AN: Will be alternating between this story and Kotonoha's story. I got the feeling that her chapter will be especially long with what I've planned for her so I decided to get this out first instead. Next up should be reactions from the Biblical factions for when they finally meet properly and Nikaias getting to work on his extra 'projects'.
Local Dragon Ruins History 14 (Waifu Catalog, Nasu!Mythology)
"Hey, you! I'm a goddess from another world, wanna fight?"
Shiva had, uncharacteristically, stared and gaped at the incomprehensible pointy-eared green-haired (a bright shade of green in contrast to his green-blackish hair) girl that looked about two-three years older than his chosen physical form.
If his current form was the equivalent of a Japanese middle-schooler then the goddess in front of him would be a high-school girl, although she wore what seemed to be a ceremonial outfit in contrast to his more casual clothes.
He had immediately sensed that her power was a step above even Sakra's, with a future he could not see nor a mind he could read through his abilities.
Excluding Ophis in her prime and the Great Red, the only other god that had been a true threat to him had been the Biblical God, which he had surpassed in power as of late due to the billions of worshipers he had amassed since that god's death.
"Hmm… Do you know who I am?"
"The strongest God of Destruction in this world, Shiva. Yeah, I do. Why do you think I came all this way?"
Her cute, fearless smirk made him want to skip the politeness and unleash his power immediately. But he restrained himself, just as his wife Parvati had helped him to do, it would be terribly rude of him to destroy one of his favorite resort spas because he got too excited.
A smile crept up his face. His body hasn't shivered in this much anticipation in centuries.
"It's nice to meet you for the first time. But who are you?"
"Oh! How rude of me, I had forgotten to introduce myself. My name is Sothis. I'm also known as...The Beginning."
He heard the truth in her words and wanted to laugh at how he just gained the perfect opponent.
A Creator God.
How interesting. He wanted to take her life right now.
The only lives he would ever consider worthy of taking were those who can pose a threat to him. Whether it's Odin or Zeus, the lives of other gods or many other leaders… he has no interest in it. If there was a life he wanted to take, it would be Ophis in her prime. Or rare cases like Sirzechs Lucifer, Ajuka Beelzebub as well.
"I would be happy to oblige. But alas, my wife Parvati would scold me for going overboard…"
"Then just fly up into space already. There's lots of space to throw down there, pun intended!"
… Why didn't he think of that?
Oh yes, there were those times... Tons of gods made a huge fuss about being away from their standard terrestrial domains (they were mostly excuses to not fight him in his more 'wild' days), so he could never gather a large group of gods to battle against all at once.
Shiva chuckled and agreed to her request.
The both of them casted an illusion over their current area and flew up into the skies, then went further beyond that!
"I'll throw up a veil over the world, only those with sufficient power will be able to perceive our battle." He could hear Sothis loudly projecting that particular thought, allowing him to pick it up with his mind reading abilities.
There was no way they could speak normally in the vacuum of space so they would use this method instead.
"That's good. It would be rather frustrating to deal with the complaints of my own mythology should we have to erase the memories of so many humans." He sent his thoughts to her, getting a quick reply in acknowledgement.
"Pity that the human's of this era are so weak of heart to be frightened by a little show."
"Fascinating. So you have humans in your world as well? And you walk among them."
She gave him a short summary of the state of her world, its many dangers and their chosen role as 'guides' to humanity in less than 50 words. After that, she mentioned something about dedicating a small amount of her power to negate the indirect effects and shockwaves of their clash, though she kept quiet on the exact method on how she would do so.
Understandable, considering that they were about to fight.
All of a sudden, he felt a fist on his face!
He hadn't been prepared for such speed at the very beginning, due to the lack of practice, and allowed his face to be struck!
Adjusting to the lack of gravitational forces quickly, he dodged her following attack and countered.
No divine aura? No wait, it's there, but it's held tightly within her body.
The fight began to escalate to the point where their powerful clashes began to light up the sky, his destructive aura against her tightly controlled aura, the lightning fast physical blows they exchanged shook the planets itself!
If it weren't for whatever she had done to the space around them there would have been catastrophic effects for centuries to come.
What a joyous day! At last, a true battle!
He wasn't fighting some idiot god that flung their divine aura around like a child splashing a bucket of paint around. He was fighting a warrior!
He had become too bored with mere wars and skirmishes. He never had any intention of starting a mudding war with anyone, much less Sakra, who went ahead and recruited beings from other mythologies in an effort to defeat him, which he found extremely funny considering Sakra's personality.
But this? This battle against a warrior goddess, a visitor from another universe, this was an opportunity too interesting to not take and he was glad he took it!
