I started off slowly, only increasing my speed every time I completed a set of Katas.

By the time that I had reached the seventeenth set, I could tell by the reaction from Soea and Anna, they could no longer see me, just a blur.

I found my mind drifting as I began replaying some of my most precious memories, back when Master had been first teaching me these movements.

The way that her long hair would flow in the breeze, how good it felt when her fingers touched me as she showed me how to position my body.

We would sit down next to each other, Master leaning her soft body against me, her scent tickling my senses, drinking cooled juice.

While drinking, and relaxing, Master would lean onto my shoulder and tell me stories from her past.

Suddenly, I felt a killing intent aimed at me, drawing me out of my memories.

The sun had only reached just past the center of the sky, I would guess that it was between 12:30 and 1:30.

On pure instinct, the nostalgia vanished and my mind switched into combat mode.

Moving my eyes slightly, I saw Soea and Anna watching me. Soea was staring with what looked like a mixture of awe and a warm emotion that made me slightly worried.

Anna was shocked, her mouth almost reaching the ground, she seemed to be muttering something between trying to get her surprise under control.

I only observed them in passing as I jumped into the air.

Even without taking out my wings, I easily reached a height of thirty meters, and I didn't put in too much effort.

Creating a Levitation Rune under my feet, I started hovering, ignoring the pesky laws of gravity and physics. With a small outpouring of Mana, I slowly spun in a circle, closely observing my surroundings.

As I thought, the castle was completely surrounded by the Church army, I could see a veritable army of soldiers. There were what seemed like waves of aqua blue that moved throughout the men in armour, it was the Mages, and judging from the colour of their robes, they would be able to use large number of level five spells.

The army wasn't a threat to us, however, my war potential was rather low. All I had was a currently evolving Salamander, a newbie Hero/Host, and a Dragonoid.

Only Soea and I could currently fight.

When I canceled the Levitation Rune and landed again, Soea and Anna looked a little surprised by my actions. Well, they probably only just barely registered my actions, since I was still moving at high speed.

"It is time. The Army has arrived and surrounded the castle. Anna, stay close to Soea, but both of you, come with me."

Not waiting for the girls' responses, I turned and walked over to the castle wall.

When she arrived by my side, I scooped Anna up into a princess carry, sooner or later, she would need to learn to utilize her physical powers. Holding her, I jumped onto the wall, Soea followed me closely.

I gently placed Anna down as I looked out and over the massive army.

Without me needing to do or say anything, Soea moved forwards and stood next to me. Subconsciously, I reached out and grabbed her hand, to which Soea looked pleased.

Anna stood close to me and looked worried.

Smiling, I placed an arm around Soea's shoulders and pulled her close. She hugged my hand and rubbed her face on my arm for a few seconds before her eyes met mine, "Anna too."

It struck me as strange how Soea was so accepting of Anna, maybe there was something I didn't know...

With a shrug, I did the same to Anna, to which she seemed surprised and looked down.

<My Lord, remember the mind link, I can feel what you do, even if you don't admit it... The feeling of seeing someone from your home, someone who suffered the same way you did... It is almost overwhelming.>

"Sorry," I apologized to Soea.

To which she smiled.

<Feel what you want. If I disagree, I will tell you, as you wish, my Lord>

At Soea's words, I looked over at Anna whose face was slightly red, but there was a hint of happiness in her smile.

After Soea's explanation--that I felt a subconscious draw to Anna because she was like me, and from the same world--I could now feel it.

Pulling my mind back, I looked over at the encircling army, planning my next move, though I was going to wait and see what the enemy did first.

The joined armies encircled the castle and started assembling numerous varieties of siege weaponry. The catapults and trebuchets only took an hour to be completely set up.

The girls and I had sat on the walls and watched, I created a shade for us to protect us from the heat, I took some of my favourite juice out of my Spatial Storage.

Anna was still having trouble relaxing.

Though Soea was sitting in front of me, between my legs, and leaning back against me with a happy look as she drank the juice and watched the Human army.

"It's okay, so far, there isn't any threat to us. Those conventional weapons can't damage my Wards, so until all of the Mages start forming Covens, or the Priests appear... We don't have anything to do, except wait." I smiled at her, speaking calmly.

The siege weapons started firing, the massive rocks and ballistae bolts harmlessly bounced of my Wards, which only became visible to disperse the force of the impacts.

Anna let out a noise and pressed herself tightly against me, to which both Soea and I smiled.

<You made a good choice, she is cute>

Soea laughed in amusement in my head.

After a few seconds, they seemed to realize that they had embarked on a futile endeavour, so the Paladins moved to the front. They split into squads of ten, eight Paladins and two Mages in each squad.

It was simple enough to identify the armoured soldiers as Paladins, by the white surcoat that partially covered their armour, adorned with a sunburst pattern.

They were low to mid-ranked Paladins, so they still weren't dangerous.

But, what worried me was that I hadn't detected their approaches, and even now I couldn't feel their presences.

This meant that there was a high grade threat hidden within the army.

With a shrug, I projected my aura, manifesting a shield composed of Mana. This shield was different than an Arcane shield, since it was unshaped. This was a trick that Master taught me, specifically designed to be used against wielders of Divine Magic.

Divine Magic had some spells which were specialized in cutting through Wards from almost every branch of Magic, as well as others that could phase through normal protection Magic.

There was a special division in the Church called the 'Ward Breakers'.

Mana Shields weren't technically Wards, so they were much harder to breach. They also didn't expend much Mana, because they were just an extended and modified Mana circulation technique.

Of course, I knew a lot of ways around the 'Ward Breakers', but I hadn't detected them in the advancing armies.

I was slipping.

Each of the closely clustered squads split their formations open and revealed that inside each one hid man in a red cloak, which was adorned in the normal white sunburst pattern.

