In the heaven’s, covered in the clouds a great change was happening, the waves of heavenly mana and holy power were flowing chaotically while divinities were in different areas of this immense flow exerting their domain and allowing it to infuse into this immense power that traveled through heaven, the world below and hell.

It even forced its way into the underworld with their power causing the system to connect and examine that world as well as the heavenly realm as well.

In one particular space, the knight pantheon was over a massive pool of energy which connected to one of the nodes over the world.

The ancient god of knighthood was exerting his domain over all in the area, combining with their auras, divinities and domains to form the unique path of a knight.

All of them were exerting their domains and divinities as were the countless gods. Even the god of the sun, who was outside of the planet’s system at the sun itself, had descended and begun to connect the sun to the system through his divinity.

This would allow the growth of the system to eventually cover and reach the sun and all the worlds of their star system.

It would be many years for this to happen but it started with this.

Among the knights, they had begun to talk about the world below.

“The changes happening are so immense, to think this project would be moved ahead nearly 100 years.” the goddess of hope said.

“Time waits for no man or god. The fact that the system initiation was possible to succeed in the first place is already a miracle.” the god of war said.

“Indeed.” The ancient god of knighthood said before sighing deeply, “The order has finally reformed and the artifact of the knights have returned, the child carrying the knight’s world has an amazing future ahead of her. That said, it saddens me how only going so low and returning has preserved the order of knights. Those who survived these thousand years have fallen so low despite rising so high.” he said.

The knights all sighed.

“The gods of the three other orders have become too comfortable. The Gods of Samurai who bond with the Order of the Golden Dragon, the Druidic Gods of the Goldwing Griffon and the Hunter gods of the Golden Phoenix have all become lazy and comfortable in their stations. They have given too little focus to their followers and it has shown. If not for the world network, they would have instantly collapsed when the network fell.” The goddess of wisdom said.

“They are still liable to fall.” The ancient god of knighthood said.

The other gods looked at him after he said.

“Sir?” the god of war asked.

“Nuntip is not the only continent where demons have become active. The general who survived and was reborn is not the only one of his kind but he was the one to take command of Nuntip but they are still at large, quiet.” he said.

“The blessing of the sun god is slowly growing and in time it will fully activate and the defenders born from it will start to form a firm barrier but the master of the priestess is no weaker. His future holds great potential no weaker than his sister.” the god of combat said.

They all nod and look down into the massive spiral of energy and it seems to part as they see Logan and his division upon his airship and falling down upon invading bandits like a mighty hammer.

Among the bandits are even a weak C rank who he was fighting head on not being any weaker but also not getting the upper hand while Jin brought down storms and Storm completely massacred them.

“Should we try to warn the other orders?” The goddess of wisdom asked.

“We must finish our part, our part is to establish the class line of warriors and all forms of knights, this is our part, if we finish and those orders have not yet gone crazy for expansion then we will attempt to rectify this.” the ancient god said.

Everyone agreed as they focused on their task at hand as all gods were doing to gather all domains and include all the rules of the world.

***

BOOM!

The storm exploded down as Storm and Jin gathered all that power exerting their greatest strength that could not be compared to their E rank strength.

Logan slammed the massive heavy axe glowing golden light against the groaning weapon of his enemy and sent him slamming down to the ground while his wind wings maintained him in the sky.

“You’re annoying you fucking brat!” He shouted.

Logan had long understood this guy’s strength, he was in the same situation as most army soldiers, most adventurers and most people who get to C rank without a master.

The point of a master is that he has had all his stages of mana development for years and even if they are puzzle pieces with compatible techniques they have undergone changes that have made them better.

With time these puzzle pieces stop being puzzle pieces and become a singular thing. But this man wasn’t in that condition, he was a person who had gathered techniques and just used it to break that limit. The result could let him break the limit of his body but that was all, compared to someone who uses a singular technique and builds off the same foundation those who use pieces have almost 50% less strength because of the attrition between his own techniques.

This is why a newly ascended D rank with mana infused body and only 1 cycle could beat him back. Of course his own sword art and Arashi also drastically boosted his strength as well so it also wasn’t strange.

“The annoying one is you.” Logan said and raised his hand and suddenly his body was clad in lightning and the power of both lightning beasts smashed down on him causing a massive eruption of power and he gathered everything in Arashi before swinging down.

