Badge in Azure

The temple of the Lord of Glory was at the top of a snow-white sacred mountain deep within his divine kingdom. That temple was built at the peak, with countless altars around it.

Hundreds of believers prayed there every day in the divine kingdom, with their power of faith being coalesced into divine crystals, appearing on the altars. Those altars were used by the Lord of Glory for amassing powers.

The Lord of Glory had no intention of using his power of the Source for creating angels.

The power of the Source was the foundation of the divine kingdom, yet believers were people that could be recruited from a myriad of planes and brought to the divine kingdom. When the powers of the Source on those believers had been completely drained, that was when they would meet their end.

The more powerful the power of the Source of a believer, the longer they would be able to live. None of that had anything to do with the Lord of Glory himself.

The Lord of Glory had gotten rather irritable as of late. He had just destroyed a faraway divine kingdom and killed a level 15 god. The Lord of Glory had destroyed many level 15 gods and his power had grown to the critical point. Things would be dire for him if his powers were to grow more while he was still unable to master rules of level 16 gods, regardless of what he did.

Without comprehension of those rules, absorbing too many gods of his level would only result in the collapse of his divine kingdom.

That collapse would cause his personal death as well, and the Lord of Glory dared not take such a risk.

If he were to be able to make it to level 16, he would assault Myers Mainland, instead of being as cautious as he was at the moment.

Myers was indeed resurrected, but she was too, at about level 15.

But then again, Myers Mainland was her turf. If he were to show up there, his powers would be suppressed. But if she came here, things would go the other way around instead.

It was too easy for him to kill a god of a similar level. Wars fought between gods were never a one-on-one affair. Divine wars were always one god putting everything they had at stake and having their armies crush the divine kingdom of their enemy.

"Lord Father, the number of divine crystals have not seemed to add up for the past several divine days." An angel with a pair of red wings walked into the temple and half-knelt before the Lord of Glory.

"I know. The vanguards suffered quite a loss, so the reaping of divine crystals dwindled somewhat." The Lord of Glory straightened himself and responded to his favorite angel.

"No, Father. The number is lower than what it should have been. Although the ratio seemed to have something to do with the losses suffered in the war, it was more than one percent nonetheless."

"Hold on." The Lord of Glory was only somewhat alerted. The Lord of Glory had tens of billions of believers. One percent of such divine crystals would equal to powers generated when hundreds of millions of believers prayed. That was a feast for a god.

"Lord Father, I suspect that someone is stealing the power of faith."

The Lord of Glory leaned on his throne and held his scepter forward. A beam of divine light shot out, shining on the red-winged angel. The angel was immediately enveloped by white holy prose.

Tens of thousands of lines of holy prose entered the angel's body. The Lord of Glory said, "go, my child. I bestow you with the authority of waging a war, to capture that blasphemer who is stealing the power of faith."

"Yes, Lord Father." The holy prose within that red-winged angel appeared again. A golden Sword of Glory appeared in its hand, which was a sword bestowed to it by its god. It was considered the most powerful weapon to be found in the Lord of Glory's divine kingdom.

The angel was the Lord of Glory's favorite, who was a seraph known as Abyrus.

They were the only seraph created by the Lord of Glory because a seraph was far more powerful than a combat angel and cost far more power of the Source to create. Furthermore, a seraph could only be created using a god's own power of the Source.

The Lord of Glory had actually been stocking too much power of the Source and was still unable to advance, which was why he created Abyrus in the first place.

However, Abyrus' creation greatly satisfied the Lord of Glory, because Abyrus was the best angel he had at his disposal. Be it comprehension in terms of his decree or execution of his orders, everything was done perfectly.

The most important thing about Abyrus was that its presence alone lightened the Lord of Glory's mood a great deal.

Mood swings were difficult to suppress for gods because of their divine personas, and such the fact that attributes were immutable. The Lord of Glory did not want to be as short-fused and suspicious as he was known to be, so he let Abyrus stay by his side often.

The Lord of Glory was unable to fathom why he came to rely on Abyrus so much. He was a god, so he was unable to comprehend some emotions which were more human in nature.

Abyrus was his first child.

While he indeed called Abyrus his child, as a god, he never truly understood what 'children' meant.

Abyrus was elated. It was the Lord of Glory's most powerful angel, yet it was constantly tasked with cleaning up during battles. The Lord of Glory never let it take any risks. It was constantly ridiculed due to its status as the seraph. All angels were jealous of it, and very much madly so.

Abyrus had no intention of catching the culprit whatsoever, but the authority bestowed by its Lord Father meant that it was allowed to attack Myers Mainland. So long as it was able to drive that damned culprit into Myers Mainland, it would be able to command legions of angels to slaughter all over the mainland.

After walking down the Divine Mountain of Light, Abyrus came to the city of angels below and began to amass its own army.

