บท 61: Chapter 9
In hindsight, letting Albedo plan the security measures for the angel summoning wasn't the brightest of ideas. The sixth-floor arena was filled to the brim with NPCs of all kinds, all ready to defend him. It seemed that the entire Great Tomb of Nazarick was there, which to be fair wasn't that much of an exaggeration considering every floor guardian possible was present, along with their elite entourages, among other entities.
Ainz stood in the middle of the arena, fighting off minor performance anxiety with his loyal consort by his side and the trusted bodyguard right behind him. Both of Tabula's daughters were adamant to be permitted to leap in harm's way should the need arise and there was nothing he could do to convince them otherwise. Best to let them have their way here.
The ritual itself wasn't a difficult one, any mage regardless of race could theoretically pull it off. As it went with the summoning of sentient creatures, all he had to do was to issue a call throughout the immaterial realms and provide either a suitable body, or enough energy to create one, and the ritual would do the rest. And there arose the first issue. To house a Metatron, the provided body needed to be above level eighty; otherwise, the angelic host would incinerate the provided mortal shell instantly by its mere presence and the summoning would fail.
As for the energy requirements to create one, the entirety of his mana pool wasn't enough despite his staggering stores and thus had spent a week filling up mana storage crystals, which were only recently synthesized by Tabula by using some of the rarest materials from the treasury. The upside was that they could be refilled continuously without any wear and tear, and served as extra mana batteries for such occasions. This was, in effect, their largest test run to date.
'I guess I should start.' Ainz extended his hand and flooded magical energies towards the ground, where golden glowing circles appeared one after another, rapidly rotating both clockwise and counterclockwise. The call was issued and now he had to wait for an angel to respond. There was a large chance no one would respond, considering that the success rate went down with each tier, and Metatrons were the most powerful angels.
To his surprise, that wasn't the case. The moment the gate towards the immaterial was opened, a presence appeared before him. Its shining, radiating energy was nearly too much to bear as even the borrowed abilities of his friends weren't enough to shield his undead frame completely as he felt the damage trickle in.
In a brilliant explosion of light, a figure of impossible geometric shapes, countless eyes, and forming wings appeared above him. The entirety of this being's attention was fixated on him. If not for his divinity, Ainz would have probably kneeled before the heavenly entity: that much of a presence the angel had.
Albedo stepped in front of him, raising her weapon and activating a shield, radiating agitation and perhaps even a little bit of fear. In the game, a Metatron angel was a group summon with very specific requirements to be called upon and was a devastating weapon to unleash upon enemies, and was a favored tactic to take on heteromorphs, particularly high-tier undead such as him. The sheer fact that Ainz could even call upon it alone was a testament to his growing power from the game's constraints.
{ Albedo, I am fine. Let me finish the ritual. } Ainz tapped her shoulder.
{ But this creature is already harming you! } She protested. The holy energies filling the air were growing more potent by the moment. Buku had deployed her defensive abilities to protect the onlookers, shielding them all. Many would have perished if she hadn't.
{ It was to be expected. I need to finish the summoning and order the angel to cancel its aura. } Ainz gently pushed her aside and started to pour out massive amounts of mana to give the angel a physical form, depleting the surrounding mana crystals in rapid succession.
The succubus reluctantly did as told and once again took position by his side, holding her bardiche high as a clear warning to the summon.
A humanoid figure made out of pure light soon took shape, hovering just above the ground. Its slender feminine figure started to become more human-like as pieces of polished plate armor appeared on the body just before the skin was formed, glowing gold and white. As the last pieces of metal latched onto the angel's body, only the head was left uncovered while countless wings sprouted from her back, overlapping one another. Finally, a helmet appeared in the left hand of the fair-skinned woman and a sword made out of intense flame in her right hand. Her glowing golden eyes were firmly set on him.
As Albedo was about to step in front of Ainz, the angel dropped to one knee, lowering her head, her golden hair now masking her face, and stabbed her sword into the sandy ground.
Ainz expected the weapon to turn the sand into molten glass considering the heat it radiated, but there was no visible damage.
The angel turned off her aura and folded all her wings as she spoke with a voice that seemed to pierce the soul. "You have called and I have come to serve you, my God. Your will is absolute."
"I see. I have a few questions." Ainz stepped forward, displaying his full authority.
"Will you refuse my order if you perceive it to be evil by nature?" He asked the question he had asked all sentient angels. Many had expressed that they were unable to follow evil orders, although they wouldn't retaliate against him if he did order them to. They were just unable to perform the action and would remain where they were.
