Yue read through the reports, which covered the recent activities of the Holy Church and the Demon Empire.

The first thing that caught her eye was a peculiar entry: the Holy Church had dispatched a minor contingent of Paladins southward to Solfea.

That was odd, given their current predicament.

The world was turning against them.

The Goddess had descended, yet the vast majority still refused to believe it.

Faith, it seemed, was not simply a matter of miracles.

No, it was something the Holy Church had long since forfeited.

They had abandoned humanity and sided with the Demons, a blasphemous act in itself.

But they had also turned their backs on the Hyades Republic in its hour of need, and that betrayal had cost them dearly, bleeding away the faithful one by one until almost nothing remained. Now the Holy Church was a hollow shell of what it once was, its remaining resources clinging to Hyarum like embers in a dying hearth.

And in that fragile, diminished state, they had sent a legion of Paladins to wage war against the Solaris House?

It made no sense.

"What is the Goddess thinking?"

Yue folded the report and stared into the distance. It has been more than a month since the Goddess descended, and the world has entered into a heightened state of strife. In many ways, it was the calm before the storm.

The Demon Empire, the Holy Church and the Hyades Republic were slowly accumulating strength.

There was a big war coming… and all it needed was a powder keg to start the fire.

And said powder keg was right before her doorstep.

The ground began to rumble.

Mana surged through the vicinity, thick and sudden, and the entire Solaris House snapped to high alert.

Knights on duty flooded their posts, hands on hilts, eyes scanning outward, waiting for the attack they knew was coming.

But the attack never came from outside.

A pillar of light erupted from within the compound, splitting the heavens open.

The world fell silent.

Stars wheeled overhead, and auroras bled across the sky in slow, sweeping curtains. The divine light was twofold, a warm golden radiance intertwined with a cold silver glow, and together they made the world feel strangely elevated, as though the entire planet had been quietly baptised.

One by one, the Knights lowered their blades.

They recognised this energy.

They had been living beside it, guarding it, for a long time.

Almost without thinking, their gazes drifted back toward the secluded abode deep within the Solaris House… and understanding settled over them like the light itself.

Yue's porcelain face broke into a radiant smile as she was waiting for this moment for a long time.

"Amon… He succeeded."

Getting off her feet, Yue sprinted to where Amon was secluded. In the hidden bunker of the Solfea, there was an isolated chamber. One that was made from pure stone and strengthened by arcane sigils. Not only that, there were multiple layers of defences, made from the ancestors of the Solaris House and fortified by Yue herself.

Such care wasn't overkill; it was extremely warranted.

If Amon didn't succeed in absorbing the Titan King's core, the world would be in serious jeopardy, as there would be no one capable of resisting the Goddess.

But now…

"Grandpa Alrock! Has he come out?"

Yue rushed into the chamber only to be met with four sentries standing guard. And they weren't any regular sentries.

There was Alrock Solaris, the current Solaris Lord. Carmen Solaris, the Knight Commander of the Black Dragon Order. Gallahad Soalris, the Knight Commander of the Golden Dragon Order. And finally, Raewyna Solaris, the Knight Commander of the White Dragon Order.

The strongest Knights in the entire Solaris House are all guarding their prized possession.

"Not yet, the young'un is still motionless inside."

Alrock replied while casting a gaze into the window. Although the chamber was sealed, there was a small window that the guards could use to peer inside to check on Amon. When Amon created the pillar of light, the guards were ready to jump inside to protect him, but they were blocked by a repulsive force.

If not for Yue's arrival and Amon being unharmed, the four Knights would have rushed in to wake Amon from his meditation.

"You made the right choice… He's absorbing all the insights from his ascension."

"His ascension? Does that mean…"

"Yes, he succeeded."

Yue beamed with pride as she felt the divine power floating around Amon like transcendental butterflies. Ascending into divinity has never been seen in the modern era, so it was natural that the Knights were baffled by the great phenomenon.

