Ch. 49 One Century to another

After the shock of what would called 'The Warning', the Underworld learnt to both fear and respect House Azaroth as not only a wealthy trading partner and beautiful territory, but also as a something akin to a Dragon which should not be provoked.

Azaroth was immediately placed at the top of Devil Houses alongside the Bael Family due to the incident, with only a few in The Great King faction's inner circle knowing just how wrong that status was. They now knew that Azaroth was The juggernaut in the Underworld, and no matter how much they hated the fact that a half-breed made them feel helpless, weak and vulnerable, but they at least took solace in the fact that House Azaroth remained almost entirely neutral in regards to the Underworld's affairs and could not care less about what they did unless it directly affected them.

Zekram Bael personally felt fear however.

Even with the original Satans and their descendants he had been respected well enough, but now he learnt that I had no care nor mercy for those who target me or mine. I would kill and purge his entire faction if necessary. Just one of my legions could take on an entire Noble House, and for the troublesome ones I could just send a peerage member or additional men from my reserves and Army. Zekram's faction didn't even have 20 pillar houses before the fall of Ipos and Gäap, much less now, meaning they could be swept away by just Azaroth.

But I knew the man was far too proud to let this 'insult' stand, no matter the fear I put in him. I can already see him trying to scheme and plot, maybe even join the Khaos Brigade and Qlippoth in the future just to get his revenge.

Too bad he was never going to be able to directly become a threat anymore due to Zekram himself being my 'double agent'.

Should he cross the line again, let's just say the future CIA would be jealous about how to make a 'suicide' happen.

Overall though, this little outing was a great boon for my House and Serafall herself. Her impromptu castrations helped people see that my bubbly and lovely wife had quite the ruthlessness if pressed, which made all those lustful geezers cross their legs and keep their mouths shut when she was handling things.

My show even made a few of my allies actually do something incredibly surprising: Houses Phenex and Balam chose to essentially become 'Vassal' Houses to my own. This meant that I gained two powerful and influential forces who were going to be rather useful as covers for various actions I could take in the Underworld.

Both of these houses had been my closest allies in the Underworld, beside Sitri, for the last Century, and we had been having a great relationship, so I was surprised at this agreement the two had somehow reached.

The Balams never really cared for politics and power in general, preferring to protect their people and acted in a very straightforward and honest manner. But after the civil they had many issues and had lost a lot of men from being forced to act as vanguards for the Old Satans. From my knowledge of the original timeline of DxD, the Balams would then slowly fall until basically extinct, with only one known member as part of Sairaorg's peerage.

So I have been helping them recuperate, ensured they would have a stable environment to do so with good trade deals and by lending troops from my Army corps to keep everyone safe as well. I simply quite liked them compared to other nobles, but it seemed that this made them feel a bit indebted/respectful until 'The Warning' when they decided that since they were almost relying on my Houses already, so they might as well just directly come under my command.

I was prosperous, easy enough to get along with, loyal and wouldn't give a shit for what all those nobles did as long as they don't harass my wife or fuck with my things, so the Balams were quite willing to follow my lead.

In return for their loyalty, I began planing a more direct recovery effort for them and offered them a 'secret fertility' potion to help them raise Balam house numbers, while offering proper educations and training as Balam soldiers would sneakily be integrated into my Army Corps.

Of course there had to be a bit of a spring cleaning for rats, weasels and leaks, a few 'convincing' sessions for important people, sweeping criminal elements, securing borders and resources, surveys to do and a lot of other things such as implementing our standards, but it went well.

The best thing was that I was making sure nothing could be directly linked back to myself as we wanted people to believe the current Lord Balam had found 'advisors' and was a 'better Lord' than his predecessor as recovery was quickly happening.

The most visible signs of House Azaroth would be our increase trade with the Balams.

Soldiers were sent for training in turns while sworn to secrecy, skilled workers 'coincidentally' settled down and took on apprentices, there just so happened to be an increase in pregnancies, and many ressources were now being taken and processed as the economy began thriving.

People might become suspicious, but the vast majority wouldn't see why, while those who could either wouldn't or couldn't tell anyone anyway.

For House Phenex on the other hand, it was almost the opposite issues from House Balam which drove them to bring up becoming a Vassal.

After the war House Phenex actually grew substantially as merchants, but the Lord Phenex had suffered two 'wake up' calls regarding his house's lack of direct strength. A close call during the Civil War and now two houses, which were weaker than his own individually and even maybe together, had been erased in a single night.

He began thinking about how to truly guarantee the safety and prosperity of not simply his house, but also of his own family.

The Lord Phenex was incredibly aware of the value his family had in the supernatural world. Their tears were one of the best healing products in the world and if the opportunity was there, many would kidnap either himself or his child to obtain Phoenix Tears, even if a special ritual was needed. This was a constant worry for generations of Phenex, but usually their pride in their 'immortality' and natural abilities reassured them that even if they couldn't defeat someone, they could last long enough for reinforcements to arrive or something.

