Faced with Jibril's fishing attempt, the innocent Madoka and Tohsaka Rin immediately took the bait.
[Madoka: "This is the dimensional chat group, a place where everyone from different worlds can chat!"]
[Tohsaka Rin: "Not only that, the chat group also has a shop function. If you have enough points, you can buy very powerful items!"]
[Tohsaka Rin: "Though everyone's powers are useful, here I still recommend Ryuga-sama's products first."]
[Madoka: "That's right, Ryuga-sama's products are guaranteed to be excellent."]
Hearing their enthusiastic explanations, Jibril immediately found the shop interface and saw the dazzling array of various products.
Originally, she didn't quite trust their words, thinking they might be shills for that Ryuga person.
But after checking the shop interface, she immediately understood their recommendations probably weren't problematic.
Because the products contributing the most to the shop and with the highest prices were basically monopolized by Ryuga.
In this kind of monopolistic environment, there was no competition to speak of.
Besides this, more importantly, though she didn't understand those products well, she could tell something from their names.
"Divine Authority Fusion Techniques", "Mythical Technique Construction Basics", "Authority Decomposition Guide"...
These products were all related to divine power!
In Jibril's world, gods were the unquestionably strongest race.
Though there wasn't yet the term "Old Deus," the strength of gods was still unquestionable.
Even not counting the world's strongest Artosh, even the weakest gods were incomparably stronger than individual Flügel.
Except for Dragonia, almost no race was qualified to be compared with gods.
Based on this impression, existences capable of researching divine power were naturally of the highest level.
Even though current Jibril hadn't yet comprehended the truth that knowledge equals power, out of respect for the divine lords, she had to pay attention to Ryuga who could analyze divine power.
"Didn't expect to find power related to, even surpassing divinity so quickly!"
Following the product descriptions, Jibril's gaze became increasingly fervent.
"Gehehe~ If these powers are real, doesn't that mean I can obtain god-slaying power through these products?"
"If that's the case, wouldn't Azrael have to come lick my feet? Even Raphael-senpai would revere me!"
The Flügel were the only race besides gods capable of achieving the miracle of god-slaying.
However, to achieve this miracle, the Flügel at that time lost almost two squads of individuals, paying an enormous price.
Most of the earliest born Flügel elites died, and even Raphael sacrificed half her wings to barely survive.
Yet even paying such a price, god-slaying remained the Flügel's most proud achievement.
Now Jibril had encountered an opportunity to analyze divine power.
If she could master this power and achieve solo god-slaying—
"If that were the case, Lord God wouldn't have to keep wearing that suicidal expression!"
Tilting her head, motivated Jibril immediately began pursuing answers.
[Jibril: "Ryuga-sama? I see his name. May I ask, is this lord very powerful?"]
Seeing her so polite, even Kanae was momentarily deceived.
[Kanae: "Yes! Ryuga-sama is the strongest person in our group."]
[Tohsaka Rin: "That's right, Ryuga-sama's strength goes without saying."]
[Tohsaka Rin: "Coincidentally, you're lucky - you've caught a live show. Do you see the livestream? Ryuga-sama is fighting a god right now. This is a mythical-level scene!"]
Jibril's tone was too much like a newbie, so no one suspected much.
Everyone subconsciously assumed she was an ordinary person.
[Jibril: "A battle with gods!"]
[Jibril: "Wonderful! Thank you, senpais. This is exactly what I wanted to see!"]
Hearing Tohsaka Rin's words, Jibril immediately became excited.
She hadn't expected to witness god-level combat right after joining the group.
In her world, besides the Lord God who created the Flügel, gods were very hard to see.
When Azrael and Raphael led the Flügel in god-slaying, Jibril hadn't been created yet, so she missed that spectacle.
So far, she had never seen gods other than Artosh, let alone divine battles.
[Tohsaka Rin: "You're welcome. Actually, we haven't seen it many times either."]
[Tohsaka Rin: "Ah! It's starting!"]
Seeing movement in the livestream, everyone stopped talking and focused intently on the feed.
Campione world, Sardinia.
The silver-haired loli who appeared to be only twelve or thirteen raised the Gorgoneion high and began chanting the trinity incantation.
"I sing, I sing the song of the trinity goddess. Connecting sky, earth and darkness, for cycle and wisdom."
"I sing, I sing the song of the degraded goddess. Though a queen, seen as a forbidden serpent, this is the queen's lament."
"I sing, I sing the song of the goddess whose body and heart were torn. Violated by the sublime father, this is the mother's humiliation. My name is Athena, daughter of Zeus, guardian of Athens, eternal virgin."
"In the past, the earth mother who birthed all things! In the past, the lord of darkness who ruled the underworld! In the past, the wisdom queen who knew heaven's knowledge! I swear, Athena shall return to being the original Athena!"
Under Athena's chanting, the three divine authorities of Medusa, Metis, and Athena perfectly fused together, restoring her divine authority to its ancient state - that is, the state before being defeated and degraded by the Steel Hero God.
As the ancient Earth Mother Goddess recovered her prime, the earth of all Sardinia and the nearby sea began to tremble.
