Goddess Kaleidoscope

Having received a satisfactory answer from Lud, Vladimir declined Lud's invitation and prepared to set off immediately for the capital again, as he still had some matters that required the help of several old friends.

Before his departure, Vladimir conveyed an important message about the religious community: the attitudes of the three major religions towards the war between the two countries were all ambiguous.

The Cult of the God of War is taking sides, claiming neutrality and not helping either side, yet it doesn't prohibit the priests on the Empire's side from "voluntarily joining the army." The Cult of the Four Seasons Goddesses also claims to remain neutral and not participate in worldly disputes, as if this sect, which has been driven by a strong desire for expansion for the past few centuries, has suddenly become detached from worldly desires.

As for the Holy Light Church, their stance does lean towards the Kingdom of Duran, but it's only a slight leaning. The three major churches check and balance each other, and the attitudes of the other two are enough to make the Pope hesitate to act, let alone the other second- or third-rate minor sects.

The Kingdom of Duran suddenly seemed to have become an outcast of the world, with all the forces around it standing by and only able to offer the kingdom support other than assistance.

During this time, Lud had been closely monitoring the war in the south. After the military alliance was established, the first resource they shared was intelligence. In order to speed up the transmission of intelligence, Lud specially arranged for Kanna to act as a messenger, flying around various places every day.

After Aina broke through to the fourth tier, all the divine messengers under her command also ascended to heaven. Not only did the combat power of the Heroic Spirit Squad increase significantly, but even Kanna, whose growth had stagnated for quite some time, underwent considerable changes.

However, the little one's growth was not reflected in its size. The juvenile form was still about the size of a cat, except that its fur was softer and brighter. After transforming into human form, it was a white-haired little girl who was less than 1.2 meters tall. The most significant change was in the feathered dragon form, where the wings changed from one pair to two pairs, and its flight ability also increased dramatically.

Although Kanna could fly very fast, her maximum speed did not exceed the limit of a typical dragon, which was around 600 to 700 kilometers per hour. Moreover, her endurance was relatively weak and could not compare to that of a real adult dragon.

The current quadcopter Kona is estimated to have a maximum flight speed exceeding Mach 3, making it even more powerful than jet fighters on Earth!

Every day after lunch, the little one goes out with a bag containing correspondence and spends two to three hours wandering around the capital cities of several allied lords. Each lord prepares delicious snacks in advance to entertain this adorable yet powerful loli dragon.

According to current intelligence, although Duke Klud in the south is still holding on, the situation is on the verge of collapse. Half of the border fortresses he has painstakingly built over many years have fallen, and a large gap has been torn in the defense line, allowing the Empire's main force, the First Legion, to break through and approach Yanmu City.

The kingdom's lords were devastated to discover that the gap between their private armies and the imperial legions was far greater than they had imagined!

In open field battles, they were unilaterally crushed, and even when defending the city, they could only barely hold on. The fact that the casualty ratio between the attacking and defending sides was 1:2 already illustrates the severity of the problem.

The reason why the two sides' combat strength is so disparate is not only due to factors such as training and equipment, but also because the Imperial Legion has a group of "volunteer priests" from the Cult of War who accompany the army to buff the soldiers, while the Kingdom Army can only rely on themselves.

Enraged by this situation, King Durand summoned the Archbishop of the Church of War and issued a strong order to combat the epidemic. The Archbishop, however, simply shrugged helplessly, explaining that he had no choice; "remaining neutral" was the order of the High Priest, and they dared not disobey.

King Duran knew this was just an excuse, but he couldn't afford to completely break ties with the Cult of War right now. He knew the Cult was currently only taking sides, allowing the empire's priests to participate in the war; if he were to push them to the opposite side, the situation would only worsen.

Lude estimated that the Southern nobles, led by Duke Krud, could probably hold out for another month or so, and it was only a matter of time before they fell.

In fact, Duke Krud himself was aware of this, so as soon as the fighting on the border began, Yanmu City launched a series of actions, expanding its army to strengthen its defenses while transferring the population and resources of the surrounding villages and towns to the city, as if preparing to fight the Imperial Army to the death with a scorched-earth policy.

With the situation having developed to this point, Lud felt that blindly sending reinforcements to the southern border was pointless and would only lead to piecemeal tactics, allowing the Imperial Army to wait and defeat the lords' private armies one by one.

Therefore, in a letter to several allies, Lud said frankly that it was too late to support the south. The best course of action now was to trade space for time. The best strategy was to use a certain number of elite troops to block the imperial army and slow down their advance as much as possible. Meanwhile, a large force should be gathered in the central region of the kingdom to launch a counterattack when the time was right. Only in this way could the situation be turned around, and even then, it was only a "possibility".

Of course! If the people's resistance is strong enough, the Durans in the occupied areas can be organized to fight guerrilla warfare against the Imperial Legion. The goal is not to kill many enemies, but to increase their logistical burden.

However, considering the weak national consciousness of most Durans, Lud felt that unless the Imperial occupying forces committed atrocities and made it truly impossible for the people in the occupied territories to survive, not many people would stand up to resist.

