he continued talking, seemingly unaffected by Lana's smile.
Lana looks like a very beautiful woman at that moment. The fact that the boy is not attracted at all, even though she is clearly acting inappropriately and dressed inappropriately, could only be because he is gay or restrains himself exceptionally well.
At the start of the interview, she had official clothes on; gradually, she took more and more off, and just now, as she asked the question, she only had underwear on.
In her 'modern' world's culture, nudity is unacceptable.
Still, the boy did not flinch.
One reason is that the job is very well-paying, and he is determined to take the job.
He needs the money for his children's school.
That's right, he already has a wife and children.
It only makes it more fun in Lana's eyes.
Therefore, he is definitely not gay.
The boy has extremely high determination.
She has already studied his past thoroughly; he also smells extremely well.
"He would be delicious," she smiled sweetly.
But, with a red light, everything in the room exploded!
The whole building fell!
As for the boy, it would be lucky if anyone could find his bones!
"You damn it!" she screamed in a very high pitch that broke all the glasses in the entire city.
"What?" Zagronan asked, confused.
"Hey, Zag, it's time to have a conversation! I don't want you anymore! It's the end for us!" she said, extremely annoyed. She would have ripped him apart if she had any chance of succeeding.
"What? You want to get rid of me?" he asked confusedly.
"Pretty much," she nodded.
Zagronan touched his chin, nodded, "Okay!" and teleported away.
Lana looked doubtfully, but he really left, so she looked around and sighed.
Another delicious prey was killed off prematurely.
...
"Are you going to leave her just like this?" Rachel asked.
"Yeah! Lana is dedicated to the way of true demons, and I love her for it. Leaving me was inevitable because she couldn't love anyone, not even me! But I still love her and will forever love her, even if she rejects me!" he said.
"This is not what I expected at all!" Rachel was a bit shocked.
She hadn't expected this even with more than a billion years with Zagronan. Or, rather, because she had been with him for a long time, she expected him to stick to Lana no matter what.
"Okay! Now what?" Rachel #1 asked.
"I'm going to get a universal law!" he said excitedly.
"That won't work anymore; as you know, the Office no longer licenses any universal law!" Rachel said.
"Hey, I'm immortal! So, I can definitely find a way!" he said optimistically.
"No, even after this long in the universe, only the office and other rank 14s can use universal laws without tokens," she said.
"We'll see," he frowned.
"But that's a long-term plan! I want to visit a few other Hell-centered worlds you mentioned before!" he said.
Rachel nodded.
She indeed did that.
It may help Zag to improve his true Hell.
Rachel #1 does care about Zagronan and would help if there were no other pressing matters.
...
Savior is sleeping on a bed.
He is already rank 11 with a million complete laws.
Most of his complete laws are related to the living, the undead, life force, negative life force, etc.
His strength is at the peak of rank 11.
Of course, there are those rank 11s with far more complete laws than him, but compared to other rank 11s, he is at the peak in combat power.
After all, he is also a Rachel host; even if he has far fewer complete laws than many older rank 11s, his body is nearly rank 12 and can fight with any rank 11.
These days, Savior spends most of his time sleeping.
He never reached his goal of finding true love.
It's tragic.
No matter who, everyone cheated on him. Maybe not now or a thousand years, but at the million-year mark, no one remained loyal.
It broke him.
As a result, in the last few million years, he only slept.
Not even the last majestic battle caused him to look around.
He is depressed.
"Hey, go help people! Why are you wasting your time?" Rachel tried to cheer him up.
"Help people? So what? I have been doing it for longer than I can remember, and I haven't made a dent! People suffer endlessly, and no matter what I do, nothing changes! I'm too small to have an effect!" he said dejectedly.
"then, try to get bigger so you can!" she said.
No answer.
Rachel sighed.
He has been saying things like this for a few million years.
"Okay," Rachel nodded and went silent.
Countless records of immortals who became like this after living for a long time exist in the database; Rachel is not unfamiliar with it.
Savior refused to save his mind because 'It makes me stale, unable to evolve.'
Now, his state of mind is depressed, and he has no saved mind.
Saving the mind is a common method for immortals.
They save their state of mind for a time when they feel at their peak and replace it when they feel down; this way, they can always be in their peak state.
...
Bertha is rank 11 with more than 100,000 complete laws and a rank 12 body.
She looked at Milan, who was sleeping beside her.
She has been long free of the influence of the light elements.
But, her love for her children and Milan did not lessen. Her complete laws are mostly related to love and kindness.
She became even more receptive to love and caring.
She protected heaven, trying to preserve this place.
When heaven's singular, complete law melted during the great disaster, and everything began to fall apart, she held everything together and fixed it.
As a rank 10 world with a single time-space complete law, fixing it was easy.
Even after a billion years, everything is still the same in heaven.
Bertha now knows much more about light elements.
Light and dark elements are sold by 'Alive.' They were initially made exclusively for the Divine species.
Divine species in light elements will evolve into angels, and those in dark elements will develop into demons.
However, other uses for light and dark elements were discovered as time passed.
