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After finally deciding what I would do, I received a message from Kiroid, who had successfully fended off the Gods that invaded the Divine Realm of Agatheina.
The Gods there had grown particularly stronger by devouring those Demon Demigods, which I would have loved to eat myself, but well, if by eating them they can grow stronger and be more useful, then I am all for it.
Even Morpheus seemed to have become stronger, who was one of the weakest Demigods amongst the group, and it seemed that my bodysuits specifically made for each God also helped a lot n the battle, giving them the necessary boost in power so they could quickly take out several Demigods in little time.
It's a good thing I also updated Kiroid, giving her more pieces of my soul and finally giving her the ability to wield Spatial, Void, and Chaos Magic, which she immediately employed in the battle, helping out the Gods defeat these demons Demigods.
The two Gods sent with this group ended up running away.
According to Kiroid, they were Jozrath and Oculus, two very proud Demon Gods from the Thanatos Pantheon, and some of the 'higher gods' who are worshiped by the majority of the population.
Meanwhile, the Demon Demigods they defeated were of a similar status to Megusan or Geggoron, being lowly Demigods without much going for them, which were simply serving Thanatos and being part of his Pantheon.
Although some of them were the progenitors of a few Demon Races, they don't hold as much authority as the Demon Gods close to Thanatos and were used as mostly fodder while the other two managed to escape.
It would have been preferable if they were to get eaten right there, but well, at the very least, things went quite well at the end.
My population had already been moved to the newly reinforced Blazing Asura Empire, which had been left desolate for some time.
However, I turned it into golems and then made a few changes, making it into a gigantic golem fortress city, where most of my population went.
The other part that could not take the temperatures of the Lower Realms were moved to my Inner Realm: Soul World, inside another city I built up there in a few days made entirely out of golems.
This one city imitates Aquaria, and it was for those that preferred cold, wet, and dark atmospheres.
I mean, I could move the rest of the people in there as well, but they might not completely like the place, and I want them to be comfortable if possible.
Anyways, after all this battle, and eating Gods, I still felt pretty hungry, and my family, allies, and friends did so as well.
So I gathered the whole army inside of our castle, which was also a golem and had fused with a lot of the rest of the city, becoming a gigantic fortress that seeped deeply into the ground.
There, I found that the egg of my child and that of Lazuli and Blaze was doing fine, my Slime Clones with them made sure to protect them well.
I decided to save them inside of my Inner Realm Soul World for now, and then finally assessed everything in an enormous feast.
I called back the Arachne Maids who seemed very happy that we survived, especially Sakura that began to cry, she must have gone through a very big scare…
The Dragon Maids had also participated in the battle and were part of the group that annihilated the fodder demon armies, so they gained a lot of Experience Points and quickly joined in this improvised lunch while we planned our next move, this will simply be momentary and to regain energy and morale, as we are planning to launch an attack to Thanatos pretty soon.
Seeing my entire Empire completely desolated and with many buildings in ruins really made me feel quite bad.
Although the buildings were golems and began to regenerate, they were too many ruins, so they were taking their sweet time.
As much as it pains me to say this, I am considering the idea of putting my entire Empire inside one of my Inner Realms, preferably the Soul World one or the Dream World one, although the Soul World seems like the safest, its pitch black there, so it's going to take some time for the people to adapt there correctly… although I might use skills like weather manipulation, All Creation, and Helios to generate some kind of artificial atmosphere, or maybe just create a Life Attribute Dungeon and put them inside.
The Dream World is dangerous to me, as it might make the people there… be assimilated into the world's laws, turning into Dreams themselves and without being able to come back to reality.
I had already experimented by introducing monsters inside.
After they went through a few months inside and then I tried to take them down… they turned into pink particles and disappeared.
My Dream World might be vast, but it is too dangerous, I do not want my people to turn into dreams, thank you very much.
The armies of demons and the demon generals were plentiful, so we cooked them to eat, there was some kind of monster meat made from a monster that surged when several Demon Generals fused, I fried a giant steak and then poured barbeque sauce over it, it was pretty delicious, and it even had some hints of Divinity on it, all of my family also enjoyed the meals.
Kaen and Chokumotsu prepared a ton of delicious ones in an instant using these types of meat, such as patties, crunchy croquet, and other things.
And I also drank some beer to relax, and eat with my family.
Even if momentarily, we really wanted to take this little lunch break before going to war again.
For a little moment, all of us forgot the hardsh.i.p.s we went through and just enjoyed the moment.
These things are what make us appreciate life after all, that even after so many horrible things, there are always times that we enjoy together.
The Gods also participated, descending, and using the bodysuits I made for them as astronauts suits, which was one of the primary and original functions of this equipment.
Agatheina hugged and kissed me a lot, she was also very worried about me.
"Kireina-samaaaaaa! I am so glad you're okay!" she cried, raining my entire head with her lovely kisses, the gods could barely show their faces while covering the rest of their bodies with these metallic Iron-Man-like suits, which protected them from the natural Miasma of the Realm that was the thing the Gods feared the most, as it weakened them and inhibited them from staying in the ground for so long.
