Little Garden, a mysterious world born alongside the heavens and earth, was created when the gods swept across the universe. It is a third-observer universe made by the gods to guide humanity's development. In Little Garden, the gods and humans are deeply intertwined.
Humans evolve through the blessings of the gods; gods are born from human faith.
This is the true purpose of the Little Garden: gathering countless multiverses.
At this moment, Little Garden had just emerged from its dawn, with the most ancient Demon Lord, the White Night Demon King, having been defeated by the Twin Goddesses and then sealed away by the Buddhist sect.
Both the human and Little Garden worlds had entered a brief era of peace.
During this time, the upper levels of Little Garden saw tremendous growth and rapid development.
Now, high above a region in the upper layers of Little Garden, a rift suddenly appeared, and a figure stepped through it was Riku.
"Looks like I've arrived in an incredible world," Riku muttered as he hovered high in the sky, gazing out at the endless mountain vistas and the swarms of drakes and phantasmal beasts soaring through the air.
Not only was the energy of this world unimaginably dense, but space itself was also exceptionally stable. In the world of High School DxD, beings like Super Devil and the Two Heavenly Dragons could casually tear open space and threaten the world itself. Here, even the strongest could only damage large regions at best, and shaking space itself was just a dream.
And the drakes, dragonkin, and phantasmal beasts flying through the sky? Most were easily on par with the Five Dragon Kings from the DxD world.
It was clear that the power scale of this world was on an entirely different level.
As Riku mused, he suddenly noticed something strange above him.
Amid the boundless sea of clouds at the edge of the sky, twenty-four suns drifted, each running along a horizontal path.
"Twenty-four suns… could it be?" Riku narrowed his eyes, already suspecting something.
To confirm, he released the Authorities of Leo and Sagittarius, the Sun Authorities he controlled.
In an instant, the twenty-four suns above were affected, trembling and shining brightly.
It set off a chain reaction: the starry sky of Little Garden lit up in response.
Though the phenomenon was brief, countless life forms in Little Garden sensed it.
At that moment, all the powerful gods and Buddhas in the upper levels understood the final two Sun Authorities had appeared and been released.
This meant that the Solar War was about to begin.
"Heh, so this really is Little Garden. What an interesting world I've come to," Riku laughed as he withdrew the Sun Authorities, allowing the suns to return to normal.
It was a joyful smile.
While the High School DxD world was certainly a high-level setting, for Riku, it had always been a fish pond, where any opponent could be finished with a single punch, which grew boring. But this world… finally, he had a place where he could go all out.
On the third level of Little Garden, the community [Twelve Heavenly Generals] immediately noticed the disturbance caused by the Sun Authorities.
As a community responsible for observing human history and guiding its development, the gods of the Twelve Heavenly Generals paid special attention to the Sun Authorities.
That's because the Sun Authorities possess the power to observe humanity's history and influence its direction.
The direction humanity develops determines whether new gods or the Final Trials of Humanity are born. If someone were to maliciously use the Sun Authorities to accelerate human development and push them toward a dangerous path, it could trigger a historical turning point.
During a historical turning point, powerful gods could be born, or paradoxes could arise, resulting in the birth of a Final Trial of Humanity. That's something no god can tolerate. The Final Trial "Heliocentric Theory" White Night Demon Lord was the oldest demon lord, created from a paradox, and once rampaged across Little Garden, defeating tens of millions of gods, an unstoppable force.
The "Heliocentric Theory" is a law of celestial bodies that existed before the concepts of heaven and earth themselves. It stands at the very centre of every cosmology, a nightmare for all the gods of Little Garden, creating a dawn with no night and endless conflict. No god or human was ever a match for the Heliocentric Theory.
However, as human history advanced, the Heliocentric Theory's Authority shrank, eventually pushed to the horizon of the white night and became the "White Night Demon Lord." Though her Authority was reduced, the White Night King was still a Final Trial capable of overturning Little Garden, and her power remained formidable. Even so, the gods were no longer gripped by the same despair; there was now at least a chance of victory. After relentless pursuit at any cost, the gods finally handed the invincible White Night Demon Lord three defeats.
