The next few days after Soma found out about the possible armageddon level threat in the making one could find the said hero-in-training working hard.

In what, one may ask? Of course, preparing himself to an appropriate degree by his own standards.

Due to redirecting all the energy that normally was sent to his bounded fields in his workshop to his forge anyone could walk inside right now, not that Soma cared for such measly details as he was far too busy in preparing his armaments for the fighting to come.

One unexpected thing Soma found out upon returning to this world from the Throne was that several things were improved when compared to how they worked in the memories and teachings of his teachers. One such example was the sheer potency of holy energy when he used the enchantments used by Giovani dei Dolci when he made the Sistine Chapel, the residence of the pope and highest chapel of the church. To prepare for the Vampires Soma needed as sacred grounds as possible so he modified his workshop to include similar enchantments. Not only that, using the Excalibur Blessing’s ability to empower holy rituals and rites the resulting holiness and power in this place grew exponentially higher to the point one could almost see golden light flickering about.

The result of using the same enchantments and arrangements? In simple terms, it made this place, which was having the energy of one of the Heavenly Dragon’s bodies to fuel it, become even holier and with more magic energy than those chapels of the center of the Vatican in this world.

Unintentionally Soma created the holiest place on Earth. And what he did with such sacred grounds that even the purest of angels would feel awe over?

Create weapons of war, of course.

He had just completed his newest mystic code, a water gun based on one used by a version of Artoria who, for some inexplicable reason, used bikinis only and refused to wear a dress no matter what her other versions told her about. The water gun had enchantments to let it concentrate and contract the water put inside it without much care of how much it might be, being able to hold the equivalent of several lakes of water inside it. Normally such a water gun would already be powerful enough after he completed it, seeing as it would release tons of water with a flicker of the finger in such a pressure that most structures would crumble as if they were being hit by a tsunami, but Soma wanted to be extra sure he could kill the vampires hit by it so made it where, instead of normal water inside, the gun would have pure holy water.

Soma heard that Holy Water was effective against vampires in this world as well, being not much different from acid for them, so he figured it might be useful.

He wasn’t sure if they had all already eliminated such weakness, so it was a gamble, but he figured that, even if not they wouldn’t be effective as it could have been, at least it would still be about fifteen times as much water pressure as the one used by water jets to cut diamonds.

It would make the vampires little more than ribbons if hit, and flood the entire area that he would then electrocute with some primeval runes aimed at electric discharges.

Yeah, Soma was just preparing just in case really. No over-the-top weapon here whatsoever.

Mittelt, needing to speak with Soma, fearfully entered his workshop. She could feel her skin crawl due to the sheer amount and purity of holy energy in the air.

The sound of hard work could be heard as Soma continued to toil at his forge after having completed his water gun. Besides him, a woman with silver hair and red eyes waited patiently as she had in hand a container filled with several Black Keys prepared.

“Take these and put them with the rest. Also, tell the ones preparing the necessary poisons to not forget about mixing in the diluted essence of hydra poison. Riser worked hard to obtain it for me so we won’t be wasting it now.” Soma said and the woman bowed.

“Yes, sir.” She said with a bow before she walked inside the portal to Soma’s dimension.

Mittelt stared at this in shock before asking.

“Did you make a homunculus?”

“Nope.” Soma answered while stretching for a moment as he finally finished making most of the weaponry he would be needing for now.

“But that woman is most certainly one!” Mittelt said and Soma shrugged.

“She is, but I did not make A homunculus. I made about four hundred homunculi.”

“F-FOUR HUNDRED?!” Mittelt shouted and Soma just frowned at that.

“Yeah, unfortunately, I didn’t have enough time to finish the full production, and the ones out are not fit for high-level combat right now, even if they are still capable of fighting if needed and with good equipment. They can serve to deal with mid-class level enemies even if they lack the right weapons, but dealing with high-class level is a bit hard for a one on one unless they are properly armed. Future batches should be out at around peak high-class power and skill though, even without the best of weapons. These ones, at least, can all use limited forms of Dimension Lost so they are still somewhat useful, even if mostly for defense, surprise attacks, and movement.” Soma said thinking on his experiment of breaking away a piece of Dimension lost and implanting it into the forming homunculus.

