There are many powerful beings in the world, especially during the Great Monster War that happened 1'000 years ago.
There are the two Goddesses who fought against each other in many battles, the creator of Angels, Ilias, and the founder of the Monster Lord's bloodline, Alipheese.
Each one of them held two groups of people capable of reaching their strength if combined:
The Circle of the Seraphs, including 3 Seraphs that were famous slaughterers of monsters and capable of matching 1/3th of their Goddess' power.
And the Six Ancestors, the founding lines of countless species of Monster Girls that will be born in future. Even with their strength, two of them are needed to match the full power of a Seraph; but even with that limitation, the Seraphs and the Six Ancestors never missed a member for millions of years.
However, they are only mere living masses of energy gathered from their respective Goddesses, who are also the incarnation of light and darkness.
Then, who is the strongest…
...Living and breathing entity?
In these millions of years ever since the two Goddesses found the world, conflicts over conflicts between three species: Angels, Monster Girls, and Humans; happened every year.
Small or Big, Long or Short, Local or Continental… Years with wars and battles soon piled up, and History was being written from the surviving people, twisting their stories to appear more heroic every time, and slowly creating another version of the world where the "Great" people are the "Good" people.
The Goddess Ilias who lives in Heaven together with her Angels is just a massive and boundless mass of Holy Energy that took the shape of a beautiful blonde angelic woman capable of taking the breath of anything she looks at.
The First Monster Lord, Alipheese Fateburn, is now sealed in the darkest parts of the abyss, unable to hurt even a fly. However, her dark powers were even stronger than that of the Goddess Ilias, which required herself to be sealed for being permanently defeated.
Alas, she is just an even greater and almost unlimited mass of Dark Energy taking the semblances of a mature living trap for lustful men capable of bringing every man to her version of Heaven within a minute of foreplay.
And as said before, their closest subordinates are just like them. Masses of Dark or Holy Energy taking the shape of beautiful women...
In that case, these intelligent 'Things', who can't be even considered as people holding a soul, are pushed aside…
So…I inquire… Who is the strongest person in the world?
Is it the Monster Lord? Holding a significant fraction of the founder within her semi-immortal body and leading the entire species of Monster Girls in the world? Whose strength is only second to the dead True Beasts called 'Monsters' of the past?
No… Birth is irrelevant.
Is it one of the primordial Monsters such as the countess Dracula, the first Vampire monster to have been given birth from the Ancestor of the Succubi? Who is said to have been impaling to death her enemies since her first fight? Or is it the legendary Evil Dragon, Azi Dahaka, the real Master of the Demon Eye Technique?
No! The myths are irrelevant.
Is it the biological weapon, Giganto Weapon? Created with the superior genes of countless monsters and is said to be capable of killing any Angel below the Seraph rank at the times of the Great Monster War?
NO! The genes of a person are irrelevant.
Is it the greatest human hero to have ever existed, Heinrich Hein? Using the power of the Four Spirits to put the 8th and second strongest Monster Lord in the verge of death single-handedly? And then fighting against the Heaven, and the Goddess Ilias, recognised as the Legendary Hero from Humans and the Angel Killer from Angels?
No! No! NO! Help from external sources doesn't matter in this subject!
1'000 years ago, there was such a strength…
With that power, if a single step were taken, people would tremble, and the path would be clear.
It is not important how many bows are behind your back, how many shields are in front of your eyes, how many horses stand at either your sides, how many angels have fallen for your blade, how many monsters have stained your body with their blood…
What is your surname, what is your family's lineage, where are you born, what is your race, what secret blood is hiding in you, what modifications you have done on your body, what legends are told to the future generation about you… They are only secondary.
The only thing that matter is that power and potential inside you. If you can't fully develop, even an entity created from Holy and Dark Energy can be easily killed.
Once people see that potential, they will begin to fear you; Once that potential is turned into power, the only path you can walk on is the one filled with kowtowing people. Humans, Monsters, Angels… As long as you have the necessary power, you can make all three of them bow to you.
His name is forgotten in these days because of the sea of corpses that belonged to both Angels and Monsters behind his back. The winner of the Great Monster War, the Goddess Ilias, erased every fact that belonged to the Great Monster War and twisted it on her favour.
But the question remains… Who is the undisputed strongest person in the world?
If you ask Tamamo-no-Mae, the only surviving Monster from the Great Monster War that is still walking over the earth, who is the Queen of the Kitsunes and one of the Six Ancestors in disguise… She will answer with "Ares".
