Confession

"Well, to be honest, I did not want to help Loki, but a silver-haired devil approached me with the ingredients I required to save the children of this village" Li Tieguai began to explain his side of the story, apparently this Silver Haired devil was part of a Mage organisation and that was the reason Tieguai did not suspect him at first.

'To think it would be the magician group of Khaos Brigade that was responsible for this area' Masaru thought as he finally figured out more or less who was or part of the reason that this land was in turmoil.

Li Tieguai continued to explain how he and the devil started to work together in a secret route to safely allow someone to pass through China without alerting the Chinese mythology. At first, Tieguai was quite eager to help to get the ingredients but the Devil never brought it even though they met three times,

"On the fourth time we met, I refused to help and it was only then when the Devil handed over the ingredients for me but never asked for my help again" Tieguai spoke as he took a sip of his tea,

Despite the plans the devil made to to the best of his abilities the route was still exposed although luckily right at the moment Loki left, the gods immediately began to launch investigations to interrogate the devil.

However, it was thanks to Azure Dragon, Meng Zhang and Suzaku, Lin Guang that the gods stopped questioning him. The reason being that the deed was done and no harm was initially brought to the country.

Masaru and Thor were both sitting opposite the old man listening to his story, during their conversation Masaru was using the grimoire to cast several spells he never used before. It was a special kind of lie detection spell targetted at God Class experts, since it was only a detection spell even a low-class God could use it.

Although this spell comes with a restriction, the person was the target of this spell has to consent to this to allow the magical energy to enter his body. Masaru who heard the story could only sigh, rubbing his forehead wondering just how he should go forward with this.

"How is it?" Thor asked Masaru since he knew that Masaru used that special kind of magic so it was faster to confirm with Masaru directly, he was feeling sympathy for the old man who was willing to tread the path of evil for the sake of others happiness but this was a problem that could have harmed even more if something unexpected happened.

Masaru nodded with a wry smile, he glanced straight into Thor's eyes "Truth, all of it" Masaru answered as he took a deep breath before asking, "Old man, do you have any idea what the man's identity is?"

Li Tieguai glances at Masaru as he already expected this question, even he himself had investigated that Devil although he never had proof. "You should keep it to yourself if you know what is best for you and your country, however, I suspect this Devil comes from the extinct Lucifige Family"

Thor knew of Lucifige because of Sirzech's wife was from that clan but Masaru understood more, Masaru was shivering while having a cold sweat at just how much this tiny fraction of information could cause. Although he would not be heavily impacted by this, however, others will.

'If this is true those old coots from the Council will definitely try to use this information to suppress Sirzech! They are waiting for such a chance ever since I personally dealt with them myself, so I will enter their crosshair once they were done with him. I better make sure this information is contained' Masaru thought as he turned to look at Thor and Li Tieguai,

"This information stays between us, not a word to anyone. Got it?" Masaru spoke sternly causing Thor to flinch out of surprise as he never knew this kid could have such a chance in character, Li Tieguai nodded while caressing his beard since he already understood the meaning behind Masaru's words.

'This kid already figured out what the problem would be if this were to be made public' Li Tieguai thought , he felt quite respectful at how fast calculative Masaru could be,

"How certain are you of this?" Masaru asked Li Tieguai,

"Because I met their ancestor once, the first head of the Lucifige Family, his looks resembles that old man almost perfectly. Not to mention their unique demonic energy signature" Li Tiegaui explained, he was most confident that it was the truth since he would not mistake that unique demonic energy signature for anything else.

Masaru nodded when he heard Tieguai's words, after that the three of them talked more about how Loki managed to escape but it was then they learnt it was done by a different group composed of mostly Devils who called themselves Qlippoth, and Mages exiled from the Magic Association.

After that Masaru and Thor spent the day together following Li Tieguai around the village he was protecting, seeing the kids Masaru and Thor could understand why this old man would do what he did.

The two of them decided not to pursue this matter any longer since they already have some leads to work on, it was later that night a messenger came to Masaru to deliver a letter written by Wang Long in regards to the Ritual that will be taking place soon.