But the Lord Phenex thought differently. To him there were a few options available to strengthen his House further.

The first would obviously be a an alliance to the Four Satans or the Great King Faction, ideally through a marriage. Economic agreements were good, but easy enough to break when one cared more for life than money.

Unfortunately he only had a son and the only female member of the Satans, and even their direct families, was already married and now had her own child and happiness, so that obviously wasn't an options. And while the Great King faction had many women who would jump at the chance to marry his son, Lord Phenex knew that Zekram Bael would see a pawn instead of an ally.

But when he noticed what Lord Balam would be doing, the idea stuck with him.

Especially now that House Azaroth had shown overwhelming strength and the staggering economic power he knew they possessed. So to not only help bring House Phenex to new heights economically, Lord Phenex thought about 'roosting on such a sturdy tree'.

Sure his pride in himself, his house and his powers were great, but was there much shame in essentially becoming above all others and under only one? House Azaroth not only had powerful armies, but also the direct support of a Satan and if luck could have it, he could even find the possibility of maybe having a child of both houses marry each other.

I mean, it was an open secret that i had a small Harem, and Lord Phenex wasn't exactly stopping his own activities with his wife anytime soon, so the chances were there and I couldn't blame the man for trying. In all honesty, if I had a child around the same age as Ravel, if she is still born, I wouldn't mind seeing if said children would be interested in one another. I would have to see about the unknown second son and if Riser could be different than canon before I even thought about my possible daughters marrying them.

In the end, Lord Phenex decided that for even more prosperity and security, his house would become a vassal of Azaroth.

In exchange for this, we would gradually overhaul the Phenex systems from products, manufacturing to distribution. The magic technology in Azaroth was centuries ahead of anyone else I was aware of and now house Phenex would get to benefit from this. The current forces of House Phenex would also receive proper training, with Lord Phenex's son, Ruval, gaining great opportunities for personalized training as well.

On the surface it would actually look more like Phenex and Balam were making a mutually beneficial alliance that coincided with both undergoing a great amount of 'growth' from taking in the remains of Ipos and Gäap, as well as 'opportunities' presented to them, while Azaroth simply kept supporting its two close trading partners.

Of course I wouldn't exactly give so many benefits without any form of 'insurance', no matter my personal feelings. Vassals could betray their lords, so I made sure to minimize the chances by properly 'managing' their ressources, 'incorporating' their military forces into my own, and 'convincing' the influential individuals to gradually see me as their true lord.

And if the two heirs and families of the houses just so happen to become extremely loyal to House Azaroth during their time in my lands and academies, then that's just a positive outcome.

Now this wasn't something done in a few years. Basically uplifting the two families was a long term project which I implemented slowly, over the course of a few dozen years to make absolutely sure nothing would be directly traced back to myself or my people, while having near total control from behind the scenes. Even Lords Balam and Phenex didn't know how much control I had over everything.

And during this time many other things were happening.

The development of Mars was going very well as I even created a way to 'split' my mind and have it carefully take care of things up there using a temporal copy of my own body. The only reason I was using this technique was because both of us were going to be on different planets. We knew what we hoped to achieve, so things were going well so far.

After the lands and oceans had developed properly and stabilized, various pre-prepared species of magical/supernatural creatures either found or recreated on earth were introduced and helped to set up a proper 'natural hierarchy', and slowly they began forming 'nature'. Currently it was essentially going through the same phases as the various eras without intelligent lifeforms on earth.

We needed to make sure things were working properly, that natural food and water sources weren't going to negatively affect things, the predators and preys found a good rhythm and that nothing was too dominant, and that our chosen species could develop well. This was essentially a beta test for our planet.

The World Spirit was positively giddy about having all this life on her new self, becoming very caring towards them all as they instinctively knew she was their 'mother' and cared for her as well.

The most interesting parts about our progress was that not only was the planet changing, with the various species either adapting or evolving, but the World Spirit was as well. Her 'appearance was shifting from the pale, skinny elf-like one she had upon our meeting and ever since, to one gradually 'maturing' as her skin was darkening. She said this was a result of having 'her' lifeforms and the planet nourishing her properly, while the different 'body' she now inhabited would also change her. Meaning the better the planet was doing, the better she would look, with her taking some more 'Mars-ish' characteristics.

And as things developed, I knew she was making good on our deal as I felt some changes in myself due to a knew link to Mars and the formation of a my own 'blank' divine core within myself. If she was the 'Earth mother' I was to be the 'Sky father' of our pantheon. She would be life and I would be its protector. It didn't mean I was going to have a divinity of the sky, but it is just how one could describe the fact that she is the 'earth' while I am what protects and enveloppes it, hence the 'sky'.

A surprising source of help, in all this rather complicated process, was Tiamat regaining her divinities regarding to Primordial water and Life.

The Dragon King, with the help of her past incarnation's remains, Da Vinci, Ereshkigal and myself, managed to reform her divinities to those two aspects, and seeing the benefits, I brought her up to Mars to quicken her recovery and form her connection to the oceans and the lifeforms there.