It was quite surprising for Soma when the original gear quickly recovered from the removal of that part and the piece in the homunculus was soon established into a lesser form of the original. They would never be able to achieve Balance Breaker as they lacked some aspects of it, but Soma had basically an army of 400 thought capable Longinus users who were absolutely loyal to him.

Mittelt stared at Soma before shaking her head.

“You really are a terrifying monster, making a literal army of Longinus users in your basement.” She said and Soma smiled.

“Thanks, I do try.” Soma said and Mittelt deadpanned at him.

“Didn’t you say you want to be a hero? Why is it that me calling you a monster almost seem like a compliment to you?”

“Simple. Monsters can many times be seen as ‘heroes’ in certain ways as they are remembered for future generations, even if as cautionary tales. As such, thank you for the compliment.” Soma said remembering some ‘monsters’ that were on the throne of Heroes like Medusa, Edmon Dantes, Salieri, Gilles de Reis, and more.

“… I won’t even comment on your weird ideas.” Mittelt said before staring at him seriously. “Soma, please tell me. What exactly do you want to do? There is no way you would arm yourself like this and make so many weapons and whatever else you are making if you don’t have any greater plan or objective. Since you came back from your talks with red bitch you have been doing nothing but preparing for something, even to talk with us and the others outside you send familiars for it.”

“My plan is rather simple really. I will destroy the vampires.” Soma said easily before going right back to looking over the blueprints of some golems he was producing even as they speak. “I found out they have in their hands the Sephiroth Graal, and that thing is far too dangerous. I am not sure if the other supernatural forces don’t know, if they simply ignore it, or whatever, but the longer such dangerous parasites like the vampires have access to such an apocalyptic artifact, the worst the results could be. I will eliminate the threat to humanity before it blooms, simple as that.”

Hearing Soma speaks plainly Mittelt shook her head. Sure, the vampires were not that strong and any of the three factions could stomp them quite easily, but they were still a troublesome bunch to face, and claiming to annihilate them would be tough for most any force. That being especially so thanks to the barrier surrounding their territory that makes invading them near impossible as it could block even most Gods from entering uninvited.

However, seeing Soma’s decisiveness in his objective, and knowing what her position was as Soma’s servant and friend (even if she really didn’t want to admit it), Mittelt nodded her head for a bit before answering.

“Very well, I will go with you.” She said plainly and directly. “If you die I can’t have a comfortable life anymore and Aya would be sad, I will use this Twilight Healing you gave me to heal you if needed.” She said, trying to make it seem like only Aya would be sad if Soma were to die, which was far from the truth and she knew it. But, a tsundere would never admit her feelings unless provoked and Soma wasn’t in the mood of poking holes in her logic. As such, Soma just shook his head.

“… I will have to think about it.” Soma said before admitting. “I can’t promise anything right away, as my information about the vampires is still rather lacking and I am waiting for the church to bring over the information I required in exchange for some of the research I have at hand, but I think it might be safer for you and the others to come with me instead of stay here by yourselves.”

As Soma said this Mittelt raised a brow, clearly not sure if the idea of taking them to a battlefield would be safer than staying in this city. Sure, she wanted to go and help him, but it was still a weird thing for him to say.

Seeing her expression, Soma clarified to her what he meant while polishing a Black Key he had prepared.

“You see, I don’t trust Lucifer and other high-ranking devils to not do anything when I am not around. Any idiot can see I have many things that would be valuable, and if they can’t take me or invade my house they might target you guys and use you all as hostages. Sure, they act nice for now, but I don’t trust them blindly and won’t be betting mine or the lives of those I care about on others being ‘nice’ and ‘fair’. However, I cannot decide yet what would be safer, so I intend to wait until I can formulate a proper plan before making a final decision.” Soma said after thinking for a bit about how to explain his thoughts.

Sure, Soma wasn’t really antagonistic with most any faction or group, but greed can change things easily and it wouldn’t be that hard for others to know he had at least 1 Longinus in his house. Soma already knew of the Chaos Brigade and the Hero Faction, how they were connected to many other factions and groups, and they would know he captured Dimension Lost. It might not be public knowledge, but it was still well known for many groups that would likely covet such a weapon.

Besides that, with what little he let others know, many would question what other treasures would be inside his house. Soma only trusted others as far as he was sure of their character, and from the meetings he had, Soma could tell that most devils certainly didn’t impress. With this city being devil territory with the ones managing it being too weak to stop an invasion of any determined strong noble… yeah, no. Soma did not trust his friends staying behind without him around all that much.

