"So that means everyone's already gathered in the Vatican, huh…"
Sai Akuto wasn't some devil who would do things like annihilate the Church.
However, a bit of education and discipline was still necessary.
"Yes, they are indeed all in the Vatican right now," Griselda replied respectfully.
"Good, very good. In that case, let's just keep going according to plan."
Akuto glanced once in the direction of the Vatican. It really was an excellent stage.
"Yes!"
Nodding respectfully, Griselda took out a list. On it were the names of saintesses and nuns who were completely loyal to Heaven.
"Milana, in order, you're the first to receive Lord Sai Akuto's baptism."
Griselda looked back at a nun with long, ash-gold hair.
Milana, Gabriel's Ace of Hearts.
Nun Milana had a delicate, fair oval face. Her slightly gray-tinted blue eyes made her look very lively, and together with the ash-gold hair spilling out from beneath her veil, she managed to exude the aura of a nun while not losing the air of a young girl.
Akuto had an impression of this nun called Milana.
In the original storyline, Milana was Gabriel's Heart A, while Griselda was Gabriel's Heart Q.
After Heaven developed the angel card system, Gabriel, the Seraph in charge of the Hearts suit, made all of her "Holy Envoys" (reincarnated angels) female. Among them, Q (Griselda) and Ace (Milana) were the ones at the top.
In the original storyline, Milana was a master in the use of light, having put into practice all kinds of methods of using it—even snapping the halo of light off the ground to use it freely in midair was something she could easily pull off.
Even the mightiest high-class devils, if they were caught off guard and hit by Milana's attacks, would be melted on the spot.
Considering that she could casually hurl super-massive spears of light at a level capable of destroying heaven and earth, it was no exaggeration to regard her as a cadre-level (Maou-class) existence.
And that was only the effect she had in the original storyline after making use of the angel cards!
Compared to that, Akuto's irregular chess pieces were stronger than the angel cards by far, and the boost they provided was also much greater.
…
"Holy Son-sama, Milana is deeply honored to be the first nun to receive your baptism."
Kneeling properly before Akuto, Milana pressed her hands together in prayer, her expression overflowing with devotion and reverence.
Akuto slowly reached out his hand and presented a card that had had its exterior redesigned and now shone entirely with a golden luster.
On the golden card was engraved the emblem of the Heart A. Clearly, this was also something Akuto had decided on after careful thought.
The devils' reincarnation tools were chess pieces, and the tools for reincarnation on Heaven's side were also chess pieces—wasn't that just straight-up copy-paste plagiarism?
Of course it was plagiarism, but that was the kind of thing you absolutely couldn't admit even if it was true.
After thinking it over for a while, Akuto deliberately modified the appearance of the irregular chess pieces, giving them a blindingly golden, holy look.
Naturally, in essence, the angel cards Akuto was bestowing were still just transformed versions of those irregular chess pieces; their core nature hadn't changed.
On one hand, even though Akuto's strength had reached the Main God level, he didn't yet have enough time and experience to develop an entirely new piece system of his own in such a short span.
On the other hand, his irregular chess pieces were much stronger than the devils' evil pieces or Heaven's angel cards to begin with—why abandon a luxury yacht to go ride a broken-down ferry?
Lastly, given how loyal these nuns and saintesses were to Heaven, and how they had straightforwardly accepted the fact that Heaven had sent down a Holy Son, Akuto did feel he needed to give these first followers a substantial benefit.
"Crack—crack, crack, crack—"
The golden card flew from Akuto's hand, shattered into countless fragments, and poured into Milana's body.
Still holding her prayer posture, Milana's skin began to burst with waves of holy golden radiance.
Finally, as though reaching some critical threshold, light erupted all at once and swallowed the two of them up!
"Whoosh—"
Twelve pure-white wings unfurled from Milana's back, as holy white feathers danced through the sky.
Milana, who had already been at cadre level, directly became a twelve-winged angel!
…
Even though they had already braced themselves mentally, they still hadn't expected the facts before their eyes to go this far.
Holy Son Sai Akuto really did possess the power to convert believers into angels!
And on top of that, the one reincarnated was a twelve-winged angel. Everyone's faith immediately spiked to its peak!
They had originally thought that becoming an eight-winged or ten-winged angel would already be incredibly outstanding. Who could've imagined that this Holy Son-sama could reincarnate someone as a twelve-winged angel!
In their view, reincarnating a twelve-winged angel was something only a god could do! And yet now, such a thing had been accomplished by this "newborn Holy Son" Akuto!
In the face of ironclad reality, all opposition and doubt became utterly weak and powerless.
"This is nothing less than a miracle!"
"Holy Son-sama is without a doubt the successor of God-sama!"
"I believe that, under Holy Son-sama's guidance, this world will surely become a better place!"
"Ah~ Holy Son-sama, please bestow upon us your mercy…"
"..."
In the time that followed, Akuto roughly picked out a few saintesses and nuns he found pleasing to the eye and reincarnated them. He didn't reincarnate all of them.
The main reason was… he didn't have enough pieces.
As for the second reason, apart from that main one, Akuto didn't want the blessing he granted to seem too cheap.
If he only picked a few saintesses and nuns to reincarnate, then the remaining ones would end up harshly "pua-ing" themselves, convinced they must have failed somewhere, and thereby become even more devout.
