Ren's boots hit the platform first.
The stone underfoot felt almost offensively normal after the Dimensional Gap—solid, cool, humming only faintly with barrier magic instead of screaming with apocalyptic law.
Ophis' small hand was still curled in his sleeve.
For a heartbeat, no one moved.
Above them, the viewing field still hung in the air, replaying an echo of a scene that should not have been possible.
Twelve Fate Palaces spanned the void like a ladder of private heavens—each one its own universe of law and light—stacked atop an Ancient Saint foundation that ignored every rule this world understood. A Heaven of Twelve Palaces: something that, in another universe, only monsters standing at the very peak of the Nine Worlds dared to claim.
Trihexa's last heads turned to stone, crumbling away into motes and folding into Ren's Dao like sacrifices into an altar. The tunnel that had clawed ExE open collapsed in on itself, every path sealed, roads between universes rewritten so they now passed only through him.
Then even that afterimage faded, leaving only a too-clear sky above a single man and a world that had just realized he stood above its ceiling.
The oppressive weight of his manifested Heaven had already withdrawn. If he'd left it up, nearly all of the crowd would still be prostrated on the tiles, unable to breathe. Even with that pressure gone, his presence felt… different.
His Dao no longer blazed; it coiled. Twelve inner heavens folded down tight behind his calm eyes, anchored to an Ancient Saint body and a Hell Suppressing Immortal Physique at half-completion that made space itself sit a little heavier around him.
For the gods and devils present, he'd just stepped somewhere beyond "top god-class." In Emperor's Domination terms, he'd finished building a Heaven of twelve Fate Palaces on an Ancient Saint foundation and wasn't bothering to hide it anymore.
Ren drew a breath, ready to speak—
—and got tackled.
Asia hit him first.
She didn't so much run as launch, a blur of blonde hair and devil wings, green eyes overflowing. Her momentum would've knocked over anyone less ridiculous; against Ren, it was like a sparrow slamming into an old tree.
"Ren!" she cried, arms wrapping tight around his waist, face burying into his chest. Her voice came out high and cracked. "Don't—don't do that, don't ever do that again, I thought—"
Whatever she "thought" dissolved into wet, hiccuping sobs.
He shifted his arm automatically to keep Ophis from getting smushed.
Then the rest hit.
Rias was a streak of crimson, demonic aura still trembling around her. She slammed into his side, fingers fisting in the front of his coat.
"You absolute idiot," she snarled, voice shaking as badly as her hands. "Do you have any idea—"
Her breath hitched. Anger crashed into grief, tangled, burned.
"You looked like you were being erased, Ren," she finished, softer, the admission scraping her throat. That image—his body dissolving into that dragon-ruining light—had branded itself into her bones.
Her words echoed Natsume's earlier whisper; hearing them out loud made Rias' eyes sting harder.
Akeno arrived on the same beat, lightning still prickling faintly over her skin. She didn't say anything at first—just slid in under Rias' arm and curled around his other side, cheek pressed along his shoulder, arms sliding between Asia and crimson hair.
Her nails bit through his coat as if she were reassuring herself he was actually solid.
"You scared me," she murmured at last, voice low and breathy. There was a tremor under the usual teasing lilt. "I really, really don't like that feeling."
Koneko came in quietly, but just as hard.
She ducked under Rias' arm and hugged him from the front, small fingers digging into fabric. Her tail was puffed to twice its size, white ears flat hard against her head.
"Stupid," she muttered into his chest, every word a tiny punch. "Scary. Idiot. Never do that again."
Behind them, Serafall was a blur of pastel and tears, barreling into the pile with all the subtlety of a magical girl truck.
"Ren-chiiii!" she wailed, wrapping herself around his back like an overpowered koala. "You can't just—just—go Trinity-level self-destruct on live broadcast! Do you know how many heart attacks you caused?! Mine! Mine specifically!"
Sona followed at a more controlled pace, but the tight set of her jaw and the way her fingers shook as she grabbed his sleeve betrayed her. Glasses askew, she glared up at him with damp, furious eyes.
