Chapter 6

*Smack!*

"You have only been telling me now!" A blond beauty in a red dress vented angrily as she stared down at a subordinate.

"My apology, Young Miss. We only recently acquired the information from the Germany Mage Association that they located the Seventh Campione." The subordinate lowered his head in shame for being inadequate.

"My niece. Please calm down. Getting angry over it wouldn't fix anything. What matters is we confirmed the Seventh had landed in Sardinia and our immediate objective is to establish contact."

A middle aged man with black hair and a well trimmed beard wearing clothes resembling a medieval knight minus the armor, spoked to the girl with a sympathetic voice. However, the sternness in his voice when giving his order also shows the gravity of the situation.

"It's only a matter of time before Lord Salvatore learns about this information. We can only hope to minimize the destruction of their inevitable clash." The middle aged man spoked while nursing a growing headache at the situation

Doni Salvatore is the Sixth Campione known for being an absolute idiot and also a battle maniac. In fact, his ascension was literally him challenging the God King of Irish Mythology, Nuadha Airgetlám to a sword fight and winning. He also had been going around challenging other Campione to test his blade and the Seventh was no different as he already landed on the radar of Lord Salvatore.

Nursing a growing headache, the blond nodded back to her uncle before she dismissed herself.

"Great. A Heretic God on the loose and now I have to worry about the newest Campione clashing with Lord Salvatore…"

As she returned to her private quarter, a black haired and asian looking maid greeted her.

"Miss Erica, you have a parcel." The maid said and handed over a sealed envelope to Erica.

Looking at the envelope, it possessed the official seal of the Copper-Black Cross with the name of her uncle along with a reminder that it contains confidential information. Looking at the sender's address, she knew it was from the Witenagemot.

Erica recalled her uncle said that very little was known about the Seventh Campione aside from the god he recently slew was Surtr. Aside from that, there's absolutely nothing that came up from their digging. As if he never existed prior to his battle against Surtr. However, Witenagemot claimed to have compiled information about the Seventh Campione through the interrogation of the cabal members that were involved in the summoning of Surtr and also Spirit Vision of Princess Alice.

Although, to acquire the information isn't easy. For some reason, Witenagemot guarded the secret very tightly and only relent to sharing with the Copper-Black Cross due to them exerting the influence of Doni Salvatore, the Sixth Campione.

With a letter opening knife, Erica cut the top of the envelope and took out the stacks of documents to read.

Arianna wisely left the room and went to prepare refreshments for Erica while she read the documents.

Upon finishing reading the first page, Erica immediately dropped the stacks of documents with a shocked face while rereading what she just read.

"The Seventh Campione is suspected to be an even older Campione as his battle with Surtr was not his ascension and the Seventh Campione displays usage of abilities suspected to be other authorities he acquired prior to battling Surtr."

Then turning to the next paper, it was the details about the possible authorities the Seventh Campione's displayed before.

"Creating weapons like bow and arrow and a pistol through unknown light blue energy capable of harming Surtr although damage was negligible. Also ability to open a portal into the Netherworld to battle Surtr which minimized the damage caused on Germany." She read.

Certainly, the ability does sound like an authority as generally. Any ability created using magic instead of Divine power would never even get the chance to harm a Heretic God with some exceptions like the copy of the Spear of Longinus she could create. But, that's a well known holy relic that is specifically effective against the Divine. Such relics are extremely hard to come by and numbers can be counted in one hand. So, chances of the abilities being similar like her's is slim and Erica believes the weapon conjured were part of an ability of an authority.

As for teleportation. Although magic does exist. To perform teleportation is no simple task involving complicated rituals and extremely costly. To perform it as easily as described in the report, it also has to be an ability of an authority.

Erica's head throbs harder with each further page she reads. But, when she arrived at the final page. She almost slipped the documents in her hand.

"This…" She muttered with disbelief and shock.

The last page was written with Princess Alice's own personal finding of the Seventh Campione with her unarguably world strongest Spirit Vision. Written in the passage is the experience of Princess Alice Divining information about the Seventh Campione.

[When I attempted to use my Spirit Vision to obtain information about the Seventh Campione, my attempt was blocked. All I could see was a sea of darkness. However, a moment later. Slits appeared and one after another, yellow eyes with dark slitted pupils opened one after another, staring at me before my ability recoiled and failed. It is clear any attempt to Divine his information will meet with failure due to this unknown authority. However, I could not dismiss this ominous feeling when being stared at by those eyes. As if my past, present and future was stripped naked before them. But, not all hope is lost as I managed to acquire a piece of clue…]

"YHWH" Erica mutteres with grim apprehension.

———

"This is annoying…" Eryx nursing a growing headache of his own.