"What is good or evil, just or unjust is for you to decide, my Lord, not me. My task is to execute your will upon this world and all others you may reign over. I am but a hand that moves according to my master's wishes, I am but a voice that carries the master's word." The angel replied, her voice still too powerful to his liking.
"Are you capable of limiting your presence? I'm afraid not everyone in my care would be able to withstand your voice or aura." Ainz questioned, blessing the fact he didn't have eardrums at the moment, as even Albedo winced a bit whenever the angel spoke.
"Yes. I can hide my presence to be no different than a mortal creature." Her tone grew softer and quieter.
"This is much better. Keep in mind your power when interacting with others dwelling in Nazarick. Lastly, do you have a name or should I address you as a Metatron?"
"Eleleth, my Lord," The Metatron answered.
"Now then, Eleleth, you may rise and get familiar with the great Tomb of Nazarick. Soon I will have tasks to give you. Do you have any questions?" Ainz continued.
It was necessary to avoid any misunderstandings from the get-go. Eleleth, even to his rough estimate, was second only to Rubedo when it came to raw power and thus could pose a great danger to anyone else who had a conflict with her. She could wipe the floor with most of Nazarick unless Rubedo or a God got involved, including the floor Guardians.
"Would you permit me to bring my legions into this world? Once my new body stabilizes, I can summon up to seventy legions of my angels. My armies are ready to carry out your will, and are eagerly awaiting beyond the veil of the immaterial plane." She slowly stood up and dematerialized her flaming sword.
'If I remember correctly from Tabula's lectures, one legion is six thousand angels. That means she can summon up to four hundred and twenty thousand angels on her own. Nazarick would have to go on full lockdown if such a force rebelled. Then again, it also could serve as an additional boost to our forces if applied correctly, a very strong and much-needed boost. The best approach would be to start slow and see how it goes, I think. If I understand correctly, Eleleth cannot rebel against me as her summoner, and in theory, wouldn't be able to give harmful orders to her forces.'
One thing that separated angels from demons according to their testimonies was that angels had next to no free will, and lacked any independent ambition. If they became ambitious, they would quickly fall from grace, becoming fallen angels.
"You will be permitted to summon them, but we will start slowly with one legion at a time," Ainz answered.
"Understood. I also wish to grant you an item of mine to wield my power directly." She extended her hand and materialized a golden ring in the palm of her plate glove.
Ainz shot Albedo a glance while he walked up to Eleleth and took the small item from her palm. He put it on his left pinkie as it was one of the last fingers that didn't have two rings already. The ring seemingly granted him a holy shield and resurrection abilities on top of a few devastating holy-based attacks, although he already knew most of them. The rest he would have to test out later.
For now, he would let Eleleth explore the Tomb and familiarize herself with her new home under his supervision, and then she would help him train and harass the Slane Theocracy.
'I need a nap. Summoning a Metatron has drained all my mana.' He mused as the crowds slowly dispersed and he stood, exhausted.
<X>
Being exposed to Eleleth's aura, even if she wasn't his sparring partner, proved immensely beneficial for him. Ainz had gained seven levels in just one day and had nearly eliminated his natural weakness towards both holy and fire affinities. It still hurt like hell to be in the presence of his current most powerful summon or her weapon, without the proper protection, but the pain was worth it as his resistance levels ticked up by the hour.
Such tremendous progress wasn't meant to last, as the time between each level up for his resistances grew each time his level increased. On the plus side, eliminating his weaknesses was such a tremendous boon that there was a comprehensible chance that with proper training he would become nearly unkillable to any force under a God.
The next step of using Eleleth productively was to lend her to Ulbert to increase pressure on Slane, and, hopefully, make them do something stupid and use it to gain favors with neighboring countries surrounding them. The cryptic warnings Lilith had provided were enough reason to be more cautious and not openly conquer the nearest kingdoms. Luckily, he could leave political scheming to Ulber and thus put all his attention on personal growth while ensuring that no rogue factions formed within Nazarick.
With each God starting to embrace their role and gather followers, it was inevitable that some disagreements arose between particularly fanatical followers. He would need to be the arbiter and resolve things without major schisms occurring, and for now, that was usually solved by having their respective Gods publicly reach an agreement, but that couldn't last for long.
Today Ainz stood in the sixth-floor arena with Eleleth and Rubedo, ready for the next set of tests. As usual, the elven twins observed the ongoing test eagerly, silently watching from the patron area. They hadn't had much to do, and what work they did have they eagerly tore through them in order to watch him.
