True Angel (DxD/ Overlord): Chapter 58

Within the Sixth Heaven, three of the four archangels sat around a table and went over the documents in front of them.

“No problems so far?”

“None, brother Michael. Nearly all of the missing humans from the disaster are accounted for. As for the dead, Gabriel has already mobilized GHW to provide aid for the family of the deceased.”

Michael’s eyes held sadness as he saw the string of numbers depicting how many humans, nature spirits, and more had perished in the calamitous destruction brought upon Greece by the death of the two Olympian gods.

“Continue monitoring the situation and help out where you can. What about Olympus?”

“They have been surprisingly quiet about this. In fact, they have been eerily silent, just like the Shinto from before.”

Uriel raised an eyebrow at Raphael’s words.

“...You don’t think-?”

“No. I don’t think brother Aetherion killed them all. If he did, Greece would be a dead land by now, given how the Olympians had entrenched their divinity in that place for thousands of years.”

“Then, why?”

“We do not know. And frankly? We should not care.”

Uriel’s expressions turned wrathful as his light exploded for a few seconds before he forcefully pulled his power back inside.

“They wanted to kill brother Aetherion with an ambush, and frankly, Zeus and Poseidon deserved what happened to them.”

Uriel’s glare fell back on Michael.

“And you did not have to be so confronting with him when we decided to explain what he did wrong. You and Gabriel, you spoke as if you were speaking with an enemy, not our brother.”

At Uriel’s words, Michael’s expression fell, realizing the truth in his fellow angel’s words.

Back then, a few weeks ago, Michael and Gabriel had indeed gone too far with their words, high-strung with stress and overwhelmed with emotions that they were never allowed to express before, lest they fell, and only now felt the full breath of thanks to the reforms brought to the Heavenly System.

However, after Aetherion locked himself up in Seventh Heaven, Michael and Gabriel realized just how terribly they had spoken to their beloved brother.

Since that day, Gabriel had not left her room in the Sixth Heaven, while Michael drowned himself in his work.

Somehow, the grief they felt for hurting their brother like this, and they knew they had hurt him, his expressions at that time giving away how he felt, was worse than how they felt when Father had died.

Because, unlike their Father, who always held an unreachable position in their hearts, their brother was always by their side from the earliest days of their life. To the angels, Aetherion was far more beloved to their hearts than even their Father to a certain extent.

And to know that they had hurt him with their words, it was a feeling worse than anything they had ever felt.

Michael sighed and refused to meet Uriel’s eyes.

“...You are right. We went too far with our words back then. But what is done cannot be undone. All we can do is hope that brother Aetherion forgives us for it when he comes out.”

“You mean if he comes out?”

Michael had no response to those words and fell silent again, going over the documents.

The others fell silent and went back to work.

Yet, at the back of their minds, they knew that things would never be the same again after what happened.

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I submerged my consciousness within the Heavenly System, modifying its structure and testing things out before pushing through the changes that I wanted.

At the same time, the ring in my hand shattered as the last of its three uses was used up.

“[Wish Upon a Star]”

The spell activated and integrated with the System as I wanted, directing its energies to the devastating ecological cycle of Greece.

There, the spell took hold of the gaping metaphysical holes in the energies of the world, the taint of the gods that had made it so that Earth could no longer live without their existence.

The spell pulled on whatever energies support it, drawing cosmic energies and filling the holes left behind by the permanent death of the two gods.

Soon, the gaps were filled with the Heavenly System, which converted a part of the Dimensional Energies it holds into the conceptual domains that were needed to fill the gaps.

Yet, it was a shoddy patchwork at most.

While the mortal world will no longer be affected by disasters originating from these metaphysical holes, the supernatural world will no longer be the same.

Already, news has spread far and wide that the energies within the seas that sustained nature spirits, such as the Nyriads and other Ocean Spirits, are dwindling fast, causing these spirits to abandon their ancestral land and migrate somewhere else.

The same went for the wind spirits, who were also scattering across the globe.

And with the balance between these various elemental spirits broken like this, the other spirits will also start to feel the effects and will have no choice but to leave Greece, turning the country into a supernatural dead zone.