It wasn't just for her as it took away the significant burden of managing the entirety of Mars' new oceans. It was after all, incredibly difficult to guide an entire planet's evolution and development with just two people, even if those two were incredibly powerful. Having a third and experienced voice was useful.

Although the two had a bit of a rivalry going on, which does lead to some revelations regarding a certain Dragon turned Goddess admitting that she had kind of seen me as a good mate. The World Spirit saw that as a bit of a threat to her position of 'First Divine Wife' or something as they now shared a lot of responsibilities and Tiamat was predicted to grow quite powerful as a goddess. So I bonked them both saying that Sera was always be my first wife and that anyone wanting to join in would have to convince her and the rest of my lovers first.

Funnily enough the reason why Tiamat had never tried to 'stake her claim' like some others and how dragons usually do it, was because she knew she wasn't the strongest amongst the women going after me and couldn't defeat my current mates, so she stopped herself from trying to 'court death' and bide her time until she regained her divine powers.

It was kind of adorable seeing the dragon Milf being so shy about it, but a few 'Harem members only' discussions later and Tiamat was given an 'ok'.

As for worrying about Milim's feelings due to her 'declarations' when I recruited her, well it wasn't exactly a problem after Kal grew up. The pink dragon had apparently felt a real soul stirring bout of instincts regarding him and began to solely think of him as her chosen mate. Too bad she became a blushing and tsundere mess when around him due to it being her first time having these feelings, but it was always cute seeing the tomboy dragon blush around my son.

On top of that, my son was also affected by the weird harem/ecchi laws of the DxD universe, because now Moka has become torn between her father/uncle-con and brother-con feelings due to Kal's blood not only somehow being extremely delicious to her, but also beneficial as it had been having an interesting effect on her Dhampir physiology. So right now my son is stuck between two territorial women who are very strong.

All I can say is that I am rather proud of him for managing to attract such women. Just like his father! But he need someone who can manage things properly like his mother does for me.

Anyway. Since I am already talking about my peerage members then let's continue.

During this rather 'calm' period, for me anyway as I was just working on various projects while the Sera was working with Sirzechs and Falbium to gain a form foothold in the Americas, everyone was making steady progress.

The afore mentioned Moka and Milim have joined the rest of my peerage, alongside Ciri, to Satan-class.

Moka actually ended focusing more on shadow/darkness magic compared to her mother's ice, while also developing her sacred gear as a powerful weapon and the nightmare of canon fodder armies. She, with her mother, have been steadily building their own faction of vampires in my territory, who know to behave, allowing them to essentially become the 'shadow arm' for both peerages.

There were also some plans I asked them to delay regarding the vampire civil war, as both Evangeline and Moka thought them as insults to true 'Nobles', seeing both factions as nothing more than glutenous animals only caring about their instincts and pleasures. So they were instead focusing on growing their own force.

Milim on the other side, began to travel the world after reaching Satan-class and having matured to a decent degree. Her temperament had calmed down decently, even if she was still rather prideful, glutenous and somewhat of a tomboy, likely thanks to the terrifying punishments Scáthach and Tiamat came up with together to deal with brats. Her body had started changing as well, growing from a child-like body to a slim and athletic teenager, keeping her favored twin-tails and learning to wear pants properly.

Her goal was to find Ddraig and fight the wielders of both him and Albion. In the future both dragons would learn to heavily warn their wielders about the pink dragon which always hunts them down. And the Red Dragon Emperor would come to fear meeting Tiamat even more once he realized who's daughter this was. The clashes they have had did bring a few issues, but nothing major since Milim knew how to not do too much collateral damage and wasn't there to kill anyone, just fight the dragon emperors and test the wielders.

Milim was even starting to gain her own title, Shattering Dragon Princess due to her appearance and the fact that she either [Penetrate]'s or [Shatter]'s, something she personally developed, anything in her way. The fact that she calls Ddraig father and her relation to Tiamat came out, certainly had an effect as she was the closest thing to royalty for dragons with that mix.

Now as for Ciri, the girl had been going around both the Underworld and the Human, partnering with Mana, Jeanne, Heltana and a few others frequently as she goes to help those she can and furthers her mastery of her abilities under my guidance.

Ciri gained her own title for her actions and how she handled things, one I thought was somehow fated, The Lady of Space and Time. Many thought she was also my illegitimate daughter or my sister due to our similar abilities, meaning many idiots tried to offer marriages until I declared she was actually my lover.

She also took some time to visit her family, ultimately managing to bring them over here to settle down without worrying about old enemies and the likes. Although I didn't care for Yennefer's general attitude, I didn't mind having the Ciri's loved ones settle in my territory. I needed to be nice to the in-laws after all, which was very fun to tease the White Wolf about.

Next up was my duo of Greek beauties, Medea and Diana.

Diana, as the main bridge between Azaroth and Themyscira, is always busy to a certain degree. She is also in charge of the Amazonian settlement built in my lands as a sort of cultural exchange. They get to have some interesting things and people to fight, experience things outside their society and maybe find a good partner, while I continuously strengthen my ties with them and more importantly the goddesses behind them as my reputation in Olympus' goddess circle continues to grow.

