King of Babylon

God's Island.

-Upper Yard.

Amid a complex of ancient Greek-style buildings, a blonde girl walked up the massive white stone steps before the temple's main hall. Thanks to someone's peculiar tastes, her outfit was clearly modeled on the Priestess's clothes from Goblin Slayer.

Knights stood at regular intervals along both sides of the steps leading to an audience with God. Their gazes inevitably fell on the girl, their expressions complicated and tinged with confusion.

It was not because they considered her an intruder or thought she was some Bronze Saint Seiya here to fight her way through... though they had no idea what sort of experts these Saint Seiya their lord spoke of were, or whether they would dare take on their Holy Knights.

The answer was that their great God had recently appointed her his personal attendant.

The problem was that God's previous personal attendant was Her Highness Lilith, the Black-Winged Arbiter now known as [God's Left Hand].

Her standing was only slightly below that of Her Highness Isabella, the White-Winged Regent known as [God's Right Hand].

In other words, Her Highness Lilith was the third most important person in Babylon, the Divine Kingdom.

These temple guards were all members of the Divine Soldier Knights. Having witnessed God's glory back when he was still the Holy Child of the Millennium, before his awakening, they knew this very well.

Ever since the "Awakening of God" a year ago, when God had specially promoted Her Highness Lilith to arbiter, the position of his personal attendant had remained vacant.

Against that backdrop, the guards could not fathom why this perfectly ordinary girl... all right, she was certainly beautiful, but there were still a few other girls whose beauty was on a similar level.

Conis had no attention to spare for the knights' puzzled looks. She was the most anxious person there. Before this, she had only beheld God's majesty from afar. She had never interacted with him, and her daily life consisted of playing the harp at Angel Beach and making sweets at home. Her routine was simple.

"...Why, exactly?"

Conis had no ill feelings toward God, but she still feared him.

That inevitably brought to mind the Babylon Unification War, which had brought four hundred years of holy war to a definitive end a year ago.

It was called a "war," but in truth, almost no one had been killed or injured. Whether the people of Angel Island or the Shandians, all they could do before that overwhelming majesty was surrender unconditionally.

The days they had taken for granted came to an abrupt end that day.

Without warning, something enormous appeared floating in the distant sky. As it drew closer, the people of Angel Island and the Shandians finally saw what it was: another Sky Island!

What tremendous power could move a Sky Island a full size larger than Angel Island? Conis was not clear on what happened afterward. All she saw was an orange flash that seemed to cleave the sky, proclaiming the arrival of a new age with a terrifying roar.

It had all begun without her knowing anything and ended before she even realized it. All she could do was stand there in a daze before the utterly abrupt turn of events-just as she did today.

Conis finally entered the ancient Greek-style temple.

She had grown up on Angel Island, and the previous God, Gan Fall, had allowed its people to live on God's Island, Upper Yard. Even so, she had never visited the temple.

Guided by a nun, she passed through the temple's corridors and arrived before a door deep inside. When the nun bowed her head to her, Conis knew she would probably be facing God in another moment.

The senior knight guarding the entrance pulled open the enormous doors, and she nervously stepped into what was said to be God's living quarters.

Unlike the other areas she had passed through, strange blue-white light sources illuminated the path between the stone pillars.

In this space, gravity-defying bookshelves covered not only the walls, but even the ceiling. Countless faint lights floating in the air and shelves dozens of meters long formed a labyrinthine space filled with a fantastical atmosphere.

Were these really living quarters?

With that question in mind, Conis walked through the imposing ranks of books. As she passed an enormous bookshelf, a beam of light suddenly shone down. Her gaze followed it toward its source-and her mind froze.

-Because she had seen [God].

He sat at ease on the steps beside an ancient bookshelf, his enormous wings glowing faintly as they hung naturally like curtains. Whenever the white feathers swayed, they refracted the light like prisms, looking for all the world like a rainbow.

His entire being radiated an overwhelming presence that made people afraid to look directly at him.

He wore a pure white himation that left one shoulder exposed. He resembled a distinguished scholar, a saint with a dignified face, and, above all, a young man of unsurpassable beauty.

A blue-white halo hovered above his faintly shining golden hair, while his inhuman eyes, bright and crimson as blood, radiated a mysterious light that commanded awe without anger.

His divine, radiant majesty could have made even a sky full of stars and the moon pale in comparison.

The lounge area in the living quarters-

"Hmm... so, Sephi... what exactly didst thou do?"

Through her haze, Conis seemed to hear a clear, pure voice like a flowing stream, though its wording was rather odd. She tried to open her eyes, but failed several times... her whole body was weak, and she could not get up no matter how she tried.

"I don't know either. Lily told me she'd be reporting for duty today, but she fainted the moment she saw me."

Sephiroth, who was leafing through technical documents at his desk, had not expected Conis to be so mentally fragile. He really had done nothing, and had not even had time to speak... all he could do was carry her unconscious body to the sofa in the lounge.

As a result, Isabella, who had come looking for him, had mistakenly assumed he was planning some forbidden sort of play.

"...Dost thou not think that thy 'angel form' is truly splendid and magnificent? I would say it is only natural for an ordinary person with no training to faint upon facing it for the first time."

