Shido rapidly paced back and forth in his room . After returning from school, he has rushed straight to his room. His mind was a mess. And how couldn't it be ? He had a date with Reine today. A date with the woman he loved after not having any human interaction for more than a century. He was genuinely nervous. Toppling Governments ? Child's play ! Causing the extinction of your own species ? Been there , done it, boring. Killing a goddess ? Why, it's easy, you just have to be determined ! But this ! This was something that made him nervous and anxious. A lot of thoughts were going through his head. Would the date go well ? What if he screws up somewhere and Reine leaves him halfway through the date ? Or what if he comes face to face with a Higher Being and he has to reveal his powers before he even has a chance to date everyone ?!

Shaking his head he took a moment to compose himself. These scenarios were completely unlikely. Higher Beings don't just pop on the streets of Japan and start shooting guns and then start dancing . That's just absurd. And while he knew and kept telling himself that this was just a normal date and he didn't have to worry too much , the heart hardly cares about logic and reason now does it ? He was going to put all of his attention on the date. Even the various clones of himself that were around the world were going to be in sort of an autopilot mode where they would work on preprogrammed commands on their own without interference from him ( although in cases of an emergency or blunder , he would still be alerted ) . This was because he wanted to give this date all his attention. The world could end right now and he wouldn't give a shit.

The date was going to take place in the shopping district. He had already picked out some casual clothes for the date. Just a simple white t-shirt with a black coat and black trousers. While initially he did slightly question his taste, wondering whether his tastes had become something along the lines of ' edgy ' but he quickly dismissed it . After all, he was the Scion of Darkness. There was no such thing as too much dark for him. Filled with determination he had decided that he was going to enjoy this date to the fullest .

-------------X-------------

Location : Shopping district

Shido stood waiting near a store . While on the outside he may seem absentminded, on the inside he was a complete nervous wreck . He was continuously taking deep breaths to calm himself. His attention was suddenly drawn to the sound of approaching footsteps. Footsteps he could distinguish and separate even among the noises of the bustling streets. In front of him stood Reine, in a white dress with a slight brownish coloured long coat. It was indeed a beautiful sight for his eyes. He was momentarily dazed upon seeing her.

However he was broken from his trance when Reine asked him in her usual gentle tone ," I didn't keep you waiting for too long , did I ? "Shido smiled and said, " No , I just got here recently. Don't worry about it. " Reine breathed a sigh of relief. Of course, this wasn't the truth. Shido was so nervous that he had showed up more than two hours before the agreed upon time. But he wasn't going to let Reine bother with such trivialities. He also sensed that tohka, miku, Ellen and the whole group, minus yoshino and kotori were following them and they had arrived with Reine. He didn't mind that, so he chose to feign ignorance. He then extended his hand towards Reine and said,
" Shall we begin our date ?" Reine took his hand and gave him a gentle smile.

They soon travelled through the mall where Reine mostly purchased some cream puffs, some dangos and some other sweets. Shido slightly chucked , seeing her cute behaviour. Reine had an embarrassed look on her face as she said, " Ah, sorry about that.... I just like sweets and since I no longer have to keep up a stoic appearance like before, I thought I'd act normally. If you don't like it I could -" Before Reine could finish however, Shido gripped her hand tightly as she let out a small yelp in surprise. He said to her , " I don't mind it. You shouldn't worry about things like this and enjoy yourself. After all, we're on a date . And the reason I chuckled was because you genuinely looked cute while you were enjoying your sweets. '' Reine was a blushing mess at this point. She quickly turned away her head to hide her embarrassed face, but that just made her cuter in Shido's eyes.

Soon they reached a small bookstore. Various books were lined up on the small shelves in front of it. Books ranging from magazines to classic literature were placed on the shelves, like a potpourri of sorts. Reine looked at him with an expectant look in her eyes and said, " I'm, if you don't mind, can we check out some books. I always enjoyed reading..." Shido nodded as they approached the shelves of the books.