"It appears both Lin Guang and Meng Zhang are getting impatient, I will be heading for Beijing. I should arrive a day before the Ritual will begin, are you coming?" Masaru asked,

Thor who shook his head, "I will be staying here for another day to talk some business transactions my old man would want me to do, and also get that old man to fight me"

Hearing Thor's words Masaru almost tripped under his own feet looking at Thor with Surprise. 'Has Odin gone senile? Leaving this meathead to do business!?'

Masaru had to use his hand to close his jaw from how completely shocked he was at this news.

>\/<

"So you came to visit me to see if Vali Contacted me huh?" Azazel was currently reading the calculated reports on Masaru's sacred gear since he took a unique interest in this Sacred that follows a different path of evolution.

"Yes, right now Masaru is concerned about the Hero Faction's sudden silence. According to him Cao Cao will make his move to regain his honour, but they have been abnormally silent" Roygun answered Azazel

Azazel sighed as he places the papers on the table, "He has indeed contacted me but"

He glances at the door that was closed before casting a silent barrier to prevent outside people from listening in, "He wants Ophis to meet Issei... But Ophis appears to be more intrigued to meet Masaru, do you two girls have any idea of why?"

Azazel's words were close to napalm bombs going off their heads as Shirone and Roygun were completely shocked out of their minds, Kuroka, however, was smiling as if she expected this.

Roygun was surprised to see Kuroka was not shocked by this news as meeting Ophis is not something that people can meet anytime they wish, catching Ophis's attention meant something deeper.

"Kuroka?" Roygun called out to Kuroka,

Kuroka turned her sight to Roygun when she heard her call, she immediately knew what it was about so she answered "It's only natural that Ma-nyan would get her attention, while I was working together with Vali-nyan and the team she had been asking many questions about Masaru"

Azazel nodded with sparkly eyes as he intently listened to Kuroka who continued, "She is quite interested in the fact that Ma-nyan is turning into something similar to her"

Kuroka muttered as she herself could not understand what this meant but Azazel could, the Kouryuu Sacred Gear was meant to be sealed and never to be revealed to the world had somehow emerged with a host. And this host was already on the path to unseal it completely.

He went to his table pulling out an old journal as he flips the pages, [The day the Koyryuu fully awakens is when the war for Survival will take place... ### ### ### ### Red and White stars ### ### ### Yellow Center with Infinity ### ### ### ### Save ##### ### ### ### Doom]

Most of the words were faded from old age, however, from this notebook it could clearly be seen that dragons would rise to face against a catastrophe. And from this he could feel instinctively that it regarded the entire world.

"Well if we will find out if we allow them to meet won't we?" Azazel spoke as he closes the book, 'It was said that the Kouryuu was a Dragon God above all dragons within China... Perhaps it is because it's legend is comparable to the Ouroboros, that Ophis...'

He shook his head not wanting to think about it any further because if that was true then it will not be long before Ophis joins the side of the Devils. "As for Vali, he spoke about the Hero faction were preparing for something shady. He only has a keyword that is the core of their operation, the Dragon Slayer" He answered Roygun's question as well.

"Big sis, is Ophis...." Shirone turns to look at her older sister Kuroka who was smirking, seeing this Shirone shook her head thinking that she just gained a rival for her lap territory. 'How troublesome nya!'

>\/<

"I can't have you go meet them Ulrika, not now" Diana spoke sternly at Ulrika, Akeno and Ingvild.

"Okay we will not mother" Ulrika was more worried to agitate Diana while she was pregnant and chose to leave the mission aside for the safety of Masaru's family, seeing this Diana nodded with a satisfied smile as the four of them teleported away from the borders that led to the territories of the Grim Reapers.

"How have you known we would be here mother?" Ingvild asked as she walked closer to Diana to make sure she will not stumble and hurt herself,

"Masaru contacted Circe to stop you, girls, naturally I, his mother will always know what is going on even if he tries his best not to disturb me. Masaru found some disturbing pieces of information about Hades, there is no longer need for you girls to head there as he will be meeting Samsara who is also a God of Death to get the information from her instead." Diana explained,

The three girls nodded their heads reluctantly as they entered the Manor,

"Now then Ulrika, tell me why is Masaru hiding his secret Organisation from me?" Diana asked as she took her seat, hearing this question the three girls shivered as they were certain that there was no way it should have been leaked so easily.