"Reckless," she said sharply. "Utterly, inexcusably reckless. Don't ever put us in a position where the correct tactical choice is to watch you die, Ren. That's… unacceptable."
Kuroka slinked in last, two tails swishing, golden eyes too bright.
She didn't say a word.
She just slipped under Serafall's arm, pressed herself into his side, and buried her face against his ribs, the tips of her ears red enough to glow.
Ophis made a small sound as the dogpile converged.
She'd stayed where he'd left her when they stepped out, small bare feet set neatly on the stone, hands still clutching his sleeve. The sudden weight of devils and angels and dragons crashing into him made her sway.
Ren shifted smoothly, redistributing their combined mass with a tiny twist of Dao that let the platform's formations take the excess. Hell Suppressing Immortal Physique, which had just bullied gods and beasts, now went to the important work of supporting an armful of emotionally overloaded women.
He chuckled.
It was low and warm, a quiet rumble that vibrated through his chest into every one of them.
"Easy," he said, voice soft. "Careful with the Infinite one. She's fragile right now."
Ophis blinked up from where she'd been half-hidden behind his elbow.
"I am not fragile," she said automatically.
Her fingers tightened on his sleeve.
"…Just a little… shaken," she admitted, very quietly.
Asia hiccuped. Rias' grip spasmed. Akeno exhaled shakily, laughter and tears tangled. Koneko's tail tried to puff even more.
Ren looked down at the tangle of hair and horns and wings, their auras still crackling from combat and fear.
His smile deepened.
"Now this," he said, "this is the flavor of life."
They froze for half a beat.
"Flavor—?!" Rias sputtered, jolted right out of her spiral.
He grinned, shameless.
"Mm. Gods screaming, universes shaking, Trihexa throwing a tantrum… that's just background noise." His free hand came up, fingers threading easily through crimson hair, blonde, white, black. "This part—being yelled at by the people I care about because they were scared? That's the good stuff."
Asia made an embarrassed little sound. Akeno huffed a wet laugh.
Koneko, traitor that she was, buried her face deeper in his chest to hide the way her lips twitched.
"Don't say weird things so casually," Sona muttered, pushing her glasses up with a hand that was definitely not trembling anymore.
Serafall sniffled, then jabbed a finger weakly into his back.
"You're not allowed to make me cry on international TV again," she declared. "Or I'll—I'll… I'll pout at you for a whole week!"
"Terrifying punishment," Ren said mildly. "I'll do my best not to risk such a fate."
Penemue, hovering at the edge of the dogpile with her arms crossed and wings fluffed, snorted.
"That's it," she said dryly. "He's absolutely doing this on purpose."
Ren glanced over, eyes glinting.
"Of course," he said. "What's the point of tearing down pantheons if I don't get to hug my girls afterward?"
Asia made a tiny, strangled noise. Rias' ears went pink. Even Sona's composure cracked, the corners of her mouth jerking.
The atmosphere—the too-tight, post-apocalypse tension—shivered.
Then, slowly, it began to loosen.
...
Around the platform, the rest of the world started breathing again.
Michael's shoulders dropped a fraction, the archangel's earnest expression shading into something like exhausted relief. Gabriel's wings fluttered, light shimmering around her like a soft halo. Her eyes, wide and damp, stayed fixed on Ren. She clutched the edge of her dress, that familiar humble warmth now layered with a new, sharper awe.
"He really did it," she whispered.
Odin let out an impressed whistle, one eye gleaming as he stroked his beard.
"Kid waltzes in, smacks my enemies, fixes the sky, steals my best drinking stories, then turns the apocalypse into a hug scene," he muttered. "Hah. No wonder the girls like him."
Ajuka's fingers twitched, the ruined remains of equations still drifting in his mind's eye.
"There's no point trying to map his system with ours anymore," he said quietly, half to Sirzechs, half to himself. "Those 'Soul Palaces' and 'Fate Palaces' don't slot into any known grid. It's more like… he's carrying a miniaturized cosmology that refuses to acknowledge the old framework."