Shido noticed that Reine had chosen some sort of book with a cover which portrayed a string of pearls and a single rose on some satin fabric. And while one must not judge a book by its cover, the imagery and the name of the book just screamed a stereotypical love story. He chuckled slightly. Seeing this, Reine said embarrassedly, " What's wrong with me choosing a love story ?! I don't understand why men dislike love stories ! " Shido raised his arms in defence as he said, " I really didn't mean anything of that sort ! I don't mind you enjoying a particular genre of literature. I just laughed because you looked cute while selecting books, like a kid in a candy store. "

Flustered, reine said hurriedly, " Stop saying that ! You are literally attaching the word cute to all my actions !" Shido tilted his head slightly and asked , " But it is the truth . Cute things are cute. I mean, the sun rises everyday, morning repeats itself again, yet we still repeatedly wish each other good morning. We repeat it because truths can be repeatedly spoken without them losing their importance. " Reine was both slightly puzzled and flustered by Shido's response. Sure , his words sounded nice when he equated her cuteness and tried to justify why repeatedly calling her cute wasn't wrong in any way, but it still didn't make it any less embarrassing, especially in public.

In order to get back at him, she huffed and asked him , " T-That aside, Tell me what book you chose then ?! " Reine expected Shido to have picked up some manga. She knew that Shido was pretty interested into manga and anime, albeit not on the same level as Nia. However her expectations were dashed when she read the title of the book in his hand. The book cover portrayed a simple white mask against a black background. The title read, ' Le Fantôme de l'Opéra ' , translated to of course, ' The phantom of the opera ' . She asked Shido in surprise, " You know French ?! " Shido raised a brow and said, " Well, yeah . Did you forget that it's mandatory for kids to learn a language other than Japanese and English beginning at the age of ten. I distinctly remember choosing french while tonomachi had chosen German at that time."

It was true. After the first spacequake hit, most nations were in shambles. America was the only country at that time who had the financial and technological resources to build shelters for protection against spacequakes. It was apparently based on technology they developed during the cold war. Of course, America wasn't just going to give it away for free. Along with the monetary costs of the tech, America also gained massive tax exemptions from multiple countries. They also gained the right to have a single, standardized academic syllabus for all countries which would be decided by a council body situated in America. Under this , students were required to learn English and one other optional language aside from the official language of their country. Of course, the reasoning that they presented was to create a single and coherent syllabus which would help the academic endeavours of the students. This was of course, bullshit. The syllabus , when it came to history, was nothing short of political propaganda. It vilified all nations and glorified America. While some nations objected to this indoctrination, they mysteriously had their government's collapsed due to either economic or social reasons. Also due to the fact that the only options all nations had were to either accept America's demands or have their populations wiped out randomly due to the spacequakes. The nations as such, went with the former. Because of this, it was common to see most people talking in English in all of Japan. Hell, it was the same all throughout the countries of the world. The nation's own languages were as a result relegated to mostly formal and cultural events.

Still, Reine was slightly surprised by his choice. She had never taken Shido for the sort of person who read these kinds of novels. She said , " I remember once reading about it. It's a tragic love story of unrequited love. You can't help but pity the phantom, Erik. " Shido only replied by saying, " Pity , huh. I guess you could say that. " Reine, surprised by his answer, asked him expectantly , " Do you have some other views on it ?" This was completely normal. After all, different people could draw different interpretations of a story from a single book. And discussing your interpretations with someone else was part of the fun of the experience of reading.

Shido scratched his head and said, " While yes, in a certain sense, you can pity Erik, I think that Christine still made a right decision by not choosing him in the end and instead chose Raoul . After all, Raoul was the perfect person for her, rich , handsome, caring, appreciating of her talents. What else do you need ? And on the other hand we have Erik. Sure he was a good singer, but that's where his qualities end. He was ugly, disfigured, had no friends or family, no wealth to his name, nothing. So it was hardly a surprise seeing her not choose him. "

Reine raised a brow and asked Shido , " So Erik deserved to be rejected just because he was ugly ?" Shido paused momentarily and said, " When I call him ugly, I refer not to his face but his soul. Remember, Erik wasn't exactly a saint. His actions were anything but positive. Remember, Ugliness need not be of the face. The taint of the face can be cleansed, the taint of the heart cannot. " Reine looked at him wide eyed as Shido asked her , " What ? If you disagree with my opinion, it's fine. It's not like a universal truth or something. " Reine shook her head and said, " No, it's just that I was a bit surprised. You don't exactly hear these sorts of thoughts normally...." Shido shrugged at her words. Reine only sighed as Shido paid for the books they had purchased. They then made their way towards a cafe.

