— — — — — —
India—
The straw-hatted boy sitting by the river fishing, Shiva, flicked his rod lightly. Watching the fish slip off the hook, he looked surprised.
"You actually came to see me in person? Something big happen?"
Behind him, a handsome young man with a vermilion mark between his brows stepped forward. It was Vishnu, guardian god of the Hindu pantheon.
"Ophis lost. Defeated by some unknown newcomer."
Vishnu tossed a newspaper toward Shiva, his expression grim.
"That joke isn't funny."
Without even turning around, Shiva casually raised a hand and caught the paper. But the moment he glanced at it, his expression turned strange.
"The Demon Daily? Isn't this owned by that Underworld Satan or whatever…"
"Serafall Leviathan. It's one of her businesses." Vishnu explained briefly.
He knew Shiva barely paid attention to things like this. Or rather, Shiva only cared about the strong.
The only reason Serafall had even entered Shiva's awareness was because she'd become a Satan, then immediately went off to dabble in idols, entertainment, and media instead of focusing on ruling. To Shiva, she was less a powerful figure and more a bizarre cautionary tale.
"Oh, that talented little brat who never works hard…"
Shiva finally remembered.
Given his age and status, calling Serafall a "little brat" wasn't strange at all. Back when Shiva had been conquering lands for the Hindu pantheon, even Serafall's grandmother's mother, the progenitor Lilith, hadn't been born yet.
"Let me see here… Fallen Angel Governor Ryo Yagami? He defeated Infinite Dragon God Ophis?"
Shiva sounded genuinely confused now.
"Who's Ryo Yagami?"
"A newly emerged figure. According to the intel, he first appeared in Kyoto five days ago. He seized control of the yokai faction from Kyoto's supreme yokai leader, then somehow got invited into the Fallen Angels by Azazel and became their Governor. After that, it seems he was the one who initiated the peace talks between the Three Factions. The angels and devils apparently want him to become the overall leader of the alliance."
Vishnu explained in detail.
He understood Shiva's personality well enough to know that if he didn't explain thoroughly, Shiva wouldn't bother piecing things together himself.
"A strong one."
The corners of Shiva's mouth curled upward at once, stretching into a grin that almost looked split open.
Vishnu said nothing.
That silence was agreement.
In fact, every major faction that received the news had reached the same conclusion.
Forget whether defeating Ophis was true or false. Just being able to unite the Three Factions, who had warred against each other for a thousand years, already required strength on a world top-ten level.
And not just barely top ten. At the very least, someone on Indra's level. Top five.
Of course, top two was another matter. The report claimed Ophis had been defeated and forced to surrender, but nobody knew what had really happened there. No one was going to believe the devils' side just because they blasted the story across the media.
Not even if the leaders of the Three Factions personally stepped out to confirm it.
The claim was simply too outrageous.
As for whether Ryo Yagami was truly on Shiva's level, the world's number two, that was even harder to judge.
Most of the world's powerhouses in this world were already known quantities. But once one reached the top ten, the existence of other worlds was no longer a secret. Shiva himself had fought beings from other worlds before.
The distance between worlds had limited those clashes, so neither side gained a clear advantage, but they had at least formed a rough understanding of each other.
And the real reason Vishnu had brought the newspaper to Shiva was precisely this: He wanted to know whether Ryo came from another world.
Because in this world, the only person who had truly fought beings from another world might be Shiva alone.
Well… if they counted every existence, then Great Red, drifting beyond the world in the Dimensional Gap, would count too.
But that still only made two.
"Hard to say."
Shiva shook his head, "He feels a little like that monkey."
Sun Wukong…
Vishnu silently completed the thought in his heart.
In this world too, Sun Wukong had emerged from stone. The moment he was born, he already possessed Satan-class strength. After years of training, he had eventually reached Heavenly Dragon level, becoming one of the strongest figures among the newer generation in the past several thousand years.
Of course, "new generation" was only by Shiva's standards.
To everyone else, Sun Wukong was already an ancient monster among ancient monsters.
Truthfully, the power ranking system in this world was extremely crude. There was no precise scale, only representative tiers.
Among devils, low, middle, and high-class devils represented the lower ranks. Mid-to-high combat power started from Ultimate-Class Devils. And extended all the way to Satan-class.
