The world's situation has been going downhill for some time already. Although Gideon had been cleaning up dungeons here and there, he was but one man. Even with the help of Deborah and other S-Class Fighters, what are a few people compared to millions of dungeons that pop out like a hydra's head each time they successfully destroy one, three more would replace it.
Add to that the problem being caused by heralds who have been given abilities that would make them stronger for sacrifices like children and virgins. The world isn't full of heralds after all. Heralds only account for less 1% of the world's population. And fighters were even less. How were they to cope up when not every herald also worked to destroy these dungeons and instead profit from them?
Soon, the chaos that other heralds whose patron gods were gods like Molech or the Baals, and other such deities, killing innocents with protection as their justification, spread throughout the world and angered many other deities but were unable to do anything about the desperate situation they were in. These opportunistic gods were only thinking of empowering themselves faster by maturing their heralds to produce a feedback.
Gideon was also observing this with cold eyes. These heralds and their gods… "I must punish them later. I must not forget their treatment of human lives."
Gideon grit his teeth as he closed his eyes. He was powerful enough to one-shot a dungeon core to oblivion but as he also realized, he was alone. Although his familiar was as powerful as him, it was inexperienced and would most probably cause more chaos than necessary. Atreus was still in training.
"What can I do to make this less troublesome?" Gideon began to ponder. This was the problem with fighting alone. No matter how powerful you are if you can't expand your reach to every corner of the world, then it will be a losing fight.
"Let's deal with the dungeons first. I'll have Atreus hold the fort here in Greece while I go and set up a countermeasure somewhere near."
Gideon set up a network of formations forming a large-scale formation, continental in size to monitor and precisely eradicate dungeons that are weak enough to be razed to the ground by the formation he set up. This would give him some time to deal with the chaos brought by insane gods who resort to spilling blood for the 'greater good'.
Gideon traveled the Mediterranean to find heralds contracted to Baals. They were the well-know for blood sacrifices after all.
He entered a sand-filled rural town and found it deserted. In the desert, this would be quite a normal occurrence, however, Gideon's senses weren't that of mortals.
"Not only children and virgins, you also consume innocents?" Gideon's anger was already boiling. He had encountered fellow humans in the other world who were also like this. For power, they would resort to anything.
His question was directed at the figure savoring the kill, the last of the villagers. There was a reason why Gideon came here. He found this herald to be nearest and went for it.
"My, my. Another blood bank, to feed me. The gods do indeed answers prayers." Said the blood-crazed herald.
"I'm not here to converse with you, fiend. Tell your god to revoke his bestowal of this ability off you and I'll spare you. If not, he'll lose a herald here and now." Gideon spoke, but he was speaking as if the patron god behind this herald could hear him.
"Heh. Sorry, the number you dialed is out of coverage are—!" Before he finished, as if he was surprised by something, probably because his patron god was telling him something shocking, he abruptly held his tongue.
"I'll give you 3 seconds. Release your herald's blood frenzy as well."
"Shit! What is this? Why should I listen to this bastard?! Why?!"
Gideon lost his patience and before the patron god could retract his sliver of power…
Snap!
Gideon separated the man's head from his body. The spine came along with it as if a fatality in a videogame.
"Time is up. Baals and every other gods and pantheon encouraging sowing chaos into the world for power, consider this… I Gideon will now be enforcing upon the world, any herald who harms innocents for the sake of power, will be eliminated."
Gideon declared and as if a loud speaker was in front of his mouth as he declared this, every herald in the world heard Gideon's warning. A glimpse of his Divine Authority being shown.
In the Divine Realm, gods and goddesses were frowning and some were outright raging, oddly enough, they were just raging, doing nothing else but yell and shout their dissatisfaction.
"What is that herald Gideon doing?! Even though Bia's divinity has increased that doesn't give him the right to be so infinitely arrogant!"
"What can we do, when even Bia has expressed dissatisfaction because of what unscrupulous gods are doing?"
"Dammit! If only he wasn't Bia's herald, I'll have my heralds surround him and kill him."
"You can try. Although, I know you won't."
…
After Gideon's declaration, most of the heralds who were wise stopped in their tracks. As if awakened by the warning. They were heralds, the innocent relied on them for salvation and yet there they were sacrificing innocent blood for the sake of power, who were they trying to protect after they became powerful then?
However, there were still some who ignored Gideon's warning even at the cost of disobeying their patron gods.
Gideon simply spread his divine sense o encompass the Earth and killed them all with just a thought. After all, right now, Gideon was undisputedly the strongest existence in Earth.
However, just as he killed the last of the chaos-sowers, the skies turned black and figures of creatures that shouldn't have been able to come this close without tripping alarms had succeeded.