After they had seated themselves, Reine ordered a vanilla cake for herself while Shido ordered a simple cup of coffee. Shido then in order to start a conversation, asked Reine, " I always wanted to ask you Reine, what exactly is your job ? I've only heard from you that you are part of Heaven . But what exactly does your job entail ?" Reine was slightly caught off guard by his question . Still it was understandable, since not everyone has a chance to meet a real Goddess, much less ask about her job . She calmly replied, " Well, contrary to what you'd expect, when compared to other gods , I'm not exactly the strongest. That's because I'm not a fighter, I'm an alchemist. An alchemist is a profession which involves with the creation of elixirs, pills and medicines useful for cultivation. Making pills and elixers for strengthening your body, cleansing your meridians, medicines for healing injuries caused during battle, are just some of the common jobs of an alchemist."

Shido had a surprised look on his face as he said, " You're not a strong goddess ?! If that's the case, I genuinely don't want to meet a strong god then ...." Reine chuckled slightly. She knew the power difference between the various individuals in heaven, so Shido's reaction after listening to it for the first time was to be expected. Reine then said , " In my case, while I do not particularly specialize in a single type, I'm pretty good at refining elixirs. To be honest, I was even considered a prodigy among my peers during my academic years. "

Shido , once again asked her with an incredulous look, " You're a prodigy ?! And what do you mean by academic years ?! Does heaven have schools and colleges too ?"

Reine replied calmly, " Of course it does. There are various courses from battle, to swordplay , to tactics, array making and of course, alchemy. And while certainly, most gods tend to join the various sects that populate the heavens when it comes to fighting, array creation or alchemy as generally, they are better than most of the institutions, there is one exception. That is of course, The Tianshi University , which is managed directly by the Heavenly court . It's selection processes are arduous . I was one of the few fortunate individuals who had the opportunity to complete my education from it. In human terms , the university is like if you had a university which comprised of Oxford and Cambridge universities combined. That's how tough their selection process is. "

Shido, still with a shocked look on his face, " And you graduated from that !" Reine smirked as she had a proud look on her face, a rare moment contrary to her usual calm and composed self. She was genuinely enjoying Shido's admiration. She said, " Yes. Not only that, I even made a record by becoming a gold rank refiner, only two ranks away from the highest possible rank in just a mere five thousand years. The previous record was of nearly eighty six thousand years. '' Shido had his mouth wide open in surprise. Sure , he knew that reine had completed her education from the Tianshi University from his past life and he even knew that she was a prodigy. But he didn't know that she was one that literally broke records. And while yes, he could recite each and every letter of the entire curriculum of every field available in the Heavenly university, comparing him , the Abhorrence of the paramount Dao to a normal goddess was hardly fair. Still, he said to Reine , " I can't believe how someone like you is capable of being so... normal. Generally you'd expect a prodigy like you to have at least some level of arrogance and pride, which is to be expected due to your skills , but here you are, a goddess who's a prodigy on a date with me, a human of all things......" Reine saw Shido's face being hung down. She placed a hand on his shoulder and lifted his face. She then said, " Don't sell yourself short. And as for you being a human, tell me, if our roles were reversed, would you have abandoned me just because I was a regular human ?"

Shido interjected and said, " Of course not !"Reine smiled and said, " There's your answer. When you are in love, trivial things like this hardly matter. And I genuinely love you. " Shido looked away, with a blush evident across his face. He realised that he was pathetically weak when it came to complements and sweet words from Reine and the other girls. However, he suddenly had an epiphany. Fake coughing, he composed himself as he said, " That aside, I do have a question. You said you made a record by becoming a gold rank refiner in only five thousand years. But then , how old are you exactly ?"

