Varkath said nothing for a long time. When he'd returned from the battlefield, he'd wanted to mobilize the entire Titan army immediately. That fury had been clean and simple. A week ago he'd accepted the Evil Pantheon's invitation specifically because the Great Aetherium had only one Supreme God. Within this week, that number had become four, then six. Kragthar's cold water had replaced fury with something worse, a chill at the back of his neck when he ran the numbers.
Two of those six were peak Supreme Gods. At this rate, the number didn't feel like it had a ceiling. The only real card that Obrys held was the Prometheus Ark, also known as the 'Mothership'. It was an ancient weapon passed down from the Throneveil Shrine to the Titans.
With it, they could suppress the Great Aetherium. Without it, they probably couldn't. But using it now, over a stolen artifact, meant exposing their trump card before the Divine War. Every faction competing for the God King's Throne would know exactly what the Titans were hiding.
"We remember this debt." Varkath said finally, and the hall went quiet in a different way, "The Great Aetherium will answer for this, but after the Throne is mine. Until then, we maintain peace."
He let them absorb it, "But my hammer comes back."
Varkath said, "Offer fifty million to Kazehaya. If that's not enough, offer a hundred million. Two hundred million. Whatever it takes, I want that hammer returned."
No one in the hall questioned the numbers. Obrys had its own Laws and produced Divine Crystals continuously. They had reserves that made every other Pantheon of Faith on the Endless Continent look poor by comparison.
What stung was the principle of it. The hammer was Varkath's natal artifact. He'd had it taken from him, and now he was going to pay to get it back. The Titans present were quiet in the way of people who understood something humiliating and had decided not to say it out loud.
"Father." A female Titan rose. She wore close-fitted armor over a frame that was still thousands of meters tall, and her face, striking rather than beautiful, by the standards of Angels or Elves, carried Varkath's same directness. She was Helena, his daughter. A Peak High Goddess. The most prominent figure in the Obrys after Varkath and the absent Prophet.
"Father, let me go. I'll negotiate personally." Varkath studied her. The person who went to the Great Aetherium needed enough status to get an audience — an ordinary Titan god wouldn't even get close to Haru. Helena could. She was also less likely than Varkath to lose a second hammer.
"He is a Peak Supreme God." Varkath said.
"I know what he is." Helena didn't move, "I'll bring it back, whatever the price."
"Tell him you're my daughter. If he touches you, I will unleash the Mothership. Make sure he understands that."
Helena bowed, "Praise you, Father."
She left the temple with a detachment of Titan Gods, moving towards the Endless Continent.
…
What Helena didn't know was that when she opened the passage out of Obrys, a faint translucent figure slipped through the gap in the opposite direction.
"Well, that wasn't difficult at all…"
Celestia's divine incarnation stepped into Obrys and looked around, unhurried.
…
On the other side, Haru returned to the Endless Continent with Celestia, Yvonne, and the Imperial Gods. The battlefield had been picked clean, nothing left to do out there.
"Count the spoils." He told Lysandra, "Sort by category, then bring everything to me."
"As you command, my Lord."
The haul was substantial. Their enemies had been Gods, every one of them, so even the lowest-quality drops cleared the intermediate-level blueprint threshold. Artifacts, Godheads, Divine Corpses, Blueprints. Lysandra and the others got to work.
Haru ran through the distribution in his head. The Angels were mostly self-sufficient, stronger ones carried evolving natal artifacts, and the lower ranked ones could fight using faith as armor and angelic flame for the offensive.
But the other races' True Gods—Elves, Golden Beamon, Troops of Light, Dragons—needed proper artifacts to fight at full potential. As for the Divine Corpses, the Great Aetherium had no use for them directly.
The hundreds of thousands of Divine Corpses would be sold off for Divine Crystals, Magic Crystals and Power Stones to fund months of operations. Celestia would handle the logistics. The Godheads would be distributed, some to boost existing Imperial Gods, some to help Demigod Tier troops to ascend to Godhood.
What Haru was most interested in were the blueprints. Specifically the Troop Summoning Blueprints. The Great Aetherium currently fielded just over seven hundred thousand Angels, but more than five hundred thousand of them were newly born Holy Spirits, far too weak for a battlefield dominated by Gods.
He'd kept them off this battlefield for exactly that reason. Even high-ranking Demigod Tier Angels would have been wiped out by the Divine Power residue. These Holy Spirits wouldn't have lasted a minute.
'If enough of those blueprints appear, the Angel count could break through a million. When they all grow up—'
He let himself enjoy the thought briefly, then moved on.
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