A massive blade of concentrated lightning formed guiding all the descending lightning slammed into the guy splitting him in half and turning his body to ash before he could feel anything, all he saw was light.

Logan huffed and felt his right arm twitching while his body let out a lot of sparks before healing wind and lightning began to go up his body and suck up all the excess lightning in his body.

“Still not ready for continuous usage of that.” He groaned and spat blood from self inflicted damage.

On the ground the corpses of the many enemy bandits were all over and being dragged over by the knights.

Every one of them had a small lizard that looked at the corpses excited but none of them allowed any of the lizards to eat human corpses.

They registered the finishing before Jade used fire magic to incinerate them once their armor had been removed. It could be used as good base material to arm their own men until more magic armor suits were made for their men.

The weapons in particular were taken so that the smiths could work on it and remake better things.

After that they headed to another four invading bandit groups and did not hold back as they destroyed everything in their path.

The humans were particularly brutal because they would not permit another event to happen like what occurred in their childhood.

When they finished the last group the sun was already starting to lower and the men were tired from so many battles but they were all the best fighters among the official knights.

The fact that none died and only some injuries was a show of their growing skill and power.

They return to the villages they had based at and leaving them to go rest Logan reported to the adventurer guild at East thunder city and turned in all the commissions that his division had taken up and got the pay.

“Any more trouble going on?” He asked after he finished counting his pay that would need to be divided after.

“Well, a lot still is going on, the demon flames at the capital are still a pain, civil unrest in the many cities of east eshen, many monster mercenaries appearing all over and there are still many bandits.” the receptionist said.

“The ability of the guild to find all these signs of the bandits and monster hordes is amazing.” Logan said.

The woman smiled, “Information gathering has always been the strong point of the guild.” She said proudly.

Logan nodded and said he would rest a few days and would continue to check the mission board to protect the area he was presently assigned.

At present the most important part is to guarantee that Eshen is safe. After that is recruitment to continue expanding the number of soldiers until there is a possibility for a common police force and an army.

Many officers didn’t want to do anything more and it's up to the army to do even normal patrols now which was an annoying burden.

Logan had been part of a large debate about recruiting orphans who lacked families and street children to give them a better life while filling the numbers. The soldiers would open the future while children would grow into the future.

It was very annoying but no action was currently taken.

Back at the base Logan sighed as he entered his micro world which had been growing more and more as time went on. He knew he had to sit down for a few weeks to completely grow it out and then let it rain a bit to be able to fully utilize D rank mana to its best condition.

He looked around and the small house he had originally built had grown into a pretty large grouping of houses for his family.

The training ground was only growing as well but as he looked he saw a new religious building being constructed by workers and Jade who helped smooth and shape rocks for the frame.

Most of the building was already built but the complicated upper segment had to be taken into consideration. The new chapel was twice as big as the original one and it now had space for benches and the idols were moved more towards the front side of the building along the walls making it less like a museum.

It could now be used for actual sermons if Jade was able to learn how to do just that. At the moment Storm was helping out alongside Jade and he lifted a large roof segment and the workers and some of the active knights were helping to receive it and put it into place while the workers started putting down the cement along the edges before it was pushed against the other piece and earth magic came into play to perfectly align them and dry them in the strongest method

From the inside, others were building the roofing.

The speed was pretty impressive and it was all going just according to the vision he had seen and he walked around it picking up a few problems and then through it and then calling some workers and telling them a few problems that were soon fixed by magic.

After the last ceiling part, the earth specialized knights began to help the sculptures mold the basic format of some sculptures that went on top before the final part that was put at the front, over the door, was added, a bronze bell to be used to signal the times of day.

A stairway up was made on the inside so that it would become possible for priests to go up early morning, noon and the start of night time.

They all went around to look at the form for any missed problems then entered and Logan, who had it imprinted in his mind, looked closely and fixed some curvatures and things.

Finally they used magic to clean all the dust and dirt from the construction and finally moved the things in the first chapel and put all the god’s plaques and unmade idols and each one that was put it began to fill the chapel with an amazing feeling

Finally when the last god, the Ancient god, was put, the aura in the plaques began to spread out and they felt a wind come through filling the entire chapel with an amazing warmth and pressure that made those present amazed and desire to kneel.

