Past three in the morning. A few hours until the daily recruitment reset.
Haru stood outside, eyes on the Blood Moon hanging high and red above the Endless Continent. Svetlana had told him, back when they'd had time alone, that the Blood Moon's mutation would signal the Demonic Army's arrival.
The Demon Emperor had sealed it personally, his Pseudo God Monarch Tier Divine Power fused into the structure of the seal. The Demon Nests built inside were integrated with the moon's core.
Destroy them, and the Blood Moon itself would collapse. And the Blood Moon's relationship with the Endless Continent wasn't the ordinary gravity-and-tides kind. Its disappearance would bring catastrophe. So no one touched it. The Demon Nests stayed. The invasion path stayed open.
The Blood Moon looked the same as always. No Abyssal Aura. No mutation.
Suddenly, the ground shivered. Slight. Brief. Gone before most people would have registered it.
"My Lord." Celestia's voice was level, "The Endless Continent's wall is shaking."
The 'crystal wall' or 'boundary wall' of a planet was the term used to describe the barrier that separated a planet from outside incursion. Every planet with Laws had one. Without it, enemies from other planets could walk straight in. The Abyss had been trying to crack this wall for ages.
"That's a harbinger of the Throneveil Shrine's appearance."
A figure appeared beside Haru. Silver-eyed, unhurried. Svetlana.
Celestia glanced at her and didn't reach for a weapon. She knew who this was.
Haru looked at his future wife, "The Divine War is coming?"
"It's just an omen. Not yet." Svetlana turned to face him properly, "After this war, Your Majesty has grown considerably stronger. I'm afraid I'm no longer your opponent."
"C'mon, what's our relationship?" Haru said, waving his hand, "You can't compare a husband and wife like some enemies."
Svetlana gave him a sideways look and turned her head. She was slowly discovering that she couldn't get a rise out of him anymore. Annoying.
She moved on, "When the Shrine fully departs Kronforge, its Divine Power will shake the walls. The spirit of Endless Continent's Laws won't be able to hold. Cracks will form, and the Demonic Army assembled on the Blood Moon will pour through. That's when the Divine Battle would finally begin." She took a pause, "But Your Majesty still has time."
She knew what he was calculating. Five hundred thousand Holy Spirits, not yet combat-ready. The Light Empire campaign, meant to harden the Imperial Army before the real war started. If the battle began now, those Angels would become cannon fodder against a Burning Legion that had erased countless planets and left nothing growing behind.
"There seems to be enough time." Haru said.
Svetlana didn't stay for long after that. She was passing through on her way back to the underground as Lily's retreat was nearly finished, and she needed to be there when it ended.
After that, she'd take the girl to the End, use the spirit of Endless Continent to push her strength to the Supreme God Tier, and transfer the position of the official Goddess of Fate to her. Then she'd be free. Free to stay in the Great Aetherium, with Haru. He was looking forward to it as well.
…
Mary arrived shortly after with a collection of soul spheres, hundreds of glowing orbs that, taken together, looked like a small galaxy had condensed in the courtyard.
One hundred thousand souls, captured from the fallen Evil Gods. The weakest were Intermediate Gods with over a hundred High Gods. There were even five Supreme Gods:
1 - Malakar
2 - Skarion
3 - Zakaria
4 - Micteya
5 - Mordra
Haru looked at them for a moment. The Angel Reincarnation Pool didn't need him to reverse time or shake the River of Fate. It just needed souls and Divine Crystals, and it would handle the rest. The Holy Grail would strip the evil alignment from these souls first, without that transformation, the Angel Reincarnation Pool couldn't touch them. Together, the two were a closed loop. Irreplaceable individually.
He carried the spheres into the Holy Light Temple and tipped them all into the Holy Grail.
Inside the Holy Grail's interior space, a hundred thousand Evil Gods' souls poured in and immediately understood they were in trouble.
The space was saturated with holy and light Divine Power. Escape was impossible, they could feel that within seconds. What they hadn't expected was the company.
The existing residents of the Holy Grail were calm. Settled. The Demon Lords who'd arrived earlier had long since stopped throwing themselves at the walls. One of them even had Divine Power radiating at Intermediate-stage Supreme God Tier, clearly a Demon Lord in his previous life. He drifted over to the newcomers with the unhurried manner of a man who'd already processed his grief.
"Newcomers, welcome to the Holy Grail."
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