Chapter 220: Hot Spring in the Heavens.
Ikaris added and they all looked at her. "I am from the first of two progenitor races called Vatui, the race that once ruled the Grand Collective through tyranny and dictatorship, and Sol is the inherited descendant of an entire race of Godslayers." She looked at him.
"Trouble comes for us both, me more than him, and thanks to our shared lineage you all have marks on your backs." She regarded them with a gesture of her hand.
"I do not comprehend, please, make sense of how you could have come by such information." Adonai asked, and Sol\'s eyes flickered white and gold for a moment before a small fractured breach appeared in the midst of them all and Jenifer Law fell through, landing on her feet and standing with her fists balled staring at them one after the other.
Of everyone there only Eris and Usami were slow to react while Uriyu did not react at all, the gods all went on high alert with Dina and Arla rushing before Ikaris and standing guard, with Arla resting her hand on Ikaris\'s shoulder. "Hold it." Sol raised his hand, and Jenifer looked around at him confused.
"Sir, are these the allies you mentioned?" She asked, and Sol nodded and gestured that she take a seat conjuring an extra chair close to himself.
"They are." Sol gestured to the seat and Jenifer obediently sat and bowed to everyone, unlike her previous appearance of violet hair and black eyes, her hair had returned to silver and her eyes had returned to grey, she had been reverted to her pre-captain state through the immense trauma alpha had to put her through to reconstruct the memories Sol had shattered.
"What in the heavens is she?" Dr\'ul lowered her hands as a bead of sweat rolled down her cheek, she could clearly sense Jenifer\'s power, but she had no mana signature at all, she had no sign of being powerful, but at the same time her presence made them all wary and extremely defensive against her.
"This woman is Captain Jenifer Law ranked 55th in one of the weakest fleets of the Grand Emporium, born and raised as human, with no augmentation aside from her eyes being replaced by fake ones and no further implants other than a tracking chip being placed in her blood, all they did was give her a title based on her strength and performance." Sol gestured to her. "She is not from this Collective."
"An imposter in our midst, how can you trust her?" Dr\'ul asked, still not relaxing as simply being near the woman for some reason caused the hair on her skin to jitter and stand on end even though she could clearly tell that she could kill her. "What is happening to me?" She looked at her arms unable to douse the flames of her hair no matter how she calmed herself.
"Fear, Dr\'ul." Ikaris replied raising her hand and revealing the mana rapidly surging through her body in reaction to Jenifer\'s presence as well. "For me, it is slight unease, I sense her and immediately I can tell she is my natural enemy, the blood of our kind is on her hands."
"Then we should kill-" S\'mael arose spreading his six arms and summoning a curved dagger in each, but Sol\'s raised hand deterred him from making any hasty moves. "Why are you colluding with one who has our blood on her hands?" He asked, and Sol gestured to Jenifer.
"Please, accept my apology, the emporium has brainwashed its citizens into believing that they are in the right, but all that has happened since the end of the war is genocide of retreating species for selfish gains, this may not be enough, but I promise to do all I can to assist you, come what may." Janifer went on her hands and knees, pressing her forehead to the ground before S\'mael and begging for forgiveness.
"I helped Jenifer get a new perspective, she is working under my hand, that being said, she has her own free will and will fight back if you choose to attack her, and as the initiator, I won\'t show pity on your impatience if she gets the better of you." Sol stared askance at the god of destruction.
"She\'s going back to the Emporium as our spy, I advise you not to ruin my plans based on your feelings, S\'mael."
"How will that work when we have already removed the power source of her ship?" Usami looked at him, and Sol gestured to Jenifer again. "I\'ve already planned their next invasion, now that I know how they respond to threats and signs of us, it\'s risky but I also have to do it in order to get her back home, the only remaining problem is whether they fall for it or not."
"What is your end goal, what do you plan to achieve by sending her back?" Dr\'ul curiously queried.
"The Emporium is a superpower that I alone can\'t face, not without knowing every rank and every order by which they scale their power, I want to destroy their rule over the Grand collective, I want to tear them down from both the inside and out before they even realise what\'s happening, I need to do it before they notice the amount of Vatui in under my care."
"If that happens, forget a fleet, they will send thousands of armadas and turn this entire sector into a dead zone, nothing will be spared." Jenifer added.
"I have many questions about various other things." Ana\'el raised her hand. "The first obviously, is if we are descendants of this Vatui race then why are we able to only utilize divine power, if Vatui are not divine beings born under the light then how come we never had the ability to fight the demon invasions?"
"That would be my fault." Ikaris cleared her throat.
"All my existence I believed myself a goddess, the Vatui are capable of infinite mimicry so to put it simply, I was fooling myself, I have denied anything else the whole time, a god is only capable of using divine mana, I am readily sure that if I were to face a demon currently I would destroy it without lifting a finger, because, since the discovery of my alternate identity, I have felt a difference in my mana, one not brought forth by my husband\'s influence.
"As my descendants, you all suffered under my subconscious delusion." She explained.
"Huh..." Renia mused.
"There is quite a lot to unpack here, but I take it you do not plan to tell the others about this?" She looked at Sol considering he didn\'t even have an audience with them in the heavens with the added fact that she could feel his mana around them barring any prying eyes and listening ears from discovering their meeting.
"That\'s right." The whole reason the Emporium has not discovered you all is because prior to this nobody has ever tried using anything other than divine mana, after all a god can only..." Sol answered. "If you start trying to do what should be impossible for a god they\'ll find you, the same as Ikaris was discovered because of our child."
"I don\'t feel like I have a single role here to play after all." Eris sighed, so far she was hearing things that made no sense to her whatsoever, alternate realities outside of their infinity? Humans with more power than the gods? An entire Empire built on the bodies and blood of Ikaris\'s Celestial race and Sol\'s?
It was like the impossible she had experienced in the last was now a casual fart on a Sunday afternoon in comparison.
"How do you think I feel?" Uriyu who was seated with Gia in his lap next to her chuckled nervously staring at Dr\'ul\'s flaming head, at S\'mael and Renia\'s six arms, at the extremely tall Adonai and Ashera who from his knowledge was definitely what Earth considered a beast man, there were gods before his eyes, he was on another planet in an alternate reality in the middle of a discussion about espionage with fantasy heroes, gods, a Celestial goddess and a being called a Godslayer capable of shrinking and expanding universes at will, who was also just a weak human once upon a time and that\'s without mentioning Jenifer who served an Empire that controlled eighty percent of all reality across multiple dimensions, collectives and the universes within them.
"At this point, I can only stick with my sister and keep my head down."
"So then, Sol," Dr\'ul called his attention to herself again. "What do you intend to do first?" She asked, watching Sol\'s brows furrow as he tapped his foot.
"I really want to soak in a hot spring."
"What didn\'t you say it wasn\'t a casual visit?" Eris spoke up.
"It\'s not a casual visit, I\'m thinking of it as a business trip!" Sol spun in his seat and looked at her. "Even the elite business heads soak their bones when they get the chance why should I pass this up?" He asked standing and tapping his legs. "I don\'t want to sit and talk anymore, there\'s a lot we have to go through, say, Adonai is there a hot spring in the heavens?"
"Pardon?"
"Is there a Heavenly Hot Spring?"