Hearing the unexpected question, Reine was caught off guard. She played with her fingers and maintained her silence, hoping that Shido would move on from the question. However, when she found him staring intently at her, expecting an answer, she sighed. She said in a slightly down tone, " Well, I just turned ten thousand years old some two hundred and thirty two years ago. And I know what you are thinking ! But ten thousand years is not that old according to divine standards ! There are some gods who are literally millions of years old ! I'm only a teenager by human standards you know!"

Shido chuckled seeing Reine flustered. He said to her, " Even if you were old , I wouldn't mind. I love you and everything about you. I'm not going to worry about small things like age." Listening to Shido's response, Reine was both embarrassed yet happy. They continued to chat for some time. After paying the bills, both of them made their way towards an arcade. Reine dominated most of the games in the arcade , at least until they reached the shooting games section. Shido completely crushed Reine in this case. Reine asked him how he was so good at it to which Shido only replied while smirking that he had years of experience with this. And he wasn't exactly lying. He had quite literally, decades worth of real world experience when it came to shooting.

As they were about to leave, Reine's eyes went towards a crane machine. However instead of the usual stuff toys, this one had accessories like pendants, bracelets and rings. Some of them were for men while some were for women. Seeing Reine's interest in it , Shido asked her, " Should I give it a try ? " Reine however said to him, " No. I want to try one on my own. " Shrugging, Shido inserted a few tokens on the machine as reine placed her hands on the button. With skillful movements, she succeeded in her first attempt. What she had obtained was a simple black rectangular pendant. She then stretched out her hand containing the pendant towards Shido while looking at him expectantly, signalling him to take it. Shido took it from her hands intently staring at it , holding it close to his face .

Reine, asked him slightly hesitantly, " So, do you like it ? I still remember that teddy bear that you had gifted me long ago. I thought that this would be something similar for you . Why aren't you saying anything ?......" This was true. Reine still to this day carried the teddy bear that Shido or as he was known in his past life, Shinji had gifted her. For others it might have been a simple toy, but to Reine, it was more valuable than the whole world. Shido then spoke up, but his voice was slightly trembling. He hugged Reine, slightly surprising her. He said to her , " Don't worry, I love it. I'll always treasure it. "

Reine was happy at his words. She was joyous that he liked her gift. However the same couldn't exactly be said for Shido. Was he happy at Reine's gift ? Most certainly yes. However, he still felt pain in his heart, because of the gift. From Reine's point of view, she had gifted it to the man she loved. A kind man who would never even dream of hurting others. A man who loved and cared for humanity. However he.....was none of it. He was not a human. He was a cold blooded murderer. A man who eradicated his own species. A man who'd cruelly and delightfully laugh at the plight and suffering of others. He was no different than a wolf in sheep's clothing. Soon reine spoke up, breaking his train of thought as she said, " Just a moment, Shido. It seems that there's something written on the pendant. " Shido then took a closer look at the pendant and noticed that there were indeed some words inscribed on it. While they were certainly difficult to notice on first glance, they were fairly visible. On the pendant were inscribed the words, ' Flectere si nequeo superos, Acheronta movebo. ' which was Latin for,
" If I can not bend the will of Heaven, I shall move Hell. " The words were taken from Virgil's Aeneid. It meant that if things didn't go according to one's own will, he would still achieve his goals by a path paved by himself. A path which broke the rules and the laws. A path mocking the powers that be. Reine who was versed in Latin explained the meaning of the words to Shido , to which he quietly nodded. She told him, " Sorry about this. I had no idea that the pendant had words this..... strange.... If you want, we can get another one. " Shido interjected her saying firmly, " There's no need for that. It is something that you gifted me. How can I dislike it ? " Reine scratched her head , smiling sheepishly, slightly embarrassed at his words. However in Shido's mind, he was barely holding his laughter. What were the odds , that of all the different phrases in Latin, he would come across a pendant which had the exact words which best described him. Truly, fate had a bad sense of humour.....

Regardless, Reine and Shido then made their way towards home, as they walked silently, as no words were spoken between them......