Lud suggested to his allies that they first move their armies south of the central mountains, and that the assembly point should ideally have a suitable place to train the troops. So Earl Ramley recommended an earl named Keith, whose territory was a plain where animal husbandry was the main industry.

Earl Ramley and the current Earl Case are brothers-in-law, and their families have always had a good relationship, frequently exchanging letters. Moreover, the other party is also a royalist, so he should agree to lend the land to the allied forces for stationing.

So Ludger instructed Count Ramley to confirm with the other party as soon as possible. Once a clear answer was received, he was to begin sending troops, bringing over all units except for the artillery, a secret weapon, and to start training them as soon as possible.

Before that, Lude had another task to complete: to awaken four "second-stage gods" to further enhance his combat power.

It's worth mentioning that the night before Lud decided to awaken him, the lich Raim, who had previously visited the labyrinth, came again. This time, he was alone; the other three were not there.

Seeing that this cunning boy came to his door alone, Rudd decided to play along and met him on the fifth floor of the maze. He even prepared a new show for him, a "sequel" to the previous performance.

When Raim cautiously arrived at the fifth level, he found that the throne that had been facing away from him last time had turned around, and a man wearing a golden mask and a black robe sat on it. He was probably the great demon Hadtaka himself, while the masked nun still stood by his side.

But what shocked Raim the most was that the goddess who had suddenly appeared and was easily killed by the great demon during their last meeting was also here. However, she had completely lost the aura she had when they first met. Her divine robes were tattered, her silver hair was disheveled, and she was squatting in front of Hedtaka's throne with a pet collar around her neck and the other end of the chain held in Hedtaka's hand.

This incredible scene left Raim completely dumbfounded.

"Senior, this...this is..."

"When you have nothing to do, train a pet to play with. Don't be fooled by these goddesses' aloofness; they're just females after all."

"Senior...you're too strong!"

With a casual yet impressive display of arrogance, Ludwig completely seized the initiative in the ensuing conversation. He merely hinted at a slight interest in the kingdom's war and a willingness to use some means to make things more interesting, and Raim was already eagerly offering his services.

So Lud gave him a small task: to go to the Empire and gather some information that interested him. As for what kind of information would interest him, that was up to Raim's own interpretation.

After Raim left, Aina, who had been lying on the ground, quickly jumped up, took off the collar around her neck, and asked Lud with a hint of excitement as she tidied herself up.

"Master, how was my acting just now?"

"Not bad! You've improved."

"That's right! Nighttime tutoring is bound to be effective."

Shanis removed her mask and leaned close to Lud, her tone clearly mocking and teasing. Even Lud couldn't help but blush and cough twice to cover his embarrassment.

On the contrary, Aina was very open-minded. After making breakthroughs in both her rank and her relationship with her master, Aina regained her former liveliness and cheerfulness. During the day, she would call Lude "Master" this and "Master" that, and at night she would stick to Lude and call him "Master" that too. She could switch between pure and lustful states at will.

Sometimes Shanis couldn't help but sigh that her junior sister's fierce and ruthless spirit might make her more suitable to be the "Goddess of Love" than herself.

"Master, you only gave that Raim a hint, but didn't give him a clear task. What if he doesn't understand and messes it up, dragging us into it?"

"You don't understand. Sometimes you can't say things too clearly, because if you do, your true intentions will be exposed. So your master deliberately acted as a riddle-maker, making this guy guess. He imagined several possibilities that were about himself, and all I needed was for him to start taking action."

"Can he be relied upon?"

"That doesn't matter. Anyway, it was Hedtaka who ordered him. What does that have to do with our Pantheon?"

"..." x2

Through Raim, Lud already knew that the demons were also paying attention to the war, and some of them seemed to be planning to get involved and cause trouble in the chaos.

There are actually factions among the demons, and everyone has different goals and conflicts of interest.

One type, like Raim, has average strength and no powerful backing. Because they can't stand the light of day, they hide in the shadows every day, just seeking a peaceful existence.

Another type is those who are capable but lack ambition, just like the "pleasure criminal" persona that Lude created for Hedtaka, who spends all day thinking about how to do fancy tricks and find some fun.

However, while neither of the above two types of demons are good people, they at most harm social order and disrupt regional stability. There is another type of demon that is even more extreme, and that one is truly aiming to destroy the world!

Because these kinds of demons are pure madmen, just like Brother Crow from East Star, all they think about is overturning the table so that no one has anything to eat, so sometimes even other demons can't stand it and will take the initiative to inform the forces of light, calling for the iron fist of justice to punish them.

According to the intelligence provided by Raim, there really was such a group of "obsessive demons" who wanted to use this war to make a big splash.

To Lud's slight surprise, although this was the first time he had heard about these demons, he had actually fought against them a few years ago.

The plague that broke out in Oyster Harbour back then was poisoned by these bastards!