The angel form Isabella mentioned was actually a false identity Sephiroth had created after becoming a Rumble-Rumble Fruit user, using the electromagnetic theory of light: the Mythical Zoan Human-Human Fruit, Model: Angel.

Since light possessed wave-particle duality, its wave aspect could itself be regarded as electromagnetic waves within a certain frequency range.

Thus, Sephiroth could use electromagnetic forces to affect phenomena such as light propagation, interference, diffraction, scattering, and polarization, and even reproduce a range of interactions between light and matter to a certain extent.

Even without a natural light source, he could convert electrical light, mimicking the appearance and abilities stereotypically associated with a Mythical Zoan angel.

For example, to make the disguise more convincing, he formed a halo from electromagnetically confined electrical light and floated it above his head. The sacred blue glow was the phenomenon of [St. Elmo's Fire], produced by changes in electric charge, while his divine aura was the physical discomfort caused by an electromagnetic field pressing against an opponent's bioelectric field... and so on.

Beyond that, there were laser cannons and handheld lightsabers made from electromagnetically confined light. He could even improve the body's ability to heal itself by adjusting its electrical currents, disguising it as sacred healing.

Only Birka's middle and upper leadership knew he was a Logia Rumble-Rumble Fruit user. Ordinary Birkans believed he was the God described in their scriptures, and there was nothing strange about God being capable of anything.

The people of Angel Island and the Shandians had never seen him use his lightning powers. Ordinary people who had no concept of Devil Fruits regarded him as the "God of Light," while those who knew about Devil Fruits had all been fooled by his disguise.

"...Well, that was mainly because of the situation down in the Blue Sea."

After becoming a Rumble-Rumble Fruit user, Sephiroth had also shared some of the truth about this world with a very small number of Birka's senior figures, including Isabella and Lilith.

Isabella and Lilith had privately learned even more about the world's true nature, and they understood that having an extra identity as insurance was ultimately a good thing.

According to Sephiroth's development plans, the technology and facilities on the moon were something he absolutely had to acquire. But Birka simply lacked the metal resources needed to build a spacecraft.

As a result, an "invasion" of Upper Yard was put on the agenda. After all, that was the former site of the city of gold on Jaya Island.

For convenience, Sephiroth gathered all the metal reserves on Birka Island, turned them into metal powder, and scattered it throughout the island cloud beneath Birka Island. He further magnetized the entire island and brought it under his control.

-And then he drove Birka Island straight into their faces.

For the second time in four hundred years, the people of Angel Island and the Shandians witnessed a spectacle on that scale.

Under the theoretical brilliance of Sephiroth's belief in persuading others through reason, and the technical guidance of winning them over through virtue, four hundred years of holy war came to an end.

He simply pulled all three islands together and established a new nation called Heavenly Babylon.

"Hmm, but come to think of it, why didst thou directly order this girl to become thy attendant?"

At that, Conis slowly opened her eyes. She, too, desperately wanted to know why. Her blurred vision gradually cleared. Although she still could not speak or move, she could at least make out her surroundings.

Besides God, who sat on the opposite side of the table, the girl whose voice Conis had only been able to hear before now came into view.

The girl standing by the window seemed almost unreal, with an ethereal air far removed from worldly concerns. Her soft, light, enchanting golden hair was elegantly pinned up, while her green eyes brimmed with lively, flame-like vitality. Her slender body was clad in cloth armor incorporating numerous bridal-gown design elements...

"...Well, my Mantra is rather unusual. You could think of it as a kind of unstable, limited prophecy. To a certain extent, I can foresee a small amount of information about people who carry a relatively high 'weight of fate.'"

In a sense, Sephiroth was not lying. He could hardly say that he had acted on impulse because the collector's obsession he had developed playing gacha character-building games in his previous life had flared up.

"...Hmm, I thought thou wert simply un-sa-tis-fied. Are Lily and I not enough for thee~?"

"Hey, hey, don't make it sound like something's happened between us."

The two of them were childhood friends who had grown up together, and years of doing things together had made them thoroughly familiar with each other. For various reasons, however, nothing had actually happened.

"Thou dressed me as a bride ages ago... hmm, what a coward."

Seeing Isabella puff out her cheeks made Sephiroth want to reach out and poke them.

"You know you came of age this year, right?"

"Huh?"

"You know Lily said last year she'd wait for you so she wouldn't get a head start, right?"

"Hmm↘... what exactly art thou trying to say...?"

Sensing that something about the atmosphere had changed, Isabella went over and sat behind the sofa on the other side, showing only the upper half of her face. Her large eyes blinked as she watched Sephiroth gradually approach.

"And do you really know what being a bride means?"

She actually knew a little about the answer to Sephiroth's question, thanks to the novels for ladies Lilith had shown her. But she was naturally shy and really did not dare read anything that went too far. All that could be said was that she sort of understood.

"Indeed... I always felt something was missing..."

"Then I'll tell you now..."

Only Conis had missed her chance to speak, and she wished she could disappear on the spot...

If she had to put it into words-I shouldn't have to do another backflip, right?

-Content unsuitable for broadcast omitted.