I've heard some weird rumor from Hera about Aphrodite having a weird obsession with my likeness apparently. Not really sure how to think about that, but my guess would be a mix between her being a closet masochist that just got her first taste of harshness after thinking herself 'above' men her whole life, or the fact that I dislike her made her want me even more and the more she doesn't get me the more obsessed she gets. You honestly can never know with whimsical gods, especially most of the Greeks.

But aside from that, Diana has been taking a more active role with the Azaroth military factions, learning from everyone she could to become a proper General. She wanted to expand her horizons as a warrior and wanted to know more about battlefields to improve her versatility and combat experience leading and fighting large groups. This was partially because Diana is also one of the only members in my peerage capable of leading others properly beside Scáthach, hence she wanted to refine her leadership skills on her own.

Moving on to Medea, she had founded her own witchcraft, sorcery, curse and potion/poison school for those interested in the more obscure and esoteric magical arts. It's been surprisingly popular and has helped her grown her own skills wonderfully. She has also been mastering ritualistic magic to a ridiculous level thanks to her sacred gear, which she even managed to unlock a balance breaker for, allowing it to cancel magic it comes in contact with and even hamper other Sacred gears.

She has also earned a great reputation as a healer in the Underworld itself, being an expert on magical ailments as her repertoire grew more by the year.

Then we have my three most active in the human world: Jeanne, Mana and Musashi.

Jeanne has been focusing a bit more on her 'Sanctuary', where she had been saving those abused or targeted by the church and safekeeping them. As a result she has also had a good amount of clashes between herself and church exorcists and the like, gaining quite the reputation as the 'Dragon Witch' due to Godzilla having grown wings and becoming her primary means of transportation and the 'Witch of Vengeance' as she kills the hypocrites, sin filled and down right evil and cruel members of the church, other religions or organizations if they cross her path or harm the innocent. Her red flames have garnered much fear, but also respect.

Mana on the other hand has been keeping her focus on helping the forgotten or overlooked, walking through various battlefields always ongoing in the human world to help those affected by them. She is actually the most consistant source of 'new Blood' in my territory as she brings in people from all kinds of races in her travels.

Closer to home, she also began organizing some impressive music competitions and started doing her own concerts.

Mana is likely one of the most admired members of my house because of all this and the fact that she has never asked for recognition nor accolades, only quietly working to help others and to have more music fill the world. She has even been called a 'guardian spirit', the 'protector of the helpless' and 'the one who guides' in some parts of the world.

Musashi on the other hand, well she mostly wanders in search of various warriors to gleam new insights from, usually travelling with another peerage member. Her name spreading farther and farther with every impressive victory over Demi-gods, Sacred Gear users, renowned figures in both supernatural and mundane world, and even a few gods.

Slowly but surely, the woman has been gaining the title of best swords user in not only the Underworld, but also across the world. This delighted her as it meant more challengers and difficult fights, making her increase her own training.

The most occupied from all my members was Da Vinci.

The woman was enjoying her constant projects, the unending discoveries and everything entailing the formation of our future world far too much.

With her help, we somehow managed to create an engine capable of shortening distances, essentially a forming wormholes and making space travel extremely efficient. This meant we could actually start a proper space force already to mine the ressource rich asteroid fields, properly go through the planets of our solar system and facilitate trade between Mars and Earth once things are up and going with proper stealth technology.

We also created a few 'green' energy sources mixing science, magic and natural energy. Evolved our weaponry. Pushed our Android/golem research forward. She created new magic, ways to perform alchemy, adapted since and the magic more and more. Making me feel even more certain in my choice as she developed more and more.

And finally, my Queen, Scáthach.

Even though my entire peerage has achieved Satan-class, she is even nearing Super Devil now, something which was triggered once she evolved her ultimate technique. I cannot stress how ridiculous her new technique is, but I will say that she is capable of even threatening me with it.

She managed to create a phenomenon which bends time in a way that meant if she completed the initial motions for it your future self had already be hit by it, which makes it nigh unavoidable without some form of future sight or incredible luck or skill. Not only that, but she can also pierce space properly as well, to reach her target no matter where it is. My lover was incredibly proud to actually stab me with it, which resulted in some intense fucking since I had been helping her make the technique.

That's kind of my first daughter Scarlet Azaroth was born. (Erza Scarlet from Fairy tail)

My precious daughter was surprisingly born with red hair closer to Scáthach's eye color than either of our purple and turned out to be every bit of a warrior her mother is.

Confident, proud and fiercely loyal and caring, she mildly idealized warriors like knights and samurai a bit too much, but also possessed a incredible talent for literally every weapon she had ever tried. On top of that, she had an innate space within herself which allowed her to swap between any weapon or armor she desired.

