"As for the beam that pulled him out." Haru said, "Did it come from Obrys?"
"I can't confirm the origin yet. If you permit it, I'll personally visit Obrys and trace it directly."
That beam had penetrated the barrier erected by her and extracted Varkath from inside her Divine Power without being stopped. It wasn't simple. Not ordinary reach, not ordinary precision.
Haru nodded.
"You don't need to go yourself." Haru waved a hand, "That's the base camp of the Titan Pantheon, territory of the Thunder Titans. They are one of the oldest Pantheons of Faith on the Endless Continent. Pure-blooded Thunder Titans are a God Class Race, comparable to the pure blooded Dimensional Demons and the Angels."
"More importantly, the Titans have ties to the Throneveil Shrine that run deep. The Shrine's ruler was apparently an ancient Thunder Titan, the ancestor of every Titan in existence. If they possess some trump card from the Shrine, I don't want you walking into it."
"Send a divine incarnation instead. Get what intelligence you can. If you can't, there won't be any losses."
"As you command, my Lord."
A figure of holy light slipped out from between Celestia's brows and dissolved into the void. She didn't need to search blind as Obrys' coordinates were common knowledge among the Gods, and she had Varkath's severed arm to sharpen the location further.
Haru turned the hammer over in his hands. It was one of Varkath's natal artifacts. One of two, called the Bolvark Hammers. It was a paired weapon, and only both together could output power comparable to a top-level Supreme God Tier Artifact. Alone, it was a high-level Supreme God Tier Artifact at best.
"My Lord." Celestia's voice carried a trace of eagerness, "If I encounter that Varkath again, I'll take the second hammer as well."
"Don't bother." Haru stored it in the God Hidden Ring, "I'll hold onto this one. When the Titans send someone to negotiate, we'll talk price."
The Titan Pantheon was one of the two wealthiest Pantheons on the Endless Continent alongside the Dragon Pantheon.
Varkath's lost arm and hammer could be recovered, but most importantly, he had lost his dignity on that battlefield. He hated the Great Aetherium now. That was fine. What Haru needed were Divine Crystals to upgrade his Armor and the Titans were going to provide them. Varkath would get his hammer back when he paid enough to make Haru indifferent to keeping it.
"That fool may not negotiate." Celestia said carefully, "He may declare war."
Haru smiled, "Even better."
The last thing a Castle Lord feared was war. He'd just suppressed the entire Evil Pantheon. The Great Aetherium that emerged from this battle was several times stronger than the one that entered it.
Six Supreme Gods once Lysandra and Eveline's ascension was completed, over a hundred High Gods among the Angel Ranks alone. If Varkath wanted to test that, Haru would gladly accommodate him.
"We don't provoke anyone while the war with the Light Empire is still open." Haru said, "But if the Titan Lord wants a lesson more painful than the last one, we can arrange for it. Anyways, once you recover the God Monarch Tier Law, we can handle them while the Imperial Army takes care of the Imperial War."
"My Lord is wise."
…
In the fourth war zone, the numbers finally collapsed.
The remaining Evil Gods, fewer than a hundred thousand, mostly Intermediate and High Gods, were being run down individually. Mary, Seraphina, Sylvana, Aureole, Auriel, Nora and the other powerful High Gods of the empire fanned out to finish them one by one.
The Guardian Angels had held throughout. Every time an Imperial God fell, the resurrection magic fired before the body had even cooled down. The Evil Pantheon's Army had understood the logic early—kill the Guardian Angels, stop the resurrections—and had thrown coordinated strikes at them repeatedly.
But alas, every attempt failed. The guardian angels were buried inside layered protection: Zodiac God Angels, Fallen Angels, and other top-level troops all killed anything that came close. Not one Guardian Angel had died. Which meant the imperial gods, for all practical purposes, couldn't be permanently killed either.
When the last Evil God fell, the battlefield went quiet. Five Supreme Gods. Nearly one and a half million evil gods. All dead. None escaped.
The Evil Pantheon, which had entered this war with three Supreme Gods of their own and genuine ambitions toward the God King's Throne, was now history. Before the war, they'd been considered the rising power of the Endless Continent, more Supreme Gods than the Titans or the Dragons, a trajectory that had the other factions nervous.
Malakar and Skarion have even openly declared their ambitions about snatching the Throne from under Varkath, Drakenvader and Elunara in the upcoming Divine War, but now…
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