In the Great Aetherium's Imperial Capital, Haru lowered his gaze from the Blood Moon.
He had felt the twelve Divine Senses probing his capital, had traced them instantly through his mastery of the Space-Time Law, locking each one back to its source. Twelve Demon Monarchs. All of them focused on the Great Aetherium specifically.
The conclusion was straightforward. They saw the Great Aetherium as their primary threat and intended to hit it first.
"Foolish Demons." He said, without particular heat.
Not because he believed six Supreme Gods could hold the twelve Demon Monarchs, that wasn't the calculation. He wasn't relying on his allies the Nature Pantheon and the Elf Kingdom either. The calculation was simpler than that: in three days, the Great Aetherium wouldn't have just six Supreme Gods. It would have twelve.
The souls of the five Supreme Gods he'd captured—Malakar, Skarion, Zakaria Nekrosi, Mordra, and Micteya—were already deep into the Holy Light transformation process inside the Holy Grail. The Holy Light Temple's power had been growing as the empire expanded, and the transformation rate had accelerated accordingly.
Within three days at most, all five would be fully converted. Then he'd pull them from the Grail, run them through the Angel Reincarnation Pool at the cost of Power Stones or Divine Crystals, and they'd stand up as his subordinates.
And then there was the Demon Monarch Dantean, whose transformation had already finished. Ready to be retrieved whenever Haru chose.
Twelve Supreme Gods on the Great Aetherium's side, with Haru and Celestia at the apex, against twelve Demon Monarchs of the Abyss. The Demon Monarchs were planning to attack before the Great Aetherium could grow further, but they were already too late.
The only pressure Haru genuinely felt was the Demon Emperor, a Pseudo God King, ruler of the Abyss, destroyer of countless planets and civilizations. That one he thought about carefully. Everything else he was already prepared for.
…
A figure arrived in the Imperial Palace.
Celestia bowed, "My Lord. As you instructed, I have extracted the sources from all the Godheads."
She produced a sphere of light and placed it in his hands. Inside were the compressed sources from 1.6 million Godheads, sorted by attributes into separate sub-spaces to prevent conflicting laws from interfering with each other.
Haru swept it with his divine sense and found more than 1,300 distinct sources in total. He already possessed slightly less than 200. Which meant there were around 1,200 sources he didn't have before, and beyond those, a large volume of duplicate sources of matching laws he already owned.
The duplicates weren't wasted either. Absorbing them would strengthen his existing Laws directly, pushing them further toward the God Monarch Law.
He was quiet for a moment, doing the math on what all of it together would do to his power.
"You did well." He said.
"It is my honor to serve you, my Lord."
"How is your comprehension of the Eternal Monument progressing?"
The [Eternal Monument] had been his reward for placing first in the Demon Slayer Tournament. It was originally supposed to be an [Imperial Heart], but since the Great Aetherium was already an empire, the GM had substituted for something rarer.
The Monument's surface was covered in runes that even Haru's Supreme God Tier perception couldn't parse. Celestia had identified them immediately: runes for the God Monarch Tier Laws. Understanding even one or two lines was enough to begin the breakthrough to the Pseudo God Monarch Tier.
He had given the Monument to Celestia to use. She had held the God Monarch Tier Law once before, in the Illusory Angel Realm, and re-comprehension came faster than first comprehension.
"The law inscribed on the Monument is exactly the one I had originally mastered." Celestia said, "Reconstructing it is going quickly. I am confident that before the battle of planets begins, I will reclaim control of the God Monarch Tier Law and restore my peak strength."
Haru nodded.
The [Eternal Monument] was exactly what the GM had defined it as, a real cosmic artifact. Beyond containing God Monarch Tier Law runes, it actively accelerated a peak Supreme God's comprehension of those laws. Among everything Haru possessed, only his attributeless Godhead matched it in value. Not the Scepter of Sovereignty, not the Armor of Sovereignty, not any of his Supreme God Tier Artifacts.
Which was why he'd given it to Celestia without hesitation, and why her progress was moving as fast as it was. Re-comprehension plus the Monument's assistance, between the two, her return to Pseudo God Monarch Tier was a matter of when, not if.
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