Somewhere high above in the distant skies, a woman was presently sitting on a private jet while sipping on a glass of wine as she observed images on a screen relayed to her through a satellite.
Pictures moved and stopped until they showed a young man swimming on the sea with no care whatsoever, or more like he was letting the waves take him to wherever they flowed toward as he stared into the distant sky with blank eyes.
"Who is this man? Anyone here knows about him?"
"We have no information on him currently."
A voice flowed out from the communicator that was attached to her and it made her wrinkle her forehead into a frown, "Take his pictures and do some research. We need to learn more about this kid."
She growled slightly under her breath as she kept watching the pictures before closing her eyes as a sigh leaked out of her lips.
"The mission had been a failure."
She spoke to herself but a second voice flowed out from the communicator that was different from the first one that had spoken out,
"Didn't we already know that it was set in stone to be a failure? The Scales of Equilibrium are still set in place, protecting this world, after all. Whenever we try to summon something past a certain rank, there will be a series of coincidences that will cause the plan to fail no matter what."
"I know. We are just testing the limits of the Will of the World. But we can't continue on like this at this rate. We already lost so many forces during our deal with that Shady organization, even lost a page of the Devil's Bible because of that, and as a result, we got nothing on our hands now."
"..."
"We need to see some results. A major demon is impossible for us and a Prince is just a distant dream at this rate. But some middle-class demon should be possible for us, right? How does the Academy even manage to make a contract with high-ranked demons on a regular basis?"
"They have a direct channel to the Astral Realm thanks to Merlin and the bridge he set up back in the day for the Academy with Arthur's help."
She bit her lips and chewed on it at the answer she had received from the other side. Unlike the Academy which thrived in the light despite dealing with devils, cults like them were forced to hide in the dark, making so that the resources they had access to were very scarce and kept deflating over the years due to a lack of a channel.
The plan to bring Lucifer to the world would have obviously been a failure but they were supposed to be able to bring out another devil as a replacement along the way and this should have been very powerful… powerful enough to kickstart their plan of world dominance into action.
But because of some exterior influence, they ended up with nothing. Not a single thing. Worse, they even lost a useful pawn like Kang-Ho and a group of fervent believers that could have been used as sacrifices to summon a powerful force in the future and even shield them from the world if need be.
Let's not even speak of the resources invested in creating an artificial sacred body that they had lost with the death of the boy along with the loss of the devil they had managed to summon.
'What a pain.'
"Find the boy, find his identity, and once you find him… Kill him and erase all of his traces…"
"Very well. But, what about the gang that attacked the pawn we had under protection."
"Leave them. Dealing with that situation is more than just a bit problematic and we don't need to have clear-cut enemies for only this much. Our situation is not the best at this moment, as you can see…"
Yui was a pain in the ass but the organization behind her made it so that attacking her would be too flashy and revealing for them and they would be immediately rooted out due to that. There was a limit to what they could actually do freely due to their veiled existence.
Her eyes became cold.
"Since we failed here I think it's time for us to go into hiding and recuperate slightly before we can make a comeback."
Two failures were not enough to truly weaken their forces but it was better to fall back, gather their forces, and analyze the current trend of the world and the reason behind their continued failures so that the same thing doesn't happen again in the future.
"What about our collaborator?"
"Are you talking about the Scientists or the Assassins?"
"Scientists. The Assassins won't move more than what they did already, at least that's what I believe from their personality over the years. Killing a Director like that was already a gutsy move on their part and they won't dare make a move similar to that unless we bring something valuable enough to the table."
"It's where you are wrong. If I am not wrong, they will attack once again and their target this time will be Las Vegas."
"Really…? So… What do we do then?"
"Nothing. Whatever drugs they are selling out there doesn't really interest me and drug-induced faith is bad quality faith in general. We need something that really comes from the bottom of the heart to fuel our objectives."
She made a sign of the cross but started with the sign of the solar plexus before going left then right and finally touching her forehead to end it all.
"This is just the start. We can do so much more… Soon, the world shall know about true salvation and enter the embrace of our Savior and Lord."
She smiled a wide smile, but her mood soon dampened at the words that followed, coming from her secretary…
"What about the Cult of the Great Old Ones? What do we do about them?"
She frowned heavily at the question that was asked of her.
How many cults were there in this world? It was hard to say as basically, everything had a cult about it nowadays. Even pure machines or even holograms had their own faith for some ungodly reasons. Humans were stupid creatures after all. They were weak and would put their faith and belief in almost anything if that would be enough to bring them a sense of peace and distraction…
But even devils worshiping cults like them were wary of those who worshiped the Outer Gods, the true horrors of existence…
There was one rule set in stone in this world. At least one when it came to religion-based organizations.
You could fight however you wanted to. But fights against each other in case of foreign intrusion were prohibited. This was the only way for them to face the overwhelming might of those monsters living on Earth and prevented the Earth from simply being devoured and thus erased from existence by those monstrous unholy beings of abomination.
"Why are you asking me this so suddenly?"
"The cult of the ?Black Goat of the Woods with a Thousand Young? is moving. I believe they are acting in the European Continent. Their reasons for suddenly springing up are still unknown."
"Ugh…"
She frowned… Things were about to get complicated if those crazy harlots were moving out in the open.
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