My little girl became the best customer for Muramasa as she wanted many various and powerful swords, while also being Musashi's direct apprentice after choosing to properly focus her talents on mastering the 'sword'. Of course her mother was rather sad that she wasn't choosing the spear, but respected her choice as a warrior.

It is different from Musashi who pushes her style and wishes to reach further and further using her 'sword', as Scarlet wishes to 'Master everything a sword can give'.

My son on the other hand, was making me rather proud as he grew up knowing lots of love, but was also capable of giving it to others as well.

Ever since a young age I made sure to show him the value of every part of life so he would not be lost in his own power and become arrogant. Many principals of things like Noblesse Oblige were also brought forward and he accompanied me as I worked to train him as an heir. One needed to know kindness, but also ruthlessness, which was hard to teach, especially with how Serafall is, so he also learnt of war and spent time in the darker side of things with Mana, Ciri, Evangeline and a few others.

Kal also underwent proper training once he was old enough and showing great promise and dedication.

Of course I wasn't planing on making him Lord for at least a century or two, so he did have time to enjoy himself and make his own 'path' before he would undertake 'duty'. Being a long lived race was actually what allowed me to not pressure my son too much as he slowly learnt from either his time with me or by seeing things with his own eyes when I asked him to go experience the lives of those in our lands.

His choices led him to rather enjoy farming of all things, which made me laugh a bit in surprise, but I encouraged nonetheless. This made him more involved in the agriculture sector and he slowly chose to take on more responsibilities to help improve things with what he learnt or even with his [Stars].

The fact that he chose to take on responsibilities and willingly strove to improve the lives of our people was likely the thing which made me most proud of him. Not his strength or his desire for self-improvement, but the fact that he was willing to put in hard work and effort in something completely foreign to him like farming and went further and further with it.

And while Da Vinci was the busiest member of our little house, and Scáthach birthed a daughter, it was actually Serafall who brought the most changes to our family.

The first and probably most surprising one for me was that Tamamo had returned to the castle and introduced herself as Sera's Bishop, because the Queen piece was already taken, but it fit nonetheless.

I was quick to welcome and question her regarding this decision and Yasa's feelings on it, but she answered that since the unification was done and the position of Youkai was safe, Tamamo thought it was a good time for her to continue her life.

She never felt completely comfortable amongst older or more traditional Youkai because of how they perceive her 'curse' energy, as well as the differences between herself and other Kitsune youkai, and she didn't want to make Yasa's position worse with her trying to punish people for that. Tamamo also felt more at home here, with Yasaka more than grown up and it's not like she wasn't going to visit a lot, Tamamo thought she should just follow her heart and accept the old offer Sera had made her long ago.

And to celebrate her return, she went on a pranking spree, dragging Da Vinci, Milim, Kal and a few others into her mischief. The nine-tailed Fox felt much freer without having to 'behave' for all those stuffy people.

Of course I went to visit Yasaka a bit more often to 'comfort' her. We even had some talks about her believing that the time was almost right for her to try for a child and to maybe reveal our relationship with the Shinto Gods supporting them.

My thoughts actually went further as I began making plans to facilitate this desire for an open relationship between us. And this plan involved House Azaroth becoming a true neutral ground for all Pantheons and factions.

So with those plans forming, I told her to give me some time and I would make her desires a reality. That got me some heated 'gratitude'.

The next thing that happened was when Sera came back from Asgard with a Valkyrie, saying she was her second Knight and I just had to look at her for an explanation.

Said Valkyrie's name was Brunhilde, daughter of the legendary Brynhildr. She was a beautiful, but solemn woman with long white hair, slightly downcast midnight blue eyes, delicate features and a lithe body clad in mithril armor. She also carried a rather unique spear with the ability to increase the wielders power the more one cared for another.

Now one would expect the daughter of a famous Valkyrie like Brunhilde would be well respected, but apparently she faced quite a bit of discrimination and even some harassment by gods like Loki regarding the fact that she had dragon Blood from Fafnir within her due to her father. It became so bad that her mother quit when Odin wouldn it step up to stop the other gods after her centuries of service, getting so bad that they even injured Brunhilde severely. As a result the two Valkeries left Asgard, but were soon beset by some of Brynhildr and Asgard's past enemies, putting them in a precarious position until Sera saved them and offered them a place here. Brynhildr agreed, but her daughter somehow felt great admiration and was touched that someone outside her mother saved her and held no negative feelings for her, making her somehow swear herself into Sera's service.

It honestly baffled me how badly hybrids were almost always treated in this stupid world when I heard this story. Hybrids in DxD probably displayed the most potential of anything. Issei becomes a weird thing between devil and dragon from being human, Vali was born a hybrid then added dragon, Akeno is a hybrid, so is Gasper, and so is Valerie Tepes if I remember properly, and I think Koneko and Kuroka are some too.

Of course Brunhilde's decision to join Sera also baffled me, but this is a world where a genius Valkyrie was treated so badly she became a Devil because they had better dental and a lifelong exorcist and saint did so as well, even if for different reasons, so it's hard to judge.