He increased his power and speed, his blows began to overwhelm Sothis's defense, but she used some form of trickery to make up for it! It was as if his movements became the tiniest bit more imprecise, the slight imperfection in his technique and coordination allowing his opponent the chance to defend herself.
No matter. Whatever power it is will simply be destroyed by his full might.
"I'm done warming up."
He unleashed his true destructive power, wrapping his body with an aura that would destroy matter and even concepts itself. Time and space began to warp around him as those concepts began to break into nothing.
Sliding through the destroyed space-time, he reappeared behind Sothis and slammed his leg down on her defenseless neck-
"Were you trying to surprise me? It shall take more than that!"
-the thought was instantly picked up by his ability just as his leg landed on her, and was frozen still…!
What? Impossible!
"Yes, well, you can destroy your enemy's power, space, time, whatever. But you know? Destruction itself needs time to happen, if I don't allow you to have that 'Time', then you very well can't destroy things now can you?"
It took him a whole second to comprehend what just happened.
"You're not just a creator goddess… you're a goddess of time."
She had somehow 'stilled' the time around her, or his own power, so that destruction wouldn't take place! That control appears to be limited, however, to the extent of her physical body. Not that it would help him land a true blow on her unless he tires her out. It was highly unlikely that such a masterful usage of her domain wouldn't cost a significant amount of power.
Now that he thought about it, those times where he found his movements to be off ever so slightly, allowing Sothis the opportunity she needed to avoid and parry his attacks was because she somehow 'skipped time' by a random amount of milliseconds to throw his coordination off!
"Oh my, that's very clever of you. Are you expecting a reward?"
"I am. I expect you not to die too early!"
He brought forth his Trident of Light, the Trishula, and unleashed his full power upon her!
Shiva held the advantage for the dozen of seconds as they exchanged hundreds of blows, then, just as he had hoped, she brought forth her own weapon to bear and brought the fight back to a stalemate.
It was only after they disengaged from the heated battle that he realized just how wrong the weapon she held in her hands was.
The spine-like sword wasn't just an aesthetic choice, it was made out of an actual spine, her spine, to be exact…!
"What have you done to yourself?!"
"It's not like that, well, it's a long story. Let's just say my previous mortal incarnation got killed in her sleep and had her body desecrated really badly."
"I have time."
She obliged him over the course of the next round. A goddess who shed her true form and power to live among humans, how she had many children and shared her knowledge, only for humans to turn their weapons against her, a devastation of the land that one would expect out of a third nuclear-powered fueled World War, her restoration of it, a deep slumber and her subsequent death in a defenceless state. And then what they did with her bones… he wouldn't wish that fate upon any of his fellow gods and their children.
He too, shared a bit about himself, which amused the goddess greatly since he certainly had changed from the days where he had a bit of a 'temper' problem.
Their battle continued. His spear met the edge of her blade once again. Again and again. Their blows shook the heavens, their respective divine power flowed from their bodies and through their weapons as extensions of themselves.
Shiva had already destroyed the Moon and Earth several times over with the swing of his spear, yet the damage was repaired in an instant… he calmed down, this wasn't right, while it was his duty to one day destroy the world he would not do so until the appointed time, much less have his chosen opponent be the one to preserve the world in his stead during a battle.
"Have you done what you have sought to achieve? I understand that you too, enjoy a good battle, but you did come to me with a different motive."
Sothis merely smiled at the conclusion he arrived at, "I'm almost done. What say we give it our all one last time? After that, I'll take you to meet my husband and family."
"He must be the luckiest god in your world to have the love of such a goddess like you."
"Ooh, should I repeat what you said in front of your wife?"
"... Please forget that."
"Very well."
The glow of her divine aura brightened to that of a shining star, he matched her power with his own and began his cosmic dance.
Her power gathered and then there was light.
Light, heat and enough earth to form the core of a planet.
She was forming an entire world around him for the purpose of detonating it with him in the centre of it.
No matter, the whole purpose of his existence was to destroy the world, a newly formed star was just practice for him.
Not that practice wasn't a difficult affair.
He needed to unleash his full power to destroy her attack, and while he still had energy to spare, it would be dangerous if he used too much of it while he was in a state where he couldn't muster his full power again.
Thankfully, Sothis seems to be suffering from the same problems, she looked lethargic and about to fall asleep at any moment.
"So… out of ten, how's that?"
"It was… definitely a strong nine."
"Hmm, haaa~" She yawned silently in space, "It looks like I really need to get back my true form if I'm ever going to do something dumb like that again."
"I'll be looking forward to it."
And he would be training to get stronger as well. If she still had more potential in her then he wanted to fight her at her best, and for that to happen, he needed to gain more powers and find a way around her domains.