Heaven and earth anomalies appeared. Though it was daytime, invisible night shrouded the entire island.
The trinity Athena was goddess of wisdom, goddess of victory, goddess of monsters, goddess of earth, goddess of the underworld.
In her current form, her strength even exceeded ordinary god kings, ranking among the elite even among Heretic Gods.
If she wished, she could sink the island beneath her feet into the sea at any time.
Watching this scene, Ryuga felt no disturbance in his heart.
"Relying only on Heretic God divine power, even trinity Athena can only achieve this much!"
Athena's authorities were definitely not few among Heretic Gods, and their effects were definitely not weak. Her current state could even be called among the strongest.
But even so, her strength was only slightly higher than first-class Heretic Gods, without pulling away qualitative differences.
The key problem was - energy!
As mentioned before, the authority development of gods in the Campione world was actually quite complete, with practical effects that weren't poor.
However, the divine power scale of Heretic Gods and the cursed power scale of Campione prevented the full display of authority power.
Just looking at the Last King showed that with sufficient energy supply, Heretic Gods could all improve to fourth-tier continent-sinking level.
Excellent individuals among them could become outstanding even at continent-sinking level, reaching the degree of surface-cleansing.
In fact, as long as energy supply was sufficient, divine authority power could support up to planet-busting level.
Unfortunately, most Campione and Heretic Gods couldn't obtain massive energy supplies, so their output was limited.
Perhaps in others' eyes, Campione and Heretic Gods all belonged to the type that squandered cursed power and had sufficient energy to waste.
But in Ryuga's view, they all belonged to the type where technique exceeded energy, so they were somewhat stingy with cursed power during battle.
During combat, no Heretic God wouldn't calculate divine power consumption, and this point itself represented their general energy shortage.
Therefore, equipment like the Magic Holy Grail was especially important in this world.
"With my current strength, even without using mythical techniques, just borrowing the Grail's cursed power would be enough to easily reach fourth-tier continent-sinking level."
Ryuga estimated in his heart.
If counting mythical techniques, or even using his full power with the Grail, he could even cleanse the surface and possibly touch the edge of planet-busting.
However, even if possible, there was no necessity.
Becoming stronger wasn't for ranked matches, and there were currently no enemies that required reaching higher levels to deal with.
What Ryuga pursued wasn't merely improvement in combat level, but mastery of power's essence - improvement in essence.
Compared to the foolish method where anyone could improve strength with enough energy, his goal was more difficult but would yield greater rewards.
So—
"Are you ready?"
Facing trinity Athena, Ryuga asked with a calm expression.
"Still able to remain so calm at this time - should I call you arrogant or underestimating me too much?"
Having grown from a twelve-thirteen year old loli to a sixteen-seventeen year old girl, Athena wasn't angry seeing Ryuga's attitude.
However, the divine power within her immediately fluctuated.
Without need for more words, according to her previous agreement with Ryuga, they only needed to let battle results speak.
"Go, my fangs. Crush this Rakshasa King into pulp!"
With Athena's incantation, nine giant hydras dozens of meters long emerged from the earth behind Athena, each displaying dragon-like majesty.
Simultaneously, the earth shook, tearing open crack after crack. From the cracks crawled hundreds of black pythons over ten meters long, each possessing power approaching divine beasts.
Earth torn apart, sky changing color, countless divine beasts occupying the entire field, nine massive hydras standing like nine enormous mountain peaks, easily capable of destroying mountain ranges, the aura of the underworld shrouding everything - the entire island trembled under divine majesty.
Seeing this mythical scene again, the group members couldn't help but exclaim.
[Tohsaka Rin: "Divine power - no matter when, it always feels shocking."]
[Kanae: "Yes, even the weakest divine beast here could clear my entire world."]
[Erica: "What does the newcomer think?"]
After their exclamations, everyone became curious about the newcomer's reaction.
They remembered when they first saw such mythical battlefields, they were so shocked they couldn't speak for ages.
If not for Ryuga's excessively exaggerated performance, they wouldn't have known how to complain.
The scene before them with Heretic Athena, though seeming less imposing than the battle with God King Mekar, was definitely not inferior in danger level.
Nine hydras possessed pressure comparable to collapsing mountains, which would definitely be enough to frighten ordinary people from ordinary worlds into losing consciousness.
As everyone expected, after seeing this battle scene, the newcomer fell silent for over ten seconds before finally being able to speak.
[Jibril: "This is god-level combat?"]
[Tohsaka Rin: "That's right, isn't it shocking?"]
[Kanae: "Though it's far from us ordinary people, just watching it like a mythical story is nice. Don't feel pressured."]
[Madoka: "Yes, as long as we work hard signing in and training, everyone will become strong eventually."]
From the newcomer's tone, they could sense her life-questioning state and immediately offered comfort.
But unexpectedly, the newcomer's thoughts were completely different from theirs.
[Jibril: "No, you misunderstood. That's not what I meant."]
[Jibril: "What I mean is, this so-called mythical-level combat you mentioned..."]
[Jibril: "—That's it?!"]
At these words, the entire chat group fell silent.
To be continued...