In theory, it was exactly what I wanted before. A place devoid of any meddling from higher powers. A place that belongs solely to the mortal races.

Yet, the result is not what I expected.

Yes, the humans can eventually resettle here. But things will never be the same again.

Without the wind spirits, the weather patterns will change, and rains and storms will become rarer. Without water and ocean spirits, the land will slowly lose its nutrients over time, becoming barren land where nothing can thrive again. Meanwhile, the oceans and lakes will no longer be fertile grounds for the fish and aquatic creatures to live in, which means that they will also stop being a reliable food source for the locals.

Slowly, but surely, Greece will die.

As for the Gods of Olympus? With Hades and his group already under my control, I can direct them to mitigate most of the damage, but the gaping holes in the domains of their part of the world are something that even they cannot do anything about.

The only way to rectify it is for two new gods to be born who would take on these lost domains, or for the Heavenly System’s patchwork to evolve further and assume full control of the domains, which is easier said than done.

Even with the use of the Shooting Star ring, using up all three of the wishes, it was nothing more than the patchwork that I just completed making.

This means that I will need something of a higher caliber. Something like Ouroboros.

Unfortunately, I have already used that thing way back when I first regained consciousness in this world. Given that I have been using the Heavenly System and boosting my awareness to find it after using it, it is safe to say that it might not respawn like in YGGDRASIL, so it is probably lost for good.

For now, I have no good solution to this problem, so I can only continue monitoring the situation and intervene when I can.

‘For now, we will have to use mortal means to safeguard human life while my Gatekeepers and other lower-ranked angels work to secure the lives of the supernatural native races.’

Thinking of the others, I could not help my thoughts wander to my siblings and the hurt expressions on their faces.

Ever since that day, she has locked herself away in the Sixth Heaven, refusing to let anyone in. I know this because I can monitor the entirety of the Heavens thanks to my connection to the System. As for the others, they have been going about their duties, except for Michael, who seems to have drowned himself in work.

As their brother, I should be out there, comforting them and trying to help them, yet here I am. Hiding within the System Core, like the coward I once was, and probably still am under all this power and ego.

Why? Because I cannot face her or Michael. Not yet. Not out of hate or anger, but out of fear and guilt.

I do not blame her and Michael for their words. What they said was hurtful, yes, but I think those words were necessary.

Because they were right.

I had become too full of myself with my power. I thought that I alone could make decisions for the entire world. That was because I was now probably one of the most powerful beings in this world, I had the right to dictate how things should be done.

This disaster, this mishap, is a wake-up call. One that I needed more than anything else.

It showed me the folly of letting my power get to my head.

And, it showed me what I was lacking the most right now.

Perspective.

With my power and the fragmented memories of my past self that I retrieved from the Heavenly System and God’s fragment within it,  I have slowly lost what made me human. I have lost the perspective of being a powerless person and what the world looks like from down there.

Something that I need to regain if I am to continue being an effective leader for my family. This disaster, it cannot happen again.

And, I think I know exactly how to do that.

I continued working on the Heavenly System, watching as one of my many projects was tested by the system continuously in the Dimensional Gap, the system’s learning module continuously refining the designs based on the rough parameters and designs I fed it.

A dimensional gate. One that will allow me to travel outside this universe, if it works.

The purpose of this is twofold.

One, to give me some time away from all these responsibilities that I have taken upon myself in my hubris. This will give me the perspective I need and also allow me to probably relax and look at things from different angles, ones that I probably never even imagined before.

The other is to gather materials.

The permanent solution to the problem in Greece, and across the world, is something that I haven’t thought of yet. However, with this dimensional gate, I can hopefully find a way to do what I want. To find a solution to the divine taint on earth.

Hopefully, this gamble of mine will succeed, because if it does not, I will have to take some drastic measures.

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Author Notes: Sorry for the long delay. It has been a really bad few weeks where a lot of IRL issues sprouted up one after the other. And truthfully, things are still very bad on my end, so updates will continue to be slow for some time.

I estimate things will be like this till the first or second week of December after which, hopefully, I should be able to go back to uploading two chapters a day.

So, yeah. There you have it.