Shiva suddenly felt her power spike upwards, it was as if the divine energy she had just spent was restored in an instant. The cuts and bruises on her body had been healed up as well!
"Here, have a Senzu Bean."
Sothis was right in front of him offering a small bean. Perhaps she stopped time for a brief moment?
Well, if she wanted to kill him while he was still winded, then she would have tried harder than this. He took her up on the offer and was shocked to find the moderate wounds he had healed up in nearly an instant. A good amount of his life force and divine energy had been restored too!
"That bean… can it be grown?"
"Yup! Ah, but you'll have to make a deal for it~"
For a single bean to be capable of restoring the power of a god was no small matter. Such a thing would potentially destabilize the various powers of this world.
He couldn't wait to watch what would happen.
Shiva soon followed Sothis down back to Earth where they would be meeting up with her husband and her family.
They ended up arriving in a disaster zone of a land that used to be controlled by vampires. Bodies of evil dragons… no, fake evil dragons… littered the ground. The Tepes and Carmilla castles were in such a sorry state that made him want to laugh at the foolishly arrogant blood-sucking bats that laid claim to such a ruin.
Shiva saw his friend's 'family' gathered up in the barely intact throne room of the Tepes's clan, the white haired man that Sothis described as her husband was fucking a blonde dhampir girl upon the remains of said throne.
Oh myself! Her 'family' was actually her husband's 'harem'!
Huh? So that's where Nyx went… she had disappeared from his visions of the future suddenly, and it appears she carries the same immunity to a few of his powers as Sothis did.
Now that he looked at them carefully, all of them were immune from his mind reading and precognitive abilities. A shared power? One that originated from Nikaias, perhaps?
"Sothis! Are you safe? Are you all right?"
At least he had the courtesy of finishing up quickly when his wife arrived, judging by the look at his insatiable blonde lover, he wasn't even close to satisfied at this point.
… Come to think of it, he really should return home to Parvati and satisfy her needs.
"Yes, yes, I'm fine. Now get off me, you're embarrassing me in front of my new battle buddy!"
The white-haired dragon god wrapped in man's flesh felt very different from his newest friend.
At first glance, his power was definitely weaker, he would probably have belonged amongst the top gods of this world that weren't a challenge to him… but there was something dangerous about him, looking beyond just raw power, he could tell that this Nikaias was definitely a threat to his life.
"Lord Shiva, what a coincidence for us to meet in a place like this!"
The man who said that was Azazel, behind him was the famous Red Dragon Emperor and a few of Rias Gremory's peerage, Shiva briefly noted that the eyes of both the holder of the Boosted Gear and Forbidden Balor View were fixated on the dhampir girl.
"Should it be called coincidence, or inevitability? After all, I am here at the machinations of my newest rival from another world." Shiva decided to play along with Sothis's now apparent goal. It's not his first time acting as someone else's reference, after all.
There was that time Ganesha actually tried applying for a job at a human company just for fun and Shiva ended up getting called on the phone while he was on a fishing trip because of it. They were interesting times.
Azazel, one of the vilest and most accomplished liars in the world, masterfully hid his true feelings on the matter and continued in his usual affable tone, "I figured as much. These gods from another world and their… recruits, have a way of making themselves known."
"If anything, you should be giving the credit to my genius wife Sothis!" I cut into Azazel's and Shiva's little conversation, having finally dispelled the deep worry in my heart for Sothis's well being. "She was the MVP for this."
"Well, that much is to be expected. For all I know you'll end up doing something terribly silly if I let you do the talking. Oh wait, you already did it! With Valerie, again!"
I'm starting to think Sothis is getting a little peeved at how much attention I'm paying Valerie. It's not my (entire) fault she's so eager!
"Come on now, that was the most interesting start to a diplomatic meeting I've ever had." Azazel joked lightly.
Shiva seems to be having fun and continues on, "Well if this is a meeting then we best get on with it. My name is Shiva, one of the Trimurti. I feel that we will be meeting more frequently from now on so let's get along together."
I shook the hand that Shiva put forward in a friendly manner.
"My name is Nikaias, it's a pleasure to meet you."
After a round of introductions I began getting Sothis and Shiva up to speed with what happened here, where our arrival largely went as planned.
Bringing everyone to vampire territory to stomp some evil dragon mooks and capture Euclid? That had been the easiest part. The difficulty hadn't really risen above that level much at all.
Watching the main cast's reaction to how we destroyed all the enemies within a minute of entering the battlefield was a brief distraction from my worries. Gasper and Valerie had a short teary reunion after she broke him out of his enraged Balor-Shadow-whatever state, while I had Nyx restrain Euclid using some of God's seals after I defeated him with a swipe of my finger.