Diana smiled "No need to worry, only me knows about this. As for how I came to know about it, only a mother can understand a mother's worries."

Ulrika, Akeno and Ingvild took their seats and started to tell Diana about Hiei which Masaru started to work from the dark, hearing the manner how Masaru started the organisation did not make Diana flinch at all.

The three of them rotated as each of them explained a part all trying to emphasize that Masaru was trying to do this to protect his family, and the last thing they wanted was for Diana to misunderstand his intentions.

Diana did not say a thing as she listened to the girls, this placed heavier stress on the girls as they could not figure out how she was feeling. It was a moment of awkward silence, Diana stood up making the three girls flinched before she went over pulling the three of them into a firm embrace.

"You stupid girls, you think I would hate my son because of this. Even that little fool should have told me at least instead of keeping it in" Diana muttered causing the three girls to sob a little out of relief.

After things have calmed down Diana called over all of Masaru's girls to have a secret meeting, it was shocking for the girls who arrived in groups to realize their secret was discovered by Diana through a mysterious informant.

It made them wary thinking others could do the same but Diana assured them that no one can infiltrate their secrets as she was simply lucky.

Angelica, Everest, Sakura, And Stephani could not come since they left for the Amazon Forest, where the entrance to the Dark Elf Village was located at.

Yui and Ichika went to make tea for everyone, Jeanne stood guard since she noticed there was not much for her to do while they waited for the last four people to arrive, Sona arrived shortly afterwards seeing how their secret was known by Diana she felt a bit guilty. And finally Roygun, Kuroka and Shirone were the last to arrive.

With everyone here and the tea was served Diana smiled brightly "I am proud of you girls, it appears my training I gave each of you have finally paid off"

The girls glanced at Diana feeling confused why she would say she was proud of them keeping secrets, but Diana continued "I was still concerned about Masaru's safety, so I started to monitor you girls through an informant who made contact with me at the beginning."

Diana continued, "We kept monitoring you all till the both of us were convinced that you girls could provide us with proof that you would place Masaru above all else even though you all swore the Kiss Vow with him. It may be cruel to you girls, but Masaru is extremely important to me"

Diana took a sip of her glass of orange juice before she explains, "I will now share a secret with you girls of my own, and you can't tell this to Masaru unless he finds it out himself. The secret informant is the Spellbook within Masaru, it has made contact the day I first met Masaru. Through it, I have learnt a lot of things about Masaru"

'It is also why I cherish him, he suffered enough' She thought before explaining further, "With the aid of the Spellbook, I have brought Angelica here and made Diehauser arrange with Tanning for Everest to meet Masaru. It is difficult to explain, however, each one of you girls were already fated to be with Masaru but both I and the spellbook believed it was for the best to have you all meet sooner"

"That was why you all met in such a rushed fashion, only by being together would all you grow stronger exceptionally fast. Because your soul's aid one another" Diana explained, 'And aid Masaru's soul in healing, thankfully it was complete'

The girls sat still unable to move from how crazy this story was sounding, but Diana continued "And the training I had you girls undergo, you all already understand what it was for. It was all to prepare you girls, since you chose to follow Masaru it means you share his fate. You will face enemies unseen by others, your life is to live and die with him."

Diana glances at the girls, "Any questions?"

"Although I can understand mostly, however, if I were to hear this before I fell for Masaru. I would have been repulsed, why explaining it all now?" Yui asked since she understood such question won't easily be asked by the other girls, she chose to be the one to ask.

"As you all know, I am pregnant. I won't be able to protect Masaru from the shadows anymore, in fact, he would scold me if he knew I did. Which is why I spoke with the spellbook and we felt it was finally time to hand the task over to you girls, to protect Masaru's heart in our place" Diana said with a smile,

"You can count on me!" Ichika said as she tapped her chest, her maid uniform that never changed was the evidence of her pledge to serve Masaru.

"I- I too will do my best" Ingvild said,

"Fufu, even if it was arranged. I will still choose him as my one and only, for he reunited my family for my sake" Akeno said with a bright smile,

"Nya! Big Brother is always big brother for Shirone!" Shirone said while pumping up her fist, her blood has been boiling since Diana spoke.