The way his eyes shone, anyone who knew Ajuka could tell: part despair as a technician, part fascination as a scientist.
Sirzechs didn't answer immediately.
The Crimson Satan's gaze stayed locked on Ren, expression a layered mix of older-brother fondness, Maou-level political calculation, and something raw and simple—gratitude that his world still existed.
"He took our biggest nightmare," Sirzechs murmured at last, "and turned it into his training exercise."
On another balcony, Amaterasu leaned on the railing, golden eyes hooded.
Her divine aura, usually a serene, carefully tempered sun, still flickered with lingering shock. The goddess of the sun had watched, from Takamagahara, a foreigner walk into her sky and casually build a Heaven that made even ancient gods want to kneel. For someone shaped by Shinto's delicate balancing act of dignity and duty, that was… too much and not enough all at once.
"…So calm," she whispered. "Even now."
Her gaze swept the platform, cataloguing the subtle shifts.
The devils of the Pillar houses couldn't quite meet Ren's eyes. The old gods of various pantheons kept their auras tucked tight, instinctively avoiding drawing attention from the man who had just judged their peers into ash. Even her fellow goddesses' pulses had skipped when his Heaven descended—she'd felt it, the trembling in their domains.
It reminded her, absurdly, of old stories.
Of heavenly emperors whose authority was so absolute that even gods bowed. Of sovereigns who turned wars into pronunciations and destinies into toys. In this age, that kind of presence had felt like myth.
Until now.
Down on the platform, Ren finally eased his arms, giving each girl in the dogpile a gentle squeeze before slowly loosening his hold.
"Alright," he said, voice mellow. "Breathe. I'm not going anywhere. Not until you're sick of me, at least."
Asia sniffled, lifting her head to look up at him with red-rimmed eyes.
"We… we'll never be sick of you," she said, with the kind of guileless sincerity that made even archangels look soft. "So you have to keep your promise."
He smiled down at her.
"I plan to," he said.
As the girls reluctantly, slowly untangled enough to let him move, Ren's gaze slid past them to the wider crowd.
The leaders of every major faction—devils, angels, fallen, Norse, Shinto, youkai, Hindu and more—were all watching him.
Not as an anomaly to be managed.
Not as a balancing piece on a political board.
As the thing above their sky.
Some hid it better than others. Sona kept her spine straight, Seekvaira's expression was textbook neutral, Michael's smile stayed gentle. But it was there, in the small details: shoulders a little lower, eyes a little wider, calculations rapidly rewriting themselves around a single pivot point.
He'd seen that look before.
Not here.
In memories that weren't quite his—from another universe where an immortal monster wearing human skin walked the Nine Worlds and made Immortal Emperors bow their heads. Where Ancestors who treated epochs like toys had been forced to weigh every word under a mortal's lazy gaze.
Ah, Ren thought, amused.
So this is what that feels like from the other side.
It was… refreshing.
A little intoxicating.
Not because of the power itself—he'd already felt that directly in the Gap, rewriting the border law between universes and sealing Trihexa into his Heaven.
What he liked was the simple, honest clarity of it. No more pretending that "negotiation" between unequal sides was anything other than one side hoping the other stayed benevolent.
He liked honest worlds.
With this kind of power, he thought, it really wasn't a mystery why geniuses, ancestors, and other top cultivators started acting like they were above everything. With this kind of view, they really were above everything.
He let go of Koneko long enough to take a small step forward, Ophis still tucked under one arm, the rest of the girls settling into an unconscious half-circle around him.
"So," he said, tone light. "I'm guessing everyone has a lot of thoughts."
That was one way to put it.
The Hindu Trinity—Brahma, Vishnu, Shiva—flinched almost imperceptibly when his eyes brushed over them. The seals he'd buried in their divine cores pulsed in quiet warning. They wouldn't be trying anything foolish anytime soon.
Ajuka opened his mouth.
Ren waved a hand lazily.
"Relax," he said. "No long speeches right now. You all saw what happens to anyone who insists on being stupid. If you don't want to end up like those dead idiots, just don't act like them. Simple."
