“Put that crate over there. No, not there, you stupid piece of rock, THERE!” I said, pointing to the stupid golem who at times seemed unable to answer to even simple commands.

How did master Avicebron manage to make it seem so effortless? ​​

… Because he was a genius, I wager.

My skills in making golems don’t lose out by much against him, but I can’t seem to control them as effortlessly no matter how many years I spent on it.

Regardless, I am pleased enough with my current skills in making golems, and with the materials that arrived. I can do a lot of them. And I made a considerable number of golems by using a production line.

Yep, I fucking industrialized magic, and it is glorious.

Truly, while God fucked up with most of his trinkets, Dimension Lost is a good catch. It works wonders as a storage facility and a place to make bigger constructs and more ‘questionable’ experiments.

Well, how questionable the experiments actually are, depends on the perspective of the one seeing them.

Now my workshop is divided into two areas. The one located in the basement of the house where I do the planning and more meticulous and detailed work, in it I can do my enchanting and forging the best due to the excess mana in the air. Not only that, but it also is where I can train my body as well as continue my studies on Heaven’s Feel.

Meanwhile, inside Dimension Lost is where I produce my golems, where I am preparing my masterpiece, and is also where I put my lab for homunculus creation as well as the living experiments. Well, not really living since in most cases I am studying the corpses of the stray devils and the sacred gear users killed a few days back.

Regardless, none of that is what is keeping my focus at this current moment. Instead, I am wondering about the body of Albion I’ve got and all its uses.

When I got the body of the heavenly dragon I had a good plan. I intended to bury it underneath my house deep underground where the leylines would pass through it as to redirect them into my house and make this whole place brimming with mana to as high a degree as possible. With this mana in the air, any bounded field would be possible for me to construct, and their capabilities would be that much higher.

Basically, I intended to make my house be a power spot similar to the Clock Tower that teacher Bartomelloi talked about, a place of magic that survived even the human age. The bounded fields there were strong enough that even Servants would need to use their Noble Phantasm several times if they hoped to breach it, but that was its defense in the age of man and under the strong influence of Allaya and Gaia, where all magecraft is weakened considerably.

This world is in the Age of the Gods and the influence of Allaya and Gaia is minimal at best, if it even exists in most places. The effect of the corpse of Albion is even more absurd than the one used for the clock tower, as for the power of the bounded fields I set up these last few days? The bounded fields that used fresh mythical materials like feathers of angels and fallen angels, the blood of a heavenly dragon, and things like pieces of several mythical beasts and several rare gems, well…

I think only someone like that stuck-up golden prick using his precious sword could break what I’ve built here or something equally as absurd.

That plan worked splendidly, my house is now as good as a ‘holy land’ for magic users as far as I can tell, but the thing is, in the end, I didn’t need to use ALL the body for this place to reach this degree. I still have some pieces that are ‘available’ since they wouldn’t improve the conditions of this place.

I am under no delusions that Leviathan forgave me for hurting her sister, nor that crazy blond woman that, according to Riser works for Leviathan, will let her defeat go. I need to have suitable countermeasures for when they try something as well as the retaliation of the Hero Faction.

Since my masterpiece will take a while to properly form (which is a shame) I must make my own personal preparations until then. First, I need to reattach my severed arm properly, now that the modifications are done. For that, I go to Mittelt that has the Twilight Healing (that ended up with me not needing to trade away, thankfully) and ask for her help.

“Go back and wait with the rest,” I order the golem who walks back to the gateway I’ve made to Dimension Lost.

That gear was much more interesting than I expected and makes me wonder if God was mentally retarded to give it to others just like that.

… He most likely was either stupid or stupidly nice, it is one or the other if he gave that away.

After I stabilized it to a single location, I felt very satisfied with its results. Doing so meant I couldn’t pop it up anywhere I wanted or have its ‘absolute’ defense (sure didn’t help Georg there, the dumbass), but the space stability after I did that increased and now it has an internal ‘continent’ about the size of Tokyo, and it is still growing as the mana in the air is fed to it and the space stabilizes further. And with my house having so much energy constantly flowing in it, the ‘continent’ is still growing without signs to stop.