-------------X-------------

Location : Itsuka residence

After the date, Shido sat on his bed, his head facing down, as he had a pensive expression on his face. He definitely needed a drink. He was home alone as Kotori was on the ship. So there was no one to disturb him . As such, he took out a large bottle from his soul storage. The bottle was a fairly large one, roughly a foot in height. It was pretty wide too, almost half a feet in width. As such, it seemed less like a bottle and more like a barrel made of glass. Shido then chugged the contents of the bottle , emptying it in a single gulp. Of course, the bottle was of no ordinary alcohol. It was pure basilisk venom . To a normal human, this was committing suicide in the worst and most painful way. To a god , while they could theoretically survive with proper treatment, it could only be described as ' A fucking terrible experience. ' Not exactly something that you intake willing and certainly not something you drink to drown your sorrows. However, Shido wasn't a normal human now was he ? As someone who had the martial spirit of  ' Orochi ' , his body was highly resistant to most poisons. Not only that, due to his martial spirit was a mutation from the normal Orochi, his body was even further beyond. Not only that, once his body had ingested any venom or poison, he could then produce that exact poison infinitely. As such, as he had already ingested basilisk venom long ago, he was not only immune to it, he could produce basilisk venom from his body infinitely while normally one would have to actually hunt a basilisk to harvest it's venom. And he had a strange liking for the taste of different venoms, so he drank them like booze , whenever he was stressed.

Another reason was because he physically couldn't get drunk or intoxicated from normal substances. He remembered that in his past life, to take his mind off things after the death of reine and others, he tried drugs. However, when nothing worked even after intaking literally half a ton of cocaine, he found that his unique bloodline, automatically purified all intoxicating substances from his body, maintaining an optimal conditions for him . The only way for him to get drunk was with Heavenly Sake, which was exclusively produced in heaven. And even then he required egregious amounts of it to actually get wasted. Luckily, he had obtained quite a large supply of it from gambling ( and winning ) with Nyarlothep.

His drinking habits aside, Shido was genuinely stressed. He really felt like shit currently. He hated himself for decieving Reine and the others. In their eyes, he was a goody two shoes angel, but he was a literal goddamn Demon God. He was pretty sure that if a cosmic picture dictionary existed, there would be a picture of him next to the definition of the word ' bastard ' . Regardless, he knew he couldn't give up now. He had to remain firm on his decision. He had already decided that he would let all of his family hate him, as long as it meant that they would be safe. He didn't want to lose them for a second time.

He got up and punched himself to break him from his pitiful stupor. Determined, he had decided that this was no time to drown in self pity. He had no time to waste and it was time to get to business. However, before he could do anything else, he received a message from one of his clones that it had successfully infiltrated the different nuclear warehouses of China. Smirking, he gave the command to his clone to start killing everyone in the base and creating more clones that would impersonate the people in the base. With this , in a swift fell swoop, he was now in control of all the nuclear warheads of a nation .

With the preprogrammed orders, the clone would continue to kill and replace the members of the base with more clones, without Shido having to directly control it. With this happy news, Shido's spirits were lifted and he was less depressed than before. He then sat on his table and began to formulate his further plans.

He knew that once the spirits would come to know of the truth and about how Shido had come from the future and killed all humans, they would undoubtedly hate him. As such, they would most likely try to attack him. While he had no qualms about dying, especially by their hands, he had to at least survive until the polluters were wiped out. As such, he would have to defeat all of them, without killing or harming them too much. Which was a monumental task in its own right.

The first one was tohka. She was also coincidentally the easiest to handle. She relied only on brute strength and her sword techniques were..... well to put it bluntly, absolutely shit. She could easily be defeated and restrained by him. The next was yoshino. And while he believed that she wasn't the type to jump in fights of her own accord, in case she did, he could just use the power of Laws to simply negate and outright stop her powers. The same was true for the yamai sisters and kotori . Their angels were completely based on the five basic laws, so he could not just negate their powers, but also seize control of them and use it against them.