Those who were very religious kneeled down and began to pray to the gods but Logan just respectfully closed his eyes and prayed and that feeling of faith that he had come from him when he prayed to the artifact appeared but this time a powerful connection began to form and gather.

With all of their eyes closed, they did not see that the faith from them appeared and swirled around the idols and began to form a connection to heaven beyond the border of the microworld.

This went on for a short time before it all calmed down but the faith was gathered and released from all the unformed idols into Jade and information began to appear and expand.

The mortal figure of each, all three levels of gods and their names. Every corner of their image was engraved into her mind while a different light came and entered Logan as the last bit of light filled in but it left nothing in his mind.

When he opened his eyes, everyone was doing the same and felt the amazing presence and the gentle warmth but also majesty.

Jade appeared extremely ecstatic, “It worked! They were able to show their mortal figure and their names!” she exclaimed happily.

Logan smiled, happy that she was happy as were the others in their group.

She didn’t wait, she turned to the bronze rank ones and drew her sword and began to cleave and cut the very rough outline while the others began to work on bringing the prepared decorations and furniture.

Carpets, lights, seats and much more started to fill it in but Logan felt exhausted and headed to bed after the long day.

When he fell into bed, he was soon out. When that happened, his forehead began to lightly glow and 21 rapidly shifting marks appeared flashing on his head before vanishing a moment after. Nothing else happened that night and the next morning Logan went out on another patrol.

***

Huff! Huff

Running through the woods and bleeding from one arm that had gone limp, an elder man moved like the wind.

This amount of strength betrayed the wrinkled face and gray hair.

The many cuts and bruises did not seem to impede him as he held a large leather pouch containing several items.

He moves quickly and as he spots a road he jumps through the clearing and lands while looking back huffing.

He frowned and touched the ground with his still working arm and released a faint but persistent magical pulse with his eyes closed and it spread far and wide.

He let out a deep breath until he scowled as he picked up a large beast smelling the ground.

“Shit, they still have that fucking demon hound after me. Fucking bastards are only C rank but that sickening demon mana is too annoying.” He groaned, “Where am I?” He said as he measured the distance and found he had opened a several dozen kilometer distance with his chasers.

At this moment he felt something in the air and looked up and after a moment, electricity clad his body and he jumped along the trees to the top of the tree and found an airship far off and he looked at the symbol on the main mast and his eyes widened.

“Golden lion!” he said in shock before his face stretched into a smile, “They are alive and well! Did they truly return! I need their help!” He said and jumped forward and ran after the airship as his body clad with lightning and his speed accelerated but he stopped as his feet tripped and he started to cough blood. “Fuck, the demon mana has reached my lungs. I need to clear this infection before it kills me!” He cursed and took out a veil of water and opened it with his mouth he could feel the powerful holy mana and drank it.

He shouted in pain as he felt the newest infection decrease from his torso towards the limp arm and quickly got up and ran.

Following the direction of the ship, he eventually came upon a village and the ship was docked outside and there were patrols going all over and as he came into the open near one they noticed.

“Hey! Who are you?!” the captain of the patrol said, seeing his bloodied figure. It was a monster race with high intelligence due to training.

“I need to meet your leaders.” He said huffing and raised his sleeve to show the blackened skin, “I need help with demon mana infection.” He said.

They all frowned and turned around, they quickly nodded and walked over and helped him to the village while the captain called their division leader.

He was laid down feeling the immense stress and when the door opened, the person who walked in was a young man, someone this old man had met once and was shocked.

“You’re… Logan…!” the old man said.

“Have we met?” Logan said and looked at him. Jade came from behind with water and towels and helped clean his face and the wounds there before using healing magic. “Huh! I remember, you were that old man who said you knew my grandfather! Ulias Brush!” Logan said.

“I’m happy you remember, I am surprised you are a Golden Lion division leader.” He said.

“He is our vice leader and his sister the leader of the order.” The captain behind Logan said.

“Oh… can you help…” He said as he pulled the arm out.

“That is… demon infection.” Logan said.

“Yes, I am being chased by a demon with a demon hound. They are only C rank but this blasted mana.” Ulias said.

Logan frowned but looked at his body, his eyes glowing. “Jade, put the medical needles along his arm and torso, the demon mana is flowing in his system but concentrated on that space.” Logan said and she nodded before taking out the medical equipment that made the man shocked.

