The last item in the spread was a pair of wings. Blood-red, metallic texture, unmistakably demonic. This was Dantean's natal artifact, the thing that had let the Demon Lord dance around Yvonne's Creation Thunder long enough to make the fight interesting, before the Sea of Thunder had closed around him and removed the option of dancing.
_____________
[Wings of Scarlet Ruin]
[Grade: Intermediate-level Supreme God Tier Artifact]
[Divine Power: 20 million points]
[Special Reminder 1: Equipping this artifact will generate hatred from the Dimensional Demon Race. Demon Lord Dantean will regard you as a mortal enemy.]
[Special Reminder 2: Can be repaired using the law of the abyss.]
_____________
He read the second reminder and almost laughed. He'd absorbed the origin of the Abyss Law specifically. Repairing it was a trivial matter for him.
As for the first reminder, Dantean was dead, his soul sealed by the Angels, and currently awaiting baptism of the Holy Grail. After that process finished, the Demon Lord who had once piloted these wings would look at Haru with something closer to reverence than enmity.
For the Dimensional Demon Race as a whole, they already wanted him dead for a list of reasons that would take a while to enumerate. One more item on the list changed nothing. He pushed the artifact's spirituality down without ceremony, erased Dantean's divine imprint, and shaped his own in its place.
After the wings accepted him, he let them merge into his back. They unfolded several meters across, blood-red, catching no light and giving off their own. He gave them one stroke and the whole Arboriel disappeared from his sight. He was standing in outer space, billions of kilometers away. The planet was currently a distant point of light behind him.
Another stroke brought him back. He stood there for a moment, processing the sensation. He already commanded the Space-Time Law. The wings operated on top of that, not separately from it — they didn't replace his speed, they multiplied it. Dantean had been fast with these. Haru was faster with them than he had ever been, because he hadn't also been a master of the Space-Time Law.
'Wherever I think…' He noted with satisfaction, '…is where I arrive.'
He folded the wings into his godhead and fed the Divine Power laced with the Abyss Law into the wings' damaged sections. Since they were only slightly damaged, per the description, it wouldn't take long.
…
He looked up at the ruins of Arboriel's surface and waited for the others to return.
In a few days, the goddess of death Micteya will be coming. Her brother Maddox, currently somewhere in the Holy Grail's baptism process, was the reason. She'd find out where he was, put together whatever force she could, and come to take him back. Possibly to destroy his empire in the process as well.
Haru considered this without particular concern.
'It is purely overthinking on her part.' He thought, and watched the sky.
Overall, the castle forces returned in better shape than anyone had expected. Before the tournament, the prevailing fear had been a civil war. Too many Castle Lords competing for the same teleportation arrays, old grudges surfacing under pressure, the usual human arithmetic of scarcity and rivalry.
It hadn't happened. The first day had produced some friction over divine treasures, and after that the demons had arrived in sufficient numbers to make infighting feel like a luxury nobody could afford. By the end, many Castle Lords and Rangers who'd gone in as strangers were coming out as something closer to comrades.
They'd fought and bled alongside each other for two days straight against enemies that killed a hundred for every one they lost. That did something to people. The evacuation was also quite orderly. The civil war that had been predicted didn't materialize.
…
Haru returned through the teleportation array with Celestia, Yvonne, and Lysandra. Within the blink of an eye, they arrived at Angel City's square.
He breathed in. The air was different here. Richer, thick with vitality and nature element mana in concentrations that made Arboriel's dead atmosphere feel like a memory of a lesser world. Moreover, his Imperial Capital's mana density exceeded the average in the surrounding areas. Cultivation here ran exponentially faster than anywhere outside its walls.
He swept the empire with his Divine Senses and began updating his count. There were 32 High Gods in his Imperial Army now. The Arboriel campaign had pushed several Intermediate God Tier Angels over the threshold. Some prominent ones are listed below:
Aqua Cassia
Aqua Elara (not to be mistaken for the Grand Elder of the Elf Clan also named Elara)
Aqua Azalea
Nova (Angel of Creation)
Edenvale Cyra
Edenvale Isra
Among the thirty-two High Gods in total, the overwhelming majority were Angels.
The count of Intermediate Gods has also surpassed a hundred thousand and again, most were Angels, with notable exceptions like:
Elara (Grand Elder of the Elf Clan)
Lyra (Elder of the Elf Clan)
Ignisara (This is Flamey, the Red Dragon Queen. She finally got a real name!)
Elena (Space Dragon)
Emberis (Fire Elemental Elf)
Aelwen (Holy Light Elemental Elf)
Rhea (Blood Elves Triplets)
Nylia (Blood Elves Triplets)
Kaelen (Blood Elves Triplets)
By any ordinary measure, the Empire was now a serious power. It outclassed the Beast God Pantheon, the faction ruled by 'Medusa' Christine, in every meaningful metric. That pantheon had no Supreme Gods at all and barely a dozen High Gods, while the Empire had three Supreme Gods and thirty-two High Gods. There was no comparison at all.
Even against the Evil Pantheon's three Supreme Gods (Micteya, Malakar, and Skarion), Haru now had enough confidence to take all three simultaneously. He filed that away, then called for Nova and Caelith.
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