…
After carefully absorbing a wave of purest faith and storing it away, Akuto took out a platinum-white holy spear.
After acquiring this "Spear That Pierces the World," Akuto had studied its exact effects in detail and developed many applications it hadn't possessed before.
Originally, the Spear That Pierces the World only had one use: to fix the possibilities of the world, sealing off all possible worldlines in order to ensure that Akuto could kill the EXE-world Evil God who possessed the power to manipulate worldlines.
Now, however, Akuto had already developed a few new uses for it.
Compared to its original use of "sealing off all possibilities of the world," using it this way was a bit like using a warhammer to crack a nut—but he had to admit, using this "World-Reversing Spear" in actual combat was very practical.
"Vmm—"
The holy spear's ripples spread rapidly, merging the surrounding world into one.
"Let's go. We'll head to the Vatican, show ourselves to those people, and proclaim my existence—proclaim that the Holy Son is real."
The next second, Akuto took a single step forward.
And with that single step, he covered the entire span of the space transfer!
Under normal circumstances, if Akuto wanted to bring someone along when moving, he had to physically make contact first. But under the influence of the Spear That Pierces the World, the space around him was regarded as an extension of Akuto himself, thus allowing him to pull off a miracle: contactless mass teleportation.
…
The moment he arrived in the Vatican, Akuto's whole body was wrapped in a pillar of surging green aura!
[I—]
[Awaken as the Heavenly Dragon that wrests away dominion from gods—]
[Where only laughter is limitless and all worries are but dreams—]
[I shall become the Tyrant Red Dragon—casting you into the crimson purgatory!]
[Juggernaut-Drive (Baru-Ryū / Tyrant Dragon)!]
Previously, just by using Juggernaut Drive, Akuto's strength had already been able to break past the limits of god-class and rise to the Main God rank.
Now, after using Juggernaut Drive, the power that had originally been used to break shackles was wholly converted into raw stat boosts, causing Akuto's strength to instantly climb to the very peak of the Main God tier!
"Explode~ world!"
"Shatter~ rules!"
"This moment… is rebirth!"
[explosion! — create-the-world (Genesis Burst)!]
Centered on Akuto, the explosion spread out in all directions, wrapping the entire world within it!
However, this explosion spell was not a simple destructive blast.
Just as Akuto had said, what this explosion magic shattered were the world's rules within the area it covered!
Right now, within the range of the explosion, the old rules of the world had already collapsed! New world rules were beginning to form!
And just what kind of rules those would be depended entirely on a single thought from Sai Akuto!
…
A few minutes ago, in the Vatican.
The Church warriors who had been summoned by Michael were in a meeting.
They really couldn't figure out why Michael would call them together at a time like this. Shouldn't he be busy dealing with preparations for the Three Faction Summit right now?
Still, since they'd finally gotten a chance to gather, everyone discussed their own views on this "Holy Son" Sai Akuto in detail.
After a round of debate, they ultimately arrived at three main positions.
In short: wait and see for now, then make a move after the Three Factions Summit concluded.
If the peace talks were successful, then at that time they'd demand that the devils and Fallen Angels take back all the things they'd said, and then drag the topic of the "Holy Son" out onto the table together.
Overall, the Church warriors, though a bit hot-tempered, were not evil people. They simply hated evil with a passion and found it impossible to accept the idea of all the ideals they'd practiced up to now being trampled.
If they really were evil sorts, they would've already betrayed the Church long ago, gone astray, and joined who-knows-which faction.
However, at that very moment, they suddenly felt a never-before-seen surge of terrifying power—that was the energy wave when Sai Akuto activated Juggernaut Drive!
"This is… the power of a dragon!"
As a cardinal, Teodoro was the first to stand up and look toward the sky.
He wasn't very old, but as the most gifted among the "Children of Miracle" (those born from unions of angels and humans), Teodoro had become the Church's number two at a very young age.
"This energy even surpasses god-class! How is that possible!?"
On the other side, Ewald, known as the Church's Master of Warriors, also stood.
As the Master of Warriors, Ewald not only possessed formidable strength himself, but had also trained large numbers of Church warriors. Whether it was Irina, Xenovia, or Conte, all of them had, to varying degrees, received Ewald's guidance.
"This is the power of the Red Dragon Emperor!"
"In other words, it's Holy Son-sama's power!"
Last of all, a compact, sharp-eyed swordsman well-known to Kokabiel appeared.
His name was Vasco, the previous wielder of Durandal, and the man Kokabiel hated most.
Of course, he also had a number of even more impressive titles.
For example, the weakest warrior in Vatican history; the Father of Church Warriors; a candidate for the Strongest Human, and so on.
Although Vasco ranked third in the Church and second among the trio here, in terms of actual strength, he was the strongest of the three!
"Something's coming!"
Vasco instinctively drew Durandal II (a replica of Durandal), readying himself to defend.
However…
The exploding sphere of light simply ignored all of their reactions, passing straight through their bodies and wrapping the entire Vatican inside it!
(End of Chapter)
[Get +20 Extra Chapters On — P@tr3on "Zaelum"]
[Every 500 Power Stones = 1 Bonus Chapter Drop]
[Thanks for Reading!]