The next was kurumi. Like before, the power of the law of Time made him immune to all her attacks. And as for her other ability, of making clones, well...... she wasn't the only one who could make clones now was she ? Not only that, her clones couldn't use any of her powers and were only capable of at best dog piling him . However, his clones could wield machine guns, nuclear warheads, ships , tanks and so on. And he'll, his clones could literally dissolve anything they touched and make more of themselves. So she was off the list too.

The next was miku. Truth be told, she was quite weak in direct combat. And her signature ability of controlling others was useless on him , as the Fool arcana literally made one immune to the effects of mind control and mental interference from outside ( baring a few exceptions like the ones relating to primordial forces of cosmic horror. ) . Still he could always restrain her by sealing her mouth with a special adhesive like substance which was like extremely sticky bubble gum that stuck on one's face. And while that may seem stupid or comical at first, it was highly effective as her angel relied heavily on her singing for its various effects.

Next in line was natsumi. Her entire powers revolved around transforming various objects and others into different things. And sure , while it could work on him in the past, now he was a full fledged Magus with Magi circuits. On top of it, he had the entire knowledge of the cosmos from the Akakshic records. As such, he could use every spell in existence. And there were quite literally millions of spells that could negate, revert or outright stop the effects of transformation techniques or spells like natsumi's angel, haniel's powers.

Next was origami. And she was slightly tricky. She was highly trained in combat due to her time with the AST, but that didn't matter too much against the guy who literally wiped out armies on his own and could toss Entire tanks or hills without effort. However as a spirit, her angel allowed her to control light energy. Light which was fundamentally different from the normal light which is composed of photons . It is more of a force of cosmos rather than just being made out of some particles. The same was true for Darkness. Darkness isn't like normal darkness, which is just the absence of ordinary light. No , it too is a force of the cosmos, a counterpart to light. And both mystical light and mystical darkness countered one another and the victor was decided on the basis of their strength. However Shido wasn't just some ordinary user of Darkness. He was the Scion of Darkness itself. He was someone to whom darkness bowed to. He was capable of using primordial Darkness, a form of darkness which came into being during the beginning of the cosmos and was the strongest and purest form of darkness . The only way to counter it was to use primordial light or as it was more commonly known, Aura. And Aura users were Bloody rare. They don't just pop randomly anywhere. The record for the highest number of aura users existing at the same time all throughout the cosmos was a measly nine hundred. That gave a pretty good idea of how rare those were. As such, defeating origami was fairly easy too.

Next in line was Nia. And if miku was weak in battle, then Nia was practically useless. To be fair, while she had nearly zero combat capability, in a real war, she could be a trump card for any side. This was because her angel, Rasiel would allow her to get any information on the enemy's movements, it's hideouts etc. This was due to Rasiel being connected to the Akakshic records. Of course, she couldn't gain access to all knowledge of the Akaksha, only a fraction of it. This was because like any good library, the Akakshic records too was divided into various sections. And while he himself had absorbed the knowledge of all sections and the entire Akakshic records in its entirety, Nia's angel only gave her access to what could be termed as the cheapest section, the section for past and current affairs. With this, she could gain knowledge of anything happening all throughout a single dimension she was inhabiting and the past events that had happened there. That was her limit. She could never gain access to things like techniques, spells, arts and sciences of the cosmos let alone the secrets of the cosmos like the essence of reality, how to reshape it, understanding the laws etc. So it was safe to not count her during the battle as she was the easiest to restrain.

Then there was mukuro. And she was all things considered, a formidable opponent. Her sephira crystal was the last one that Reine had created. As such, it was vastly superior to the previous iterations. Her angel, Michael allowed her to seal and unseal various things. She could stop things and phenomena like gravity, make incoming spells stop in their tracks by restraining the flow of mana and Qi in the surroundings which was used by the spell to propel and power itself. In a fight against her, if he wasn't careful, she could easily seal his meridians and magic circuits, making him unable to use techniques or spells. And while certainly, he knew of spells that could be used to unseal meridians or magic circuits, as long as his own powers were sealed, he couldn't use it on himself. However, this didn't mean he was left completely useless on the battlefield. While he couldn't use the sword techniques that utilized Qi , he could still use his skills with the sword and other weapons . He could even summon the weapons in his collection as opening and using his soul storage didn't need any mana or Qi. He had multiple nukes, machine guns, Entire warships, tanks, jets ; hell , he even had several divine weapons he had gotten from his winnings from Nyarlathotep. On top of that , he could still utilize the powers of law and blade force, so he didn't have to worry too much.