The red cloaks were the official uniform of the 'Ward Breakers', judging by the number of the golden marks sown into the hem of their robes, they were at least Lieutenant ranked in their Division.

As the men started chanting, unleashing Magic, the Wards around my castle started to shake with odd noises. Soea tensed slightly, pushing back against me and gripped my hand tighter.

Anna squeaked and did the same.

It wouldn't be long before the Ward Breakers got through the first layer of my defenses.

Then, the being that had stayed concealed behind the army decided to drop its spell.

I felt a presence that I had felt before, a presence that I would never forget, never forgive.

Anna seemed to feel it too, she began trembling.

Gently prying Anna off me, I handed her to Soea, "Please, keep her calm." I muttered quietly as I began to prepare myself to face the enemy that was a difficult fight, even for someone as powerful as I was.

Soea looked at me with worry for a second before gently hugging the trembling Anna, who didn't seem to object this time.

Re-manifesting my wings, I flapped violently and shot into the air.

I left the defensive encirclement of my Wards, covered only by my Mana shield, hovering in front of the massive army.

Not missing what they thought was a chance, they all attacked me at once, however, all of their spells were easily deflected or nullified.

This didn't stop them from casting, even after seeing the futility.

The constant flashing annoyed me, so I decided to use a mid-level AoE spell, which technically would be classified as level eight or nine by Humans.

There were technically fifteen levels of Magic: ten levels, four 'Ungraded' levels, as well as Forbidden or Taboo spells that were at the same level as the Ungraded spells, which people nicknamed Over-level or Monster-Level.

These classifications were created by a Hero who was summoned many hundred years before me.

The spell that I chose was rather popular in the Dark Lands, and usually it was cast by a small Coven of fifteen or twenty Archmagi. It was called the 'Dark Winds of the End'. The name wasn't that good, but it was named after the deadly black windstorms which would often sweep through one of the more dangerous Dead-Zones of the Dark Lands.

The windstorms would decay entire cities into dust, in seconds.

Of course, the level eight version of the spell was much weaker.

A strange symbol floated above me, rapidly filling the sky above us, extending fifty meters in diameter.

Pitch black 'winds' emerged from the symbol, slamming down like a cyclonic pillar.

This was a weakened version of the spell, which I primarily used as a warning. I couldn't use the biggest and most powerful version, since I needed to save Mana for the upcoming fight, and I didn't want to use anything too powerful on the insects while the true enemy watched.

My spell terrified the enemy Magic Casters, seeing a single person easily cast a spell which they knew would take a large coven of people on the same level as their Commanders or Guildmaster, as well as the fact that I instant cast it without any visible effort.

"Let me through."

His voice rang out through the entire army, all of the soldiers stopped moving, and the Mages stopped casting.

He had massive political power when it came to the Humans, especially the ones from the Church.

Out of the split masses walked a tall man in a simple, unadorned, white robe. He was rather tall, but skeletal, he looked like a strong breeze could blow him down.

But his aura, it was a weaker version of the one that Arre released in his Light form.

This man was the reason that the army had managed to conceal these powerful forces from even my senses.

He stopped moving, standing in front of the army, standing between them and me.

A hush fell over the battlefield as he stared up and into the sky, his eyes slowly losing colour, becoming pure white, and glowing.

This man was the Pope of the Church of Arre, the only man in the Human capital, possibly in the whole of Human society, who could be considered a threat to me.

He might even be considered dangerous among the younger Ancient Monsters and Elder Beings who lived in the Dark Lands.

"Ahh, an old friend..." The Pope's voice had deepened and began to boom, echoing throughout the entire battlefield. It spread through the sudden silence that had descended, even the air seemed to solidify.

Creating a 'Loudspeaker' Rune, I replied to him.

"Who's your friend, bastard..."

I canceled my Levitation Rune and fell rapidly to the ground, slamming into the hardened dirt, facing off against the Pope.

The skeletal old man laughed, his eyes were now purely white and his entire aura changed.

He was doing one of the few things that I feared, only less than a Descent.

He began to channel Arre.

"Heh. Well, you decided to run away from me, and now you have absconded with a toy of mine... I shall take her back first, then I shall play with you to your heart's content." The Pope was now basically Arre himself, it was a full Channeling, one step below Arre himself, with access to around one thousandth of Arre's power.

The pope, or should I say Arre, grinned as he gathered Mana into his left hand, he was targeting Anna.

I spun and fired off a Rune, which was the limit of what I could do in this tiny time-frame, the Rune I fired at Anna was a Soul Shield.

The Rune I launched at Anna gently pressed against her head, and a glowing, shimmering, multicoloured bubble formed around her.

Arre's spell was designed to kill Anna, and then he would easily snatch the shell-less Soul as it started to drift back into the Cycle of Reincarnation. To powerful Soul Magi and Deities, there was more than enough time to catch the souls before they faded away, which also allowed us to resurrect normal people.

All of this happened in less than a second before the spell left Arre's hand, and the formless power left Arre's hand and smashed into the barrier surrounding Anna, shattering it.

However, there was a brilliant white glow that came from Anna's eyes and mouth in what looked like flaming beams, it seems that the Angel had used some of her remaining power to protect Anna.

Both of these together were enough to offset Arre's spell, saving Anna.

But she fell unconscious, collapsing into Soea's arms, as she darted forwards.

I didn't know what it would cost the Angel, other than tying their minds closer, and using a lot of power.

The link in my mind shivered and almost disappeared, but I knew that the Angel still lived.

Now I just had to figure out how to cope with a channeled deity, and with the power that the Pope could channel, he was around on par with me, maybe a little stronger.

It would stay that way as long as Arre didn't Descend and completely Manifest.