Heaven, Seventh Heaven.
The originally tranquil space suddenly rippled ever so slightly. Immediately afterward, that ripple spread like a wave, growing larger and larger.
A pair of blue eyes flickered indistinctly at the center of the disturbance, only to vanish without a trace in the next instant.
Of course, that did not mean they had disappeared. Their owner had simply chosen to conceal herself.
When Elise first arrived in the world of High School DxD, she had unhesitatingly released her aura, making everyone in the world believe that the God of the Bible had returned.
After all, at the time, Elise had considered such a declaration necessary.
But things were different now. What she was about to do needed to remain secret, so Elise chose not to release her aura. Instead, she concealed herself and completely suppressed the fluctuations of energy within her body.
That way, no one outside would notice any changes, and her plan could proceed to the next stage.
"Not bad. Very good!"
Elise stroked her ample chest. Along with the softness beneath her hand, she could also feel an intense heat.
That heat was not her body temperature radiating from the surface of her skin, but warmth emanating from deep inside her body!
After all this time, Elise had finally succeeded in merging the crystallized faith into her body, further increasing her affinity with the power of faith.
Previously, whenever Elise used the power of faith, she would first absorb the faith around her, convert it through Sacred Speech, and then use that transformed power according to her intentions.
But now, after absorbing and assimilating the crystallized faith, her own body had effectively become a converter. She could skip that entire process and wield the power of faith much more quickly!
The current Elise could practically be regarded as a true goddess sustained by faith.
"As expected of me. I completed this step so quickly!"
Praise aside, Elise still possessed some self-awareness.
After undergoing such a long transformation, Elise had also developed some different ideas, almost all of them concerning the power of faith.
Originally, Elise had believed that the power of faith was flawed and could not be relied upon completely, so she ought to seek some other kind of power capable of replacing it.
Now, her view was somewhat different. She still believed that all true power should ultimately belong to oneself and that external forces could not be relied upon completely, but there was nothing wrong with appropriately strengthening herself through them.
In short, she could possess it and make it powerful, but she could never depend on it entirely. After all, it was not power originating from within her own body.
Besides, there probably were not many beings in this world capable of using the power of faith anyway, right?
"Hehe. Thinking about it now, it seems I really can conquer the world?"
Her own strength could be improved through her own training, but the power of faith was produced purely by other people's belief in her.
If conquering the world could bring Elise more faith, then she would simply conquer it!
Whether humans, devils, angels, or any other race, Elise did not care. As long as they could provide her with faith, that was enough.
Originally, the only forces under her command had been Heaven and the Church. Now, after her victory over the devils and fallen angels, quite a few minor factions were willing to join her as well.
"Heaven's influence really is growing larger and larger... Hm?"
Just as Elise was imagining the future, something suddenly caught her attention.
To confirm her current abilities, Elise opened the Lord God Space interface, intending to check the changes to her body. But what she saw genuinely stunned her for a moment.
Overall, there had not been many changes. Thanks to the Falna from the world of DanMachi, all her physical attributes had risen to A rank, which was already extraordinarily impressive in this world.
But that was merely the starting point. Without physical capabilities at that level, Elise would never have been able to merge with the crystallized faith in the first place.
What surprised Elise most was that one of her skills had changed!
A skill Elise knew extremely well had disappeared...
Sacred Speech!
This was the very skill that allowed Elise to transform the power of faith into all kinds of abilities, and now... it was gone!
The instant she discovered this, a trace of panic appeared on Elise's face. But immediately afterward, that panic transformed entirely into delight, an indescribable joy!
Sacred Speech had not disappeared. It had evolved!
Now, it had cast aside the name Sacred Speech and transformed into Divine Word!
Divine Word (Using spoken or written language as a medium, faith can be converted and utilized with greater efficiency. Every word and sentence may manifest its power.)
Almost instantly, Elise remembered a famous line from the Bible.
God said, "Let there be light." And there was light.
Then... Divine Word!
"Let there be light!"
Almost the instant those words left her lips, Elise felt the surrounding power of faith gather wildly, converging according to her will.
And thus, a tiny point of white light appeared in Elise's hand.
