The Burning Fiend

Catherine was slightly uncomfortable with her new appearance, her body was now similar to Windsor's while her hair was dark green and her ears were rounded making her look like a normal human girl. A golden medallion hanged from her slender neck, and she was constantly pouring divine power into the array inscribed behind the medallion, her aura was that of a God but her bloodline was completely hidden.

She hadn't felt so free since the moment they arrived at the Infernal Realm, and was extremely grateful for the medallion that was given to her. Catherine was helping Koral, Talia, Winsor and Jenne to classify the different items obtained from Reynolds's latest massacre while he and Rosarie worked together on their new array project.

Since they would be living for a few decades in this place, Reynolds took the metallic life form out of his interspatial ring and made it coil most of his body under the ground while only the head of the snake and part of its neck was on the surface. This was enough to have two rooms and a living room, making their life more comfortable.

Rosarie was sitting on Reynolds l.a.p while both were working on drawing the skeleton of what would be the array, but the difficulty was more than they had expected. Still, one could see happy smiles on their faces along with a slight frown due to concentration.

"We already have the basis of shielding the metallic life form from divine sense, but a simple illusion would not help to hide it from sight... and even if we manage to create an illusion that adapts to the surroundings, the air currents would be enough to create distortion making it obvious that there is something there... perhaps even increasing the attention to us". Rosarie was muttering slightly frustrated while Reynolds smiled increasing the strength his arms used to hug her.

"I can think of how I could use the mystery of 'Mirage' for the illusion, but perhaps we are looking at this from the wrong angle... we want to avoid attention to ourselves, perhaps hiding in plain sight is a better idea". He muttered in her ears while she smiled, and she placed her arms above his enjoying the warm sensation. "What do you mean?" She was curious as he seemed to be talking about something entirely different.

"Well, while I do agree that we should keep working on this array since it is quite challenging, we need to focus on what we need right now and avoid getting lost in our love for runes... what we need is to hide and avoid attention to us, we already can hide from divine sense but what if we only hide in our living compartments and place another array that simulates another person on a different part of the metallic life form? Can we use the Highgod sparks that we have and used them to reproduce the aura of a Highgod and made people think that the metallic life form carries a few Highgods? And even perhaps send a message like 'get lost' when a Highgod divine sense passes over the array?" He was half talking to Rosarie and half talking to himself but Rosarie's eyes seemed to shine after hearing his idea.

"That would definitely be simpler than dealing with space to maintain a moving illusion... I don't know about the warning but I guess we could work something out." They soon lost themselves into their discussion.

---

A muscular red haired man was frowning while looking at the recording orb, he was now sure that someone had tried to create a confrontation between himself and the new 7-star Fiend. But he still had two problems, the first one was that he had no idea who was responsible and the second one was that the temptation of capturing a talented female elf was enough for him to go to war against another 7-star Fiend.

On the other hand, the Burning Fiend had killed a group of 50 Gods and Highgods with a single glance using a soul attack, the only surviving member that was allowed to escape to pass the warning, had mentioned that his Highgod level soul defense artifact crumbled into dust with that attack. He was not sure to be able to survive an attack of that caliber.

He did not have a Sovereign artifact, much less a soul defense one. The red haired man also did not know where the group had gone as there was not sightings of them since the massacre. He frowned while tapping the desk with his fingers for a while and finally commanded his people to keep watch on the forest and to pay attention to news of them on the nearby castles. He hesitated a moment, but then decided to ask for help, he had enough of a relation with another two 7-star Fiends. It will take a heavy price, but the elf woman was not useful for them, he was sure that they will not betray him, and he was more than willing to pay in order to ensure his victory.

---

The blue haired young woman was frowning after listening to the saint's explanation and then said to the Lord Prefect. "Grandfather, I think they made a grave mistake... they described a woman using a mask and having a genderless body, wouldn't she be an elf?" Her voice was unsure and had a trace of worry as she understood her grandfather's intention.

"An elf? That is not good... damn it!" He had stopped his pacing and looked angry at not having realized that before. "Well... that means that the old fool will not give up as long as the opportunity to capture her exists, but the danger will increase as he would likely ask for help from other 7-star Fiends".

"Grandfather, do you know the reason why that old man is trying to capture female elves?" The blue haired girl asked looking at the Lord Prefect. The gray haired man smirked and then answered. "Because he is a rare magical beast and his descendants had no chance to become deities even if they are born after being sired by his human divine avatar. But saint level female elves can be used as breeding mares with a high chance to inherit the traits of the father, if he really wants a clan, and not the joke he has now, he needs his descendants to be talented enough or everything crumbles the moment he is not in the picture".

The blue haired girl was frowning and said. "Grandpa, you cannot let that girl fall into his hands!" Her anger and conviction startled the gray haired man who then chuckled. "Don't worry, that kid is strong and if things go wrong I will have a countermeasure in place. I still cannot believe that my son managed to woe an elf girl... is that the reason you are so concerned about that girl? Do you think of her as family?"

The blue haired girl blushed and did not answer, but she was remembering her mother that had decided to go to the Life Realm 600 years ago, her father had gone with her, but she had to stay with her grand father. She stood near the window looking at the distance while thinking that she might need another 400 years before she was strong enough to travel and visit her parents.

---

"Well, like this the aura of a Highgod can be reproduced... but now we need to work in simulating a body or creating an illusion that manage to confuse a Highgod's divine sense and perhaps instead of sending a message... we could make the fake Highgod to look in the direction where the divine sense probe came from". Reynolds's voice was calm, but he was quite excited by their improvement, Rosarie nodded and then said.

"And perhaps instead of adding an array to the metallic life form we should add arrays on bracelets that would hide the wearer from a divine sense probe, that would be easy and if the metallic life form is destroyed we would not need to start working on the difficult array again". Rosarie's eyes were shining and Reynolds kissed her forehead agreeing to her idea.

"Well, then... why don't we add another bracelet to simulate the aura of a Highgod? Perhaps we could use both of them simultaneously and just like you said, we would not need to worry about losing the arrays and the divine sparks if the metallic life form is destroyed... we don't even need to work on creating a body for the fake Highgod array. I'm pretty sure that I can make an interspatial rune big enough to hold a divine spark and perhaps even hold power gems to keep feeding the array when in battle to avoid destroying the disguise..." Reynolds's voice was interrupted as the excited Rosarie had turned around and kissed his lips.

They soon divided the work and started preparing the different arrays for testing before proceeding with creating the final version. The 'fake Highgod array' seemed a very clever idea, but an extremely costly one... the price of a Highgod spark was a million inkstones and considering the interspatial rune and the rest of the array, the price should be at least 1.5 million inkstones.

Of course, selling these arrays would not be an option for them as it would blow their cover and lose the meaning of their work. Perhaps this arrays already existed but were kept secret to the majority of the deities increasing their value exponentially.

Reynolds had realized this and decided that he would ask Lord Beirut about in a few centuries when they visit the Indigo Prefecture.