Chapter 375: The End

Mila

“So, it looks like he’s finally ready.” Diana smiled as she walked up to Mila, her and Isaiah’s two year old son squirming in her arms.

“Yeah.” Mila chuckled slightly as her senses took in the A rank planet they were on, a completely transformed Tanavar, covered in natural landscapes filled with lush flora and fauna instead of an endless battlefield of blood and bones. And it was the center of a giant multi-galaxy spanning formation her husband had been setting up for the last several tens of millions of years.

There were no cultivators on the planet, only monsters—even Diana and Isaiah’s child, albeit human-shaped, a monster, a mix between ghost and dragon. And it was due to that child, and an epiphany Aalam had during the boy’s birth, that allowed this date to move forward tens of millions of years from when they’d originally been predicting.

With the power of Aalam’s formation, built with a ridiculous amount of resources taken from the many universes she and her husband controlled; Aalam’s now forty-eight single element early grade True Laws, each at the peak of their grade as his further advancement of the Twelve Element Primal Code cultivation technique required God rank racial abilities to optimize the power of the 22nd level; and his twelve divine roles, earned through careful manipulation of faith energy by her and her subordinates, her husband was now ready to advance to divinity through the path of faith, the path of Laws, and the path of soul and body all at the same time.

“Has he told you what new ridiculous racial abilities he has planned for your new race?”

“No.” Mila smiled as she shook her head. “He said he wants it to be a surprise, so I deliberately haven’t pried. And, given the resources involved and the complexity of the formation, I don’t even have any good guesses other than that the elemental affinities of the new race are probably going to be ridiculous”

“I think one will be something related to enhancing curses and blessings.” Nana Xara appeared on the planet next to them, breaking the unspoken no cultivators rule Mila had imposed after they’d revitalized the world.

“I think another will be something related to making it possible for the two of them to be reborn even if none of their energy is left.” Immortalia appeared next to Nana Xara, the two women having grown far closer than Mila really would have liked, their repeated competitions over who could raise the best disciples creating endless chaos for the United Federation of Planets.

“He’s using parts of Primordius’s body in the formation.” Elandra, or more accurately Firellia, her original name she’d retaken after being reincarnated as a phoenix again, appeared next to Immortalia, both in their human forms, Firellia’s looking almost exactly like her old human form as Elandara, only with a lot more red and other fiery colors. “He’s got to be going for his grandfather’s insane energy regeneration.”

“I don’t know.” Irena, Mila’s grandmother, appeared next to the three ancient women. “He’s been very interested in studying Mila’s Enlightened Resonance racial ability, which allows her to share the enlightenment effects of her subordinates. I think it likely he’ll create another racial ability like that.”

“Well, he’s also shown interest in Diana’s prodigy line racial ability as well.” Isaiah appeared next to his wife, taking their child from her and bouncing the boy up and down in his arms. “I wouldn’t put it past him updating his race to further boost his energy quality along with his core.”

“If he’s going to copy one of Diana’s racial abilities, it wouldn’t be that one.” Krysta also appeared, along with her mother, her husband, and several of Aalam and Diana’s other half siblings. “This is Aalam we’re talking about. He’ll go full ridiculous and model a racial ability off of Diana’s most unfair one, allowing him and Mila a whole second race with its own racial abilities.”

“My bet is on something that boosts the connection with his subordinates or Territories further.” Vanar Tedros also arrived, along with Edi, Silvia, and several other members of the upper echelon of the United Federation of Planets.

“No. You’re all wrong.” Sally Davies appeared along with her husband, Li Dai-Zhao, and a whole bunch of their descendants. “Aalam’s old enough now that he understands what’s truly important in life, so he’ll awaken to racial abilities to help him better handle the passing of years with good mental health.”

“Bah.” Nana Xara rolled her eyes. “He already has a skill for that, that one that makes him operate like a feelingless robot. His primary new racial ability will be related to curses and blessings.”

“I’ve changed my mind.” Immortalia stepped forward, right in front of Nana Xara. “I think Krysta’s correct. Only something that ridiculous would be worthy of my apprentice.”

“No.” Firellia stepped forward as well. “He’ll be going for endless energy.”

“I don’t know.” Edi spoke up, risking the wrath of the three ancient women with his words even as he carefully maneuvered himself so Mila was between him and them. “I think you’re underestimating the reasons behind why he wouldn’t tell my master. I think there will be a racial ability that further enhances their ability to share energy and power with each other.”