It seemed that the children of Hephaestus were able to resist the Miasma by creating Divine Formations, just like my battle against Hephaestus.
And my Mina Body is still eating the Origin Core Fragment, by the way, I am not really going to wait for her to finish, she's taking too long.
There is also another thing worrying me… Quinn has fallen asleep since the war started two hours ago, and she's still sleeping soundly, I am glad she can rest so happily, so I moved her inside of my Inner Realm Soul World in the second castle I got there.
Quinn was being taken care of by my third true body clone that is currently at the Lower Realm taking care of the people there by the way, so I moved her to my inner realm for security purposes.
"I am glad you're fine, Agatheina… Sorry for not being there to help you," I said, caressing Agatheina's silvery-white hair, as she rested her face on my chest.
"Don't worry, Kireina-sama, we did everything that Kiroid-sama told us to do, and we achieved a flawless victory! Those bastards of Jozrath and Oculus went running away out of pure fear!" laughed Agatheina.
"It was rather chaotic, but we managed to pull out a victory… It has been quite long since I fought," said Gaia with a gentle demeanor.
"Kireina-sama, I also want huggies~!" said Hydros, jumping towards me and embracing me with her arms.
"Go away! Kireina-sama is my wife now!" said Agatheina.
"Eeeh? We all know that fufu… But maybe I am next, right~?" said Hydro rather teasingly, as she made her large b.r.e.a.s.ts bounce to catch my attention, they were indeed quite beautiful.
"There will be plenty of time to talk about such things, later on, Hydros. Thank you and Gai for helping and aiding us in these times. For now, I want you girls to enjoy the meals and to charge with energy because we are going to crush Thanatos after this," I said rather confidently.
"Oooh~! I am looking forward to that!" said Hydros.
"Do you have a plan, Kireina-sama?" asked Gaia.
"I do have one, but we need to gather everyone first," I said, as everyone slowly gathered around me as I called them while raising a cup of wine.
After a few minutes, mostly everyone, literally everyone, from my wives, children, allies, friends, servants, subordinates, even Redgaria were here.
"You're pretty ambitious, are you? Although I cannot say that I don't like to crush those that dare to oppose us… Thanks to this army I got a bunch of new Undead rooting to invade something…" said Redgaria rather maliciously, he had leveled a lot in this war and was now reaching max level.
"Although I have some things on my mind, I would like to ask everyone present what ideas you might have to invade Thanatos more efficiently, while also taking over Thanatos, the God, Divine Realm," I said.
As I dropped those words, everyone began to speak with each other, chatting and discussing some types of strategies, while discarding some, mostly everyone here had valuable experience, so I wanted to hear their opinions and ideas.
"Masta, do we need to let the citizens of Thanatos alive?" asked Rimuru.
"Hm, if we can simply kill them freely, we could easily blast the Kingdom away with a few long-ranged attacks and then force Thanatos and the Gods out in desperation," said Agatheina.
"That's right, after all, you Gods get a ton of power from mortals, right? Thanatos most likely sees his entire Kingdom as a valuable source of power, if we crush it he will surely weep around and come crying towards us in no time," said Redgaria with a grin.
"Redgaria has a point there, if we crush their power source, they'll surely lose their patience and might leave a lot of openings for us," said Wagyu.
"Well, Thanatos has a large Divine Barrier set by the Gods, which we cannot easily pierce… Of course, I can simply ignore it with Spatial Magic and enter inside to blast them… But sadly, I have the intention of letting the citizens, or most of them, alive. After all, just as you said, Redgaria, mortals are valuable resources of power for those that gain power through worship, getting all those citizens for myself would be more beneficial than killing them…" I said.
"I expected as much from you, Masta. I guess we can't kill them, they're more important as citizens than as food," said Rimuru.
"Are you sure about that? We could also just kill them, gather the souls, and then you can revive them later," said Redgaria.
"But if I let them alive, the worship energy I get from them is purer than if I revive them as monsters or demi-humans…" I said.
"I see, well, that's that then," said Redgaria.
"I have an idea, Kireina-sama…" said Meiji.
"Meiji, yes, please, tell me," I said.
"You can create a special type of energy that can cause mutations, right?" asked Meiji…
"Yeah? What about it?" I asked.
"Oh! Meiji, you monkey, you're a genius!" laughed Redgaria.
"Eh? What do you mean?" I asked.
"Well, what if you use such power in enormous quantities, and convert all of the Thanatos population into your new races while mixing it with Illusion attribute magic? You could instantly turn them to your side, and the Demon Gods will immediately feel weakened and desperate!" said Meiji.
Wait…
"That's it!" I said, hitting the table.
"You're right, Redgaria, Meiji is a genius, how couldn't I think about that? Good thing I asked you guys," I said.
"Then it's decided!" said Agatheina with a devilish smile.
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