"I look forward to making babies with Ma-nyan" Kuroka said while licking her lips,

"Master has picked me up from my post as a Border Town Governor, he entrusted me with many important things which displayed his trust in me. And I will continue to live up to his expectations" Ulrika said with a confident look,

"He picked me up and asked me to fight at his side, I swore to be his knight and I will continue to do so!" Jeanne answered with a ferocious smile, feeling she had to get him to spar with her once more.

Yui smiled, "He saved my life, gave me a family. If I let go of him then won't I lose more?" She giggled,

Stephani glanced left and right blushing deep red, "H-He..."

Akeno smiled teasingly, she gently pinched Stephani's bum "KYAA!!!"

Everyone giggled allowing Stephani to calm down, she took a deep breath. "Masaru is my hero, my mother would always tell me of stories about Heroes. And how he saved me was like that of a hero, I have already gave my all to him and would live solely for him"

"Despite being the adult here, he still accepted me. Including my fetish" Roygun muttered with a smile, she was not ashamed to admit it. She was a Shota-con! "But he did a lot of things for me, for us, for the family. I can only live with such a man whom I have acknowledged"

Diana smiled while attentively listening to each of the girl's declaration, for them to do it before she was no different from promising themselves to him. However, it was different from the Kiss Prayer or promise between them and Masaru. Because, should they harm him in any way. Diana would really consider ending their lives, that was the serious vibe Diana gave them.

"There is another thing you girls have to understand, and it's the most important thing Masaru CAN'T know," Diana said while looking at the girls with a teasing smile, "The spellbook, the one who hosts it. Is the true first wife"

"WHAT!?" The girls screamed out loud, this was something they never expected. Even Diana who knew a few things more, like how the Spellbook mind-controlled a human and manipulated it remotely to copulate with Diehauser for the sake of creating a body for Masaru. All the book was concerned of was to control a potential mother vessel to host her beloved. [1]

"So if you can trust me, then you can trust it. The spellbook loves Masaru deeply for a reason, I can't and won't delve on this matter. So I hope you girls can prepare to accept this when the time comes" Diana answered with a wry smile, even she felt confused at the start but chose to simply let nature take its course.

"Well, one more, or twenty more. As long as she can accept us, we will accept her. Since we all love Masaru, we can share him" Akeno said while everyone in the group nodded in agreement.

"But Mother, could you tell us more about Masaru?" Akeno asked feeling excited, if she could know more of Masaru's past she might discover some of his fetishes.

"That is something we can talk about in the future (AN: Future Book!)..." Diana thought for a moment and answered,

"However, I can tell you, girls, another surprise that Masaru still does not know of," Diana said while the girls huddled closer to her, when they heard what it was the girls screamed in excitement while sharing the happy atmosphere with Diana.

Diana who glanced at the girls nodded with a smile, 'I'm glad it all worked out, Tess'

>\/<

Meanwhile, in China. After settling the problem with Li Tieguai, Masaru left for Longbai where he had a drink with Wang Long to discuss the upcoming Ritual. Through Wang long Masaru was warned to be on the lookout since even he was suspicious at how cooperative Meng Zhang and Lin Guang was, they even began to spread rumours that Masaru wanted to keep Byakko to himself in hopes to disrupt the faction.

Luckily, He Xiangu and Wang Long along with Pangu already vouched for Masaru, so the people settled down. However, it was due to that they had to ask Masaru to come even though it was a trap. Masaru naturally agreed, it appears that Li Tieguai did not spread the truth of his sacred gear nor that his strength managed to level up.

So he was finally ready, to meet Meng Zhang and Lin Guang head on.

"Zhou Hai, how long before we reach Beijing?" Masaru asked his fatty driver,

"It will not take long boss! Another chapter... No another hour!" Zhou Hai corrected himself as he did not want his boss to discover he was secretly reading Webnovel with a smile on his face.

'Heh, I wonder what my boss would say that I wrote a novel about him!?' Zhao Hai thought,

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Origin of the book

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The Root, or Origin is in a special space linked with every plane where the planes connected to it would draw out specific energy from the source, it was also where the Creation, Destruction and Chaos originated from.