“Hey!” Aalam shouted from nearby, where he was sitting cross legged on a mountain looking over at everyone with an exasperated expression. “Can you go do your guessing somewhere else, like say half the universe away? Your divinities and Laws will mess up the formation once it’s activated, and you will not enjoy what I do to you if you mess this up for me!”

Almost instantly, everyone disappeared, them all knowing Aalam well enough to know that his threats, on the rare cases he made them, were real. And, smiling to herself, Mila teleported away as well.

The gigantic formation then activated. Dozens of divine corpses of long-slain human gods appeared around the planet. The stars of the surrounding galaxies began to dim, their energy converted into mana and sent directly toward Aalam. And a spark of Universal Undeath Cleansing Chain Lightning appeared in front of Aalam’s chest before it entered into his body and started to merge with him.

Energy from 96 elemental universes, all with different mixtures of elements, flowed into the Prime Material and into the edges of Aalam’s formation, where the energy was then guided toward him. Powerful artifacts of undeath, such as the weapons of all the undead elder gods, appeared around Tanavar and at focal points throughout the formation, converting about 12.5% of the formation’s mana into the power of undeath. And natural energy from thousands of material universes flowed into the Prime Material, mixing with concentrated faith energy from almost half of all lifeforms in the known universes saying a prayer to the Heavenly Spark Soul King at the same time.

Aalam’s dark blue hair began to flutter as power at a level never before seen flowed into his body, his orange eyes flashing. The plain dark sweatpants he’d been wearing, along with his gray T-shirt, both disintegrated, as did his underclothes, leaving him completely naked. And runic tattoos, carved energy channels to help guide the forces of nature, appeared on and under his skin.

All the lifeforms on Tanavar, from microorganisms to plants and animals, lost about six percent of their natural lifespans as a vital component of their souls was stolen. Primal energy from the entire multiverse flowed into the Prime Material and then into Aalam’s formation before flowing toward him, to the point his small body was completely surrounded by an almost literal sea of it. And the souls of all the gods in Aalam’s soulbound afterlife disintegrated into their base components and flowed into his stomach.

Then, as Aalam’s race and bloodline merged, advancing toward God rank, his divine roles solidified and his Law energy, along with the power of faith, infused his body.

Aalam advanced, becoming only the second god to reach divinity through the path of soul and body ascension, but there was a lot of energy left over, and, as planned, Mila appeared next to him, where that extra energy then all flowed into her, making her the third.

And both of them far surpassed Aalam’s master’s son-in-Law from 45 trillion years ago.

They, the emperor and empress of all creation, reached an entirely new level of power.

And then they both passed out.

***

Xara

Nana Xara, along with the other gods and soon-to-be gods of the United Federation of Planets, appeared around Aalam and Mila, who were holding hands as they slept. And she felt very, very proud.

Then she summoned out a quill and a pot of indelible A rank ink from her spatial storage device and began to write repeated text onto both of their faces, text consisting of the words ‘I will not become an evil overlord’ in all the most common languages of the Prime Material.

Sure, the two would become the undisputed most powerful beings in the multiverse after they woke up, but that was no reason to treat them with any new level of respect.

The End

Authors Note: Thank you, everyone, for supporting Shadow of the Soul King, and I hope you enjoyed this ending. I've immensely enjoyed writing this story over the last several years, and a lot of that joy came from interacting with you readers.

I have already written seven chapters of my new story, Emperor of Soul Beasts, and I will be posting the second chapter of that story here next week. So I hope some of you will stay on this patreon to read that one, which will be updated at the same rate Shadow of the Soul King was.

Emperor of Soul Beasts is the story of a wife telling the tale of how her husband became the absolute ruler of their world, with a framing device modeled after Name of the Wind, a magic system that is a mix of Pokemon and typical xianxia cultivation, and a setting that is very much not a planet. Based on the eight or so arcs I already have planned, I think it will be a better story than Shadow of the Soul King, and I look forward to your feedback and enjoyment.

Also, finally, I have started editing the beginning of Shadow of the Soul King with plans to turn the first 47 chapters into the first ebook of the series. And I will post here, on reddit, and on RoyalRoad and Scribblehub when it is about to be released.

Thank you, everyone, for your patronage!