Soma had enough defenses in his house to protect them, but he couldn’t just lock them in house arrest for who knows how long it would take for him to come back. Especially when the inside of his house wouldn’t be peaceful or safe due to… reasons.

Hearing his words and explanation, Mittelt wasn’t exactly thrilled about his answer. She appreciated the fact he didn’t simply shoot down her determination to come with him to that war with him, as dangerous as it would likely be. It took a lot out of her to decide she wanted to come with him to what might be certain death, but somehow she doubted she would die there even if she went with Soma. If anything she was quite sure the vampires would pay a bloody price during this short visit, Soma just gave her this impression. She just, well, she wanted to be able to help even if just a tiny bit.

As for Soma, right now he would need to wait until the Church send him the information he needed before making any final decisions on the plans. He needed as much information as possible about the vampires and the church, as an enemy for centuries of them, would be the ones best suited to have that intelligence.

Sure, he had agreed to a fair trade of information and would give them research of equal value to what they would give him, but that was a price he accepted. Besides, he would just give them information on how to make Black Keys as those were absurdly useful weapons for the exorcists when facing devils, fallen angels, vampires, and any other creature that could be classified as demonic, and all while it would be near useless against him or any of his own forces.

What better thing to give to the church than a weapon that would be useless against Soma but that could help them be more efficient against vampires and stray devils? Sure, Soma knew that the weapon could be used against normal devils just as well and he was friends with some of those said devils, but being friends with some doesn’t mean he thinks the race as a whole was good, decent, or anything like that.

In Soma’s eyes, if the church got more efficient in killing stray devils, vampires, werewolves, and other monsters who prey on humanity, then all the better. It was a small price to pay for information that could mean life or death, after all.

But, while he waited for the information to arrive, he was merely stocking up on war supplies as they would be needed regardless of the plans he fomented. That, and watching over his final deterrents that would watch over the town while he, and most all other forces he created, were out. If his speculations were right then he could be sure of the safety of his house and workshop even if he was out… as long as his creations were fully ‘born’.

… Let’s just hope said creations wouldn’t blast his house to pieces in one of their usual tantrums. Oh well, it was a risk he would have to take in exchange for their capabilities, he imagined.

Thinking for a bit Soma asked.

“Mittelt, did you send the proposal to Azazel?”

“Yeah, he agreed to it quite enthusiastically. It seems like he got the video of Aya-chan’s kaleidostick and wants to talk to you about it as well, so it is two birds with one stone. He is in town and will come over later tonight.” Mittelt said.

Sure, she has left the Grigory, but she still served as a connection between Soma and them whenever Soma needed to speak with them.

Soma nodded, he needed Azazel for one of the most essential parts of his operation, after all.

///—///

In his extravagant mansion in Kuoh town, Riser was enjoying himself, as usual.

Well, not in a quite so usual way this time around to be fair as none of his girls were around right now. That was quite an abnormal event as he usually had at least one of them around at all times, except when he was on a fancy whorehouse, but even then one or more might have come with him to enjoy the services there (he was a hedonist and so was basically all his peerage members). Today the reason why his peerage wasn’t around was quite simple, Soma had asked for a favor.

Riser knows that House Phenex, and him personally, owed some more than could be put in numbers, not only for fighting for Riser but helping him in defending the town when under attack and saving Ravel’s life. As such, when Soma asked for his help in obtaining all sorts of materials he was all too happy to oblige.

Of course, the list was quite absurd, and while most ingredients were simple enough to obtain, some were hard to find anywhere and needed people to go searching for the correct sellers. Riser had his peerage go search for them while he hold the fort so to speak. Normally he would have gone as well since such a thing as a ‘treasure hunt’ sounded interesting, but the *ugh* responsibilities forbid him from doing as he wishes. As one of the two kings of Kuoh, he was not authorized to leave town without good enough reasons, and go around to buy all sorts of things for a friend wasn’t a good enough excuse.

He didn’t have a Satan for a brother or sister, after all. He had to follow the rules much more seriously, as uncomfortable they might be.

As such, while his peerage was busy robbing graves, exchanging and trading things, and preparing various things for what Riser could only assume was some sort of whole-scale war, Riser himself was-

“Yes, take that Jeremya224k. That is how you get your heads blown o… fuck someone headshot me again, who is marking me now? I didn’t even say abusive language or describe in detail how all of you are a bunch of virgin losers!” Riser complained as his character in Fortnite was headshot for the twelfth time this day.