Unexpectedly, however, the point of light in Elise's palm... seemed a little too bright?
Under Elise's modifications, the dark Seventh Heaven had become a sacred realm where seven colors intertwined, resembling a chaos formed from countless colors converging together.
But now, because of the appearance of that point of light, every color in the surroundings vanished, leaving behind nothing but pure white radiance!
"Too bright! Too bright! Go out!"
Under the illumination of such intense light, Elise quickly felt her body heating up. If this continued, she might even catch fire.
Thus, at her command, the white point of light created by Divine Word quickly vanished without a trace.
However, perhaps Elise had failed to control her power properly?
Because she had commanded it to go out, the surrounding environment also darkened. Before long, everything had become completely pitch-black... Wasn't this exactly the same as before?
Elise was somewhat speechless, but at the same time, she was incredibly excited.
"Isn't this a little too amazing?"
Such an improvement genuinely left Elise astonished. Sacred Speech had already been powerful enough before, yet now it had reached an almost unattainable level!
If she absolutely had to compare it to something... it was extremely close to that time!
That's right. The time Elise was referring to was back in the world of The Asterisk War, when she fused with Sylvia and became Elyvia...
Because Sylvia was a Strega who used her voice as a weapon, her abilities shared certain similarities with Elise's Sacred Speech. After the two girls fused, both of their abilities underwent a tremendous leap in power... Wasn't that effectively the equivalent of Sacred Speech evolving?
She never expected that now, she would manage to evolve the skill entirely through her own efforts!
"Come to think of it, I really should thank Xinglou!"
"If she hadn't pressured me every step of the way back then, I'm afraid even I wouldn't have gotten that opportunity, right?"
Elise silently made up her mind. Once she returned to the world of The Asterisk War, she would definitely give Xinglou a generous gift!
As a saintess, how could she possibly do something as ungrateful as forgetting a favor? Since Fan Xinglou had helped Elise, Elise would naturally repay that kindness!
"If I remember correctly, Xinglou loves fighting, right?"
"Once I go back, I'll be her sparring partner for a while! Hehehe!"
...
"How's the situation?"
"Yes. They've already been taken away by the angels."
That night, after Sirzechs left the human world and returned to the Underworld, the first thing he did was find his wife, Grayfia, to confirm the situation in the Underworld.
Had it truly been attacked by that "Khaos Brigade," just as the God of the Bible had said...?
After hearing the news from Grayfia, Sirzechs finally understood.
Everything had been within the God of the Bible's expectations!
That exalted being had foreseen everything long ago!
"If it were Ajuka and me, we definitely couldn't have done something like this. As expected of the God of the Bible."
Sirzechs was certain that he was definitely not overthinking things!
An existence like the God of the Bible had probably even predicted how he would react at this very moment, hadn't she?
No matter how highly he estimated such an existence, there was still a chance he was underestimating her...
Elise: Huh?
Therefore, he had to think even further ahead!
Although the devils had submitted to Heaven, that did not mean they were necessarily safe.
External factions might refrain from attacking the devils out of fear of the God of the Bible, but one must not forget that threats did not necessarily come from outside!
As the saying went, serving a sovereign was like accompanying a tiger!
And now, the devils were accompanying the tiger that was Heaven!
Once the devils ceased to be useful, Sirzechs seriously wondered whether the God of the Bible might simply eradicate the entire devil race along with them!
Therefore, there was only one thing Sirzechs and the other Satans needed to consider: how to demonstrate the value of the devils!
And this God of the Bible clearly was not one to remain idle. The war against the devils had only just ended, and now she was immediately preparing to launch another one...
Just thinking about it made Sirzechs feel as though his head were swelling.
War should have allowed the devils to demonstrate their value more quickly, because devils were strong. Compared with those feeble fallen angels, their side had two Super Devils!
Yet Sirzechs simply could not bring himself to feel happy, though he had no idea why.
"What's wrong?"
As Sirzechs' wife and maid, Grayfia quickly noticed his mood and immediately asked.
"It's because of the war. Heaven is about to begin another one."
"Another one? Against whom?"
Grayfia froze upon hearing that. Was Heaven really moving this quickly? They had barely rested after finishing one war, and they were already ready to start the next?