Ellen was another tricky one. She may not have the destructive power as the other girls, but she definitely was the most skilled among them. He was the most cautious of her. He would most likely have to utilize blade force against her to defeat her. However, the other difficulty that arose was that he had to be careful not to hurt her. Blade force by its existence was a force that warriors could tap into. On training with a blade for a long time, warriors were able to access blade force and use it. Like the power of Laws, comprehending blade force was no easy task. It took most people hundreds of millions of years to comprehend a fraction of the blade force. The greatest prodigies took at best a few million years to comprehend it. Upon accessing it, blade force could be channeled into a weapon or rather anything. With enough of it, it was theoretically even possible to strengthen a simple stick to the level of a divine weapon. Blade force's existence was embodied by the concept to split apart whatever stood in its path. The strongest blade force user in the Heaven ( Not counting izanagi ) was not the Heavenly Emperor Ziwei, but one of the Heavenly Twelve, Lord Tatsugami , who was capable of not just channeling blade force into an object, but rather manifesting a single energy sword made of pure blade force. On an occasion demonstrating his power, he split apart an entire planet with said sword of blade force. Of course, he used the sword in conjunction with his Numen from his divine core, significantly increasing its destructive capabilities, so it was slightly cheating in a sense. Still , blade force was still a formidable force which was a testament to the skill and talent of a swordsman. And Shido was one of its few users . From the information he obtained from Nyarlothep, he was in fact the youngest person to ever live who tapped into blade force. This alone spoke volumes about Shido's skills. So with blade force in his arsenal, he was ready to take on Ellen.

The final obstacle in front of him was Reine. A true goddess. She had three Angels. Ain, Ain Soph and Ain Soph Aur. The first angel Ain, endows the law of Death upon anything that touches the particles that are released from it. The second angel, Ain Soph allowed her to manipulate reality around her. The third angel used the power of the first two angels on conjecture to wipe out the physical bodies of anyone that reine desires under its area of influence. Each of them were powerful abilities in their own right. However, Shido had counters for them . For fighting against Ain, it was the easiest. Ain utilized the law of Death. And Shido had complete mastery over all nine laws. Not only that, his mastery over the law of Death was the highest, so much so , that theoretically, he could stand against the Herscherr of Death, NYX and be completely fine, while even most gods who had comprehended the law of Death would die too. So Reine's angel working on him was out of the question. Hell, if he wanted, he could use the law of Death to kill everyone in Tengu city without so much as lifting a finger. And the law of Death worked equally on everyone, whether they were gods or mortals. The law of Death severed the link between the physical body and the soul and forced the soul to depart to the collective unconscious where it would undergo reincarnation . The only way to counter or resist this was to either have comprehension of the law of Death or its counterpart law, The law of Life.

Her second angel too was useless on him as due to the nature and the strength of his soul, trivial reality alterations would be useless on him. Hell, the reality manipulating abilities of all Higher Beings too were useless on him since the reality changing effects could be resisted or even outright negated as long as the target had a powerful enough soul. And his soul was.... To put it simply, fucking powerful. The only power on the cosmos who had a stronger soul than him and could theoretically manipulate his reality was Lady Maya, the paramount Dao. However, luckily for him, since he was the Abhorrence of the paramount Dao, his existence was outside her domain, so she could not do anything to him. This put Shido in a weird position. Say for instance, there's an ability that manipulates the target's soul and forced them to live through false realities 12 times . This was useless as it wouldn't work on him. His soul was too powerful to be restrained. It would be like trying to trap a star in a bottle. However a simple ( yet quite effective in combat ) ability like one that allowed one to manipulate and control plasma could screw him up as his abilities of regeneration was completely overpowered by it as he required cells to regenerate his body. And unless he had kept a save file of himself by keeping a few cells of his safe somewhere, he would be all things considered, dead. ( Though his soul was still fine ) . He really was a weird character. He could laugh at some of the strongest types of powers in the cosmos yet be defeated by some of the simplest. Fate must have been really high while his existence was being created.