Losing an ‘invincibility’ shield for what might one day be a world of my own? A good enough trade, I would say. Especially since there is that whole ‘rule’ for invincibility.

Invincible, invincible, invincible, dead.

After the golem leaves, I move to where Mittelt is and only to find her and Aya are playing some dancing game.

“Hah, hah, hah, why did I lose again? What is your secret?” Mittelt complains as sweat runs down her face. She couldn’t understand how she lost 17 times in a row to Aya despite the human girl looking like skin and bones.

“Hehe, I don’t know. It just comes naturally.” Aya said with a small smile.

Mittelt was about to retort when I spoke up.

“Let it go, Mittelt. Aya is what one would call a genius, people like that are unfair in their areas of specialty.” I spoke from experience, things that the Heroic Spirits in the Throne took just ten years at most to learn what would easily take him ten times that, if I was that fast. And the most infuriating was that, in the end, my results many times were not quite as perfect as the original.

Aya laughed at Mittelt’s pouting. The two have become closer friends as days passed despite not having much in common.

“Anyway, Mittelt, I need your help with something.” I said and the fallen girl approached.

“Sure, what is it, boss?” Mittelt asks, she has perspiration on her face and seems tired, but a happy smile on her face. It is quite cute really.

“I finished the modifications for my arm a few days back but forgot to implant it back, help me out would you?”

As I said so I presented my arm to Mittelt who took it in her hands… and almost fell to the floor due to the weight of it.

“What the? Why is it this heavy?” She complained as she readjusted herself.

“I did some small tweaks to it.” I said easily enough, thinking about all the modifications I did. I am quite proud of the changes I’ve done to it. Mittelt chose not to comment, she most likely just put it under the ‘not human’ file she has made for me in her mind. It is a bit offensive she would do that, but whatever.

It would make some sense, I guess. After all, that arm weighs about 42 times what a normal arm should for that size. It is still human DNA there though, even if a bit modified compared to originally, so it is still 100% human.

After putting it back in position Mittelt used her Twilight Healing to fix the ‘injury’ that separated the two parts. It took about four times as much as a normal procedure should, but that is fine as well. When the two connected Mittelt was shocked when the shoulder that connected with my arm inflated for a few moments and it seemed like it was about to explode, only for after a few seconds things went back to normal.

“What happened?” Aya questioned worriedly and I just smiled.

“Not much, just some changes I’ve done to my arm that tried to spread to my body before it was time. I just had to educate it a bit. I will probably need to put an enchanted tank top beneath my clothes to help keep it stable, but I believe it was well worth it.” Clenching the fist of my modified arm I thought back to the man who inspired me for that change.

That man was an ass most of the time, but his love for his martial art was unquestionable and the ‘disease’ the man had would be very useful moving forward.

Truly, the greatest Rikishi of all times is a man worthy of respect… despite his drinking and whoring problems.

Mittelt only shook her head, most likely thinking all over again that my ‘purely human’ schtick was pure nonsense. She thinks I never hear her complaining about it, but I have a very well-trained hearing so her grumbling has long since been noted. Well, her grumbling like that makes it very cute, almost like a bratty little sister, so I let it slide.

And speaking of people I see almost like a little sister, Aya just asked if I wanted to play a round with her. I thought of saying no since I really am quite busy, but she has that puppy dog eyes now and I think back on that humiliating loss to her in our first meeting.

Knowing my body and reflexes improved since then, my eyes burned with the challenge as I agreed to play with her. I would recuperate my honor and win this time for sure!

… I lost again.

///—///

Complaining in my heart about geniuses and how unfair they were, I came back to the workshop. With my arm now reattached I would no longer need to spend energy making an illusion of an arm when going to classes, which was nice.

That I now had an arm that reached my ultimate ideal made me very happy as well, confidence surging in myself as I looked at a said body part.

Moving along, I went to look at the materials I had on hand and the results of my research over these days.

Picking up some sheets of paper I read them over and nodded my head at the readings.