A ripple went through the assembled leaders.
He wasn't posturing.
He was just… done.
"If you want to talk treaties, frameworks, whatever," he continued, smile returning, "we can do that. But not tonight. Tonight, the apocalypse got cancelled, an annoying neighbor's front door is locked, and Trihexa has some uses for me."
His fingers tapped Ophis' shoulder lightly, as if to emphasize the point. The dragon of Infinity looked up at him with cool, unreadable eyes, but the hand on his sleeve never loosened.
"So I have higher priorities."
Rias blinked, thrown for a second.
"Higher… priorities?" she echoed.
Ren's eyes slid sideways, the smile on his mouth going a shade more wicked and a shade softer all at once.
"Beautiful women to court," he said. "Dates to rock their world. Wives and future wives' nerves to settle."
The platform did a collective double-take.
Rias' face went scarlet.
"W-wives?!" she squeaked before she could stop herself.
Akeno's laughter came out half delighted, half mortified. "Ara, you say that so easily now," she murmured, cheeks pink, violet eyes bright.
Koneko made a small, strangled sound that might've been agreement. Asia's hands flew back to her mouth again, blush racing all the way to the tips of her ears.
Serafall recovered first.
She leaned over Sona's shoulder, eyes sparkling through the remnants of her tears.
"Oh my gosh," she stage-whispered. "He said it. He said wives. Plural. Did you hear that, Sona? Did you hear that?"
Sona's glasses slid down her nose.
She pushed them back up with a hand that absolutely did not tremble.
"I heard," she said coolly, the faint dust of pink on her cheeks telling a different story.
Ren chuckled.
"If you're serious about treaties and long-term peace," he added, his attention widening back to the gathered leaders with a casual sweep of his hand, "talk to them first."
He nodded at Rias, Sona, Serafall, Yasaka, Gabriel, Griselda, Penemue—the women who had either already claimed a place at his side or were walking there with steadily shortening steps.
"They're smarter about logistics than I am for this kind of thing," he said. "I'll sign off if it doesn't smell like a trap or a future headache."
Odin barked a laugh.
"You're pushing diplomacy to your harem," he said, delighted. "Bold move, kid."
"It's not 'pushing,'" Ren said mildly. "It's acknowledging strengths. I'm good at breaking things and building systems. They're good at making sure people don't trip over their own feet walking into the new era."
Michael let out a small breath, smile deepening, that almost painful kindness shining through even his exhaustion.
"…Then we'll cooperate with them," he said. "And with you."
Ren inclined his head, accepting that without dramatics.
Then his gaze snagged on one particular goddess.
Amaterasu had never been the type to stare openly.
Even shaken, she held herself with the reserved grace of a sun that knew it lit entire worlds. But when Ren's eyes met hers across the platform, her fingers tightened, just once, on the railing.
Her expression… complicated.
Acknowledgment. Wariness. A little offense at how easily he'd rewritten the sky.
Relief that it was over.
And something else, softer and more private, that she wasn't ready to name.
Ren's smile shifted, turning more intimate, like a joke shared across a crowded room that everyone could hear but only two understood.
"I meant what I said earlier," he called up to her, voice carrying easily. "You're a divine maiden I really like, Amaterasu."
Several devils choked.
Sirzechs' brows twitched upward.
Yasaka's ears flattened for half a heartbeat before she forced them back up, tails bristling.
Amaterasu, to her immense credit, didn't flush.
Her lips did press together, though.
"You say such things very lightly, Ren Ming," she replied, tone level. "Even after overturning the heavens, you flirt in front of every pantheon?"
He laughed.
"Being honest isn't flirting," he said. "I like your light. I like your backbone. I like how you kept your realm steady when everything was shaking apart. That doesn't stop being true just because I stepped over your ceiling."
The bluntness—delivered in that calm, matter-of-fact way that made it sound less like a pick-up line and more like a weather report—sent another ripple through the crowd.
Amaterasu's lashes lowered.