Among the Satan-class, however, the previous generation's Four Great Satans were exceptional even by Satan standards, existing on the same level as Heavenly Dragons.
In India's terminology, Heavenly Dragon was essentially the level beyond ordinary Satan-class. The newly born Two Heavenly Dragons served as the standard representatives of this tier.
The Two Heavenly Dragons had been Heavenly Dragon-class from birth.
Beyond even them stood the world's top ten.
Generally stronger than Heavenly Dragons, yet unquestionably inferior to transcendent beings like Ophis, Trihexa, the Creator God, or Great Red.
If one insisted on assigning a level to them, perhaps "pseudo-Dragon God class" would fit.
But even within the world's top ten, the power gaps were absurd.
Take Shiva, ranked second in the world. Against Indra, ranked fifth, the latter probably wouldn't survive two moves.
That ridiculous disparity had always frustrated the world's powerhouses. One careless mistake and you could provoke someone who looked like your equal, only to discover they were several times stronger than you.
Plenty of people had died that way.
To Ryo, though, this felt perfectly normal.
The gap between five-digit beings in Little Garden was also that outrageous.
A rule-breaker five-digit could fight at light speed and shatter planets barehanded. But a newly ascended ordinary five-digit, a normal lifeform that had only just obtained divinity, might top out at combat speeds around Mach 10.
That difference in speed alone was about a hundred thousand times.
With gaps like that, detailed rankings became meaningless.
"So even you can't determine it?" Vishnu's expression grew wary.
A divided three-faction was manageable.
A united one could no longer be ignored.
If the devils truly possessed figures like Sirzechs, Ajuka, Lilith, Grayfia, and now Ryo, with perhaps two or three even ranking among the world's top ten, then the Hindu pantheon could not afford to sit idle.
The Hindu Trimurti firmly occupied ranks two through four in the world.
But if the devils suddenly gained a comparable number of elite powerhouses of the same caliber, it would absolutely hinder the Hindu pantheon's expansion.
"Whether I can determine it or not, what difference does it make?"
Shiva chuckled, amusement flickering in his eyes.
"As long as God still exists, the three factions are unshakable. There's no point discussing this."
"But God is dead." Vishnu sounded dissatisfied.
He had long been unhappy with the Hindu pantheon's obsession with maintaining the status quo, yet Shiva had remained unmoved all this time.
"Dead? Says who? Indra?" Shiva let out a mocking laugh.
"That brat's strength is mediocre, yet he's always scheming. Does he seriously think successfully infiltrating the system once and probing the Sacred Gear's limits once is enough to conclude God is dead?"
Vishnu's expression changed instantly. "You mean…? Impossible. He was gravely wounded back then. He faced the Four Great Satans and the Seventy-Two Pillars while already half-dead. How could He still be alive?"
"Maybe."
Shiva shook his head. "Maybe alive. Maybe dead. Either way, we only need to handle our own affairs."
He lowered his gaze slightly. "If I can achieve one more breakthrough and truly reach the level where the Creator God once stood, then we won't even need to do anything. The other mythologies will willingly hand over territory to us, just like how they once yielded to God."
Vishnu clenched his jaw unwillingly, "How much longer?"
"Maybe thousands of years. Maybe decades. Just wait."
Shiva lowered his straw hat and resumed fishing.
Vishnu gritted his teeth, suppressed his frustration, and strode away.
Watching him leave, Shiva shook his head. "One after another, all obsessed with schemes and tricks instead of improving themselves. Do they really think Great Red can guard the Dimensional Gap forever?"
He had long since seen through the thoughts of people like Indra and Vishnu.
He simply never exposed them, allowing them to waste themselves in internal conflict.
What did it matter to him anyway?
As long as that person within the three factions still existed, new powerhouses would continue to emerge, shaking the old order and forcing the world to grow stronger.
That was what Shiva had realized from the Devil Civil War.
A mere internal war among devils had produced Sirzechs, Ajuka, and Rizevim, all of whom could step into the top ten.
In recent years, even dragon species had begun breaking through into Heavenly Dragon territory one after another. And among humanity, more and more individuals capable of rivaling Satan-class had begun appearing.
"A world where everyone becomes a dragon…"
Shiva sighed softly. "I really don't know what that person is thinking. Numbers alone don't necessarily mean strength…"
Then his attention returned to the river.
A fish had taken the bait.
.
.
.