The quality was extremely high for a seemingly low ranking person.

Logan pointed to the spots that could be used as well as the chest and back after supporting up before he took the unaffected arm.

“Now relax and don’t resist my mana, gather up your own mana and don’t push or i can’t do anything.” he said.

After a moment, Ulias gathered up the mana that was pushing against the demon mana and instantly it started to move but Logan released his own and Ulias instantly started to wince as it entered his body.

“There is demon mana all over but the concentration hasn’t reached high enough in other areas so you will feel some pain. Jade, use healing magic to heal his body as I push the demon mana back.” He said.

Like that they slowly pushed it and a faint glow of mana rose up the arm and through the chest and hit the mana making Ulias shout in pain.

The mana slowly went up the head and to the legs while being the new force holding the demon mana and pushed everything in his body to the mana pool before from there he pushed it to the infected arm gathering everything there.

Jade healed his body.

“Huh…” Logan muttered and looked at the wall while his eyes were glowing, “Well… it seems we are going to have trouble. The demon has arrived, Jin!” Logan shouted and Jin shot out of his body. “Sound the alarm and go with Storm to hold it back from reaching the villages.” He said.

Jin nodded and quickly rushed out.

“That isn’t going to help!” Ulias said.

“All my battle beasts train my technique so they have demon mana resistance, don’t worry about them. We need to purify this and once we do we can heal you completely.” Logan said.

“You want me to fight?” He asked.

“You brought it to us, also Jade is a Priestess Lord with a blessing, she can use healing and like me, she can purify demon mana, also I can tell you’re not a normal old man. You fought with my grandfather so you are likely at least B rank and your body doesn’t feel like it has conflict and neither does your mana.” Logan said as his mana gathered on the shoulder and Ulias began to shout but the glow began to push and put pressure causing faint toxic blood and gas like substance to seep from the needles.

Jade turned and began to heal as well as use purification magic catching all the gas and destroying it.

At that moment the extremely loud sound of lightning crashing and roars came from outside and they knew the fighting had started and soon the sounds of magic gun and arrow fire could be heard.

After about a minute the black infection was pushed back to the shoulder and Logan's mana leaked from the needles and Jade started taking them out after all the demon mana was removed. It took almost five minutes listening to the destruction before the last of it reached the palm where a needle was stuck and he was finally healed.

“There.” Logan said, a little pale.

“Are you okay?” Ulias asked.

“That just took a lot more mana than I thought it would.” He said and gathered up the leaking mana from the old man’s body until there was nothing to interfere and so the old man released his own mana and filled his body with vigorous energy.

“What did you do to be chased?” He asked.

“Remember a few years back before demons appeared, when there was holy artifact theft going on?” he asked as he opened and closed his hand while Jade was removing the needles.

“Yeah, it was pretty big so it was hard not to know.” he said.

“Right, part of that was demons who wanted to weaken humanity's ability to fight them but the other was my clan stealing the holy artifacts which were poorly protected. As for the demon…” he said and took the leather bag and took out not one, not two but five objects in different forms each of them with a magical wave of holy power.

“Holy artifacts!” Jade exclaimed.

“Yes, these were all in demon hands, they’re almost totally useless without the highest quality holy water to remove the amount of corruption they have, still it is better than letting demons forge these into demon swords.” He said.

“What do you plan to use it for?” Logan asked.

“Who knows.” He said.

“Then leave it with us.” He said.

“Sorry kid but trying to use it as a religious object for this little girl isn’t going to work. Don’t look surprised, we know tidbits of information on the golden lions and one thing we found interesting is the chapel of an unknown religion forming at the hands of this young one who obtained holy water from the water god’s religion.” He said.

“We don’t need that, do you think there is anyone better than us, the people trained to fight demons long ago, are worse off at protecting holy artifacts?” He said.

“No kid, even if I have to run away until I die, the most I can do is keep these away from the hypocritical hands of other people and demons.” He said.

“Sir, we don’t need this, we just want to protect it, master has a Micro world so it is impossible for demons to reach these.” Jade said.

“You have a micro world?!” he said, shocked.

“Yes, I got it in a dungeon, is that sufficient for you?” He asked.

He frowned before looking outside, “Let’s deal with that first and then we can negotiate some terms because I risked my life for these.” he said.