“It seems like it was as I expected, the Evil Pieces are items to manipulate the soul and, by extension, the body of the ones under their influence.” I muttered to myself as I saw the comparisons of the results of the investigation.

In summarization, the Evil Pieces have a total of three effects. Modification of the soul to that of a devil by ‘tainting’ it with devil energy of its king, empowerment of the soul and by extension the body in a specific manner, and a failsafe in case the servant went against the king and ran away or killed the king, the failsafe being what makes those under its effects obtain monstrous forms.

Sighing, I shook my head. I understood clearly enough what exactly each type of Evil Piece could make and the process behind it, it was to the point that I could outright make my own Evil Pieces if I ever wanted to (and had demonic energy, of course), but it was a dead end.

His wish of empowering himself by abusing these pieces was a bust, they worked via tainting the soul and the soul would modify the body, but I knew that if I were to taint my soul with demonic energy I would not be able to complete Heaven’s Feel. Plus the tainting of the soul binds it to the boy, the opposite effect of Heaven’s Feel.

Shaking my head I looked at the several pieces I managed to obtain after plenty of effort, and sighed. One route for more power was lost, just like that.

Well, even if a door closes I still have plenty to explore.

Nevertheless, I move along to my forge. Laid beside it was the materials that the golem had positioned for me.

Specifically, large amounts of rare metals and materials I obtained from the three factions of Christianity. With a smile, I start to put several metals into the forge. With some of the scales and the leather of Albion, I produced strong garments that protect me from the extreme heat required to melt the metals like I need them to, Flame Shaker and Wind Shaker are two sacred gears that I attached to the forge to let me manipulate and increase the temperature inside to truly great degrees.

I wonder if I might be wasteful in using sacred gears as merely utensils to make my own work more convenient… but God gave them away like candy to humanity so I might as well use those I get my hands whatever way I feel like.

After the metals finished melting and mixing together I quench it in mercury to lower its temperature and to let some of the mercury mixes into the metal.

Using a mix of magic, alchemy, and a rune array around the forge I was able to produce a large ingot of metal that is super heavy. Now I just need to hammer it down using more magic and alchemy to purify it and reduce its size without losing much of its weight.

Using a magical forging technique I learned from the fairies as to make the metal fold in on itself to increase the density I start to chant in a complex manner while raining down strikes to the metal.

The first several strikes are easy enough. After the fortieth strike, I could only use my completely modified arm to obtain any results, the lump of metal now being around 70% of its original size. As I reached strike 70 I had to use reinforcement on my arm as I kept on hitting the metal, perspiration running down my forehead as I have had to change forging hammers several times now as the previous ones couldn’t handle the impact anymore even as I had them enchanted and under reinforcement.

As the numbers increased the pressure from hitting the metal increased and I barely could move my arms as the numbers raised.

Finally, after I reached 100 strikes I finished and collapsed on the ground, satisfied. After a few minutes to recover my energy I looked at the results and raised it in my hand.

I made myself a hammer. It was relatively large, being one and a half meters tall with its head being at least 40 centimeters in diameter, but the most important thing wasn’t its size, but its weight.

It weighed a total of two tons. This thing is absurdly dense, made of several rare metals compressed to the limit after being made into the heaviest alloy I knew about and during the forging used the smithing techniques of the fairies to make this all the more absurd for it. As I give it a few practice swings I can practically see wind pressure from its movements and that caused me to smile, but it is not yet enough.

Putting a hand on its side I concentrate and use alchemy into it. I use it to carve runes into its exterior, changing its form costs me a lot of mana and I am glad I have reserves of mana inside my bones by now.

With these runes, the hammer’s durability, impact, and weight will increase yet again when the runes are activated. This weapon alone would be enough for me to crush the heads of many who could come my way, but my focus in building this was not to make it into a weapon, but to use it to forge a weapon.

Well in the end I still ended up building a powerful weapon of destruction, all to build more powerful weapons later on.

Well, even if I say this hammer was made to help in the forging of other weapons, it is not like I can’t use this hammer for combat anyway. Back while I was in the Throne I visited the Shadow Lands a few times with teacher Scatatch and experimented with fighting with multiple weapons.