Five figures of enormous creatures broke into the atmosphere and stepped onto Earth. Champions of different evil gods.
"A stealth type evil god?" Gideon deduced. If even he was unable to sense their approach when until they were this close, only something that transcends even his current realm could do that. Undisputedly he was Earth's strongest, even the gods of Earth won't be his match had they a physical form. However, evil gods were a different breed.
If he faced an evil god right now, the only thing he'd be able to do was run around. These champions were weak and was no threat to him, but the evil god that's stealthy enough couldn't be underestimated.
"After all, evil gods are constantly evolving. They get smart and wise as time passes. They employ strategies and tactics. Sigh. It seems Bia's concern was on point."
Gideon let out a sigh. Currently, the Earth's forces won't be able to take on five champions. At Atreus's level, he would be able to take on one and simply stall it for time. The familiar could also take one and subdue it on its own.
"That takes care of two."
Deborah after being trained by Gideon for almost a year had already gone beyond the S-Class rating. Fighting one champion of this caliber would be doable.
"That leaves me and Rebecca. Since I can't have Rebecca fight to protect our little one, I'll have to deal with the other two without revealing myself too much."
Gideon had decided. He called Deborah and opened a spatial rift beside her for her to step in and arrived beside Gideon. The same happened for the familiar and Atreus.
"You will have to delay one each. I'll take on two to make your load light.
"Debbie, at your current level, you can probably kill one champion after some time if you wisely use your power.
"Atreus, go and stall one of them and wait for my signal to retreat. Familiar, just take on any one of the champions."
"Yes!" all answered in unison.
The appearance of the five champions that suddenly emerged turned the world upside down. Just from their initial appearance, cities were already destroyed because they landed on the most populous areas separately. This was a trace of the evil god's strategies. Gideon felt a headache coming.
Opening rifts for his people and Deborah, Gideon also disappeared to towards the strongest of the champions. It was a gigantic humanoid whale.
"What were these called again? The natives of the otherworld just called it were-whales but they had a complicated name to say the least. Anthrorcanisebus, was it? We'll go with were-whales as well, then."
Gideon waited for nothing and killed the whale with a snap of his finger. Without showing himself. The body of the whale then disappeared into the void as Gideon put it into a dimensional storage he created.
The evil god behind it was also alerted to this abrupt termination. When it tried to pry into the situation, the Divine Realm's defenses blocked it successfully. It was still not strong enough to break through the Divine Realm's protection. Only for so long though, as this protection couldn't be renewed easily as well.
Boom!
Explosions riddled the city where the other champions descended as Atreus fought with the champion alone with many survivors just gaping in awe as they fought. The heralds who saw this scene also felt their blood boil and mounted their own attacks at the distracted champion who only saw Atreus at the threat. The rest were ants.
However, even ants can bite an elephant to death. The accumulated damage from thousands of heralds started showing signs of affecting it.
Atreus had been maintaining a defensive position to stall for time. That was his orders. Thus, he kept to it. This defensive strength though was too potent that even while he looked to be struggling, he was in fact having it easy. His energy was also inexhaustible as long as he breathed in the essence of the world and converted it to Qi, plus, he was Gideon's herald, energy that flowed from Gideon to him was enough to supply him for years while also dishing out super moves.
Atreus received a punch from the hybrid hippopotamus and crocodile base. This monsters stood at over 200 meters and its fist was the size of a giant boulder with almost twice the area of a baseball field.
And yet!
Atreus received the blow like it was a normal punch from someone his own size. The only thing that received damage was the earth as countless craters and lines of deep impressions appeared where they fought.
Atreus, after receiving the punch pushed the fist aside and started his own onslaught of attacks to its head.
He was unsuccessful as the head was protected by a material even stronger than tungsten.
"Tch. This is why master told me to just defend." Atreus immediately attributed this as Gideon knowing that he'd be unable to break through the enemy's defenses.
"I still need more training." Atreus felt that he was still lacking. Even though he was already a Nascent Soul Realm cultivator, he was still unable to take the advantage over the hybrid.
The fight continued as explosions resounded loudly from the collision of a hard steel plate and a wooden hammer with extraordinary forces.
…
"Yah!" Deborah slashed through the Naga's scales with her Jane forged curved blade. It was equipped with the enhancement and auto repair functions and she was fighting in the advantage.
The beast she was fighting was reminiscent of the Fenrir, the sky devouring wolf. However, its fur was red and its powers were related to fire instead of ice and wind.
The slash was received by flesh and bone could be seen momentarily with each slash before it closes up in mere seconds.
It was troublesome. The beast's regenerative abilities were too perverse.
