Over the following years, humanity continued to grow.
Eventually, several centuries later, someone arrived in humanity's domain.
The Amorphous Race.
However, they were not warriors but diplomats.
The strongest beings on board the ship were two Representatives, which were accompanied by two Strategists.
There was no being in the Tenth Realm present.
Nick went into contact with the Representatives, and they talked to each other.
The negotiations were tough.
The Representatives originally wanted to recruit humanity as a vassal.
They would protect humanity in exchange for Zephyx.
However, Nick shot that suggestion down immediately.
Humanity didn't need their protection.
Then came the threats, but Nick called their bluff.
They were free to attack them. They dealt with two Generals already and that was without their powerful weapons.
The Tribe was free to send more, but all of them would be annihilated.
Humanity was no longer as weak as it was during the original war.
The Amorphous Race contacted the Mother and returned shortly after.
This time, the terms were different.
An alliance.
The Mother was recruiting warriors to help in the war against the other Tribes.
In exchange, humanity would receive technology and resources.
Nick accepted these terms under the condition that their warriors were not the Mother's to command.
The Mother would tell them what she wanted destroyed, and they would decide for themselves how to go about doing that.
Both sides agreed.
Naturally, humanity hated the Amorphous Race, but they needed some way to learn more about how the universe worked.
Humanity helped the Tribe over the next centuries, and the tides of war changed.
Nick was the one who did most of the work, but the Amorphous Race never found out that it was him.
They gave humanity a target, and somehow, humanity destroyed that target.
The Mother never found out how they did it.
Naturally, she also sent scouts and spies to find out what humanity was doing, but for some reason, none of these scouts or spies ever returned.
It was clear that humanity killed these spies, but the Mother couldn't complain.
After all, she wasn't supposed to send spies in the first place.
Even more, whenever humanity dealt with a target, they took all the resources for themselves.
Yes, the Mother's enemies were reducing, but she also didn't gain anything out of it.
A thousand years later, the war ended, and the Mother became victorious.
Her Tribe was no longer under pressure, and she could harvest as much Pure Energy as she wanted.
The Tribe recovered.
She advanced and reached the Peak Tenth Realm.
After that, she gave birth to an army of warriors in the Tenth Realm…
And sent them all to deal with the humans.
Over 200 warriors in the Tenth Realm.
The army arrived in the solar system.
Then, all of them convulsed and died.
If there was one thing Nick was good at, it was infiltration.
He had seen this development coming for a long time.
So, he had infiltrated the Mother's Tribe and had changed the food that was used to strengthen the warriors after they were born.
The change was subtle, and nobody had noticed until Nick activated the killswitch.
When all of the warriors died, Nick consumed all of them.
As a Pure Energy being with a Soul, Nick could just siphon Pure Energy out of other beings.
After consuming all of the warriors, Nick reached the Peak Tenth Realm, and he went to the Mother.
There was no fight.
As always, it was just a silent assassination.
No member of the race saw Nick arrive or leave.
One second, their Mother was alive, and the next second, she was dead.
Naturally, Nick also consumed her and her remaining warriors.
Without the Mother, the Tribe would slowly die out.
But this was not the only Tribe in the universe.
There were more.
Humanity came into contact with more races, and they entered diplomatic relations.
The Human Empire entered into a galactic alliance with some other races.
But, of course, that alliance was at war with other alliances.
Nick was not a big fan of how the alliance treated some members, and he decided to change it.
His goal had always been to help the weak, and that hadn't changed.
Humanity lost a lot of trade deals since Nick refused to support some of the practices, but that didn't stop humanity.
They kept advancing.
That was when Nick learned about something interesting.
Theoretically, it was possible to reach the Eleventh Realm.
There had been beings in the past who managed to reach the Eleventh Realm.
But none of them were still around.
Apparently, beings in the Eleventh Realm tended to vanish after some time for some reason.
One day, they were there, while the next, they were just gone.
Because of that, all the strongest leaders were at the Peak Tenth Realm since nobody wanted to vanish.
They could reach the Eleventh Realm if they wanted to.
They had the resources.
But they didn't use them to advance.
Nick ruled over humanity for thousands of years.
The Empire was stable.
Kiran was no longer with them, but Daniel had also reached the Peak Tenth Realm.
Daniel could lead humanity.
Nick realized that humanity didn't need him anymore.
Even if he died, humanity would continue to survive.
They were strong enough to defend themselves.
All the pressure disappeared from Nick's shoulders.
He didn't need to survive for anyone else anymore.
He was free to do what he wanted.
Nick was not somebody who stopped moving forward.
He wanted a new purpose.
He had helped humanity.
He had changed some of the unethical practices of the alliance.
The only thing left to do was to keep the status quo until perpetuity.
But that was not what Nick wanted.
So, Nick decided to reach the Eleventh Realm.
After advancing, Nick gave his goodbyes to Daniel.
He wanted to venture out into uncharted space and see what was waiting out there.
And just like that, Nick vanished.
He never returned.
Humanity never forgot him.
He was humanity's first Emperor.
He was the one who had freed them.
From time to time, there were stories of some random human who saw the Emperor, but it wasn't clear if that actually happened or not.
Nick was the strongest human, and he had left behind the strongest Empire.
And now, it was time to stop living for others.
It was time to live for himself.