"What kind of hellish training did you put them through for them to already be ready for the first transformation?"
"They had the time to complain so I decided that they had the time to train some more too."
"Seems to me like you make an excellent drill sergeant. Here, a storage bracelet with a couple of vials used for the first transformation. I'll let you administer it to them. Just be sure to tell them to commit the vision to memory and don't give them more than one vial."
Edward respectfully received the storage bracelet from me and had a look inside. He gasped and looked at me in shock.
"You mentioned that there would be a few vials in there but I counted at least a few hundreds."
"I expect you to do a solid job and keep up the recruiting. Be sure to check their morals though, I don't want to hunt down half of them for betraying us."
"About that. I have a question concerning the criteria of recruitment."
"Ask away."
"I have received a few applications from females but I was unsure whether I was allowed to recruit them so I turned them down for now."
"Gender is of no influence so feel free to recruit them. The raven department is predominantly male but that is only because many females that work under me prefer to join some of the females-only organizations."
"Then I will reach out to the people in question and have them recruited."
"Good good. Now, as much as I would love to keep chatting I will have to make a trip and take care of some megalomaniac who thinks he can play god just because he's surrounded by weak mortals."
Edward and Marseille bowed and I took off into the sky. I could feel the intruder flaunting his powers and from the ripples in the air, he was already fighting someone. Showing my real face to the public and probably the suicidal media present at the scene of battle would be suboptimal so I donned my identity as lord Raven and continued.
It didn't take me long to reach the city where the fight was taking place... Perhaps still calling it a city at this point wasn't entirely accurate.
The city looked like someone had dropped a small nuke onto it. At the epicenter of the fight was a crater with little more than rubble to remind of the buildings that once stood there.
All the highways leading away from the city were packed with cars and some lunatics were even using the opposite lane in order to get away faster. What's the point of getting away from mortal danger by putting yourself in more mortal danger? Humans and their incomprehensible shenanigans again.
Another blast rocked the buildings around the crater and a couple more of them collapsed into heaps of rubble. A giant nine-tailed fox was fighting the intruder but he was clearly being suppressed.
Old fox hadn't grown stronger since I had last seen him. He still wasn't an opponent for a deity but could easily keep his life during a fight with one. His many powers made for great diversity but he really needed to take the time to focus on just one for a while.
Since old fox made for a great diversion I concealed myself and began to set up a formation. During the last war, we had discovered that except for the four major lower realms no other place could withstand a fight between deities at full power.
To deal with that we had devised a series of countermeasures that would allow us to fight without destroying the world.
This formation was one of those countermeasures. It not only stabilized the space within and kept powers from leaking out but also allowed us to weaken the enemy.
The only downside was that it needed time to set up and no sensible opponent would give us that. However, our dear intruder here wasn't paying attention because he was too busy shooting beams of light and ruffling the feathers of his many wings.
Many members of the light alliance had this disgusting fetish for white wings because they thought it would represent purity and justice. The amount of pain they were willing to go through to have their bodies altered at an early stage was truly astounding. If they were as willing to endure pain in other aspects they might have managed to take over everything by now.
But no, white wings and pretty faces were the only things that inspired such determination in them.
I finished up the last touches of the formation and activated it. Space twisted wildly and before either of the two fighters could react a pocket dimension with an incredibly stable inner space was created.
Feeling the change in space both combatants scanned the surroundings and found me hovering at the edge of the formation.
"Hello there, I hate to interrupt your little squabble but I would like to do some meddling if it's not too much trouble for you."
Old fox immediately recognized me and backed away. We had different motivations and might clash when our interests didn't align but we both saw the light alliance as an enemy. Old fox knew that I was here for angel boy and he had no qualms to let me do my thing.
Angel boy on the other hand wasn't so happy about my presence. He seemed to be one of the newer members of the light alliance since he didn't know me and seemed very calm about being inside my formation. He fired a beam of light toward me and I sidestepped without any effort.
"I don't know who you are or what this area is you have taken me to but before my godly powers, you will perish. After finishing you and the wimpy fox off I'll go kill the six on high and become this world's new overlord!"
Yay, tell us your evil plan so we can move on. Wait, you one of the good guys! Right, killing people and taking over places is a good deed as long as you say the other people were evil.