In another room of the said mansion was Ravel smiling as she had killed her brother’s avatar again, she wanted to break her personal record of headshots his stupid ass. She wanted to punish him even slightly for putting her in Rias’ Peerage and ruining Riser’s enjoyment of the game was just one way to do that, especially since he didn’t have his peerage around to soothe his ego and make him forget about being a loser by riding his dick.

You know, the usual.

///—///

Meanwhile, on the abandoned church, the three women sent to Kuoh had complicated expressions on their faces.

“Are we sure this information is correct?” Lint questioned, not sure about the documents in her hands.

“Unfortunately, yes. We have concrete evidence that Excalibur Rapidly has been stolen from the Anglican Church.” Irina said with a complex expression since she came from the Anglican sect of the church. “Evidence shows it was a fallen angel who did it, even if we couldn’t find any evidence of who exactly.”

Miriana nodded her head with a serious expression.

“If there is a fallen collecting Excalibur Fragments they will eventually target this town. Irina-san has Excalibur Mimic on her hand and Soma-kun has Excalibur Blessing, two of the six Excalliburs are here and if the fallen are seeking to collect the Excalibur fragments they might do something about it.” Miriana said before shaking her head. “We must inform him about this. Did the higher-ups send us the information we wanted?”

“Yeah.” Lint said while taking out a large folder paste and presenting it to Miriana. “All the information we have about the current Tepes Faction of vampires. From their internal structure, to their numbers, resources, powers, nobility names, allies, and even the internal structure of about 70% of their main castle and the adjacent residences. We even have the locations of secret passages inside their territory and our spies in their feeding towns to update us with information.”

As Lint spoke she said it impassively, but at the mention of ‘feeding towns’ her face scrunched up in distaste. An expression mirrored by Irina and Mirana due to how those places worked.

Vampires, as a race, loved drinking blood. It was necessary nourishment for their race, true, but not only did they prey on humans, but they were also very specific on whose blood they kept. Many nuns, priests, and all sorts of beautiful or capable humans were taken captive by the vampires to serve as their snacks and toys.

In all honesty, if the vampires killed their prey quickly it would be bad but not that terrible a thing (even if the church would still hunt the bastards), but the vampires transferred the barest minimum amount of their own blood into these humans, not enough to damage the taste of their blood but enough to make them have extremely long life spans and be unable to walk in the sun or live a normal life.

They, who once could walk freely through the world and were examples of humanity, would then be forced to live in the shadows and serve as snacks for this ‘noble’ race of superior beings, as they liked to call themselves. That was one of the main reasons why vampires were seen with equal disdain as devils by the church, and the devils have been at war with the church since who knows when! They were as hated as those with who the church had been at war with since the church was created!

In truth, in this entire world, there was no race as dangerous and malignant to humanity as the vampires… well, except humans being even worse for each other, but that is beside the point.

“Do you think Soma-san wants to make some form of deal with the vampires?” Mirana asked to which Irina vehemently shook her head.

“That can’t be. Mister Hanakai is clearly a man who is closer to holiness than anyone I’ve met. He might have some deals with the devils, but one step into his house and anyone can tell his preference. There is no way he would truly join sides with those monsters. There are even talks of him being the first saint born for the last few centuries, how could he side with those disgusting creatures?” Irina said to which Lint looks distrustful.

“You sure? I have heard of how he likes to ‘experiment’ with all sorts of creatures, he also holds no particular care for the church and he feels more like someone out for himself instead of carrying about religion. And nothing points to him being a saint besides the mention of him being able to use God’s Light and the Heavens had not confirmed anything for now about it. He feels more like a mercenary or a magician than someone from the church, and those types wouldn’t mind joining the vampires. They are, after all, absurdly rich to the point they can rival eighty percent of all the money from the devil race.” Lint said, causing the mood to plummet.

Mirana, with a serious expression, said.

“Even so, one of our main missions is to create a positive relationship with him and make sure he is safe. If he intends to make a connection with the vampires he doesn’t need our help for information and he can obtain it even without us. Better if we work together and try and lead him away from temptation than go against him and he goes to temptation regardless.” She said, making the two younger exorcists nod their heads. “I will go deliver this to him then.”

