The sky above the square filled with spheres of light, eighteen thousand of them, each one a full-grown adult Angel in gestation, suspended and ripening. When they finally burst, the divine aura released all at once was enough to feel across the entire capital.
He counted as they emerged.
More than twelve thousand God Tier Angels, as expected. The strongest among them were:
Fourteen and Sixteen-Winged Angels: 26Twelve-Winged Angels: 100+Ten-Winged Angels: 400+The remaining Gods are all Six and Eight-Winged Lower True Gods.
There were no Supreme God Tier Eighteen-Winged Angel this time, but twenty-six High Gods in a single morning was not a complaint.
From the ordinary pools: there were more than five thousand Demigod Tier Angels, all Two-Winged and Four-Winged.
The Angels gathered before him, led by the high-ranking Angels, and bowed with the synchronized reverence that never quite stopped being striking.
"Praise you, Almighty Lord."
"Go." Haru said, "Join the Angel army on the battlefield. Follow Lysandra's orders."
A Sixteen-Winged Angel raised her scepter. Holy light flashed, it was the legion-teleportation skill, keyed to wherever Holy Light presence existed, and all eighteen thousand Angels vanished at once.
…
He moved on to the rest of the day's recruitment.
Nature Elves, Dragons, Troops of Light, Golden Beamons. There were fourteen thousand of them in total. When he reached the dragons, his luck spiked. Among the God Class Dragons that emerged, he found Space Dragons, several Time Dragons, and one that made him pause. A Fate Dragon.
Even in the Drakara, they were rare. A Fate Dragon carried the blessing of the Law of Fate from birth. Their True God Tier growth potential was guaranteed, and after ascending, the Law of Fate came naturally to them rather than needing to be cultivated. They were oracles by nature, capable of glimpsing future currents.
Haru named her Ananke, and hoped she would grow into the great prophet of his empire's Dragon Clan, guiding their path the way her nature intended.
He was watching the new recruits assemble when something pulled at his attention.
He looked up. His gaze extended outward, hundreds of millions of kilometers, to outer space.
The space near the Blood Moon collapsed without warning. In the void where it had been, a gate of time and space tore open. It was blood-red, its frame dense with Abyssal Runes, radiating a wave of evil Abyssal Aura that rolled outward like a tide and swallowed the surrounding sky whole.
Then the figures came through.
Twelve of them, vast enough that each one could have wrapped its arms around the Blood Moon. They stood half-submerged in a sea of blood that had spread to eclipse the moon itself, dark-purple eyes looking down at the Endless Continent with expressions that contained no curiosity, no calculation. Only destruction and killing, as pure and unconditional as breathing.
This was the nature of Dimensional Demons. Not targeted conquest, not strategic expansion, just the obliteration of any planet that held living things. In the entire universe (real one, not the Illusory Angel Realm), no race has conquered and destroyed more planets across the span of history.
Arboriel was simply the most recent example: the surface scrubbed clean, only a handful of survivors clinging to the core with the Laws' protection. The Burning Legion came for everything, and almost nothing had ever stopped them.
The twelve shadows standing in the blood sea were the Demon Monarchs of the Abyss—their projections, not their bodies. Their projections came first. Bodies followed.
…
The appearance of the gate and the twelve shadows alarmed the entire Endless Continent simultaneously.
Gods could see it clearly across any distance. But ordinary people on the surface could see it too, the sea of blood had swallowed the Blood Moon whole, and twelve silhouettes the size of sky-pillars stood against the stars above every horizon at once. There was no missing it.
The mortal world descended into panic. Doomsday declarations spread through every race and nation, reaching even the depths of the sea where the Ocean Empire sat. Some tribes and factions simply announced that the Burning Legion would wipe the Endless Continent clean, that all races were already dead and hadn't realized it yet.
The world of Gods reacted differently. Among them, the appearance of the gate triggered something closer to anticipation. Because the arrival of the "Devil's Gate" and the Demon Monarchs' projections meant that the Throneveil Shrine was coming. And with it came the God King's Throne, which had kept millions of Gods waiting for a hundred thousand years.
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