"A long, long time ago, mankind fell to the evil kings. For hundreds of years, we lived as slaves and refugees, constantly fearing for our lives. Then, one day, the Lord reached down Her hand to us and pulled us out of that hell, creating a legendary city where everyone could live happily ever after. However, even today, the inhuman enemies still loom on the horizon, threatening our people and lives... Good essay. Good job, brat." Helen said with a small smile on her face.

The group of 8-years old children that had worked together to complete the essay cheered and immediately fell into chaos as they began goofing around.

Helen watched all of this with some sadness in her eyes. The brats in front of her were so innocent, and yet, they would likely have to soon be pulled away from their everyday lives, away from their families, to serve the Republic in some ways.

Helen still held her youthful looks even after years had passed, as a benefit of cultivating her path. Strengthening one's body and soul tended to slow down aging, allowing people to live a lot longer than otherwise.

"Alright, brats. I've just got a call from some important people, so I can't continue being your teacher for today. Be good to your parents, okay?" She asked in a loud voice. The children whined but still complied.

Their mysterious but kind teacher that came and went as she pleased was the absolute favorite of the children, as she was very good with them. She also brought treats almost every time, and that was a huge plus for their young minds.

With a smile that contained quite a bit of sadness, Helen vanished from the small school that had been established. She was currently on patrol around the newly established villages and towns, making sure nothing was wrong. The reason she'd been chosen for this job was...

Taking off her large coat, Helen revealed a pair of shining silver wings. Rustling them slightly to get rid of the stiffness, she prepared for take-off.

After a year spent fighting off the unorganized but still dangerous assaults of the allied inhumans, Helen had suddenly, and rather randomly, broken through. She'd become the first Angel, allowing her strength and magic to sear to a completely new level.

During Helen's advancement, she'd seen the divine power roar into the region, making sure nobody dared to disturb her. The enemies that she'd been fighting at the time, a couple of Royal Mages, had been exterminated by the Lord's will.

Afterward, a huge feast had been thrown through the entire republic, allowing for the wavering morale to soar as they gazed upon the legendary wings similar to those of the revered Lord. Of course, the wings were very useful, but the real deal was that Helen had touched upon the beginnings of divinity.

Upon completing her advancement, Sacred had directly taken Helen into her divine kingdom and thoroughly explained everything.

Although the paths were many and even Sacred couldn't know them all, she was still able to give Sacred a crash course on what being an angel represented.

She'd basically taken a step into divinity, a very, very small one, but one nonetheless. In theory, Helen was a step below a divine being, which was a realm below a demigod, which was at a realm below that of a True God. Sacred didn't explain what came after, for she too wasn't very sure.

Nonetheless, Helen had now become the second divine within the republic, even if a slight one. Sacred had happily confessed that she'd been grooming Helen through all the years exactly for this moment and that from now on, she would become the official right-hand woman of Sacred Light.

Since then, Helen had to work non-stop through the republic, taking a huge load of work off of Sacred's shoulders, not that Helen minded even one bit. Naturally, she'd also spent a lot of time exploring her new powers and abilities.

As an Angel, her body and soul had undergone a qualitative transformation. She could easily create earthquakes with a punch and cause even decent warriors to faint from the pressure of her killing intent.

If before, her status was only lower to that of the Sacred Light, her status now was akin to being directly ordered from Sacred Light herself. As the right-hand woman of the Lord, her word transcended the law.

Helen smiled slightly as she thought about the past. With her new abilities, she could now see a lot more than before, and not just in a mortal manner. Although nowhere near that of her Lord, she could begin to see from a divine point of view as well.

She could see the Lord's influence spreading outwards from the temples, nourishing the land and people. And with that, she became privy to the biggest secret of Sacred Light, the influence of her light upon her followers.

In truth, though, Helen had long since known, along with Mark and some of the other cream-of-the-top priests. And as priests themselves, they actually quite liked that, as in their minds, the Lord was everything.

As she flew around at sonic speeds, easily breaking past the sound barrier and beyond, she observed the population of the Golden Republic.

Through the years since the now-termed Human Rising, or Blitz, several large-scale renovations and colonization projects had been put into place. Furthermore, with the gigantic increase in living space and resources, a giant baby-boom had taken place, aided by the government and religious people.

Schools and teachers had been set up by the church in nearly every village and town, not to mention the larger cities. Furthermore, several child care acts had been put into effect, and maternity leave and support had also been put down. It was very expensive to maintain all of this, but wealth was hardly a problem considering the Sacred Lord was behind it all.