So Azaroth got two Valkyries, who immediately fangirl'd over Scáthach before drooling over the benefits I provided to soldiers and extremely motivating Odin's ex-Valkyrie Captain to climb the ranks.

Can't really complain about Sera's weird luck if the results are a free powerful person and her potentially much stronger daughter.

But then a few years later Serafall shows up with two young teenagers and announces them to be her new pawns.

One had a rather unique appearance for a former human as she had grayish skin, a cute but expressionless face, shoulder length black hair and wore a plain black dress.

The interesting thing about this girl was that I could feel multiple dimensional energies converging in her and that she exuded a sort of passive 'feeling' ability towards people.

The other was more normal, with short orange-red hair, a nervous expression as she slightly hid behind Sera, wearing a blue and purple dress.

What I felt towards her was something much more subtle, as if things seemed to slightly shift around her somehow.

These two were introduced as Rachel Roth and Gwendolyn Tennyson.

Serafall rescued them from Salem, during something which sounded quite a lot like the Witch Trials. They were about to be executed for 'weird happenings around them' and Rachel's obviously different skin color.

From what I could get, their parents had been actual witches who immigrated to America, but were then found by some overzealous members of the church and that actually kickstarted the Infamous Salem Witch Trials as a whole, with the gruesome executions of many there.

These two weren't actually full witches yet, simply being in the formative stages, but their parents actually did a large scale ritual for them and their generation, using the blood of many devils and creatures to try and imbue their qualities into their children and give them great powers. This is actually why the zealous exorcists and church members found them.

The ritual results were cruel as these two were the only survivors and successful cases.

Rachel gained a deep connection to dimensional magic, but the real problem came from her actually being an empath and not being able to control it. She also suffered from minor physical mutations, resulting in a stronger than average human body, but grayish skin as well.

Gwendolyn on the other hand obtained something more subtle. It took even Sera some time to realize what kind of powers she gained, but it would seem to be something akin to 'luck'. The girl is incredibly lucky as things simply go her way. Unfortunately that is the precise thing which made people declare her a witch. She also gained a much closer affinity to magic in itself.

But the most fascinating thing about these two, and likely why it took my wife two of her normal pawns and a mutated one, was that this ritual they undertook created two actual Devil bloodlines. Meaning Rachel's connection to dimensional magic, which I will have to throughly teach her about due to its great dangers, and Gwendolyn's 'Luck' are now bloodlines which their children will receive.

That was going to be interesting in the future.

But it would seem my lovely wife wasn't done recruiting people yet.

A few decades later, once all her new members had grown up and been properly trained, Serafall rescued two pirates from a death.

When I heard that news I froze for a moment as I tried to understand why my wife would think recruiting actual pirates was a good idea, until she brought them over and introduced to me Anne Bonny and Mary Read, arguably two of the most renowned pirates to ever sail.

Mary was a smaller woman with short white hair, expressionless face with a great scars on it, something which likely helped conceal her true gender for a long time, a flat body and covered herself in a heavy coat.

Serafall told me she was a monstrous prodigy in saber/cutlass arts and possessed a rather useful sacred gear named Desires Compass. This gear wasn't directly powerful but it allowed one to always find a direction or solution to ones current desire. It also helped give precognitive solutions in combat as it guides its user to achieve its desire for victory. Sera bragged that Musashi and Scarlet might have a little rival once she truly begins training.

The second woman was her sister-in-arm, Anne Bonny. She was very tall for a woman, standing at 6'1 (185 cm), with a bodacious body she was not shy to flaunt as she wore a low cut blouse, tight black pants with knee high boot, and a red captains jacket draped on her shoulders. She had a much more approachable air than Mary, constantly with a smile on her beautiful face, with her fluffy mane of blonde hair barely contained by its twin tails given her charismatic feel.

From what Sera explained, Anne was fit to learn under Mana as a firearms prodigy herself. The woman also had her own Sacred Gear called Captain's Right, which allowed to fully control and bring out the maximum potential of any ship she 'captains'. The better the ship, the better the results. This meant that she essentially turns an entire 'ship' into her weapon.

When Sera told me that, I immediately had a shudder as I looked at her in realization and she smiled deviously to confirm my guess. This guess was that if she could do this to any 'ship', what would happen if she took control of the Space 'Ships' we were developing? Things with the abilities to erase cities off the map if needed already, with the durability to take on multiple attacks from a many ultimates, and our new warp engines.

Another bonus was that the two women had an incredible bond and chemistry, being capable of flawlessly working together and complementing each other's fighting styles. It also helped that Anne had leadership experience to help Evangeline in this area.

And Serafall thought that these two would be very useful to serve as a 'Ferry' to the Underwolrd and to display 'prestige' as a diplomatic tool once a personal ship could be made. She didn't like having to do this kind of stuff, but if she had to she was going to do it her way.

So in the end the weapon fighter group got a new comrade, Mana obtained her first apprentice and Sera got two more peerage members with a pretty kickass method of transportation which blows that Train the Underworld will use in the future out of the water.

