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"Alright, I was joking. If you're not into it, forget it."
Ryo dropped the playful tone and spoke more gently. "At the end of the day, it's up to you. I don't have any confidence I could protect that God anyway."
The authority tied to the Creator God ultimately rested in the hands of the Lord of Cross. If that being willed it, and no greater power intervened, the moment this world came under Little Garden's observation, He could reclaim this version of God through sheer conceptual authority.
So if Algol wasn't interested, Ryo naturally shelved the idea, tempting as that massive pool of faith was.
Of course, angels, fallen angels, and devils were a different story. Ryo still intended to take them in. Their names and concepts were tied to higher authorities in Little Garden, but after being demonized by Algol, they could bypass the issue of true-name absorption and become part of his faction.
The downside was obvious. They'd only retain the spirit rank of beings from the High School DxD world, without gaining the accumulated faith and merit tied to their counterparts in Little Garden. It was a trade-off.
Still, raising a group of angels wasn't unusual. Most pantheons did it. It fell into a gray area, one that wouldn't provoke direct retaliation from the Cross.
What surprised Ryo, however, was Algol's reaction.
"No… actually, you just reminded me. It might be necessary to prepare a God."
"…What do you mean?"
Ryo's expression turned strange. He'd already backed off, so why was she suddenly interested? Was she messing with him?
No… if Algol wanted to mess with him, it wouldn't look like this.
"You mentioned it before, didn't you? The backer behind Ouroboros."
Algol's eyes sharpened, glinting with insight.
"The backer behind the first division is the Cross," Ryo said, frowning. "What are you getting at?"
He had already told her that the Cross was one of the forces funding Ouroboros. He'd also shared his suspicion that the first division might be responsible for destroying Arcadia.
That was exactly why he'd considered propping up a new God in the first place. Given their blood feud, Arcadia and the Cross might cooperate on the surface, even exchange favors, but their hostility was set in stone.
Some grudges couldn't be erased.
But clearly, Algol had seen something deeper.
She looked at Ryo, a faintly amused expression on her face.
"The reason Alpha, Omega, The Buddha, and others favor you… part of it is because you're positioned on the front line against the Cross."
"And there have been rumors for a long time that one in the Cross wants to change the cosmology. Sooner or later, they're going to clash. That's inevitable."
In Little Garden, the most powerful treasures were the cosmologies jointly constructed by entire pantheons. From them came the ultimate weapons: Another Cosmologies.
The Cross's cosmology, however, was a monotheistic system centered on a single God. Because of that, their cosmology wasn't recognized by Little Garden's central system. And without that recognition, they couldn't produce Another Cosmology.
That was why, despite their overwhelming numbers, the Cross wasn't particularly dominant at the upper layers.
Other pantheons could pull out Another Cosmologies like trump cards, unleashing a fraction of two-digit-level power. The Cross couldn't.
That's also why, even though the Cross held the largest share of faith in the lower layers, the most dominant pantheon was the Greek one.
It wasn't just because the Greek gods were cautious or had many rule-breakers. It was because the Cross lacked that ultimate weapon.
In simple terms, the biggest faction didn't have a "nuke."
A fatal flaw. And something they were desperate to fix.
But fixing it meant abandoning the current Little Garden and building a new one.
That was the purpose behind Ouroboros. And a secret both Ryo and Algol were aware of.
Ryo had brought it up as speculation, but Algol had confirmed it. From her experience, the Lord of Cross was absolutely capable of something like this.
That was the advantage of having a veteran around.
You could use their judgment to verify whether your information lined up with reality.
"If the Cross wants to change Little Garden, they need the majority of gods to agree to abandon the current system. The biggest obstacle is the Sun Authority held by Shiroyasha. So from the very beginning, anyone holding Sun Authority is bound to become their target."
That explained the decline of Salamandra, the destruction of Arcadia, and the fall of the Knights of Little Garden.
Each of them possessed a piece of Sun Authority—Draco, Leo, Ophiuchus. Exactly the things the Cross wanted.
On top of that, their existence helped stabilize the lower layers and keep order intact, making them thorns in Ouroboros's side.
"In the short term, the Godslayer War will heat up. Every god will compete for the chance to reach two-digit status. The Cross will participate openly, but stay hidden beneath the surface, waiting for the final victor."
"Compared to the benefits of a new Little Garden, the chance at two-digit status isn't that important. Besides, due to their cosmology, only Yahweh himself could claim that position—and he's already marked by the central system, making him ineligible. That's the limitation of monotheism."
"So when the Cross makes its move, it'll be in the later stages of the war. My guess is they'll stir conflict among the candidates, using the gods' desire for a savior to deal with the 'approaching end of observed universes' to push Kalki into power and secure ten portions of Sun Authority."
Countless universes observed by Little Garden shared similar human histories. If those histories were tributaries, then together they formed a main current.
And the nature of that current depended on the most dominant outcome.
Right now, the most probable future was humanity's extinction.
The exact cause varied, but the trend itself had become more and more apparent in recent years.
And the pantheon most responsible for influencing that trend was the Cross.
Naturally, the gods wouldn't accept that outcome. But they were a collective with too many voices. With factions like the Cross maneuvering behind the scenes, no consensus had been reached on how to avoid that future.
The Cross's approach seemed to be abandoning the current history altogether and reconstructing Little Garden from the source.
And that required control over the system—more than half of the Sun Authorities.
"Once Kalki is elevated, that's eleven. Only two more are needed. Whether from Queen Halloween or from Shiroyasha, either would be easier to obtain. My bet is on Shiroyasha. If she's forced back to the Upper Layers, she'll have no choice but to appoint a successor, temporarily handing over her position and one portion of Sun Authority to stabilize things."
That was… frighteningly accurate.
Ryo couldn't help but marvel.
When Azi Dahaka appeared in the original story, Shiroyasha was indeed forced to return to the upper layers, temporarily entrusting her Authority to Kouryuu, the Saurian Demon King.
And a four-digit figure like Kouryuu was far easier to deal with than Shiroyasha herself.
With that added piece, the Cross would control twelve Sun Authorities—just one short of the majority needed.
"The ten from Kalki, one from Leticia, and one entrusted by Shiroyasha—that's twelve. And with that old monster's ability, creating a temporary authority out of thin air isn't impossible. That makes thirteen. A majority. At that point, the trend is unstoppable."
"Then it's just a matter of coercion and persuasion. A large portion of the pantheons would agree to move to the new Little Garden. And if a powerful Last Embryo happened to be wreaking havoc at the time, forcing the gods to stay out of the lower layers… even better. They could take most of the pantheons in one go."
"As for the other two-digit relics, they could either be negotiated with or left to do as they please. From the very beginning, this was about splitting off anyway."
With the bits of insider information Ryo had provided, Algol had practically seen through the entire trajectory of Little Garden. It was almost like she was predicting the future.
Ryo, meanwhile, twitched slightly.
He hadn't expected that creating a temporary Sun Authority was even possible.
So this was the Lord of Cross… seriously terrifying.
At that point, Algol looked ahead with a faint smile, her gaze seeming to pierce through the world itself, all the way to the upper layers in Little Garden.
"Tell me… if I leaked this prediction—even just to Shiroyasha—do you think Thousand Eyes would support us in installing a new Lord of Cross?"
Ryo broke into a grin.
And that grin slowly turned a little unhinged.
"You're planning to pull the rug out from under them, aren't you?"
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