"Then next, it's time to deal with the problems in Heaven, isn't it?" Elise slowly opened her eyes in Heaven.
Now that the three great factions of the Bible had been unified, there was no need to say much about what remained to be done, was there?
If she wanted to bring the world of High School DxD completely under her control, then she would have to attack every faction in the world!
If she went after them one by one, it would take an enormous amount of time. Those factions might even band together to resist Heaven.
If that really happened, even Heaven would have trouble handling it... Hehe, just kidding!
Elise was in Heaven now. Even if she had to face every faction in the world at once, so what?
Still, conquering them one by one would be far too troublesome, so Elise had deliberately leaked some information in advance.
That's right. News of the attack on the Underworld, along with some information about the Khaos Brigade and Heaven, had probably already reached the hands of the various factions by now.
She wondered what they would think when they saw it.
The Satans, who were Super Devils, had been defeated. The faction that attacked the Underworld had also been annihilated by Heaven. On top of that, there was the returned God of the Bible and the unfathomable Infinite Dragon God...
Without question, this was the single most powerful force in the entire world!
Any ordinary minor faction would probably surrender on the spot after seeing a lineup like this, wouldn't they?
Even some mid-tier factions, or perhaps even a few of the world's top powers, might choose to surrender outright.
"That should save me a lot of trouble, right?"
"My body is almost complete too!"
Once that happened, Elise's own strength would increase significantly. She would be able to convert a far greater amount of faith into power, and at a much faster rate as well.
Then, if Elise encountered another opponent who likewise used the power of faith, she would no longer be suppressed so thoroughly that she could not even fight back.
"I wonder how those guys from the Khaos Brigade are doing?"
"And my newly created little angels too!"
The moment she thought of those newborn angels, a smile involuntarily appeared on Elise's face.
If she was being completely truthful, Elise thought creating angels was genuinely fun!
She could sculpt all kinds of appearances, assign all sorts of bizarre personalities, and even grant those angels extraordinarily powerful abilities!
Of course, the most important part was still that...
The angels Elise created were unlike Heaven's old angels, who would fall if their desires grew too strong. Her angels would remain white-winged forever, and even doing a few naughty things would not matter.
Not only were they powerful, they would never fall and would never betray Elise. They were truly incredibly useful allies!
However, because she had created far too many of them, Elise had only casually shaped many of their faces, recreating characters from anime she had seen before.
There were girls like Hirano, Kaguya, Mai... Quite a few were characters from slice-of-life anime, allowing Elise to experience what it felt like to have those so-called two-dimensional heroines call her Master.
In short, it felt absolutely amazing!
And even their personalities were more or less identical to the originals!
If she ordered them to do something embarrassing, she could even receive all kinds of unexpected reactions!
This place was practically heaven!
Come to think of it, this was Heaven to begin with, wasn't it? And she was God, so there was no problem at all!
Of course, the most important ones were those few special individuals. When Elise created them, she had granted them an extraordinary amount of power. Even compared with Michael and the others, they were not much weaker at all!
That was why Elise had opened an isolated space beside the angels' resurrection spring. Although the two places were right next to each other, anyone who barged in without Elise's permission might very well end up with both body and soul completely destroyed!
And the thing this place was best suited for was serving as a trap against enemies!
Just like what Raphael and Uriel had done in the Underworld, they could directly teleport every member of the Khaos Brigade who launched an attack into this place, then mobilize the full power of the angels to annihilate them!
Because of the restrictions Elise had placed here, unless someone was stronger than Elise herself, or Elise personally allowed them to leave, no one could possibly escape this space. They would be trapped here until the day they died!
Of course, if she left them inside that space forever, there was always a chance they might eventually research some special method of escaping. After all, no wall in the world was completely airtight.
There might be flaws here that even Elise herself did not know about.
So, just to be safe, it would be better to deploy forces and eliminate them as soon as possible.
That was Elise's plan for dealing with the Khaos Brigade.
...