The source of his headache is his own authority's fault. One of The Almighty's abilities is to dig out information about someone or something by looking through the vision of its past, present and future. That's good and all but the problem is it also activates passively which causes the same effect only with more incomplete information.

Due to that, countless useless information getting crammed into his head that he struggles to even keep his eyes open lest he lay his eyes on another object.

"Are you alright, Sir?" Eliza asked in concern.

Well, her concern is less on Eryx himself but on herself if Eryx finds something displeasing and lashes out. Although, with the time she spent with him, Eryx didn't look like the kind of person that would do such a thing.

"It's… nothing. Anyway, are we arriving yet?" Eryx sighed tiredly and grumbled. He knew he needed to work on his control to reel in his abilities.

"Almost." Eliza replied before turning to look outside the car window to see a grand beach side villa in the distance.

Well, initially Eryx planned to reach the villa by 'foot'. But the speed Eryx could move in is simply not humanly possible. No, she doubted she could even survive moving through speed exceeding the speed of sound.

It was a topic of suspicion for Eliza that Eryx displayed abilities that could only be associated with authority yet not explicitly using one. Like when he seems to be able to move at extreme speed akin to the Black Prince Alec's famed authority, The Black Lightning and known as Nobleman of Godspeed. Yet Eryx is able to casually match that speed despite not using an authority.

But, no matter how curious Eliza was. She would never dare to pry about Campione's authorities since revealing them is the same as showing your enemies your weaknesses. So, unless Eryx willingly reveals his authorities. She wouldn't even dare ask.

Few minutes later, the car arrived at the villa while the owner of the villa helped give a tour and explain its wonder to Eryx and Eliza who he somehow assumed to be a rich couple on vacation.

"Then, I will not bother to stay for any longer. I hope you two have a pleasant vacation." The landlord said before he entered his car and left.

Immediately after the landlord left, Eryx shifted his attention to the open area in front of the villa where a decently big private beach was located.

"You can go ahead and rest. I would like to do something first." Eryx mentioned offhandedly before he left for the beach, leaving Eliza behind uncertain what to do next.

At first, all Eliza wanted was a hot bath after two whole days without bath starting from when she first meet Eryx back at the base of the Ashen Flame Cabal which lead to their arrest and spending several hours sitting in a cell and then immediately board on flights from Berlin all the way to Sardinia. But, she was also curious about Eryx and what he wanted to do at the beach.

So, fighting against her urges and discomfort. Eliza follows Eryx to the beach.

Meanwhile with Eryx, he paid Eliza no heed as if he didn't even notice her.

When he stepped on the sand of the beach. He continued a few more steps before coming to a halt. There he stood for a moment with a frown on his face.

"Melqart… I see. In four days. Another God Slayer is destined to ascend by slaying the Victorious One, Verethragna."

After finishing his mumbles, Eryx sat down and meditated. To the untrained ones, Eryx looks just like a normal person meditating. But to Eliza, she can see the light blue flame-like aura around Eryx and a heavy pressure weighing not on her body. But her soul.

———

(Eryx PoV)

As annoying as the Passive Ability to gain knowledge of The Almighty. I can't deny its usefulness as I am still trying to explore the ability myself.

From what I have noticed. The [Divine Foresight] ability can peer into the present the easiest. Meaning, I can view places that I am fully aware of without being there myself. But for the past and present is where it gets complicated.

As the name of the ability said, it's foresight. Meaning, ability to predict and anticipate the future. But, The Almighty being basically omnipresence. [Divine Foresight] can also look into the past limited only to the scope of what I am trying to find out for example the history of a certain person, then I can look in the person's perspective and around him from his birth to the present where my ability to look into the future is without limitations but limited by my own ability to filter through those informations.

So, when I looked at the sea from the beach in front of the villa I rented. It immediately triggered my [Future Sight] and gained a vision of two Heretic Gods, one a youthful boy with golden sword and another a gigantic warrior with clubs that wield the very storm and lightning, battling on the Island of Sardinia while another group, an asian teen with a stone tablet and a blond knight lady on the sideline watching the two Heretic Gods fighting.

That is the limit of my passively activated [Future Sight]. I could hear neither sound nor watch the scene. All I get is a picture of the scene engraved in my mind of an outcome.

With that scene in my mind, [Divine Foresight] also activated and started to pour in information into my head. Starting from names.

The youthful boy is Verethragna, the Victorious Persian Warlord.

The gigantic warrior is Melqart, the Phoenicia God King.

The asian teen is Godou Kusanagi, the supposed future Seventh Campione? Now the Eighth Campione.

Lastly, the blond knight lady is Erica Blandelli, the prodigious Grand Knight of the Copper-Black Cross Order.

The other three felt normal. However, the asian teen, Godou Kusanagi felt odd. There's something indescribable about him. As if something was trying to stop my attempts to pry information about him or at least, trying to falsify it's information about him being a future Campione but underestimated The Almighty's power to rip information from whatever trying to keep it hidden.