Displaced Atmosphere + Power to 'Still' Time + One Finger = Finger Swipe of Doom
While there were a lot more showy ways I could have used to stomp Euclid down I decided to go with the time honored tradition of introducing new villains to the Worf Effect, defeating them in an embarrassingly easy manner.
I had made some brief introductions to the group and explanations on how we were going to take back Valerie's, sort of redundant, piece of soul held by Rizevim in the form of the group. Then we got distracted by Sothis's star shattering clashes that were definitely at DBZ levels up in space.
I had never been prouder of saying 'that's my wife' in front of so many strangers until then.
As the battle continued, I did my best to distract myself from my worries for her by helping Valerie with the bad memories she had of this place. Valerie delightfully suggested that I replaced those memories with better ones, which of course, we did by going up to the Tepes throne and having sex upon it.
Valerie got to show off how brilliant she was as my enthusiastic sex slave/wife through her colorful language, to which Gasper and Issei didn't know how to respond to. The rest of the Gremory group (sans Azazel) just tried to ignore what we were doing and attempted to get more information on what was going on from Nyx, Demeter, Ingvild and Meredith instead.
"I see, I had foresaw the release of Trihexa, though the perpetrator had escaped my visions. To think that it was Rizevim, you devils do have a tendency to stir up a ruckus." Shiva remarked casually at the Gremory group and the captured Euclid. He then said that he needed to leave, something about almost forgetting celebrating something with his wife, and then departed in a blink of an eye.
The frightened devils sighed in relief, apparently Shiva was that much more frightening for them, since he had a known reputation in this world. Sothis managed to catch some of that now that she's been declared his rival.
Valerie tapped me on my shoulder, "Master Nikaias, what are we to do about this land? I know I've said I hated the ruling clan but… most of the people didn't deserve this."
Hmm, yes, the slaves and ordinary vampire citizens didn't need to be annihilated.
If I remember correctly, most of the supernatural groups didn't give a shit about the vampires after that (for good reason), so I guess it's up to me to sort this tragedy and humanitarian disaster currently in the making.
"Demeter, are their souls still lingering around?"
"Yes, I don't anticipate difficulties in locating souls for the next 3 minutes and 42 seconds. Dispersal of the soul will begin past that point."
"Wait, hold up, that's Demeter?!"
I wave off Azazel's distracting surprise and continue, "Can you start scanning them for appropriate levels of Empathy, tag the acceptable ones, then sync up with Valerie?"
Demeter tapped her scythe on the ground, activating it, "Scan initiated… and completed, data will be transferred through Theos Klironomia, Designated User: Valerie Tepes."
I pulled Valerie into an embrace as she processed the information, then allowed her to suck my blood to power up, allowing her to use the Sephiroth Graal remotely with Demeter's assistance to resurrect the vampire territory's population that had a decent chance of being normal or good people.
Azazel looked like he wanted to take Valerie to his laboratory but was scared off by my family's glare that promised him a painful death. Thankfully, he and the devils had to leave since they weren't supposed to linger around for long, in contrast, we didn't give a shit about the rest of the mythologies and stuck around to set up a working government for the new vampire groups.
"Fuck democracy! Let's just pick Elmenhilde and the most competent male vampire and be done with this."
Valerie changed her tune about helping the vampires after they voted her as their leader with an overwhelming majority of 120% of the vote (paper duplicating spell works on ballots) after she explicitly rejected her nomination in favor of being my wife.
Unfortunately for her, reviving so many people in an instant has a way of making people believe she's their Messiah.
"How do you feel about this, Elmenhilde?"
"...I don't have much of an opinion of this, but if it is Lord Nikaias' will, then I will accept it."
Our candidate of choice was sitting with us in the building we were using as an office, she looked a bit despondent after reflecting on her own actions and the traitors within the Carmilla Faction that had turned into evil dragons themselves.
"You're practically one of the only competent noble vampires left that cares about your home, so that counts for something. If you don't think you're up for it then you can take the position as an interim leader then choose a successor or let the people choose next time around. But I think you should give it a go, this is a chance for a fresh start for the vampire race and I think you'll do a great job."
I reassured the cute blonde loli vampire, who had lost a great deal of arrogance after the whole affair, eliciting a small smile from her.
"I see. Then I will do my best to meet your expectations. Once again, I thank you and everyone for aiding us. I will be sure to repay this kindness."
I don't think she really has any idea on how that'll end up.
Valerie already satisfied the vampire slot in my harem just fine, thank you very much, but I certainly won't say no. Speaking of potential candidates that I'll like to add, I should get Meredith's help in making contact with a certain witch.