Now that his angelic summon was familiar with Nazarick and its power structure, she was ready to bring in the first of her legions into the material world. After some inspection, Ainz concluded that her summoning skills were vastly superior to even Aura's, who was the beastmaster and the overall summoner type among the floor guardians. Eleleth could fully materialize thousands of angels with one spell, but to her admittance, she would need to spend all her mana reserves in the process. This would lead her to not being close to her full fighting power for at least a week, but an entire flying army at the ready was a decent tradeoff, especially with the level of angels at her command.
Ulbert was getting impatient and was pestering Ainz about letting him use angels. The Demon God, as it turns out, was incapable of summoning angels with any consistency, and the few low-tier ones who had responded automatically became fallen ones the moment he did summon them no matter what he tried.
It still was a mystery why Ainz had such relative resounding success but the fair guess was that he, representing not only death but life as well, played a major role in it. What role was unknown, however.
"I am ready to start. Please shield yourself, master." Eleleth declared as her aura began to fill the sixth floor. At least there was no need to worry about her harming anyone as there were no demons or undead present. Aura and Mare had proven to be mostly indifferent to Eleleth's unrestricted presence, albeit annoyed by how bright she shined when fully displaying her power as any living being would.
"You can start. I barely feel any pain now," Ainz replied, curiously watching her efforts in hopes of learning more about summoning. One thing he found peculiar was that the always obsessively curious Tabula had declined any opportunity to work with Eleleth, stating he personally disliked high-tier angels and saw no point in interacting with them. But magic was magic, and as a mage, he had to learn as much as possible.
Eleleth spread her arms as an enormous golden door appeared before her, slowly opening and gradually emitting a blinding light that engulfed the whole arena.
'I spoke too soon. This hurts like hell. No choice but to ride it out while I still have mana and can cast negative energy on myself.' Ainz once again blessed his skeletal frame's lack of expression as he stared at what he assumed were the gates to some sort of heavenly realm, from which hordes of angels now poured out.
The first wave was the regular angels that were nearly useless unless used in large numbers, typical of most mortal depictions. The next were archangels, somewhat usable fighting forces, and then principalities followed.
The pain grew more intense as time went on, and Ainz glanced down, noticing his hands starting to blacken as if slowly turned into charcoal. To not distract Eleleth from her task, he cast a silent [Negative Blast] targeted at himself, which worked as a healing spell for the undead.
The opposite energies clashed as his hands started to heal and blacken, fighting for dominance. As more and more angels poured through, assuming orderly lines in the sky, he continued to cast the spell [Negative Blast], gradually raising its intensity.
Then a strange feeling arose within him, for the briefest of moments both energies clashed together in a perfect union, but instead of canceling each other out, they became more than the sum of their parts, not only instantly fully healing him, but boosting his defenses to new heights. The strange but almost euphoric feeling faded, but the defensive shield thinly veiled around each of his bones stayed for quite a while.
'What was that? It felt… I need to repeat it somehow. This shouldn't be possible.' The only explanation he could come up with was that he managed to tap into his divine nature by accident, and experienced what it truly meant to be a God for the briefest of moments. The base ingredients were easily replicable. He needed to cast a similar gate to the one he was staring into, and then use negative energy in tandem with it. With Eleleth's ring on his finger, he could cast the same summoning spell, although it likely would not bring forth the angels since he didn't have any legions under his name as the Metatron did, but that wasn't necessary. And he could use more mana crystals to perform the summoning, giving him more than enough wiggle room to cast [Negative Blast] upon himself in the process.
'I'll practice this during the night so Albedo doesn't have to worry,' he decided while observing the last angels arriving. After virtues, a few dozen dominions came through, and the final ones were six seraphim, with the last one glowing brighter than the rest. This, no doubt, was the commander of this individual legion, the second-in-command just below the Metatron.
"It is done. The first legion is ready to serve you, my Lord." Eleleth declared, her breath growing heavy and ragged.
"Hmm, it would be somewhat impractical if we kept the entire legion within the Nazarick," Ainz commented.
"I can station them above clouds permanently and, if materials are provided, they can build citadels in strategic locations. What are your orders?" Eleleth inquired.
"Take a rest to regain at least some of your mana and then report to Ulbert. He will give you the targets to strike. Meanwhile, you can station your army above Nazarick, but make sure they are not easily visible." Ainz ordered and opened a gate to the outside world, about two kilometers above Nazarick's entrance.
The angels would hover in the air when not on missions for now. The suggestion to let them construct their citadels was decent, but he needed to consult Albedo on logistics and Tabula on intelligence gathering first.
Editing by aidan_lo.
Proofreading by fvvck, Squid, clagan, x4x, IAMTHEPLOKOKIOPO, aidan_lo, and LionLover
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