“You want to sell it now?!” Logan asked.

“Think of it as a transporter’s fee if you will.” he said.

“You were thinking of leaving it with us from the start. Whatever, we can’t leave those two outside alone, let’s go.” Logan said.

With a nod, the three rush out and find Storm and Jin fighting the demon and a deformed hell hound that was half Storm’s size but several times as fierce.

Deep claw marks were on both.

“Stand back, I need some payback!” Ulias said as he suddenly clad himself in lightning and suddenly vanished before appearing with his cane in one hand and a blade connected to the cane handle on the other already mid swing.

The demon instinctively dodged but felt the cold sweat on the back of his neck as he had felt the cold steel barely pass by his head and heard the air be cut. What followed the swing was a powerful air slash made by the shockwave of the speed.

“You!” The demon shouted as he swung his jagged sword and Ulias met him in a heavy clash. “Finally found you, you slimy worm!” he said before his hairs rose up on all ends again before he felt an immense amount of pain in his midsection as a powerful earth mana battle axe smashed into his side.

The next moment a bright golden light shined making him cry out in pain as a bloody slice formed on his side and he was sent flying to the ground before he got up holding his side with his red glowing eyes glaring in cold anger towards the two people in the air, in particular the winged one that had hurt him holding the battle axe.

“You accursed cur! What did you do to injure me with your weak power?!” He shouted.

“Heh.” Logan grinned as Arashi and his sheath each transformed into a katana. “Why don’t you try to find out.” He said.

Ulias looked at him as he dropped and the next moment, he saw wind magic clad his skin while lightning clad his body and as fast as himself, the boy vanished and a massive clash happened at where the demon stood.

“Oh… it seems the boy has grown down a very competent path.” he said and touched the ground and grinned coldly.

At once the demon learned the fear of what extreme speed was as two people who used it suddenly accelerated at different times but not obstructing one another and in moments, like a whirlwind, sliced his body several times.

For the hound, without his support and Jade healing the wounded Storm as he gathered his lightning and while holding the hound’s jaw, released it into his jaw roasting the beast’s insides and ripped it’s head in half before glaring at the fight and stopping himself.

He knew his limit, even in his half human form he was the slowest among the three who could use lightning clad.

After taking several bliz attacks the demon suddenly exploded, “YOU WILL PAY!” he roared, raising his arms as flames infused with demon power began to gather while he laughed. “I WILL KILL YOU AL…”

SHING!

The next moment he felt a burning pain in his chest and his eye slowly looked down as two glowing curved blades had met at his heart from both sides of his chest starting from the exposed armpits.

“Only a fool lets someone complete a slow charged attack.” Logan said before a lightning clad blade came from behind sliced the demon from head to his groin.

Logan pulled his sword helping split the body in half and the demon flame fizzled out as the two halves fell to the ground.

“To think that someone in this day and age will still think that someone will wait for you to finish such an attack. If he was smart he should have aimed for earth magic instead to cause the ground to break and destabilize us.” Ulias said and swung his cane to remove the black blood before taking out a rag and cleaning the rest off of the blades. “You should clean it, this shit is corrosive.” He said.

Logan looked at the two katanas before they shone brightly with golden fire and released dark smoke as the blood was completely destroyed.

“You shouldn’t treat a Legend sword so poorly, boy.” He said.

“You can tell?” Logan asked.

“It is not hard, especially if you know even a little bit of history, Golden Lion knights were known for walking with either magic swords or Legend swords. Furthermore, no other sword possesses such a unique sheen of purple along their temperlines.” He said.

“True.” Logan said and looked at the demon’s body.

“Compared to the demons I've seen on TV, this one seems…” Logan said, pausing confused.

“They have been training to purify all the mixed blood, the purer the blood, the more power their demon mana can exert until they become pure bloods and can control the rules of the world.” Ulias said.

“How do you know?” Logan asked.

“Who do you think I stole those artifacts from?” He said.

“Fair.” Logan said, “Let’s go to east thunder city, we need to talk to my father and sister for this.” Logan said.

“Let’s.” He said.

He turned to the division and told them to assess the damage and see to repairs while he went and dealt with an extremely important affair related to the attack.

Jade finished healing Storm and he recalled Jin and with the three of them on Storm, he rushed towards the city to complete these negotiations.