The first defeat forced Shiroyasha to let the sun set, creating the world's first day and night.
The second split the sun's cycle into three, giving the world morning, noon, and night.
The third was decisive, the Heliocentric Theory's Authority was slashed apart by the twin double-digit goddesses and then sealed by the [Buddhist Sect] using the simulated star chart, the Three Thousand Worlds.
Because of the White Night King's defeat, the despair that blanketed Little Garden was lifted, and the world entered a new era of peace and rapid growth.
"The Leo and Sagittarius Sun Authorities have finally appeared. But to vanish and then reappear so suddenly… how odd," muttered Parvati Mata, the ancient earth goddess of Indian myth and one of the Twelve Heavenly Generals. She frowned as she brushed a lock of white hair from her forehead, her red eyes full of doubt.
After the Heliocentric Theory was split apart by the twin goddesses, the Sun Authorities scattered across the world and became trials, claimed by various factions, Buddhist Sect, Twelve Heavenly Generals, Thousand Eyes, Halloween Queen, Taoism, the Twelve Olympians…
Of them all, the White Night naturally held the most Sun Authorities.
Yet there was one particularly strange phenomenon: when the Heliocentric Theory was severed, two Sun Authorities, Leo and Sagittarius, vanished without a trace.
That's right. They disappeared from Little Garden entirely, so thoroughly that not even the White Night King could sense them. Even the suns representing Leo and Sagittarius in the sky dimmed.
Because of this, the White Night once remarked that those Sun Authorities were no longer in Little Garden.
This unsettled the gods greatly. The importance of the Sun Authorities was well known to all.
Now, with both Authorities reappearing at the same time, Parvati Mata couldn't help but suspect that someone was manipulating things behind the scenes.
The disappearance of the two Sun Authorities had even caused the Solar War, a major event in Little Garden, to be delayed over and over. Only when all the Sun Authorities were gathered and the trials completed could the Solar War truly begin.
"Heh, we'll know what's going on once the Solar War begins. But before that, I bet the White Night King will go after that one or perhaps two beings," said a blue-haired, armour-clad man, stepping up beside Parvati Mata with a smile.
"Indra, you're far too relaxed. This time, you need to give it everything you've got," Parvati Mata replied with a sigh. "Don't forget, your opponents are the White Night King and the Halloween Queen and whoever managed to obtain and hide those Sun Authorities."
"If the Sun Authorities fall into the wrong hands, you'll have failed as the master of Little Garden."
"It's best to relax when you can. Save your best for the fight, only then can you perform at your peak," Indra replied casually.
The title "Master of Little Garden" is reserved for gods who helped create Little Garden itself. Among the Twelve Heavenly Generals, Indra is the only one with that title.
But he was nothing like the legends. Here, Indra seemed more like a laid-back, slightly unreliable man, often seen as a slacker, a drunkard, and a womaniser.
Of course, anyone foolish enough to underestimate him would regret it. Indra is the strongest war god, the only one in the dawn era who dared to confront the White Night King head-on. In the triple-digit omnipotence realm, he stands just beneath the outlier Halloween Queen, the number one after her.
"I'm not going to argue with you. I just hope nothing goes wrong in this Solar War," Parvati Mata said, shaking her head.
Indra simply smiled and walked away.
Elsewhere, Riku floated in midair, trying to open the map and decide where to go next.
"Hm? Why aren't there any chests?" he wondered aloud, frowning as he opened his map and saw it had grown massive, but there were no new chests. "System, what's going on?"
[ Master, the Little Garden world is too advanced. System functions are currently updating. It will take some time to refresh the treasure chests, and new rules will be introduced. Please wait patiently, everything should be ready in about a day, and you'll receive a new system template. ]
"I see," Riku replied, stroking his chin thoughtfully.
Suddenly, a voice like rolling thunder echoed out: "Human, lingering in my domain for so long… are you seeking a trial?"
Riku frowned and looked up…