Where the Root itself came from is a mystery, however, at some point in time an anomaly occurred as a part of this Origin was cut off from the source.

Unlike how the source energy was being absorbed by the planes connected to it, this part was like a miniature Origin that somehow began to move around away from its main body.

Because the separation was done, the small part could not return to the origin despite all of its efforts. So it was dragged along the flow of space, it was during the time it found a tear within space that it rushed into it hoping that it could reunite with its main body, however, it ended up in an entire new world.

For years, it took the energy and a piece of the soul of every living being within the world, slowly it expanded and continued towards space. This process took only half at the moment it knew by instinct it absorbed enough souls, slowly time tick by and it began to develop its own sentience.

Gaining the knowledge from the memories it collected from every living being, it came to understand how it could use its own energy to move around. With the aid of the memories, it created a spell for itself to move along the Time Axis where it can be in the Past, Present and Future at the same time.

Through that it came in touch with a variety of artefacts, most of the things people believed to be a miracle were in fact because the energy required for the said miracle came from Origin itself.

The small piece of Origin continued to develop absorbing more and more knowledge, and through that, it began to develop in what Magicians later called it the Akashic Record which contained all the information about Life and Death along with everything else.

It took on the form of a book hanging on the branch of the tree, before it will transform into its ideal form which was a humanoid form. But it was discovered by the Biblical God.

God researched this book and created the Fruit of Forbidden Knowledge through the knowledge he gained from the book, fearing that others might covet it God had Adam and Eve to guard it while forbidden them to eat it for themselves.

Realized the potential of this book, God became greedy and thus he started to create the angels that would become part of his army. The more he delved into the book, the more his desires emerged. The idea of transcending to a higher plane will give me more power over his faction and no longer need to be wary of the Ancient ones who had destructive impulses and wanted to destroy the world.

Lucifer knew of God's plan to ascend, he loved his god so much and did not want to lose him that he used his brother Samael to take on the form of a snake and convince Eve to eat the apple.

Neither God nor Samael nor Lucifer would have known that when Eve ate the fruit she had a transformation turning into a forbidden creature known as a Devil.

Angry at what had happened, God changed Eve's name to Lilith while falsifying information to prevent this incident from staining the reputation of heaven.

God cast Eve who is now named Lilith into the Underworld where the demons were, God poured all his hatred towards Dragons and Snakes causing Samael to transform into a Half Angel and Half dragon but it did not end there.

God decreed for Samael to become a fallen before he was cast in the depths of Cocytus for a very very long time. Through Lilith and Lucifer who soon followed, the two of them copulated and gave birth to devils that had different kinds of abilities which originated from Lilith who was influenced by the power the forbidden fruit contained.

God who realized that this book was dangerous and could potentially kill him, he handed it over to Solomon his apostle who was acting as a spy within the army of the Ancient ones. With the aid of the book, Solomon gained the ability to summon angels of God as well as the Devils birthed by Lillith and commanded them in his fight.

After a long time, the book was free of Solomon under unknown circumstances where it came in touch with plenty of things. Origin transformed itself into a spiritual parasite and started to enter the bodies of Geniuses, Gods and Devils as it began to learn everything they could do with its energy, the more it went through people the more the form of Origin began to solidify.. After who knows how many times the grimoire shifted between Past, Present and future.

Afterwards, it no longer possessed anyone but instead flow along the passage of time. It was then a genius created a special incantation which summons the origin to possess the caster and grant them abilities far greater than their own, even Nuwa summoned the Grimoire who taught her the method to save the humans. Many famous mages came in contract with Origin who had all the knowledge about magic, alchemy, etc. Such as Merlin.

That was until, the last caster summoned the book and made it only to bash itself into a peculiar cave wall leaving behind words written in many different languages, from Gods to Dragons to Fairies, until human.

Despite many years past, no one could decipher the book. That was until a young girl who desired power to eat something delicious miraculously deciphered the wall, becoming the first true host of the Grimoire.

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Author Note:

[1] - This is a spoiler of one of my upcoming books, which would be semi-original. No more information than that, thanks.