The Devil Does Not Need to Be Defeated

"You've already gone to the divine realm?"

Shien's tone finally started turning impatient.

In response, Lucy let out a bitter laugh, but she did still nod.

"Much as I've already mentioned last time, I used my connections to take a trip to the divine realm and meet the Goddess of Fate."

Despite what she's saying, Lucy didn't have a good look on her face.

Seeing Lucy like that, Shien also couldn't help but be worried.

"What is it?" Shien asked, "Did something happen?"

"No." Lucy shook her head, "Rather, it's the exact opposite."

"Exact opposite?" Shien took a moment before asking in confusion, "What is that supposed to mean?"

"Exactly as I said." Lucy set the pastry in her hand down and looked straight at Shien, "Nothing has happened at all in the divine realm. It's still as peaceful and quiet as always. That's what's somewhat unbelievable."

Why does she mean by that?

That's simple.

"Logically speaking, something like the Hero summoning ritual being used again should be a major event. Even if they classified the information and it didn't get out to the mortal or demon worlds, there's no way that the divine realm should be completely unchanged." Lucy explained, "But from what I can tell, no one, be they high or low class goddesses, seems to know that the ritual has been activated again, or that a Hero has been summoned. That's what's so surprising."

"Is that so?" Shien didn't really understand though, "Maybe the ritual was activated in secret?"

"That's not very likely." Lucy refuted, "Given that the Hero summoning ritual is a major ritual that reached beyond the world, its activation cost isn't something that even goddesses could bear the burden of. Thus, the magic power that the ritual requires is taken directly from the world, using the magic power inherent in the air and earth. The moment the ritual is used, it would definitely produce a ton of activity, so it's basically impossible to activate it in secret."

With that in mind, when a Hero is summoned, putting aside the other races for the moment, the gods would definitely know of it.

"Plus, I already mentioned this before, but there's generally only three ways to activate the Hero summoning ritual. One is by the combined powers of the three great goddesses, the second is by the combined powers of all the other goddesses, and the last is that only in an enormous crisis could a single goddess activate the ritual. Isn't that right?"

Lucy pointed out the abnormality here.

"With those three conditions in mind, besides the case for the first one, if either of the other two was what happened, then there's no way that the divine realm could still be so calm."

"And even it it was the first case, then all three of the three great goddesses should know about it. But I found that not even the Goddess of Fate seems to know of this matter."

"Plus, there was obvious that only a single goddess that welcomed you when you were summoned. That doesn't match the circumstance of the three great goddesses combining their powers to do the summoning. Given that none of the conditions match up, this whole situation is rather unthinkable."

Lucy's explanation made Shien frown in thought.

"Then just what is going on here?"

Shien really is lost now.

"Don't ask me. I don't know either." Lucy had the same troubled face as Shien, "I even tried to ask some surreptitious questions in the hopes of getting some information from the goddess of fate and some of the other goddesses, like if anything unusual had happened in the divine realm recently or if it's possible for the Hero summoning ritual to have other ways of activating. However, no matter how much I investigate, the divine realm is still as peaceful as ever, and nothing unusual has happened at all. Also, the Hero summoning ritual can only activate through those three methods, at least unless the Highest God altered something."

"But, for a major ritual capable of crossing worlds, not even the Highest God should be able to just casually make alterations, right?" Lucy brought up a point, "The Highest God might be an omnipotent existence, but that doesn't mean that she could casually affect other worlds."

"From what I heard, all the worlds where Heroes come from are independent conceptual worlds beyond Omnipotlin. There is no magic there, nor could they be affected by magic. The reason that the Hero summoning ritual could be made in the first place is mainly because the otherworldly life with the potential to be a Hero are special existences in and of themselves. Thus, they specifically are existences capable of interacting with magic, which is the only reason why they can be summoned by the ritual. Otherwise, not even the Highest God herself could interfere with the life forms of those independent worlds.

"Given those conditions, the three methods of activating the ritual was, in a way, the limits of what the Highest God could do. Thus, it's really hard to imagine that there could be a fourth way of activating the ritual."

"But in that case, your situation doesn't match any of those three aforementioned methods at all."

"That's just way too strange."

Lucy seemed to have been having a tough time with this issue for some time now.

"In other to try to get at the truth, I even asked the goddess of fate whether I could take a look at the summoning ritual kept in the divine realm." Lucy said, "But the goddess of fate said that the temple where the ritual is carved is set at the ends of the divine realm. That place is protected by a barrier that the Highest God personally set, so it's basically been completely abandoned, in a state where it will never again be used. At this point, other than the Highest God herself, no one is capable of crossing that barrier to enter inside."

In other words, no matter how one looks at it, there's no way that the Hero summoning ritual can be activated, and it's even more impossible for it to have been activated.

"Then, I…"

Shien had a complicated look on his face.

"Your situation is becoming a real mystery now." Lucy spoke softly, "At the very least, from the current situation, it looks like there might be far deeper things behind the matter of your summoning. And said deeper things are beyond the reach of even the three great goddesses, so the only possibility left…"

Lucy did not continue beyond that point.

But Shien knew what she wanted to say.

"The only possibility left is that it's something that only the Highest God could interfere with, right?"

Shien finished the later half of the sentence that Lucy had started.

"I think so too." Lucy didn't deny it, "Of course, I also asked the goddess of fate whether I could get an audience with the Highest God, but just like before, I was completely denied. Afterwards, I also checked around to see if there's a goddess named Nien, but I got nothing from that either."

In other words, Nien was indeed a fake name, and there was no goddess with that particular name.

"There are just too many mysteries here. It's to the point where I don't even dare to tell the goddess of fate or any other goddesses about you out of fear that it might end up set in motion something that can't be taken back." Lucy pouted, "In the end, all I could do was go to the great library of the divine realm and look through some ancient books about Heroes and the Hero summoning, but there were no real secrets in those. It's all pretty much stuff that we already knew."

As she said that, Lucy brought out a number of books and placed them before Shien.

"I brought those books back, so you can take them back and read through them if you really want."

That was pretty much the totality of Lucy's gains.

"Thanks."

Although Shien was a bit disappointed, he didn't act out. He just politely thanked her and accepted those books.

After all, Lucy had already done all that she should. There's no reason for him to complain given that she had done her best.

Only, with this, not only has the mystery not been solved, but even more questions have been raised.

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