— — — — — —
"How can that be?!" Kato sensed it immediately. The moment the contract twisted, something felt fundamentally wrong.
In the original agreement, the Vampire King had been the initiator and she the bound party. Now the roles had flipped completely. She had become the one initiating the contract.
And because of that, all those clauses forbidding her from revealing the Vampire King's existence or the Order of the End's information were automatically lifted.
Not only that…
Kato turned her gaze to the angel in Ryo's arms, eyes closed as if peacefully asleep.
"So the contract target changed, and even the angel acting as the witness got dragged down too?"
You could do that?! Was that even allowed?
Her eyelids twitched uncontrollably. She had seen plenty of strange things in her life, but rewriting a contract and forcibly pulling the high-dimensional angel who served as its notary into the mortal world? That completely shattered her worldview.
Holding Snowdrift Wolf in one hand and Touka Fujisaka in the other, Ryo released Kato.
But she didn't even think about running anymore.
What a joke. If someone could casually rewrite contracts and haul a higher-dimensional angel down to the lower world, where exactly was a small-time witch supposed to escape to?
If she couldn't win anyway, she might as well lie flat and accept her fate. That might even be more comfortable.
Ryo glanced at Touka, confirming her current state of existence.
Unlike humans, angels were energy-based lifeforms, and high-tier ones at that.
Just as air too light couldn't sink underground, angels naturally ascended to higher dimensions the moment they were born, becoming higher-dimensional beings.
That was the normal case.
For Ryo, keeping an angel in the human world was hardly difficult. In fact, the method already existed in the Strike the Blood world.
Casually, he extracted a portion of the Fifth Familiar's energy and inserted it into Touka's body.
Her angelic state was instantly disrupted and began transforming into the form of a blood servant.
With that, the pull from higher dimensions and the world's rejection both ceased.
Making an angel stay in the lower world was just that simple. And frankly, kind of boring.
"Looks good."
Ryo looked her over and nodded in satisfaction.
Touka wasn't a powerful angel. By his estimate, she didn't even reach the five-digit rank, judging by both the quantity and quality of her energy.
If she were in Arcadia, she probably wouldn't even beat Shirayuki-hime.
But the key point was that she was an angel who hadn't been granted a Spirit Rank by the Little Garden's central authority.
"Wait... There's an absurd amount of Cross faith in Little Garden. Once an existence defined as an angel enters, she'd probably receive a direct boost and her Spirit Rank would be massively reinforced."
"At that point, an angel stuck at the bottom of five digits could jump straight into the upper tier. And this world's higher dimensions don't have just one angel either…"
"Sigh… I was deceived. So the Cross Pantheon are the good guys after all. I'll try not to single them out in the future. At least I'll make sure all pantheons get 'equal treatment.'"
With that, Ryo wore a look of gratitude toward the Cross, mentally branding them as benevolent, and began considering how to make use of their faith for Arcadia.
All things considered, taking humans who had ascended into angels in the Strike the Blood world and bringing them to Little Garden to become angels there was a solid investment.
The only potential headache was the Cross side, but Ryo didn't think it was a big deal.
In the end, these were just five-digit angels. Even if the faith was technically freeloaded, according to Thousand Eyes' intel, the Cross genuinely wouldn't care.
There was no helping it. In a place that didn't support strict monotheism, the Cross faith's control over belief was already pretty weak.
And freeloaders were everywhere. Daoism, Buddhism, human heroes, even the Greek gods all did it to some extent.
Zeus literally had a real angel rebirth pool under his control, and nobody saw the Cross making a fuss over that.
Hades had beings called Death Angels under him too, and no one cared.
And if he remembered correctly, in the eastern edge of Little Garden, Chinese empires had pulled similar tricks.
Anywhere, you could use the name "Angel" to twist the concept, turn the fake into the real, siphon Cross faith, and stack up a five-digit small powerhouse.
As long as you didn't overdo it, the Cross wouldn't pursue it too hard.
From their perspective, since they couldn't stop the thieves anyway, spreading angel faith and expanding influence was actually a net positive.
After all, no one was stupid enough to use angels to attack the Cross' own angels.
It was a gray area, and Ryo was perfectly fine operating in it.
With that settled, he was more than happy to accept another angel to help fill gaps in combat strength.
Still holding Touka, Ryo turned and called out, "Yukina, Sayaka, help me take care of her."
Yukina stepped forward and took Touka from his arms. Looking at that familiar yet unfamiliar face, she couldn't help but freeze.
"Ryo… she is…?"
She didn't remember knowing any angels. And yet, she felt an inexplicable sense of familiarity.
That contradiction made her heart flutter with unease, but more than that, with joy.
Even Yukina herself didn't understand why.
In response, Ryo answered casually, "An angel pulled down from a higher dimension through Snowdrift Wolf."
"Snowdrift Wolf can do that?" Sayaka, helping support Touka, looked completely baffled.
Hadn't the Lion King Organization said Snowdrift Wolf was a divine weapon that nullified magic? Since when did it summon angels too?
Now free, Kato made no effort to rein in her influence. Instead, she smiled brightly. "Oh? Looks like you don't know about Snowdrift Wolf's little drawback."
"That divine weapon can only be used by descendants of the Devas. And the more you use it, the closer you get to becoming a faux angel, until one day, pop, you vanish from the world!"
"Super convenient, right?"
"Using Snowdrift Wolf eventually turns you into an angel…?" Sayaka's eyes widened as she lowered her gaze to the woman in Yukina's arms.
So... she was that previous Snowdrift Wolf user?
Touka Fujisaka?
The former member of the Lion King Organization's Three Saints, the one who saved Yukina from a cult's sacrifice and then died in battle?
This…
At the same time, Yukina finally realized who the woman she was holding was. Shocked and delighted all at once, she stared down at that face.
Seeing this, Kato smiled at Ryo.
"You adapt quickly." Ryo snorted, fully aware of what she was playing at.
The Lion King Organization knew about Snowdrift Wolf's side effects, yet never told Yukina or Sayaka.
Add in Kato's words just now, and it was hard not to suspect they had done it deliberately.
Yukina might endure it out of gratitude, but for Sayaka, anything that could harm Yukina was completely unforgivable.
In modern terms, Kato had deliberately planted a bias against the Lion King Organization in Sayaka's heart.
No matter how things ended, that thorn wasn't going away easily.
And Ryo, who had both brought Touka back and prevented Yukina from falling into the same trap, had just racked up a huge goodwill bonus with both girls.
Given that, there was no way he'd kill Kato now.
That was probably exactly what Kato was thinking.
Which was why Ryo said she adapted fast. He hadn't even said anything yet, and she was already working to please him.
"Thank you for the compliment," Kato replied with a smile.
Ryo raised an eyebrow, didn't dwell on the small stuff, and got straight to the point.
"Alright. Explain the Order of the End to me."
At that, Kato's smile finally faded a little.
.
.
.