Angels who had long been at odds with it stayed out of its sight. The ones that it was able to recruit were all low-level angels, but Abyrus did not mind at all. With the Sword of Glory in its hand, it did not have any need for help from trash.

One hundred thousand angels were gathered and divided into five legions. They headed towards a hidden space at the divine kingdom, with Abyrus in the lead. It knew where the culprit had been. It was the work of an insolent, treacherous fool, who was an oracle having delusions of becoming a god, so much so that it had infiltrated the Lord of Glory's divine kingdom.

The level 13 pseudogod had been able to hide pretty easily by using some unknown equipment. It was a pity that the oracle had been too greedy, as seen by his attempt to steal the Lord of Glory's power of faith.

Fycro waited calmly in the foreign space. A white fox passed through the space barrier and came to his side, settling down next to him.

The fox was a familiar conjured by his power of the Source. It was very difficult for a level 13 pseudogod to advance without pure power of faith. His infiltration of the Lord of Glory's divine kingdom was an accident. However, Fycro soon discovered that the Lord of Glory hardly paid attention to the number of divine crystals collected.

All of his believers, high-level oracles and angels, had been stealing divine crystals.

The Lord of Glory had too many level 15 divine personas on his person, and no amount of divine crystals would bring about his advancement unless he gained level 16 rules and then absorbed the power of faith.

Fycro had been careful initially, as it was a divine kingdom after all. There were more beings who were more powerful than him than just the Lord of Glory and his doubles. There were also some angels whose combat capacity rivaled his.

He was frustrated by the fact that Saleen had taken the divine persona fragments and how his divine fires were extinguished. The angels would develop fear before a god. So long as the Lord of Glory kept his hands to himself, there would be no way Fycro would lose to any angels.

Fycro's power of the Source was extremely similar to that of the Lord of Glory. The fox that he conjured was a sacred beast commonly found in the divine kingdom. That sacred beast was of little threat, with the only use being to provide the Lord of Glory with faith of even greater purity.

No one would attack such a creature, and Fycro had gotten bold after stealing once or twice.

If it had not been for Abyrus, he would not have been discovered even if he kept stealing. Everyone was doing the same thing anyway. Even if the gods were to look into such matters, they only did so once every several hundred years or so. Only a few angels would die if anything were discovered.

The Lord of Glory was totally oblivious to the angels' greed. His divine kingdom had not been advancing for far too long and too much power was stockpiled. The desires of the angels were unable to be suppressed, and they would only be quelled when the divine kingdom advanced.

The Lord of Glory was steeped in thought as well. However, there were simply too few level 16 gods around for it to absorb. If he were to work on it on his own, he would need billions of years before being able to advance.

A white weapon was seen on Fycro's hand at the moment. That was his Mirror of Fate, yet it was incapable of reflecting any light. That face on the upside of the disc-shaped weapon had a line seen on it all of a sudden.

Fycro was frightened. He then headed out in the opposite direction of the space, before seeing a large group of angels heading his way.

The angel who took the lead had red feathers and held a golden greatsword.

Damn it. It was Abyrus!

It was not like Fycro knew nothing about the divine kingdom. It was due to assassinating angels and absorbing their memories that Fycro was able to stay hidden in the divine kingdom for as long as he did.

Abyrus was a level 14 seraph. Even if Fycro's weapon had not been taken away by Saleen, he still would not have been able to stand against the angel.

Furthermore, the most terrifying thing about that seraph was that, even without the backing of the Lord of Glory, it still would not fear divine might. Fycro made a snap decision, turned himself into a white eagle, and took to the skies. He headed straight for the frontlines, which was the exit that led to the assault of Myers Mainland.

According to memories of the angels he absorbed, Fycro knew that Abyrus was the Lord of Glory's favorite angel and that the god had never sent to any dangerous missions.

According to past experiences, there was no way Abyrus would be sent to the frontlines.

Abyrus watched Fycro, who had taken the form of an eagle, from afar and felt glee in its heart. However, it did not give chase immediately. The traitor was being too slow. If Abyrus were to pursue him immediately, there was no way he would make it into Myers Mainland. Abyrus would have caught him before that. It ruined the fun of the chase.

Abyrus led hundreds of angels into Fycro's lair instead and pretended to search the place for a bit, before determining where Fycro headed to using divine arts.

The situation with Fycro's escape was all caught by Abyrus' eyes, meaning that the angel's divine spell would never fail.

The angels were in an uproar after they saw the traitor, who had transformed into an eagle, heading straight for the frontlines.

Abyrus's mood became gloomy and shouted, "what is all this ruckus? Lord Father said it is a must to capture the being alive. Come with me."

It did not care if the angels under its charge objected. It sped up and headed straight for the frontlines.

The angels did not dare to report to the Lord of Glory. The angels all knew what Abyrus was like, and they would have a lot to gain simply by playing along with Abyrus' charade. However, if they were to report every single detail of what happened to the Lord of Glory, the angels who did so would not have been able to live beyond one divine day.