Sirzechs did not answer Grayfia immediately. Instead, he lowered his head slightly and stared at the floor...
Seeing him behave like that, Grayfia's first reaction was that the devils were about to suffer again. But after thinking about it carefully, that did not make sense.
Come on, we only just finished fighting. Why would we fight again now? If she wanted to exterminate us, wouldn't it have been better to do it all at once before?
Very quickly, Grayfia thought of something else. The Underworld was not inhabited solely by devils... A portion of the fallen angels lived there as well.
But for Heaven to attack the fallen angels and devils immediately after they had surrendered would obviously be a terrible decision. In that case, there had to be a third party!
And conveniently enough, there was another realm of the dead right next door to the Underworld!
"So the God of the Bible's target... is Hades?"
Upon hearing that familiar name, Sirzechs covered his face with a bitter smile and nodded at Grayfia.
Barring any unexpected developments, the God of the Bible's target was indeed Hades of the Greek pantheon!
But... why Hades?
Was it simply because he was geographically close to the devils?
The instant that thought appeared in his mind, Sirzechs rejected it.
Surely the God of the Bible would not attack one of the three principal gods of Greek mythology for a reason like that, right?
There had to be some deeper meaning behind it!
But Sirzechs could not figure out what that meaning was no matter how long he thought, so he could only give up.
"According to the God of the Bible's orders, both we and the fallen angels must dispatch some troops. The problem is that she didn't specify how many, and we don't know how many the fallen angels will send either..."
This was obviously a test!
Heaven was comparing the two factions beneath its command and had deliberately refrained from telling them how many troops were required.
If they brought too many troops, it would seem excessively redundant.
But if they brought too few, they might be accused of disloyalty.
So whether they brought too many or too few would create problems. It was an extremely difficult decision, especially because they were being compared with the fallen angels!
That old fox Azazel clearly could not be trusted. If Sirzechs went to ask him directly, Azazel might instead trick him into revealing information.
"Sigh. There's really one thing after another to deal with!"
Amid repeated sighs, Sirzechs returned to his desk.
He had been working overtime constantly lately. To make things easier on the other Satans, he had even taken on some of their workloads as well.
"Surely there isn't anyone busier than me right now, is there?"
...
Heaven, Sixth Heaven.
Michael sat miserably at his desk, staring at the assignment the God of the Bible had given him.
"As expected of my Lord. To think she created so many angels in such a short period of time!"
At this point, Michael could not help sighing.
Now that the God of the Bible had become the ruler of all three great factions, the title of Ruler of Heaven had once again fallen upon Michael's shoulders.
But not long after reclaiming that title, Michael encountered an extremely serious problem...
Heaven's population had exploded!
"No matter how you look at it, that's ten thousand angels!"
Although all of them were two-winged angels, these were two-winged angels of the new generation. They were nothing like the angels of the past!
And that was not all. Michael felt that although there was fundamentally nothing wrong with the new angels Elise had created, and they were indeed good-hearted people...
Didn't most of them have personalities that were far too eccentric?
Some spent all day brooding in silence. Some had explosive tempers and loved causing trouble. There were even some who constantly made strange expressions...
Are those really angels?
Although Michael had already received word that this new generation of angels would not fall, still...
"Forget it. I'll just trust in my Lord!"
Unable to think of any better solution, Michael eventually gave up. But there was one thing he absolutely had to do first!
These new angels absolutely could not be allowed to stay together with the veteran angels! Otherwise, in just a few days, those so-called seniors might all defect to the fallen angel faction!
Even more terrifyingly, the fallen angel faction was still under their Lord's command!
"We'll just have to take things one step at a time..."
And so, Michael, who in the eyes of outsiders had regained boundless glory following the resurrection of the God of the Bible, once again plunged into the endless tide of overtime work.
As for the fallen angels...
Azazel: "Overtime! Overtime!"
It seemed that under Elise's leadership, the Biblical faction had truly begun operating at full capacity. Its future was bound to be prosperous and flourishing, and everyone surely had a wonderful tomorrow ahead of them!
Truly a cause for celebration. What wonderful news!