"Damn it! Why are these angels so strong?"
A devil clutched his bleeding shoulder, his expression extraordinarily ugly and equally bewildered.
The strength of angels was normally determined by the number of wings they possessed. The Four Great Seraphs, for example, were all twelve-winged Seraphs!
Then there was that newly reported individual named Metatron, a thirty-six-winged angel!
Everything about them reflected the hierarchy of the angelic race.
But no matter how much they thought about it, they never could have imagined that Elise had already abolished that entire system.
In the current Heaven, even two-winged angels possessed astonishing potential, no weaker at all than veterans like Michael.
The badly wounded devil had just been attacked by more than one two-winged angel.
For example, there had been a black-haired, blue-eyed angel with a very flat figure who wielded ice-elemental power with incredible mastery.
Then there was an angel whose beautiful hair burned like flames and who possessed a pair of blazing wings, all while shouting things like "Judgment"...
"Ugh! Damn God of the Bi... Aaargh!"
Before the devil could finish speaking, a blade tore open his back.
"You dare disrespect our Lord. Die!"
The words were filled with intense emotion, yet the angel who spoke them wore no expression whatsoever. Even the devil was frightened by the sight.
Damn it! How did I forget about this one?
Ever since the battle began, an invisible figure had been hiding among the Khaos Brigade.
The moment anyone lowered their guard, they would immediately be attacked!
There's no mistake. That power...
She can even reduce her own presence?
Why do these angels have so many bizarre abilities?
But soon, a thought suddenly flashed through the devil's mind, leaving him completely stunned.
Come to think of it, weren't Sacred Gears originally created by the God of the Bible?
Sacred Gears possessed all kinds of strange and unusual abilities too. In other words...
"Could all these angels be...?"
The idea was outrageous, yet after thinking about it carefully, it somehow made perfect sense.
Could the God of the Bible have granted every single angel the ability of a Sacred Gear?
And there were...
Thousands upon thousands of angels here!
Under such overwhelming superiority in both numbers and strength, the members of the Khaos Brigade had absolutely no ability to resist.
And even if they could resist, what difference would it make?
The strongest among them were only Satan-class. Against this new generation of angels created by Elise, they had no chance of victory whatsoever.
The outcome of this battle had already been decided before it even began. The Khaos Brigade had long since fallen into a trap, so how could they possibly achieve final victory?
Before long, hardly any members of the Khaos Brigade remained.
If there had not been so many angels that some of them could not even squeeze their way onto the battlefield, the Khaos Brigade might have lost even faster!
The few remaining descendants of the Satans were covered in wounds. They stood back-to-back, warily watching the angels surrounding them.
They had already exhausted every method at their disposal and had even managed to kill quite a few angels, but before such overwhelming numbers, they had ultimately still been defeated.
Even drawing upon the power of Ophis' snakes within their bodies could not change the final outcome.
Aside from the two of them, every other member of the Khaos Brigade had already been wiped out!
"Even now, you still don't intend to surrender?"
At that moment, however, a cold female voice came from among the angels, instantly putting the remaining devils on edge.
The angels moved aside one after another, opening a path for the owner of that voice.
Soon afterward, three angels flew out from the crowd and arrived before the two devils.
To be able to speak on behalf of all the angels at a moment like this, her status naturally could not be low. At the very least, she had to be the commander of this army.
Like the other angels, all three possessed only two wings. But after everything the two devils had experienced in the battle just now, they would never underestimate their strength again.
"Surrender? Heh!"
"Are you joking?"
Even after being driven completely into a desperate situation, they still had no intention of surrendering.
Heaven and the Underworld had always been mortal enemies!
Devils had their own pride. They would never surrender like Sirzechs and his people had!
"I see."
The short-haired angel at the front slowly closed her eyes, and the way she looked at the devils gradually changed.
"Although you are our enemies, your determination to uphold your convictions and refuse surrender is unquestionably worthy of respect!"
"So allow me to state my name..."