The last thing which impacted Azaroth in the 18th century, was that Serafall decided to once again save a woman/girl in need, bringing Marie freaking Antoinette to the our home as another new pawn. And said ex-Queen of France apparently matched my wife's energy as the two almost seemed like long lost sisters with how energetic and cheerful they both were.

And unlike the weird hairstyle I was sort of expecting, Marie turned into a cute and upbeat girl after becoming a Devil. Her body and stature was eerily similar to Stheno and Euryale's, being on the cusp of blossoming, she had long ashen hair with hints of pink tied in twin tails, crystal clear blue eyes and wore a stylish red dress with white thigh high boots.

It was hard not to feel somewhat uplifted by her presence when she was extremely kind, even if rather naive and innocent even after all her struggles.

Sera revealed that she had a sacred gear name Crystal palace which allowed her to form a domain of crystals she could shape and manipulate, also gifting her the ability to use light magic and buffing allies.

Marie could have used it to actually stop her own capture and execution, but she could not bear to turn it against her people, those she cared for, as she thought that the best way to help France was actually with her death. Of course she didn't want to die, so when Sera offered her a chance to both 'help her people' and live a free life, Marie agreed.

Serafall actually felt a lot of pity for the now rejuvenated girl. She tried to help people in the ways she knew, gave her all to be the 'Queen' and give happiness to many, but in the end they desired her head. Good thing we could make 'living' body doubles and let the humans execute that.

We were later surprised that the former queen had great talents in sound magic outside of the light affinity she gained from her sacred gear. And we could only support her when she actually began to be incredibly into our music scene and started performing using said Magics alongside her sacred gear to create fantastical spectacles.

Marie Antoinette became the first 'idol' singer ever, which made me laugh heartily, but she loved bringing smiles and happiness by doing her shows so we all supported her. She even roped in the 'idol' goddesses Euryale and Stheno when their divinities actually trembled at the offer, creating the first Idol group named Devil Heart and forming a sort of revolution as I gave them modern tips and advice to better their performances. Serafall even joined in as a singer, dancer and used her ice to better the visual spectacle.

Truly one can never predict everything as they swept the Underworld, creating a fad which shouldn't have been seen for another 200 years.

We did have to assign security forces too cause some devils can be a bit pushy.

But yeah, a lot has been happening for Azaroth during the last 140 years or so.

_______________________________________

EXTRA AUTHOR NOTES:

Let's start the explanations.

First off Houses Phenex and Balam becoming 'vassals'.

Like I explained above, Balam needed to recover and help manage everything properly while the Phenex needed a strong tree.

I think the Balam are easy enough to understand. They were helped during the war, had substantial interactions with Lith, and they were in a dangerous position which would have led to the gradual fall of their house if nothing changed. So coming under someone else they trusted and had proven himself was the 'correct' decision as a lord instead of watching everything crumble and your people suffering.

The Phenex are more difficult to see this happen due to their prosperity, but the close trade relationship they had with Azaroth and the fact that both Lords were quite friendly with each other over a century, while having been rescued in the past, gives a solid base for the possibility.

The Lord Phenex grew to understand that while money can buy a lot of things, it cannot buy the true power needed for further stability to grow his house more. Without even a Ultimate-class to serve as a backbone, they were in a precarious situation if a powerhouse decided to target them. So he turned towards the man who gave the Underworld a wake up call and someone he knew personally to have this solid base to build further.

But this isn't something others would know about due to Lith's desires to stay 'neutral'. His goals are to have House Phenex, as an Economic powerhouse, be a giant cover for various businesses and political manœuvres, while House Balam was to grow as a part of the Military structure thanks to their innate strength and magic resistance, hence gaining a great amount of power in Devil society. The two would have a sort of open alliance as the Balams would help protect Phenex businesses and the Phenex helped the Balam recover, which is the smoke screen for Lith to solidify his new influence over then. Even more so than both lords could know.

No one would hence really know about this except the direct families involved essentially. So even though both families bowed to Azaroth, no one knows, so it's not like there will be much of an effect, especially since after Lith's 'Warning' his house is now basically at the top and respect towards him is now a standard.

Moving on to Peerage and Family.

The World Spirit and Tiamat have a bit of a rivalry, while Tia throws her hat into the race as well.

After thinking about it I thought she was more fitting to be part of Lith's harem than Milim, so I passed the Pink Dragon over to Kal alongside Moka because I didn't feel comfortable with having 'daughter' characters bang Lith.

As for Tia, I thought it would be an interesting bit of symbolism to have the Life bearing 'Earth' and 'Water' love the 'Sky'.

As for Kal, he will likely have his own Harem, but there won't be too much focus on it. Moka And Milim will be part of it, but won't leave Lith's peerage since there isn't any actual reason to do so with the amount of freedom they have and Kal being Lith's son and Heir.

I also thought having the guy develop his own way through being guided and experiencing various facets of life would be an important thing. His choice for farming was partially due to Superman being a farm boy and because I thought it would actually be fitting for him to like something he couldn't 'cheat' through using his innate powers, then growing to care more for it and take proactive actions to take on more responsibilities.

