"A small yet important part of the extragalactic policy created by All-Father is the Edict of Numeridia. After a cataclysmic victory over a coup organized by his enemies from the outer reaches of the cosmos, He managed to stop most if not all forms of meddling by powers outside of his sphere of influence, an enormous victory for the overall stability of his empire and forces beyond it. In this series of books, we will learn of its background, the main players, and the great work carried by All-Father and his Family..."

All-Father's Glory Volume 1 third revision.

Lucrezia woke up screaming and trashing about her bed. Her muscles coiled and released like a loaded spring as she grabbed whatever her mechanical arm could hold, and in a flash, she was ready for the fight. Naked and holding a destroyed leg out of one of her wooden chairs, she was prepared for the fight. Yet nothing came. Seconds dragged at a snail's pace as she scanned the room dimly lit by the rising sun, her eyes narrowing and mouth muttering incantations.

With a step that felt more like a kick, she sent a shockwave of Divination miracles across the entire room and beyond, using Miracles like this was hard on her mana reserves as her skills weren't as sharp as regular magic, and Arcane-based divination would take a long...

"That's the second time you wake up this spooked, Lady Lucrezia," Her maid tapped the side of her head "Bad dreams or visions?" Saa'ryu asked as Lucrezia relaxed, with a sigh she sat down at the edge of her bed, putting the chair leg to the ground and closing her eyes in deep thought. For a minute all she could do was process the horrible vision she had saw in silence as Saa'ryu waited.

"I saw a horrible wave of beasts made out of sinew and pus, consuming everything in its path. It wasn't this...this world, Saa. The skies looked different, with a purple sun and visible moons under it. We were fighting down to the last man, and they just kept coming until I woke up." Sweat on her forehead showed both women that Lucrezia was still shaken by the vision. It was a hard thing to watch.

"Not related to my would-be destroyer of the realm daughter at least" Lucrezia tried to make a joke but it fell flat "I believe this is about my expedition to the stars, given the fact I was on an alien planet...but it wasn't me in the vision, now that I had time to process it I felt alien and wrong in key parts of my body and mind that still linger even after waking up and I can...I must..." Lucrezia stopped as a migraine made her lose her focus.

Saa'ryu rushed to her side, holding an ice-cold cloth to her head and giving her water with some powder in it, Lucrezia greedily took it and felt the taste of chemicals burn her throat as the Migraine's pain lessened in seconds "Strong, throat burns" she spoke as the liquid did its work, a potion made for migraines? or something of the sort Lucrezia wasn't about to pester the maid for its ingredients.

Lucrezia got up and made her way to her bath, warm water welcoming her body and soul as she digested the vision and its meaning, Saa'ryu was close by in case of another episode of weakness but this time she didn't faint. A small mercy for the horrible news she had to deliver to a special someone in the early hours of the morning...Sometimes she had the worst luck!

"Saa, Wake up Hope and get her here as fast as you can" The maid nodded and she was off, ready to grab the Woman of the Hour.

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The day was getting more hectic as Lucrezia's soul was outright ejected from her mortal frame the second Hope heard her about the vision. A rude move by the one who ruled over all in these parts and she would be making sure the Divine was not getting off without hearing at least some complaint from her, Hope on the other hand was nonplussed about the whole affair. In her mind, it was within the All-Father's right to summon both given the severity of what Lucrezia beheld.

"I am telling Arthur of this once we are back, Hope! You should be on my side for Goodness' sake!" Hope waved her off with a grin that could've meant several things. The individual who caused this event was staring at Lucrezia with a smile that ill-fitted the face of a supreme God in charge of who knows how many worlds in the wider universe.

"It is indeed one of the planets I need you to check, and the Divine you took the form of is, or was if your Vision is anything to go by a dear grandchild of mine, one of the few that embraced a particular brand of Divinity that helps me seed barren or otherwise lifeless rocks with life..." All-Father Faal spoke with the cadence of an old grandparent who was proud of his grandkids.

"She will not go down gently, I've granted your Richard my troops, and now with this revelation, you will have the blessings of even the most staunch naysayers here in my humble city my Child, it is a pity we can't fast track this deployment but I am sure you will reach this...most vexing issue and make just in your promises to the Spirits" Faal had a complicated expression on his face, Lucrezia was struggling to get a read on Him and eventually gave up on it.

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She could always ask Hope later after all.

"Hope, I ask you to stay for a while. We have things to discuss in private." All-Father Faal spoke, and she nodded.

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"Oh, I remember these two, the light show you did that day still gets talked about on the streets you know?" Hope said as Lucrezia read the name of the group she would be fighting. The woman who had kidnapped her friend long ago and made her go a little overboard in the rescue attempt, plus the intimidation she enacted upon them with her Red Lighting powers.