I must say, the feeling of crushing a beast’s head with a swing of the weapon or sending it splattering on the ground is quite satisfying indeed.

Anyway, with the hammer ready I look over the materials I have prepared and gave a nod to myself. I have several kilos of extremely pure holy metal, demonic metal, a few fangs of Albion, scales of Tiamat and Tanin, a horn of a unicorn, plenty of holy water blessed by the Archangels, demonic beasts blood, a part of the poison sac of Albion, orichalcum, adamantine, several rare gems I already embued with runic arrays, the dismantled Night Reflector for its materials (which includes the fragment of a soul of some vampire), and last, but not least, feathers of both Azazel and Gabriel.

Any one of these items is hard to use and would have many applications, but I intend to see what I can accomplish when I try my best with all of them. Putting on the Sacred Gear Perfector I obtained a few days back to increase my precision and hand movement I smirk. Oh, the possibilities!

///—///

Riser decided to go see Rias today. Not because he liked her, but because he knew that his presence always made her miserable no matter what he did, and after she dumped all the preparations for the engagement ceremony in his arms he just wanted to make sure she was as miserable as he was.

Petty, but he was a petty devil at times anyway.

After arriving at Kuoh Academy it wasn’t long before Riser entered the Occult Research Club. As he opened the doors without a care, he frowned at the scene inside, wondering why exactly such a scene was being presented to him and why no one informed him of it.

After all, it was not every day that three church members came to town, especially when one of them was clearly holding a fragment of Excalibur.

“So, my adorable Rias, what exactly is going on?” Riser questioned as he walked into the room, observing the people from the church. Arriving at Rias’s side he bent down and planted an obnoxious kiss on her cheek, making sure to make it extra noisy, before sitting on her table and turning his body to look over the newcomers.

With a smug smirk on his face as he observed the mortified and infuriated look on Rias’s, whose ‘prestige’ was ruined by his actions. It was the little things in life that gave the most pleasure, and irritating the redhead who made him suffer through five hours of choosing between white and slightly more white is one such pleasure.

As Rias’s energy started to flare, Ravel covered her own mouth and trembled in laughter over the reactions of both her brother and her king; they truly were hilarious.

Taking a deep breath Rias spoke.

“After the last meeting, it seems that Heaven decided to send some representatives to town again.”

Riser raised a brow and spoke.

“I see… but isn’t the town counted as devil territory?”

“Actually,” One of the three church representatives spoke. “This town was rented to the Christian Pantheon originally, not specifically the devils. It only became more devil-oriented after the last incident involving a devil and an exorcist in town. But, after recent events and the dangers to humans in town shown over the past few weeks to have escalated, the higher-ups decided to reestablish a force in town. The Shinto Pantheon accepted us moving back in quite easily since, for them, we had just as much right to be here as you guys do.”

What the representative didn’t mention was that the REAL reason for them to have been sent over is not just that. If it was only the protection of civilians in a devil-rented land in Shinto territory, then Heaven and the Church wouldn’t have bothered sending permanent representatives. The costs would be too high, the benefits too small, and they had a lot of territories already to watch over if you consider how much land they cover in America and Europe.

However, after Gabriel sensed the power of her Father in Soma, she decided she needed to speak with her brothers about it and, in the meantime, she ordered for a suitable team to be sent to Kuoh. Their official mission was to watch over the town and protect the people there, but their real mission was to establish a good relationship with Soma and protect him if needed.

He was the first ‘clue’ to God after his death, Gabriel did not want to risk it.

Sirzechs was informed of this visit and the new arrangements by Serafall since she didn’t have the time to take care of this since some idiot devil decided to try and infiltrate the Heavenly Court to steal one of the Jade Emperor’s concubines to make her his Queen. Devils are reckless idiots and Serafall was the one that had to clean up their messes.

Sirzechs was supposed to inform the kings responsible for the town about the meeting and make the arrangements for their talks, but he played a little trick and made the representatives of heaven meet only with Rias instead of Sona and Riser. He intended to show how responsible she was and give her some achievements, even small ones, just so she still had a chance to challenge Riser for her freedom. He told this to Rias and explained everything, even that she should only inform Ravel at the last possible second to make sure she is unable to inform her brother.