"…You are infuriating," she said quietly.
Her gaze didn't leave his.
"That's fine," Ren said, unconcerned. "I'll give you some time to decide how much infuriating you're willing to tolerate."
He flashed her a lazy, charming smile that somehow managed to be both disrespectful of conventional godly distance and deeply respectful of her as a person.
"If you decide you're not interested," he added, "we'll still fix this world together. If you are…"
He let the sentence trail off, implication hanging.
Even gods were allowed a little mystery.
His attention slid from divine sun to holy light.
Gabriel stood with Michael and Griselda, hands clasped in front of her, expression caught somewhere between childlike awe and sincere concern. That humble, naive kindness that defined her was still there, but now it stood beside the image of her silently praying while Ren threw himself into world-crushing light.
Ren lifted a hand and gave her a small, easy wave.
"Gabriel," he called. "Don't hesitate to call me, alright? I like our talks."
Her wings fluffed in startled reflex, feathers rustling.
"M-me?" she squeaked, pointing at herself as if there were any other Gabriel in existence.
He nodded, smile softening.
"You," he said. "We still have a lot to discuss about how Heaven's system interfaces with the new framework. And you make good tea."
She flushed, cheeks turning as pink as Rias'.
"I–I will," she said quickly, bowing her head a little. "If… if it isn't a bother."
"It wouldn't be," he said.
His gaze slid to the stern woman beside her.
Griselda watched him with that familiar mix of exasperation and reluctant respect—a veteran warrior who'd been handed responsibility for kids that kept jumping from crisis to crisis, and now had to factor in a cross-universal Ancient Saint who cheerfully rewrote theology in his spare time.
"Griselda," Ren said, voice gentling. "You're coming with us."
Her brows rose slightly.
"I am?" she asked, tone even. "I don't recall agreeing to that."
He smiled, eyes half-lidded, tone slipping into the softer, teasing register he reserved for women he'd chosen to bring into his circle.
"You're already part of my group," he said. "You've been involved from the start. Asia trusts you. The girls like you. Michael trusts you with their safety, and I trust your judgment."
He shrugged lightly.
"Besides," he went on, "Heaven's going to need someone who actually understands how these kids think standing in the room when we redesign everything. I'd rather that 'someone' already be on my side."
Griselda exhaled slowly, the faint lines at the corners of her eyes deepening.
"You are… very good at cornering people with flattery," she said dryly.
"Is it working?" he asked, openly amused.
A pause.
"…Yes," she admitted.
Her shoulders relaxed, just a fraction.
"Then I'll take that 'yes' as consent," Ren said cheerfully.
Gabriel made a small, happy sound, wings fluttering. Michael smiled, bowing his head in quiet approval.
Ren rolled his shoulders, loosening muscles that hadn't actually tightened, and turned back toward the assembled leaders.
"Alright," he said. "You've all got a new era to plan. I've got a pile of women whose nerves I need to settle."
Rias made a choking noise. Akeno giggled. Koneko muttered something about "show-off."
"If you need me," Ren went on, "though honestly, I doubt it at this point, call. Otherwise, consider this your homework: learn to live without constant apocalypse for a while."
His gaze returned to Amaterasu, lingering.
"As for you," he said, voice dropping just a touch, "I'll be seeing you around. There's still some stuff to sort out between your realm and mine."
Amaterasu's lips curved, just barely.
"…I'll be waiting," she said.
"Good."
Ren turned back to his girls.
"Alright," he said. "Home time."
He snapped his fingers.
Space bent.
The air around them rippled like a disturbed pond, the world's formation lines reweaving themselves around a new center of gravity—him. Dimensional boundaries, still sore from Trihexa's thrashing, parted obediently, guided not by crude spells but by a cultivated Dao that treated universe borders like doors in a hallway.
Light folded.
The platform, the stunned pantheons, the scarred sky, all sheared away in an instant.
Only the sensation of warm hands clinging to him, the faint tremor in Ophis' grip, and the burning stares of gods who had just seen something above their heavens followed him into the next world.