All of this, combined with a safe life under the protection of the Lord's influence, had allowed the population to absolutely skyrocket. The police and army had finally received the extremely needed manpower, with several very talented youths and children being offered training to become part of the Holy Warriors.

Attacks had also increased drastically along the newly forged borders between humans and the allied inhumans. However, with the humans completely focused on defense, along with the ability for the entire army to teleport to any region under attack, there had been no breakthrough.

In short, everything was going splendidly. There had been a lot of mistakes, casualties, and hick-ups on the way, but things were finally coming together as the Golden Republic's roots spread through the world.

In comparison, things on the inhuman side were falling apart. The alliance that had been hastily made between the three main races had been a tense one in the beginning, and as time passed and their losses mounted without any gains, things fell apart even further.

The demons had long since retreated back into their lands, having taken a lion's portion of the beastmen and remaining elven lands. Now, they were merely licking their wounds, and there had even been several diplomatic exchanges between demons and the Republic.

The elves and beastmen had been stuck in the middle and were now completely blocked off in the center of the continent with miniscule amounts of land and a ton of refugees from both the elves and beastmen.

As Helen contemplated everything, her body easily soared through the air, eyes roaming the lands. Suddenly, an uncomfortable sensation appeared in her chest, making Helen sigh.

This feeling came from the connection between her Lord and herself. When she'd been a mortal, it had been basically nonexistent, but as an angel, she could faintly feel her Lord's mood in a much deeper way than before. And, unfortunately, that bond had allowed her to see the true state of her Lord.

One day, she'd actually managed to catch her Lord when she was deep in thought and not paying attention. What she'd seen then and there had actually scared her shitless.

Her Lord had been crying. Actually f*cking crying. Well, it had been merely a couple of tears, but the pained grimace she'd held at the time had horrified Helen. Her lord was crying. The Lord that held the world on her shoulders.

They hadn't talked about the event ever since, with Sacred acting as if nothing had ever happened and Helen not daring probe into the event.

"Ugh..." Helen groaned in annoyance. With tired eyes, she looked upwards into the sky. "The Lord needs a vacation..."

Before she'd become an angel, she would have never dared even think such. However, she now understood a lot more. For as indestructible and divine Sacred Light acted, she was incredibly fragile in the inside.

Sighing, she got back to work.

Meanwhile, the Goddess that had occupied Helen's thoughts was that close to throwing the biggest fit in the continent.

"Fucking root-sucking, shit-eating tree! Wake up already!" She roared, her voice shaking her divine realm. Her normally golden eyes had a twinge of red in them, and she even had eye bags.

"AAAAAH!" She screamed, the divine realm shaking even more intensely. After a bit, she calmed down and took deep breaths before exhaling loudly.

"Just a couple more years, then you can take a break. Yes, just a little longer, Sacred. Just patiently wait like the responsible little goddess you are..." She murmured to herself. She felt quite pitiful as of right then.

Her cultivation had been forced to a halt due to her master plan, which she was beginning to get impatient about. The Republic had begun to be able to manage itself, and the enemy forces had more or less fallen apart. Nonetheless, Sacred felt as though she only had more things to do as of late.

Between checking that everything was truly smooth, taking care of her divine realm, grooming her subordinates and a shitload of other projects, Sacred was honestly beginning to wonder if this was all even worth it. However, each time she looked at Helen or the countless people praying to her, her morals and innate sense of responsibility forbid her from hiding in the deepest cave in the earth and just going to sleep for the rest of time.

She now understood why there were so few gods who actively participated in mortal affairs. It gave them a sense of responsibility, and even the strongest gods would eventually wear down after millennia of constant work, not to speak about peak demigods like her.

Closing her eyes, she allowed her body to fall onto the cloud she'd been hovering over. Hugging the soft thing to herself, she allowed herself to completely relax for once, blocking the thousands of thought processes that she always kept active within her overwhelmingly powerful mind.

Dully, she noted that the world around her was blurring, and her mind was getting sluggish. Panicking, she shot up, chest heaving in fear at the feeling. "W-what was that?" She asked herself, still feeling a strand of fear at the strange thing that had threatened to overtake her.

Despite how intelligent she was, Sacred couldn't see the obvious in front of her. Before she could think further on the strange occurrence, a bell went off in her mind.

"So it wakes up, huh..." She mumbled, somewhat irritated at having been interrupted. With some effort, she sent down a message to all of her priests.

"The enemy false god awakens. Prepare for the next phase of the plan."