If you ask Micaela, one of the two only remaining Seraphs in the world that is willing to talk, famed as the Sword of Heaven, leader of an army of an entire battalion of Angels, and the strongest and first Angel to been ever created from Ilias… She will answer with "Ares".
If you somehow travel through time and ask someone about who is the strongest during the Great Monster War, they will all skip the Goddesses and their closest subordinates, knowing that they are entirely different people, and reply with "Ares".
Coincidentally, this name was mentioned only once after the Great Monster War, and it is the name of the sword that one of the Four Heavenly Knights, the Dragon Swordswoman Granberia, is using.
The strongest sword to have been ever forged from Tamamo-no-Mae for her coworker… This 'Ares' must have been a powerful person if someone like her named the sword after him.
Believe it or not, the reason why Tamamo-no-Mae named the sword after him isn't JUST because of his unlogical strength, but for another and more personal reason...
He was holding many titles when he was alive…
The God of War… For his habit of fighting over a horse with a halberd, said that by swinging his majestic weapon, an Angel and a Monster's head could be seen hanging on the blade of the halberd.
The Dragon Slayer… For his achievement of putting an end to the life of Azi Dahaka, the legendary Evil Dragon.
The One Who Survived the Unthinkable… Said to have come out alive by standing in the middle of a fight between a Seraph and a member of the Six Ancestors, and even giving a scratch to one.
But there is only one title that almost no one knew about, and yet even Ares, at that time, admitted for it to be the greatest achievement he accomplished in his life since no matter how much one worked, they could never do it alone.
...Husband.
Though, ever since he gained that title, he started to be sick. After all, the War between Monsters, Angels, and Humans wasn't the only reason why there were really few Monsters and Angels alive, both beings with an immense life span.
Holy Energy flew through Ares' nostrils and corrupted his lungs with the lethal energy that could only be manipulated by Angels.
Dark Energy burned through the cells of his body inside-out, until he turned into a cripple.
As much as these two types of energy can't stand each other, they were able to fuse inside Ares' body, giving birth to an ability that doesn't follow any physical logic.
It was only thanks to that ability that he was able to keep fighting stronger than before, and eventually almost crippling one of the Six Ancestors, who was famous for her practically boundless vitality, Kanon.
However, in the end…
…
Scarlet flames burned through wood and furniture.
In the middle of the scorching Fox-Flames, a mature woman that looked around her 30' was holding her husband's dead body. The woman in question was dressed in a Japanese-styled Miko Outfit that was showing a great deal of her cleavage.
A pair of golden fox ears cowered down, while from their base, long golden and silk-like hair trailed down on her back. Nine golden tails that would make one want to caress them were coiling around the dead body of the person that she loved the most until then.
The dead person is a tall and built man with three tattoos of three 'Beasts'. A tyrannical-looking monstrous Behemoth who wasn't holding any resemblance with the female Behemoth walking on the land of the north was on the middle of his back.
Below that Behemoth, there was a sharp image of a Leviathan that looked like the most feared devil of the seas, capable of putting even the bravest pirate in the dark corners of their ship.
And over those two beasts, with wings extended over his shoulder blades, a bird that looked more than capable of killing a Dragon Girl was depicted on his back—holding sharp claws that looked like they were capable of turning metal in scraps.
All of these three fearful beasts that would give nightmares to their Monster counterpart in this war were contained in the man's back. In his prime, that human must have been one hell of a living God…
...However, he reached such an unjust ending… Poisoned from the blood and flesh of the creatures he killed before.
As unjust as that ending is, lying his head on his long dark hair that covered the wooden floor below his head, he gave an unusual and gentle smile unbefitting of his legend.
"...I'll make sure to end this war." Tamamo-no-Mae whispered before two fingers touched her husband's chest and grabbed an ethereal substance out of it. The substance condensed into a drop-like black crystal, representing the dark and corrupted soul that belonged to her husband, made from a once-innocent part of him suffocated between the slaughter and fights he went through.
Holding a memory of Ares' existence on her left hand, she took out a strand of hair from her silk-like hair and used it to make a hand-made necklace for herself. After that, Tamamo-no-Mae gave a small push to his body, using her abnormal strength to send the man through the floor, and buried him in the basement, away from the flames.
The Fox-Flames started to get wild and burned everything, while Tamamo-no-Mae's silhouette vanished between those powerful flames.
[IMPORTANT]
The next chapter will not come soon, consider this as a 'Trailer' for the time being.