The angel took a deep breath, her gaze filled with incomparable seriousness.
"I am Gabriel, commander of the New Angel Legion!"
"And I shall be the one to bring your lives to an end!"
With that, the angel named Gabriel spread both hands and raised her head toward the sky as though welcoming something.
"O God, please grant me the power to conquer all before me!"
In an instant, the devils felt an enormous amount of power converging overhead. Soon, a gigantic golden sphere appeared above Gabriel.
"As a sign of respect, I will use the greatest power currently at my disposal to utterly annihilate you!"
"State your names. I will remember them forever!"
But even after Gabriel said this, the devils still had no intention of doing so.
"No... there's no need."
"Just destroy us like this..."
Perhaps sensing that death had arrived, the devils no longer struggled as stubbornly as before.
"..."
"I understand. And... farewell!"
As the golden sphere of light descended from the heavens, the last remaining devils of the Khaos Brigade were completely reduced to black smoke and dispersed into the air.
As commander of the New Angel Legion, Gabriel silently watched everything unfold and remained quiet for a long time.
"I didn't expect there to be devils with this much backbone. It seems the decision not to exterminate all devils really was correct!"
"Although the current Underworld has already surrendered to Heaven, there must still be devils within it who will see their convictions through to the very end!"
"This world truly is beautiful!"
After staring at the black ash on the ground for a long time, Gabriel finally withdrew her gaze.
"Let's return and report to our Lord, Gabriel and Raphael."
After hearing Gabriel's words, the golden-haired and white-haired figures behind her immediately nodded in agreement.
...
"Huh? From the way you describe it, they really did have some backbone!"
After returning to Heaven's great hall, Gabriel immediately brought the two accompanying angels to their Lord's location and reported everything that had happened to Elise.
"Yes, my Lord!"
The three angels lowered their heads and knelt on one knee in the great hall. Without their Lord's permission, no one was normally allowed to gaze directly upon the radiance of God.
Even an Archangel could not do so casually.
"Then raise your heads, Gabriel, Gab and Raphael."
"You did very well. You have faithfully carried out the duties of angels by destroying our enemies and protecting Heaven."
"But even after accomplishing all this, you must not become overly proud."
"As the saying goes, humility makes one progress, while pride makes one fall behind. If we remain arrogant and refuse to learn with humility, then sooner or later, enemies who invade our homeland will take everything away from us!"
"You must continue striving! Contribute your strength to making Heaven a better place!"
At some point, Elise had already left the throne in the great hall and arrived beside Gabriel and the other angels. She began examining them carefully, especially Gabriel!
"But when carrying out missions, you must always remember that protecting your own lives takes priority..."
"Every angel's life is priceless!"
"I don't want to see any of you lose your lives in war... but war is something we cannot avoid!"
"Do you understand?"
Elise gently cupped Gabriel's cheeks with both hands, lifting her face so that she would look directly at her.
Elise was wearing an eyepatch, so there was no need to worry about their eyes meeting.
Faced with Elise's request—or rather, command—Gabriel naturally could not refuse. Neither could Gab and Raphael behind her.
"I understand, my Lord!"
After hearing Elise's words, Gabriel lowered her head once again, leaving Elise somewhat helpless.
Although Gabriel was extremely powerful and possessed absurdly high talent, she had one very serious flaw. She was far too rigid!
Her intelligence was undeniably impressive, but her stubborn, single-minded way of doing things truly did not match her appearance at all.
"Then go and make preparations, Gabriel!"
With that, golden light gradually appeared in Elise's hand, and a letter materialized within it.
"These are the arrangements for what comes next. You'd better take a look, because there are simply too many things we need to do."
"Even the next war is about to begin..."
Gabriel froze, and then her expression changed.
Our Lord is going to war again?
But that was none of her concern. As an angel, all she needed to do was obey her Lord's commands.
"Rest assured, my Lord!"
"No matter what you desire, we angels will obtain it for you!"
"Even if it costs us our lives!"