With that said she got up and left the place heading to Soma’s house.

The others stayed behind mostly because they still had a lot to do, including waiting for the higher-ups to give them directions about the stolen Excaliburs.

Reaching Soma’s house she knocked at the door and was soon after invited in by Mami who went to call Soma.

“You can come down here, I am a bit busy and can’t leave right now.” Soma yelled from the basement/workshop where he was currently focused on what would be his main weapon for this conflict to come.

The further she walked inside the more shocked she was. The last time she entered the magic pressure of the house was enormous to the point even hotspots like Salem or the Vatican could at most barely equal it in terms of pressure, but now she felt that energy obtain such a pure holy element to it that she could only equal it to Heaven which she visited once.

Reaching the basement he saw Soma for the first time in several days. He was citing rimes of some ritual, around him were several people with white hair and red eyes chanting with him, all while Soma emited an extremely powerful light.

‘This, is this God’s Light?’ Mirana questioned herself due to the sheer presence of it, especially as Soma was completing this ritual.

And it really was, Soma was currently giving another round of rites to this ultimate weapon of his against Dead apostles. Normally this weapon would have needed over a century of rituals such as this to show its true effect, but this was the Age of Gods and with how Soma was borrowing the power of God while also having his house becoming such a holy place the rituals would work infinitely faster only needing a few days of effort to reach their conclusion.

What he was preparing now was the most important thing, the one insurance he had that even if there were vampires without any clear weaknesses they could still be killed by him.

One of the strongest weapons of the Holy Church that only a select few could ever use, said to be “one of the Apocrypha that must never be removed from its resting place” even by those in a universe where there were vampires able to destroy the world. A Conceptual Weapon created by the Church to act as an iron hammer to renounce the heretical doctrine of transmigration. Created by felling a Unicorn, a beast said to consume souls, they used its horn as a key, inscribing it with “tightly-packed complaints” with every possible impeachment of reincarnation criticism.

This was the Seventh Scripture of the Holy Church, an anti-immortality weapon that was able to turn any flesh hitting it into that of a mortal and normal human, removing all natural regeneration aspects of it and making it as fragile as that of a normal person. A weapon that could even kill a True Ancestor, much less some punny ‘immortal’ being like a normal vampire or devil.

That is what Soma was making in his workshop right now, a weapon that in this world would enter a certain category.

A god slayer weapon, what one might call… an actual true Longinus made not by the hands of a God, but by the skills and hands of men who proclaimed with it the power of humanity to truly overcome even the highest of Gods using human hands.

… Suck it, Cao Cao.

///—///

AN:

Hope you guys enjoyed it. So, Soma is going a bit overboard right now in preparations, huh.

For those who are thinking he is acting as if he is from Nasuverse in how he treats the vampires, he spent THOUSANDS of years hearing about them and experiencing what they are like with those like Carmila. It would be much weirder if he could go past all that way of thinking just like that because someone told him so.

He hasn’t seen any actual vampire from DxD besides Gasper, and the little guy isn’t exactly the perfect representation of the species. His wanting to eliminate a race that literally survives by making humans their juice boxes and has just obtained a weapon that could, if used right, mean the end of humanity’s freedom and future makes perfect sense.

Soma is certainly no pacifist, he has no qualms about facing a perceived threat to humanity, and if anyone tells me that THIS is not a threat, then I tell you that you are obviously insane. Sure, DxD vampires aren’t even fart compared to those of Nasuverse, but even then they are a threat to humans, especially if they no longer have any particular weakness and can make a literal army of the dead with that gear in hand. Soma’s decision to attack them and be as cautious as possible is justified in my eyes.

Anyway, good news. I posted the first chapter of the Shield Hero fic. In the start, it is heavily based on ‘I’m the Evil Lord of an Intergalactic Empire!’, but it won’t be that long before it goes away from it. I just used it for the start as it is a great starting point for the fic that I and a friend were imagining, kinda like how this one started heavily based on ‘The Max Level Hero has Returned’, but as anyone can see it is just the start.

The name of the fic, if anyone is interested, is ‘A Hero? Fuck no, I prefer to be a Lord’, check it out, and please be patient with me there. I am still trying to improve my kingdom building writing 😉

Hope you guys take a look at it if at all possible.. Thanks and until next time.