"I don't like this, Hope. We should've killed them." Lucrezia spoke her mind. Something was wrong with all of this, and she couldn't put her finger on it. In-game, the two were just that—a pair of early-game villains and nothing more. Was she missing something?

"You worry too much! but maybe having that sort of paranoia is not so horrible given what we have to do for your daughter. Chin up Lu I doubt these two wenches can even harm any of us, me and you, Richard and Arthur together? Hell if we had Kaine this would be over in minutes even if they had a full Knight Company worth of support!" Hope punched Lucrezia's shoulder lightly.

Both women went on their ways, and Lucrezia rubbed her eyes as a wave of tiredness spread within her frame. Sometimes, she wished to run away from all of this, to live her life somewhere far away and alone until old age claimed her.

"Silly woman, thinking of such things" she muttered to herself as she reached her room, the place was empty as Saa'ryu was out doing her good work for the Owl and herself, she would need to contact her to gather more information on her upcoming opponents, its always good to have as much information as possible even if planning for combat often was a fool's errand.

"Curious," Lucrezia said as she sat down and read who would assist her enemies in the fight "All Knights from her family and not a single mercenary? then the Queen got wise after the daring play she pulled with Kaine...and that this is nothing but another low-effort ploy by her if the two fail then that's that and she can move another piece against me, if they win..."

Lucrezia's mind returned to the relic that House Morgoth was in charge of, The Sacred Bow which also housed a...

"Christ Alive!" She cursed under her breath, how in all that was holy had she forgotten about the damn thing! it was half the reason she had antagonized that disgrace of a man who held the Sacred Sword in the first place and even after being stonewalled by the blasted spirit inside she kept the thing with Hope and the Sacred Shield Hope had gone on quite the journey to recuperate was broken and the Spear...

Relying on these relics wouldn't work, she had to set up more contingencies, today would be a long long day it seems. It a chain of teleports she began the great work to make sure she wouldn't be dying to any underhand trick the Queen was likely to pull with these two muppets, first and foremost she reached the Cathedral of the Unbroken and after some haggling purchased several highly complicated necromantic rituals.

"This will not feel good, ugh" she spoke to herself as she prepped a ritual room with the necessary raw materials which thankfully were not as hard to get a hold of thanks to connections with Castra, the Red Dragon, and her status as a legal Necromancer. What did get hard was the spellcraft portion of the endeavor as she weaved the rituals into place and felt the pressure, both real and mental of the fact trying to put her down.

"Gods I hope this works" Lucrezia grunted as the weight of mana pressed her entire body down, she found a somewhat comfortable sitting position and took a deep breath. Multiple sigils flared layered on top of each other as a complex pattern began to weave itself, half in her mind and half outside in the real world as part of this put-together ritual involved a visual medium aided by illusionary magic.

Lucrezia closed her eyes, feeling the sounds and smells vanish and something move inside her body as she opened her eyelids again and twisted her eyeballs to their sides like some sort of meat abomination. The outward weave of her ritual flaring and dimming like the rhythm of her heart, a torrent of necromantic power washed over outside and was funneled towards her body, becoming invisible as it gently went through her chest.

Closing her eyes once again she felt another shift and found herself in the Realm of dream and soul that once housed her lesser part, this would be the hardest part of the ritual, and with a thought she called forth a timer, three minutes was all she had before catastrophic failure and the feedback that followed that outcome would not be pretty. She thought she wouldn't die but...

The timer ticked down and she got to work, sitting down cross-legged and with speed aided by her magics she began a series of chants, hand gestures and even singing to properly form the shell for the lack of a better word that would encompass this stage of the madness she was trying to pull, the result of nearly two years of intense training with the magical arts, mathematics and even theology would be put to the test now and she could not, would not fail.

Each Second dragged on and had this not been a realm divorced from the physical she was sure she would be sweating bullets by now! Especially when the ritual demanded her to get up and make precise gestures upright that seemed more like a dance than a proper ritual ceremony. Yet she pressed on and as the timer counted down her pace increased, a deadly dance of desperation and sheer volition that would be beheld by no one.

Lucrezia felt her mind go blank and everything go dark as the timer ran out, she cursed before the blackout as the tail end of the dance did not finish properly and she was pretty sure she had a critical stumble at the end. Yet she woke up in the waking world and everything seemed to be in order, with a flex of her powers she checked to see if her plan worked.

Special clicks inside her soul went off one by one in a cacophony of chimes and whistles. Gods above and below it had worked! she was ready, or ready as she could be at any rate for this trial the Queen had stacked against her, she had another plan as a last ditch effort and quite suicidal even by her standards that would no doubt raise quite the ruckus if she spoke with her friends and allies but in her growing paranoia of this "event" she would do it.

"Forgive me" she whispered to no one, maybe herself as she got up and went back to the academy, ready to face her fate.