We’ve been back on the road for about nine hours now, and Aldwyn and the duo were still talking shop about magic. While I quipped a few things here and there, most of the time I just listened as I was not overly interested in Abyss magic. I was thankfully saved from the situation continuing uninterrupted when we were interrupted~.

The knock on the door honestly surprised me a little, as I had not even noticed the carriage slowing down, “My Ladies! You might want to come out and see this. We are close to the Royal Capital, but there is… an issue.”

Everyone raised an eyebrow before we all collectively shrugged and made our way out of the carriage. When we were all out the guard saluted us and said, “This way please, My Ladies.”

We walked a tiny distance to overcome the small hill we were on and it gave off a great, if not wildly weird, view! In the distance, was a massive castle made out of what looked like actual plastic blocks. Surrounded by equally impressive(?) walls that towered high in the sky. The toy-like castle was of a sinister black and red combo for colour and honestly looked like what one would expect a hyper-generic “Demon Lord” castle would look like. Large skulls, demonic faces, flames and all that jazz.

The castle was built in the middle of an expansive grassy plain. I idly wondered if it was natural, or if it was lumbered and made this way over generations.

Returning my attention to the castle, even the atmosphere around it was dark and dreary. No really, the sky was somehow randomly clouded and it seemed like the overall area was slightly grey-scaled. And even though it was just slightly into the evening, the lighting around the castle was dark like midnight.

I had to force myself to suppress a snicker when I heard Rachel mumble, “The actual fuck is this?”

Leaning over slightly to Aldwyn I whispered, “Did I do this?”

She gently shook her head and answered back in an equally hushed tone, “I do not know, Master. It is, however, possible after your careless declaration of your true name and title. Reality did break after all.”

Nodding my head slightly, I just gave an uninterested shrug and straightened my posture. I honestly didn’t care if I did end up being the cause of this, because of one simple thing. I found it utterly hilarious.

Turning my amused gaze to the army surrounding the castle, I let out an impressed whistle. It truly was an army, after all, toy or not. Blinking in surprise I asked, “Wait, are those actual tanks? No wait, forget those, do I see Attack Helicopters there? Haha!”

While I was laughing at the sheer absurdity of the army in front of me, I also took notice of the ugly face that the princess was making. Wiping away a tear I asked, “What is wrong Emily? Are you not excited to go to war?”

Her face turned complicated as she answered, “It’s not that, Lady Sakura.”

I made a mild note that no one in her entourage, or the woman herself, made any issue out of me not using a title of sorts before her name as she continued, “While my love and I can easily fight these peasants off, I would more than likely lose some of my escort in the fray. And if the mockery of what my home has become is any indication, all these fine men and women are all that is left of my supporters…”

Nodding my head I said, “Ahh, I gotcha~. You want to fight, but you want that army to have more targets at least so your more or less normal fighting force isn’t obliterated by being the only target, hmm?”

While still giving the army a hard look she nodded her head and said, “Just so, Lady Sakura.”

Clapping my hands together once I said, “Then let's change that! I want to see what is inside this,” I honestly tried hard to suppress the giggle, but I mostly failed at it, “demon lord castle of Toylandia.”

Rubbing my hands together while I got my snickering under control, I held out my right hand and snapped my fingers as I silently cast a spell. While Aldwyn was my most used combat pet and mount in the game, she was not exclusively my most powerful or only used. Nor was I limited to only using just one summon at a time.

The spell I used was one I got in a rather mundane dungeon near the start of my journey in Eldritch Ascension Online. It was a simple dungeon with a simple end boss, a classic Tank and Spank as players tended to call that type of encounter. It was a vault of the Heavenly Host, and we were tasked with killing the guardian for some duke lord or something, I can’t remember anymore.

The last boss was low-level, in both terms of the game and lore, Angel. She had only three abilities, and it was honestly a brain-dead fight. When you defeated her, she would reward you with the ability to summon her. The catch though, is that I REALLY liked her design, so I ended up going ham on the spell after I got it, to level it/her up. And there is no such thing as overboard/kill to a gamer. Safe to say, I levelled her up to Seraphim. And then beyond.

A truly gigantic beam of holy light enveloped the area just beyond me in its brilliance as the spell went off. The sound of gentle chimes and church bells rang out and golden feathers started to fall gently from all around the beam. It was soon followed by a tiny ball of light nearly as blinding as the sun, slowly descending directly in the middle of the light. A gentle and soothing hymn started, as the ball of light got closer and closer to the ground.

As the tiny ball stopped about halfway to the ground, one final chime rang out before absurdly large wings, both in size and number, covered it from all angles. Seconds later, a massive pulse of holy energy was expelled from the centre of the ball of wings before they all dramatically fluttered open and revealed the form of my summon.

She was still a stunning beauty, able to topple worlds easily with nothing but that gentle smile of hers. She only had a basic white dress that had golden highlights on the edges. She had no jewellery on her or even sandals. Ignoring the truly uncountable number of pairs of wings she had, the only way you could tell she was an angel was the beautiful golden halo that floated just behind her head. It had numerous circles of various shapes and sizes, while the whole thing seemed to cover a holy singularity in the middle of it all. Oh, and her eyes being nothing but pure white that shone with golden holy energy may also be a hint to her origin.