Aside from that, everything else is normal. Also, I could instinctively feel that gaining more information about these four individuals is possible. Especially about the two Heretic Gods. Even their authorities if he so wished. But that requires active activation of [Divine Foresight] to achieve. Hence, I sat down on the beach and channeled my Reiryoku as if it were second nature only for it to feel inadequate.

No, inadequate was a wrong word. It's more like a rule change.

Back in the Bleach universe, Reiryoku or spiritual energy is the foundation of everything started from the Soul King. All transcendent beings like Aizen and Ichigo possessed an immeasurable amount of Reiryoku which made them godlike.

But in this world, it's different. Not that spiritual energy had no place in this world. It's simply that it ranked lower and something else is higher and that energy was Divine Power.

Divine Power is a versatile type of energy where Reiryoku, Spiritual energy, is limited to spiritual aspects. Divine power can do both. Like a perfect one to all types of energy that can be used to power anything. For example, if compared to currency. Reiryoku is like a US dollar or Mana being GB pound but Divine power would be actual Gold that can be easily exchanged for another currency.

Naturally, I also possessed Divine power. I have had it since becoming a Campione.

While I also have Divine power. It does not clash with my Spiritual energy, Reiryoku. Instead, I can feel that if needed. I can convert Reiryoku into Divine power and vice versa with more units of Reiryoku required to create one unit of Divine power.

So, after converting the necessary Divine power which happened automatically or instinctively. I activated [Divine Foresight] actively and started gathering information on the two Heretic Gods starting from the youthful boy. However, my attention immediately stucked at the golden sword in his hand.

"Isn't that basically a cheat?" I questioned with a wide smile I could hardly contain.

After all, why wouldn't I?

[Golden Sword of Wisdom]

Description: One of the ten incarnations of the Persian Warlord, Verethragna. It's an authority which forges swords that negates authority based on the user's own knowledge of the said God or authority the user wished to seal.

If this is not a god sent opportunity, I don't know what else is. After all, this is literally the perfect authority that complements The Almighty.

The Almighty is a very powerful authority but without a means of directly harming an opponent. More like a support type ability most of the time. However, with The Almighty. I could gain information about any Heretic God and use the knowledge to activate the Golden Sword authority.

But besides the Golden Sword authority, there's another thing that interests him from the scene I had seen through [Future Sight]. It's the stone tablet in the Asian teen's hands.

[Prometheus's Grimoire]

Description: A stone tablet infused with the power of the Greek Titan, Prometheus, the power of Theft. Granting the ability to steal the divine right or Authorities of any God based on the myth of Prometheus stealing fire from the gods in order to grant it to humans

Activation Condition: ??? (1/3)

If I still have doubt before. I have none right now. This teen has to be the main character. What kind of dog shit luck ended up with a grimoire that can steal a god's authority and stumbling into a battle against a Heretic God that has authority to seal authorities?

So, what am I gonna do with all this informations?

Naturally, sweep all the benefits for myself.

Opening my eyes, I spread my senses around and immediately located Eliza hiding behind some objects spying at me.

Good that she is here. Spare me the trouble of looking for her.

"Eliza."

"Yes, sir!" She jumped out from whatever she was hiding behind and saluted as straight as possible while fearing she might be scolded for her spying.

Turning around to look at her. I asked. "A Campione can demand anything right?" A smirk appeared on my face which made Eliza worried about what I was up to.

"Well… it depends. But most of the time. Most Mage Association wouldn't hesitate to provide anything the Campione demanded in fear of repercussions." Eliza replied with a stare filled with suspicion and asked. "What do you require that you would ask such a question, sir?"

"Hmn… Nothing exaggerated. Just grimoire that someone is carrying. That person is a Japanese teen that is totally unaware of the supernatural world and such grimoire would only bring him 'bad lucks'. So, it's better if I help look after it." I smiled unconvincingly in Eliza's eyes as greed painted my face. But it didn't matter.

"If it's just a Grimoire then it shouldn't be a problem." Eliza replied with a nod.

"Good. I want you to secure the Grimoire for me through whatever means possible. The person carrying the Grimoire should arrive at Sardinia in another three days. If the local association makes a fuss. Tell them I wouldn't hesitate to wipe this island from the map for them."

Eliza flinched slightly from my ruthless words but nodded hurriedly.

Well, I am ruthless. I'm a former Sternritter, the best among the soldiers who are basically trained for a genocidal war. I wouldn't hesitate to kill anyone that imposes on my freedom and survival as I slaughtered half of the unrelated Quincy army myself during the Thousand Years Blood War just to weaken Yhwach's power.

With everything set, what's left is to bide my time.

—————

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