In light of this, Lud has another objective in participating in this national war: in addition to helping the kingdom resist the imperial invasion, he also has to thwart the evil schemes of those demons, which is a headache just to think about.

So Lude decided to speed things up a bit, awaken the four second-stage gods now, and then give them a burst of enhancement so that they could reach the second-stage strength level first.

The faith cloud of the Four Gods has now basically taken shape. Lu De discovered that using students as the initial group of believers resulted in a much higher quality and efficiency than that of ordinary people. While young students may not be entirely innocent, their minds are at least simpler than those of working adults.

Therefore, the collection of faith in the second phase of the gods is happening faster than expected.

On the day of the awakening ceremony, all the goddesses of the Pantheon gathered together, and even Hume, who was away on business, made a special trip back. The eldest sister had recently gone to the Empire and brought back a great deal of valuable firsthand intelligence for Ludwig; she had truly made a great contribution.

So, on the night the other party returned, Lu De personally cooked a delicious meal for him, and then prepared a full-service meal for him that evening. He was essentially selling his art and his body!

The ceremony took place in the main underground palace beneath the temple. It seems that ever since the three sisters created this place, the gathering point of the faith cloud has shifted from the temple hall on the ground to this more secluded location.

At this moment, in the center of the main hall, four clouds of faith, each a different color, had begun to take shape, each estimated to be about two meters in diameter. The dark (black with red) cloud was likely Sura, the god of war; the golden cloud was Jessie, the goddess of wealth; the sky-blue cloud was Deli, the goddess of music; and the purple cloud was Alma, the goddess of balance.

Among them, Jessie, the Goddess of Wealth, has the largest cloud of faith, clearly almost a full size larger than the other three. This shows that although the children are innocent, they still really like money.

Although the activation ritual didn't require a complicated process—all Lud had to do was summon the primal fire within him and poke the cloud of faith with his flaming finger—Lud thought it would be better to have a little bit of ritual; too casual a thing would seem less solemn.

So before the ceremony began, Rudd bathed and refreshed himself, and put on his newly made priestly robes so as to make a good impression on the newly born god.

The other companions present also asked Lud to change into formal attire that matched their status. To borrow a phrase from a gamer on Earth, please at least dress like a human being during cutscenes!

"Speaking of which, this is the first time the three of us sisters have seen the Venerable One create a god! A few years ago, we were created in the same way."

"Big sister, you were quite disrespectful to the Venerable One back then!"

"Third brother, can you please stop bringing up things that are hard to swallow? You know perfectly well that eldest sister is about to break through her current limitations, and she's been secretly practicing her gratitude-repaying techniques these past few days..."

"Shut up, you two!!!"

While the three sisters were chattering away, Hume and Marigish, two traditional deities, were also chatting idly on the other side. Hearing the conversation not far away, Marigish suddenly became slightly nervous and whispered to Hume, "..."

"Sister Hume, I need to ask you something."

"what's up?"

"It's about some of the rules of our Pantheon, you know... after breaking through to the fourth tier... you know what I mean! Since you have experience... you have to... you have to... do that with that person, right? I just want to know if this is just a rumor?"

"???"

After hearing Marigis's stammering words, Hume was stunned for a moment, then quickly realized what she meant. He first looked at the nervous Marigis, then at Shanis, who was standing not far away with her back to them, and instantly understood the truth of the matter.

So she patted Marigis on the shoulder and said earnestly.

"Just to clarify, it's definitely not a rumor!"

The goddesses were still whispering among themselves when Lu De, who had changed into his new outfit, finally arrived. Everyone present immediately put away their casual expressions and tried their best to look serious.

"When you meet your new companions, everyone should be enthusiastic, but be careful not to get too cocky and scare them. I won't name names, but no dirty jokes allowed!"

As soon as Ludwig finished speaking, everyone's eyes fell on the black-haired nun, earning her a disapproving glare.

With everything prepared, Lude summoned the primal fire within his body, and a tiny, flickering flame appeared at his fingertips. As if sensing the power of the flame, the four clouds of faith reacted considerably, as if cheering for their impending rebirth.

As Lud activated them one by one, the four clouds of faith burst forth with intense light, then collapsed and condensed, finally transforming into humanoid shapes.

Looking at the four newly born goddesses, Lachesis, the youngest of the three sisters, sighed from the bottom of her heart.

"Sure enough! They're all huge!"

"Shh! Even if it's true, you can't just say things like that."

The three sisters were whispering among themselves, but fortunately, Lud didn't hear a word they said; his attention was focused on the four new gods.

First of all, the appearance is perfect! It is exactly the same as the corresponding statue made by Rudd, with no visible deviation in any aspect of the dimensions.

After the four new goddesses were activated and awakened, they first looked around with curious eyes, and then their gazes quickly converged on Rude. They then knelt down on one knee in unison, paying the highest respect to Rude with their divine bodies.

"Father God!" x4

"Eldest sister, second sister, they are much more sensible than you two were back then."

"Shut up, Third Brother!"

The four new goddesses immediately bowed to Ludner and addressed him as "Father God," which surprised Ludner.