As her bare feet touched the grass, which instantly looked perfectly healthy and green, she released a soft sigh. She looked at me with a gentle smile on her face and used her left hand to move a lock of her pure white hair behind her ear as she kneeled before me.

Her voice was my favourite voice an angel could, or should have. When she talked, it sounded like literal holy chimes and bells gently ringing out, yet you could still understand what she was saying.

And to my absolute delight, that had not changed when she greeted me, “My Master, My Goddess. The one who stands at reality's edge, and laughs at its rules. It is with the purest of jubilance that I greet you.”

With a happy smile on my face at meeting another one of my summons in real life, I said, “Rise, Pandora. I am happy to see you as well! How have you been?”

She gracefully stood back up, as one would expect of a being such as her, and her smile grew as she asked, “I have been well, and longing for your summons, Master. Who is the fool that stands before you in resistance this time?”

I just shrugged my shoulders and answered, “Eh. I am just helping Emily and her lover Rachel over there with some in-house problems. It’s not that big of a deal, truthfully. To be perfectly honest, I just wanted an excuse to summon you.”

She almost literally beamed at me as she said, “You never need an excuse to summon me, Master! But I am happy you chose to, regardless!”

Humming softly while nodding I said, “Fair enough. I trust you remember Aldwyn?”

Nodding her head she answered, “I do.”

Turning to Aldwyn, she said, “Lizard.”

I stifled a laugh at that as Aldwyn responded in kind, “Pigeon.”

This caused me to giggle silently to myself as Aldwyn continued, “I see your wings are not black yet. That’s good.”

Pandora only scoffed and said, “Naturally. The day I fall from our Master's grace is the day I no longer deserve to exist.”

Aldwyn nodded her head and said, “In that, we fully agree.”

They both turned their attention to me when I started laughing out loud, and noticing their confused faces I simply pointed to the mortals. Nearly all of them had faces of pure shock and awe frozen on them. “Nearly” all of them, because the holy slime priestess looked like she was on the cusp of the most epic orgasm of her life at the aura she must be feeling Pandora giving off.

My two servants shared a sly smile between the two of them before giggling softly. I didn’t resist the calming feeling I felt hearing Pandora’s gentle melody of chimes and bells from her laugh though. I wasn’t the only one with a content look on my face from her voice either, as all the mortals released a gentle sigh and seemed to melt into a fake chair while standing up. Well, the slime girl collapsed to her knees with a squeal though, but that was not any of my business~.

Shaking my head to clear up the gentle feeling, I looked at Pandora and said, “Now, the reason I summoned you is that.”

As I pointed past her, she turned around and tilted her head. She gazed back at me and asked, “That’s weird right? I am not wrong in thinking that is weird?”

Barking a laugh I said, “No, it is weird. Weird and hilarious though! I mean, look at that castle right?”

She looked back and moments later nodded her head as she said, “Very much so. We’ve conquered some Demon Lords, but even their castles didn’t look so… What is the right word to use here…”

Aldwyn had a sly smile on her lips as she said, “Demon Lordish?”

A burst of chimes tingled out from Pandora as she barked a laugh before answering, “Yes, that will do. ‘Demon Lordish’ indeed, Lizard. Good one.”

I softly snickered at their bit before saying, “Anyway, Pandora. The reason I summoned you is because we are going to go to ‘war’ with this army. And Emily here wants to inflate her numbers so her rank and file doesn’t simply die like ducks in a pond.”

Nodding her head and turning back to the large army that still hadn’t reacted to our presence for some odd reason, she raised her hands in prayer just under her chin. She started to mumble some kind of chant for several seconds before she extended her right-hand palm up to the sky and said, “In the name of our Goddess, we march. [Summon Heavenly Host]!”

Now, in the game, [Summon Heavenly Host] was one of the few spells players could not learn and was exclusive to NPC’s. Again in game terms, the spell acted much like the spell [Summon Undead Army] that everyone is generally familiar with. Except for one extremely important caveat. And that was the rank of Angel casting the spell. Unlike the undead version, this spell would slightly change depending on the angel’s standing in the Heavenly Host. The higher the standing not only increased the number summoned, but the ranks of angels summoned.

What this all boils down to, is one simple thing. Pandora is beyond the strongest rank an Angel can naturally get. Her use of the spell is literal.

I looked up as the entirety of the sky behind us shone in brilliant golden light. This light easily covered kilometres upon kilometres of land in its gentle embrace for several long moments before a massive bell was rung. As the echoes of its mighty toll rippled around the lands, a truly massive pearl-white gate started to fade into existence high in the sky.

I had the most shit-eating grin on my face as I glanced at Emily and said, “Well, you wanted an army. How about taking Heaven’s for a spin?”

Lilith_Zenon

Here is a chapter to tide you all over~. I am currently moving, and won't be around to much. Maybe. We'll see how long it takes my internet to get set up! Or if I just say fuck it and use my phone. Ta taa~.