The Great One's Journey

Reawakening

It had been countless years since his victory against Yuuki Kagurazaka. The first few thousand years in command felt really taxing, no matter how powerful he became. Things really went out of hand when the guys discovered outer space travel.

Skip to a few more millennia and they were running out of planets to conquer. So, Rimuru did something that he at the time thought was a very good idea: create a countless amount of universes for them to explore. In hindsight, he thought it was very irresponsible and stupid.

Things happened. So many that if he were to sit down and talk about it, it would take decades to explain. In short, Milim was appointed as Goddess of the Multiverse. She was responsible of all the good souls' reincarnations. Of course, it was quite hectic at first (understatement of the eon) with her personality and all, but she finally got used to it after the help of some friends (a.k.a. Ramiris).

Speaking of Ramiris, she really matured. Gone was the lazy NEET he once met; she was a hardworking woman who kept order and balance in the multiverse.

Guy, on the other hand, became the Devil of the Multiverse. Nuff said.

Rimuru's top subordinates each took the mantle of gods, devils and the like; each having their own pantheon. One of the bonuses for creating a multiverse containing an infinite amount of universes is that there was no need to share. A rule was made so that the first to mark a universe gets it, and those who came later would have to back off unless they were welcomed by the marker.

Of course, that was the simplified version. Again, too many details to explain. What mattered was that everyone, even the greediest of the demon lords, was satisfied.

As for Rimuru? Well, in order to satisfy all his subordinates' needs, he split himself. One of him for every universe owned by his subordinates. There was one of him in heaven, too. Milim was really demanding when it came to that.

Splitting himself felt like that time he revived himself back as human. He was a parallel existence, having different thoughts at the same time. He didn't like taking in so much information at once, so he thought to split his thoughts as well. Every once in a period of time one of his minds would connect with all of him and share all that he experienced. This, as Ciel concluded, would cause problems for his personality, so he made a rule that all his clones would stay asleep unless things got really messy and that they needed his help to fix it. That way when he reconnected himself, there wouldn't be much of a difference in personality, and that he didn't receive too much information.

His subordinates and friends were distraught to hear it, but after some smooth talking, he convinced them that it was the most efficient and effective way to keep in contact. Of course, the truth didn't really match his reason.

While his reason was sound, the real reason was that he just wanted to retire from his spot. Of course, he still loved them all. He just didn't want to be in charge anymore. He wasn't really needed anymore, anyway.

He made the clones knowing they would probably never wake up, because everyone he knew was powerful enough to handle everything by themselves. Heck, some of them were even better rulers than him.

He thought of this as some kind of unofficial retirement. He wouldn't put it right past them that some of the smarter ones realized his ploy. He was just thankful for everything they've done.

...

Rimuru was in Veldanava's original world. The world's universe was currently void of godly creatures other than him. They'd abandoned this place when they went for their space odyssey. Of course, all of Tempest joined before they left this world behind. All that remained were the mortal races left behind.