Regardless, he was safe from both the abilities of Reine's second and third angel. Of course, it could still be used to not manipulate his reality, but the reality around him. For example, while it was useless on him , Reine could manipulate reality in the surroundings, like changing gravity and such without any restrictions. However ! He had this covered too ! He had the fix for this in the form of Nyarlothep's cane, which allowed him to manipulate reality. He had gotten it along with his other multiple divine weapons after winning in gambling matches against Nyarlathotep. The thing was, while he and Nyarlothep were waiting for the souls of his family and the rest of humanity to regenerate before the world could be fixed, they had a lot of time to spare. So Nyarlothep suggested playing a few games of chausar, which was like ludo, but it featured two dice which were cuboidal and were for sided rather than the normal six sided dice. It also involved betting various objects or things too. And upon losing, the winner claimed both his as well as the belongings of the loser. And Nyarlothep lost horribly. He first lost all the spirit stone stash he had collected for Yugas. Next he lost ownership of multiple planets scattered throughout the cosmos which he held ownership of. He even tried to cheat multiple times, yet was unsuccessful. Finally, he demanded that they change the game they were playing to something else, like poker. Shido, not caring, agreed easily. Unfortunately, nyarlothep lost. Again. Despite cheating. This time, Shido claimed ownership of the multiple divine weapons he had collected through the years . He even claimed ownership of his cane which functioned as his staff. Hell, he even won nyarlothep's room in the collective unconscious, so technically, The Crawling Chaos, the Being who could toy with reality, the one for whom destroying planets was just another Monday...... was currently homeless. Oh well. It wasn't his fault that he was bad at games. Still, he was safe from Reine in the end.

With this, he had successfully created a plan for countering all of them. His pan was simple . Fight them and defeat them. Make them convinced that despite their hatred for him, they still needed him to defeat the polluters. And once the polluters were wiped out, be ready for them backstabbing and killing him. After that, get out of their lives and protect them from the shadows. And then trying to kill him would be understandable. After all, who could even like let alone love a man who had wiped out his own species. A man who was a cruel and sadistic bastard. A man who would do quite literally anything to fulfill his goals. A man who was devoid of all morality. A man who.....let his family die in front of his own eyes while he was powerless to do anything..... Even now, he was maintaining a false facade in front of his family. Deceiving them, hiding the truth from them. Truly, he was worse than scum.....

Sighing, Shido got up and laid down on the bed. He would act like he was sleeping, and once it was late in the night, he would quickly shift his soul to one of the clones that was working on the construction of his base on the hilltop.

------------X------------

Soon it was nightfall. As already decided, Shido had shifted his soul to one of the clones on the hilltop. His clone that he had left at home would mimic his sleep patterns and movements so no one would get suspicious. He was currently standing on top of a large tree. From it , he could see the entirety of Tengu city. The city dazzled with bright lights that pierced through the darkness of the night. Taking a deep breath, Shido took out a large object from his soul storage. The object seemed to be a circle, a roulette wheel, like the ones that they used on those shitty game shows. However on it, instead of numbers were written names. Names of different countries of the world. With a smile on his face, Shido spun the roulette wheel as he said, " Wheel of Fate turn turn turn ; Tell me which country I should burn !" The wheel kept spinning with vigour until it finally landed on a name. Upon seeing the name, Shido smirked as he said, " Well, it looks like we're gonna visit the land of freedom and guns !" Saying this, he placed the wheel back in his soul storage and transformed himself into a Raven, his preferred form when traveling long distances. The Raven then took off, with the world unknowing of the chaos that this single being was going to create.....

So with this , the chapter is complete ! In the beginning, I was worried that since this chapter focused mainly on the date, it would be too short of a chapter. However, when I look down , I think that it turned out pretty good ! The next chapter is going to take place overseas ! And yeah , as Shido said, America's gonna have a bad time. So with that, don't forget to ask any questions if you have, and take care and good bye !

Word count : 7367 words.