Six months ago, Athena was still wrecking her brains on how to deal with this six deities without fighting them. If she knew where Su Han was, she wouldn't hesitate using him as a sword, at the cost of satisfying his... desires.
Unfortunately he wasn't here. But four months ago, news about demons were leaked to her by the person she couldn't 'play', Helen. This women delved into Occultism and was a bit of a threat to Athena.
Luckily, she supported Athena secretly. Though Athena didn't know why she was doing this, she felt like it wasn't against her plans. It was a strange feeling but she didn't delve in it for too long.
She was smart enough to know when to retreat, and when to charge forward. And this opportunity was one she was willing to take the risk of ignoring for the time being.
Back to the main topic, after learning of that, she spread it throughout the seven towers and brought fright to the people. When everyone was frightful and training very hard to breakthrough, she finally made her move.
Burning up all her faith points, 40 units (including some from external sources like Mimi and Allen), she used it to conjur lots of magical materials that could aid a spellcaster in attain strength or gain sudden enlightenment.
She used the Basic Divine Art, "Transmutation", to change some rare materials she got her hands on from the Great Sage and his wife, converting them to even rarer resources.
And these resources were clearly targeted at mages, especially on magic research and breakthrough resources for certain spells and projects.
Then she spread them throughout the island, thus leading the towers to be in discord as they fought over the resources. Worst part was that, the demons were inching closer and closer.
At this rate, the six Deities had two choices, either they continue fighting and let the demons swallow them whole. Or... they ignore the treasures and force their people back.
The latter decision will cause the people working under them to feel loss and discontent. While she on the other hand, conjured a few materials and gave them to her people to flaunt to the other spellcasters.
She emphasized that they must do it naturally, as if they weren't flaunting at all, in order to cause the discontent the people have with their deities to increase. While envying her people.
Why do their deities not do the same thing? Deities can't control faith power, which was the unit of creation and destruction, life and death, law and existence, miracles and mysteries.
Why didn't their deities fetch the materials for them? That was because Athena knew what she was doing. She wasnt stupid enough to hide them in a place where those people would be able to find them in a short period of time.
Plus, in terms of Battle, she alone could easily keep them busy. At least, for a bit of time that is. But she would not like that method.
Wouldn't some people find any of this suspicious? Of course they are, they are smart people after all. But because they are smart, they know that a battle between deities didn't need them. Even though it was at the level of wits and schemes only.
"Hmm~ The demons will be here in about six more months? In that time, I wonder if I should be a bit more proactive?" Athena as she played around with her long hair.
Her finger twirling the hair around her neck, while she had a thoughtful expression. She then continued her thoughts out loud,
"The Liu couple love knowledge right? How about I use the basic divine arts, which is a new topic for them to study with. They won't be able to use them without faith points anyway.
"I can make a deal with them. If they can break down the source of the arts and use them, then I'll serve them. As long as they don't, they'll serve me? Isn't that simple enough?" Athena smiled as she crossed her legs over the other, her thoughts still filing up.
The idea was worth a try, that meant that two Towers out of the way. Including the Phenomenal Tower, that was three Towers out of seven Towers.
"But that's risky. Unfortunately that old man and his old woman, they are higher magic deities. I can't just force myself on them anytime I want, this is the only way." She convinced herself, and moved on to another topic.
"As for the power hungry little lass, she might be a problem as well, must I seduce her using the little monkey? No. I'll use our stud instead. Hopefully Louise doesn't mind.... She will.
"But what if I make her my right hand man though? Hmm~ it won't work. Must I use force then? Or just outright kill her? No, killing them will only make my work load harder. Plus, it's way more fun to outsmart geniuses in their own game of wits."
She then playfully swayed her head left and right as she continued her thoughts. This was all fun and games. To her, the true storyline had yet to even begin.
"Aiy~ Ruling a population that rivals a small world really is tough. And to make it of Mythical grade, I'll need there to be almost a million deities? Oh my, that's quite expensive. Maybe thirty years isn't enough.
"But I hope fifty is though. Anymore than that and my pride would be damaged." Athena said to herself as she stood up, ending her own monologue, that seemed to contain quite the dangerous thought.
She easily mentioned everything, including the part of nurturing millions of Deities casually, as if it was something easy for her to do. And maybe it was, because she... was Athena.
Athena smiled lightly as her thoughts shifted, and with just a slight movement of her hand, she opened a rift of space and stood up to casually strolled into it.
All the ideas, which were many, that she had were currently put on hold. For now, she wanted to cause chaos. And to do that, she had to cause disruption between the six deities, aside from the Great Sage that met her during the day of descent.
As for the demon invasion? Of course, she did not forget it, she never would. They were one of her many key points to conquering the Void plane.
She appeared within a land of darkness. Aside from the small glow from a lone star, that exuded immense gloom, there was no other source of light in this place.
And as far as her vision could see, hundreds of millions of demons were busy with their own work. None seemingly minding her existence. In fact, most could not even sense her presence.
And in front of her, seven demon kings, all being god equivalent demons, bowed down to her in greetings. The cloaked demon king, that seemed like the leader of the group, moved forward and greeted, "Greetings to the Lady of Wisdom."
"Hm. Greetings little V." Athena nodded her head at him to acknowledge their greetings. Then after looking around for a bit, she frowned and asked, "Where's your Queen?"
She called a veteran demon that probably spent hundreds of years to become a demon, little. And that said demon did not dare say anything about that.
But before the cloaked demon could answer, Black mist drifted from out of nowhere and appeared before them. No, to be precise, it drifted from out of the air and then spread out before Athena.
"I'm here." A cold voice, filled with complex feelings and complete apathy, resonated with the sorounding darkness.
Albeit it was still regal and divine, bringing majesty and coldness to the tone, making it uncomfortable to listen to, despite it being originally pleasant.
Then out of the mist, Louise walked out and stood in front of Athena with her poker face. Her eyes carrying a unique glint of peculiar emotions and caution.
It wasn't that she disliked Athena for her tone to be cold towards her, it was just that Athena had problems. But even then, they were, at the end of the day, still related.
Athena smiled when she saw Louise, without hesitation, and despite knowing that she might trigger Louise, she still greeted nonetheless, "You are back... [No.1]."
"....."
Louise ignored her and instead bypassed her and went into the rift Athena had opened. Athena's plan was simple, the island was too big and four billion population wasn't enough to cover half of it.
She wanted to fill it up with at least ten billion, with a count of millions of deities. And to do this, she wanted to use the humans there, the demons from hell, the angels from heaven and many other races.
First, she would use demons as an excuse to conquer the island, by then, if Louise manages to rule over the demon army, then they will all recieve faith from both populations.
And since both of them were in a True Pantheon, they would share the faith amongst each other equally, regardless of which group each led.