Devil politics, always overly complicated and is more about posturing than anything else.

Looking at the three representatives of the Church, Riser cursed that he had already gotten a candidate for a Bishop. Well, not like he regretted it, he got a striper with a powerful gear for Bishop, but still-

‘Damn, those are huge.’ Riser thought as he looked at the representative.

The representative is a beautiful young woman with an enormous chest that could put Akeno’s to shame, she wears a black sister outfit that could not hide away her great figure whatsoever. With ash blonde hair and mesmerizing gray eyes with a tint of blue that could draw anyone in.

It was almost a sin for a woman like that to be in the Church, it was just such a sinful body.

The other two were also quite nice in their own ways, one having long chestnut hair in twin-tails and the other with a mix of white and black hair, the former being older than the latter but both having an athletic feeling to them.

Shaking his head to focus back on what is important, Riser put a hand on Rias’ shoulder that made her flinch and glare at the intimate gesture, annoying Rias being more relevant than ogling girls he couldn’t fuck even if he wanted to.

“I see.” He spoke. “Well, if the higher-ups gave their consent I won’t say anything, just follow the basic rules. Don’t intervene in our contracts, don’t attack us, and the size of the skirts for nuns in town should be about the same as that of the Kuoh academy uniform.” Riser said, making the nun tilt her head to the side.

“Was there such a rule here?” She questioned.

“Yes, it is a very important rule.” Riser said with all seriousness and Rias was about to stop him when the nun nodded her head.

“I- I see, if that is a trial that God has put in front of me then I shall overcome it.” She said with a serious face and full of conviction. The one with twin tails put a hand in front of her mouth and said in surprise.

“D-Did the rules change since I left the town? It is good that I don’t use a nun’s outfit, I would be too embarrassed.”

“Not like our clothes are much better, Irina-san.” the black and white girl said while rolling her eyes. “Besides, I am quite sure that there is no such rule about nuns using mini skirts, Mirana-san.”

“Even if that is so, Lint-chan, I still must ask the higher-ups about it.” Mirana Shatarova said with a serious face, making Lint roll her eyes.

“Yeah, and asking the guys who made the outfits for all female exorcists look like this and made sure to take several pictures to ‘analyze’ will work out great.” Lint said with her tone dripping sarcasm. The sarcasm just passed right through Mirana and Irina without either realizing it.

“Well, yes.” Mirana said.

“I agree, I am sure they will set things straight about the facts for us.” Irina said confidently.

“… I am surrounded by idiots.” Lint sighed. “Just a warning though, when they ask for a picture to ‘update’ their documents, try to make it where your panties aren’t shown.”

Seeing that interaction Riser snorted in amusement.

“If that is all, you can go to the abandoned church now. I and my peerage have other matters to attend to.” Rias said, standing up as the nun and two exorcists nodded and left the room.

After they left (and Riser admired their behinds, like a gentleman) Rias turned to Riser.

“And why have you come here?”

“Well, to see my adorable little bride, of course.” Riser said in the sweetest tone he could, just because he knew it would annoy her.

… One cannot put into words the suffering of spending hours deciding between colors that look exactly the same and having their opinion doubted every single step of the way. As far as Riser is concerned, any annoyance Rias can suffer now can’t compare to the hell he went through.

“… You have seen me, now leave. I have important matters to take care of.” She said as she waved Riser away.

“You wound my heart Rias, you really do. What, with how you act I almost think you might not like me.” He said, making her grit her teeth.

“We are leaving. Now!” Rias said to her Peerage as she pulled them along to a teleportation circle in the room, teleporting to a training place in the mountains.

Riser just chuckled seeing this and shook his head.

“Poor idiot, actually thinks she can beat me with just a week of training.” He said in mirth. “Maybe I should do some training as well, not because of her but because of how my new Bishop needs to learn more about her powers and a retreat for training would be a good excuse to forget about all this unpleasantness of the party preparations. I still don’t know why we couldn’t just go with a luau on a nudist beach, now THAT would be an engagement party worthy of me.”