The mana in Solfea, no, the mana in the entire world, seemed to become far purer. The laws of the world, which had been severely restricted by the Goddess for the longest time, were on the brink of evolving. In due time, the world would begin to change… just because of a mere human ascending into divinity.

This had never happened before.

Not when the Titans became divine.

Not even during the ancient wars, where they fought over the mandate of heaven.

Now, Amon's ascension was directly responsible for the planet evolving into a higher realm. A realm that the Goddess had been restricting with her powers her entire existence. Amon sat silently as his mana converted into divine power. It wasn't Holy Power borrowed from the Goddess, and neither was it the regular mana he was used to.

It was a divine essence belonging solely to himself.

Even Origin, the greatest Spirit of all time, felt a sense of dread when witnessing Amon comprehending the power of law while converting his mana into divinity.

Only Yue, the one who foresaw all this happening, smiled endlessly.

She couldn't help it.

For the longest time, they lived under the fear of the Goddess recognising their threat and coming to eliminate them early… before they had any chance to mount a resistance.

But now… that worry was mute.

Amon was going to become a full-fledged God, one that could stand toe-to-toe with the Goddess. And with the Will of Heaven by his side, Amon was unquestionably able to give the Goddess a fair fight.

Soon, all of the natural phenomena around Solfea came to a slow rest. Even without all of the glamour, the world had experienced a tremendous change. Terminally ill patients slowly regained consciousness, newborns became slightly more vigour, and most importantly… the Demons who inhabited the world felt a new resistance, as if the world itself was denying their existence.

The Will of Heaven… was slowly wresting back control from the Goddess.

Amon opened his eyes.

They were no longer pure gold.

The colour had shifted into something harder to name, a merging of gold and silver and glass, every facet of his mana fused into a single, breathtaking whole.

A glossy, unfathomable hue that seemed to exist just beyond the edge of description. To look into them was to see the galaxy turning in slow silence.

And yet, at the same time, it was to stare directly into the void… endless, weightless, absolute.

That was the nature of Amon's new authority.

The Judicator of Heaven.

A being of near-infinite power… not above the heavens, but sovereign beneath them.

"Amon? Are you alright?"

Only when the mana had settled down and Amon had fully awakened, did anyone dare disrupt his seclusion. Yue stepped in first, with the others following close behind. Ignoring Yue, the other four Solaris Knights, who should have stood at the top of the food chain, felt like helpless little lambs before Amon's presence.

It was akin to an ant facing an elephant.

There was nothing the ant could do if the elephant wished to stomp them to death.

As for Yue, she naturally had some resistance to Amon's pressure. But even she felt a little apprehensive when facing up against absolute power.

"Yeah… Never better."

That's why Amon's next words lifted a heavy weight off her heart. If Amon had changed because of absorbing the divinity, there was simply no one who could stop his rampage.

"How does it feel? Being divine?"

Yue smiled and teased her man. At first, she expected Amon to answer warmly, but then she paused as she saw the man of dreams look down in solemn contemplation.

"Amon? What's wrong?"

"Nothing…"

There were a million thoughts running through Amon's mind, but he couldn't actually put them into words. Ascension placed a toll not only on one's body but also on one's soul. Amon could understand the law of the world, what the Will of Heaven wanted, and millions of abstract concepts that no mere mortal could.

It would take him years, nay, centuries to fully absorb all of that knowledge.

Unfortunately, he didn't have the luxury of time.

"Ascending… feels so different. But, I've not fully ascended yet."

"Huh? Why?"

"Because if I accepted the ascension, I would no longer be in the material plane."

Amon replied sombrely.

Being a full divine meant that he had to ascend into Heaven, where the Goddess's real body resided. And as he was… Amon didn't have confidence in defeating the Goddess, who had an untold number of years controlling the mandate of heaven.

Hence, Amon suppressed himself… so he could gain more power, weaken the Goddess in the material plane, before challenging her again in Heaven.

"But now, at least I see a path."

"A path? For what?"

"A path to defeat the Goddess."