"Has it no end?!" Deborah complained. Although she was strong physically, she was not cut out for fighting a prolonged battle since she did not have means to replenish her batteries. She wasn't like Rebecca or even Atreus, she was the herald of the greatest deity in the Divine Realm yet she's restricted by her lack of understanding of the powers she had received from her patron god.
Her growth had obviously been stunted when Gideon had returned from the otherworld. She had become reliant on him again for everything. Even saving the world had become something she entrusted to Gideon. And Gideon was blind to this fact because of his doting on her.
"Ha-yah!" Deborah yet again slashed at the Scarlet Flame Wolf. Its blood was spilled before its wound closed by itself.
The battle was nowhere near its end.
At a city where a champion had descended, another desolate place was created after the familiar and the green and bald orcish warrior standing at 3 meters faced the familiar that looked like Gideon.
A fight broke out and more dull explosions sounded in the surroundings. Soon though, the orcish monster, an Orc Lord was under the familiar's feet using only basic spear execution such as thrust, sweep, slash.
The lack of technique was more than compensated for by the overwhelming physical strength of the familiar. The more Gideon grew, the more the familiar's physical body would also strengthen. Cultivation-wise though, it was not even at Core Formation. It's body was flawless because it automatically achieved the first and second realms through inheriting Gideon's body.
The Orc Lord was stabbed in the head by the familiar without breaking a sweat. A sight far more awful than the fight that just broke out. The peanut gallery was in so much relief that they didn't notice this subtle detail. Only those who were heralds who were powerful enough to notice this wiped the sweat accumulating on their foreheads.
"What a monster. Is that the famed, Gideon?"
"I think so. The pantheons released a portrait of him for their heralds to know. I saw his face on a portrait and I' sure that guy is Gideon."
"Then was it really him who used a sound transmission telepathically to the whole world?"
"I'm pretty sure it was him. Judging from his earlier display of strength, how was he able to accomplish such a feat without himself gaining power through sacrifice?"
"That's… it's better for us to just keep this to ourselves, let the more gutsy ones question his strength. Let's just be thankful for his intervention now. Because of it, the city is at least saved. And rebuilding would be started immediately after the cleanup."
"You're right."
Then, they saw 'Gideon' disappear into a spatial rift that appeared out of nowhere, step into it, and left no traces. Even the Orc Lord's corpse was taken.
'Gideon' reappeared where the last champion appeared on the other part of the planet. There, Gideon gave instructions for 'Gideon' to fight. The fight ended even faster than when he fought alone without instruction.
Soon, Gideon sent 'Gideon' over to where Deborah was and ended the fight by overwhelming the Scarlet Flame Wolf's regeneration with damage it couldn't heal in time before further damage was dealt to it on the same spot.
Its corpse was collected and Gideon left to where Atreus was fighting as well. He did not help much though, he just instructed him about the monster's weak spots to attack. This was an attempt to teach him how to discern spots to attack or openings in his opponents. This fight took 3 hours. In the end, Atreus succeeded and felt relieved.
It was at this time that Gideon introduced Atreus to Deborah. As Gideon's sole disciple for now, Atreus was someone who considered Gideon as his second father. Master for a day, Father for a lifetime.
Deborah glared at him for some reason but when Gideon explained their relationship as something that of a father and a son, Deborah's mood turned better and she treated him like a nephew almost instantly.
With that out of the way, Gideon sent Deborah where Jane was and handed the corpses of 5 champions to her for her to work with. These were materials that were on par with or just slightly lower in quality than the dragon bones. Making items and equipment from it would be good practice for Jane.
Inside the workshop.
"What are we going to do with the viscera and meat?" Jane asked. She didn't need them after all.
"Set them aside. Do you know anyone in production specializing in cooking or medicine making?" Gideon asked.
"Hm. I know a few but they're just B-Class and the medicine maker is A-Class. For the more famous chefs and pharmacists, you'll have to find them yourself. However, that would be hard, as they are also quite sought after for their expertise, after all." Jane explained.
"Hm. I guess we'll have to announce it through the company. Johnsons Enterprise Johnsons Pharmaceuticals should post a job hiring. Looking for S-Class with a salary of 15 million per batch of medicine they successfully create.
"And for the Johnsons Food & Beverages, hiring an S-Class to cook heavenly food. A share of Johnsons F&B will be given upon signing the contract."
"This... are you certain of this?" Jane felt this was too much. Although she was receiving the same or more for every item she created with his enchantment methods, wasn't this too much for the company right now? Was what she was thinking of. After all, she did not know how wealthy Johnsons Enterprise really was.
"I'll let Rebecca know about it. Squirt, go back home and make sure mom and dad are okay. Yeah?"
"Hm. Okay!"
Soon, Deborah left and Jane was also alone in her workshop. Gideon had left with Atreus and 'Gideon' to train again.
This time, he was going to teach them some proper moves.