He took a few steps, stopped, and laughed. He remembered that, even if Rias won somehow, the engagement would still proceed regardless, as the repercussions of the church fiasco and her punishment are still in effect. Her winning would accomplish nothing besides making her feel better, which was reason enough for Riser to not want her to get it.

Seriously, how can there be so many types of flowers that look exactly the fucking same? She deserves to suffer extra humiliation for that stunt alone in Riser’s books.

///—///

Meanwhile, Cao Cao was leading an exploration deep within Cocytus.

With the loss of Georg and his Longinus, the Hero Faction no longer had a safe haven, a quick escape route, or a way for easy movement while ignoring the detection methods of others. This loss was huge for them and Cao Cao needed to find some way to recuperate from it, and soon, since the other factions inside the Chaos Brigade were starting to look at them as if they were a piece of meat to split between each other.

The loss was especially huge since it happened right when they were planning their strike on the Grigory. Without that attack, the Hero Faction wouldn’t get the information they needed to make several anti-monster creatures using Annihilation Maker. That would directly impact the war potential Cao Cao envisioned for the future of his ambitions.

As such, a new plan was formulated, and the reason why he was going down Cocytus.

Cocytus, the prison of the supernatural world where the worst of the worst are sent, where those who committed grave sins or caused mayhem are shipped off to never be seen again. And this was exactly where Cao Cao knew he could find those who could help him with his ambitions.

Thankfully, Indra helped him get into the prison and the power of the True Longinus’s Balance Breaker’s light was able to ward off the cold, but as he went deeper and deeper the cold was starting to penetrate Cao Cao’s light. It was truly a terrifying cold, but Cao Cao forged ahead as he pushed on, his resolve firm as diamond as he kept moving forward.

Truly, he had the right mindset and potential to be a true hero, if only his personality and ideas were not trash.

Reaching deep enough he saw his target, chains holding his arms to the wall as he kept his head down.

“Hello, my name is Cao Cao, and I wonder how would you like to get out of here?” Cao Cao said confidently.

The person at the wall chuckled before answering.

“Don’t bother, brat. If I get out, then that fucker Shiva will just imprison me again.” The man said with a dry chuckle.

“Don’t worry about Shiva, I am allied with Indra who is at war with Shiva. He assured me that he would stop Shiva if he tried anything, and besides, Indra has already done what you failed to do, in killing the Asura Race.” Cao Cao said, making the man he was talking to show a wide grin.

“Oh, now that is some great news. Now no one can deny me as the true Asura of this world, this world just needs one such demon, after all.” The man said as he turned to look at Cao Cao for the first time, their eyes meeting as they observed one another.

After a bit, the man smirked.

“Very well, and am I to follow you until your death?”

“That is the plan. And I do believe you wouldn’t be troubled to follow someone for a measly few decades over needing to stay locked up for the next few thousands of years.” Cao Cao said.

The man thought for a while before nodding.

“Very well, I shall follow you until the moment you die. But, I will tell you now, if you even think about trying to betray or kill me, I will hang you by your entrails.” The man said and Cao Cao nodded. Using his spear he broke the chains that were holding the man up, who then got up from the ground and began to stretch right then and there.

Cao Cao was surprised that someone who got stuck in this place for the last five thousand years freezing could stand up and stretch so easily, truly a monster just like Indra informed him about when asking for suitable helpers in his crusade.

The man then looked at Cao Cao for a bit before speaking.

“We should move along, if you are offering a way out for those who hate Gods besides Indra and his followers and would be willing to work for a few decades in exchange for freedom, then there are a few others around here that would be willing.”

Cao Cao just observed him for a bit before nodding.

He wasn’t exactly happy about it, but he lacked options. Obtaining new recruits when the Hero Faction couldn’t use mind control on their members was hard. And besides, if there are more like Silkwat Jenaza, humans who stepped on the way to divinity by their own powers and are already half immortals, well…

It would be worth it, right?