As for the birth of Scarlet Azaroth, well I thought that not succeeding in making a child during the entirety of this 100+ year time skip would be ridiculous, so I thought things through and though Erza Scarlet to be a good middle ground between Scáthach's 'warrior' and lith's 'space', so meet Scarlet Azaroth

I think I'll have her, and maybe most of Lith's other kids join Kal's peerage as a show of support for him being the heir and first born, while also showing a strong unity. But yeah, for now she's a sword maniac and makes both Musashi and Muramasa very happy.

Lith's peerage activities are pretty straight forward. They do more outside the territory and people are paying more attention to them after 'The Warning' hence are getting famous. Each is walking their own path and Lith isn't rushing them since he knows that growing beyond Satan-class is a personal things and very difficult so he supports them while they follow their own hearts.

Scáthach is obviously the closest, but I am having some difficulties deciding what kind of 'concept' she would grasp.

And finally we have all of Serafall's new peerage members.

Tamamo is back and has taken the mutated Bishop. I had originally planned way back to actually have her as Sera's Queen, but then ideas came in for Moka and the Evangeline and the whole Cain vampire line, which changed things.

Now that the Youkai situation has stabilized and her presence could even be somewhat harmful to her sister's rule, she decided to go to the place where she could be 'free'.

The for Sera's second Knight (mutated), we have the Valkyrie I was originally planning to be Lith's, Brunhilde (fate).

It is slightly Bullshit, but hybrids are treated like crap in DxD. And the fact that Odin is kind of a crappy boss and Loki is a complete asshole likely doesn't help his employees feel great. So some leaving from time to time does make sense, especially when the Valkyrie Captain's own daughter wasn't being helped by a boss she had served under for a long time refuses to reign in his people and shitty son. So queue Sera being herself, nice and welcoming, offer a nice place to live where asgard's enemies won't reach and you have a young bullied Valkyrie gaining a sort of idol.

My reasons are less stupid than Rossweiss' and also she isn't born yet so don't cry about me not choosing her.

Next up are Rachel Roth (Raven from DC) and Gwendolyn Tennyson (Gwen from Ben 10).

The Salem Witch trials occurred near the end of the 17th Century and I thought having church extremists stirring normal humans into killing 'witches' would be an interesting DxD reasoning since Magicians are something pretty established in DxD so witches shouldn't be that big of a deal and shouldn't be taken down by normal humans without them being helped.

So these Witches had a grand ritual with many children with great potential, used a lot of procured materials and ultimately succeeded in Rachel and Gwen gaining 'Devil powers'.

Rachel's are based on both her DC self, empathic abilities, dimensional travel and magic, but closer also with Marvel sorcery. She is essentially a weaker version of Lith that can't access other aspects of [Space/Time], but she is still incredibly versatile and has great potential. She used up Sera's mutated pawn.

Gwen's powers are a mixture of Domino from marvel and when she was being Lucky Girl in Ben 10, so the base form of probability manipulation. It's obviously not as powerful as Telos Karma, but has great potential as well. She does also have incredible talents for magic and I'll probably add the Anodite form later.

Our next pair is the famous duo of Anne Bonny and Mary Read.

I mainly added them because I think Serafall would actually become interested in them while working on all the Devil businesses the Devils had going on over there. So after some scouting, noticing their sacred gears and talents, she would approach them and save them from execution after they had been captured.

They are based on their Fate counterparts, but with Marry being less child size. Their talents reflect the fate fighting styles with the Sacred Gears being Oc's.

I thought Anne's Captain's Right would be interesting due to one probably underestimated by anyone who knew what it was because it's useless without a ship and ships aren't exactly useful outside of water nor powerful for those in the supernatural world, but then you give her a space ship and make gods tremble. This will be a Serafall and Azaroth exclusive, with the rest of the underworld having to deal with their trains.

Mary's Desires Compass is an upgraded version of Jack Sparrow's compass. It helps guide her on the seas and in battle. It is weaker than Anne's in overall combat potential, but Mary serves more as the ship's and Anne's protectors during battles.

And finally, Marie Antoinette.

Of course the French Revolution would bring many eyes over to it, I'm even going to say devils probably had a lot of fun during that mess and might have even been the reason being the many negative rumors of this version of Marie. So Sera who's in charge of foreign affairs kept a close eye and felt a lot of pity of the deposed Queen, so she saved her and once she realized that said ex-Queen had a sacred gear with great potential and they got along great together, she offered her pawn piece.

Now this Marie Antoinette was Fate based as well, so I adapted her Noble Pantasms as one Sacred Gear which creates and manipulates crystals and light. Her domain even buffs her 'subjects' (allies) and debuffs enemies. I then decided to give her great talent in 'sound magic' since that was kind of her main method of attack, finally making her become the first 'idol singer' for fun.

Anyway, big time skip as I try to move things closer to canon. I know this is a lot, but shit needs to happen.

Hope you still enjoyed.