Light and dark elements have a much more pronounced effect on other species. They are drugs extremely suitable for drawing emotions out of mortals.
Therefore, light and dark elements are used in reactors.
Reactors are worlds that draw negative and positive emotions out of mortals to generate realization energy.
The effects of light elements on humans and elves make them numb. They never get bored, never get upset by anything, never get depressed, and do not care about time or have the drive to do anything long-term.
It looks good, but it's a disaster actually. Nobody achieves anything when they are affected by light elements.
Bertha reached rank 11 because she was essentially force-fed pills by Rachel.
...
The Anti-Rachel alliance has become the number one force in the universe; some less-informed people consider it stronger than Rachel.
Its name hasn't changed, but its true aim has long changed from fighting Rachel to unifying the universe.
Currently, more than 20% of all civilizations in the universe are members, including all the top ten strongest.
Members must pay taxes every century, and the tax is quite heavy. However, poorer civilizations might receive more than they pay.
There are many benefits.
First, technical support.
Weaker civilizations usually have problems coding their worlds, and if anything goes wrong, in the past, they could have only asked the nearest rank 12 civilization at a high cost.
However, now, Anti-Rachel covers all civilizations and will solve coding problems.
Anti-Rachel has a big trading center, with most things available to buy at a fair price.
Anti-Rachel's trading center made the Rank 14 civilization's 'Market' useless among lower ranks. The Rank 14 civilization market also has a trading center that sells everything; Rank 12s and 13s still buy from it frequently because most things they require are specific and aren't found in Anti-Rachel's internal trading center.
Another advantage of Anti-Rachel is its universal court system that fairly adjudicates conflicts between civilizations. Nowadays, all disputes are solved peacefully; nobody dares to challenge the court's rulings.
One more advantage is direct support.
If the member civilizations meet certain conditions, they can receive support from Anti-Rachel.
The Anti-Rachel Congress passes laws such as, 'If you do 'x', we will grant you 'y' amount of materials/energy.'
Today, Anti-Rachel members take the conditions as laws because nobody can ignore the direct support.
Higher ranks are satisfied, too.
They all have positions in the alliance, with which comes great benefits.
Access to massive databases drawn from countless civilizations, advanced labs in every category, the ability to collaborate with others easily, even borrowing universal laws from each other.
Because Anti-Rachel is now considered one force, lending universal laws among each other is possible.
Each of those benefits is enough to convince them to join.
There are challenges, however.
Recently, the Office was sealed and became unavailable.
It means they can no longer register universal laws. They must register universal laws with the Office to use any new universal law they discover.
It's a great challenge.
But, they may have a chance at solving it because there has never been an alliance as big as Anti-Rachel.
The Anti-Rachel alliance today has databases far surpassing anything before. With everyone working together, it might be possible for them to find a way.
Also, there are two other Rank 14s, one of which, Market, is friends with them. They may be able to persuade Market to replace the Office as a token maker.
Recently, there have been other problems.
The aftermath of the battle between the Office and another unknown force, which nobody could confirm where it came from, has been disastrous.
Many civilizations were damaged or destroyed in the aftermath.
Anti-Rachel's insurance didn't cover it.
The damage was too much, and it would have gone bankrupt if it tried to cover it.
Still, Anti-Rachel helped as much as possible, granting various resources to in-need civilizations.
Also, they helped civilizations, such as Green Ice, who lost their world but still had universal laws, to create another world.
With the help of Anti-Rachel, the work on the new Green Ice world is going at lightning speed.
The next goal of Anti-Rachel is to draw in the remaining civilizations who are not members.
Its strategy is not to force anyone to join but to entice them. Especially after the disaster, many lower-grade civilizations realize it's hard to survive alone, so many are considering membership.
...
Lin Ming is talking to a few high-ranking members of Anti-Rachel.
"Any news?" a man as white as paper asked. He was the leader of the Mage Alliance.
"Nothing. The one who sealed the Office appeared out of thin air and disappeared," Lin Ming said. Of course, he knew it was Rachel but kept it a secret.
The seven other people present all have grave looks. The appearance of a random Rank 14 out of nowhere is very unsettling.
"We should deepen our relations with Market," a woman with darker skin said. She is a dark elf from the Cultivation Alliance.
Dark elves can also be cultivators.
Lin Ming is not the leader of the Cultivator Alliance anymore; still, the leader is always handpicked by him.
Lin Ming nodded.
The leader of the top ten also had a representative in this meeting. She said, "Let's negotiate with Alive, too. Times are uncertain; we cannot be secure without those two rank 14s."
All nodded.
The high-ranking people usually don't disagree on much.
All want the best for Anti-Rachel and have the same direction.
Among these high-ranking people, no one has any emotion like kindness or care for the weak. All are ruthless people who do everything that results in better outcomes, even if it destroys countless innocents.
Kind Rank 13s are a weird concept that hasn't appeared for a long time.
Kind people who limit themselves by morals usually won't go far; almost none succeed in reaching Rank 10.
Those who succeed are almost always those cheating, immoral people.
It is a sad fact that is true nearly everywhere.