23 The world takes notice

March 20, UN headquarters, Taskforce Meeting hall

"Where are the others?" The tall bearded man seated at the end of the large oval meeting table asked. Given where his seat was located among others, he was the one in command.

Five other people were seated around the table and each of them had one person standing behind them. One of those people who were standing was Maria. She was standing behind a very calm looking man with long black hair.

"I get that Haoran has things to do in China but shouldn't he pay a visit at least once? how rude", said another muscular man who was seated with a scowl on his face.

"His reasons are understandable Thor, you are the one who's being rude," mockingly said a boy who looked like a teenager. His remark was met with a deadly stare from the man.

A very beautiful woman whose atrociously feminine body features which her revealing sultry dress was accentuating smiled at the two.

"Oh, Is this another fight between relatives?"

"We are not related," both men screamed in unison.

"Okay okay," said the woman with the playful smile still intact.

"Can't we just call each other by our real names?" The tall dark man spoke irritatingly.

"Not all of us are lucky enough to get the same God name as the one we were named as a child Amun," the one who was called Loki teased him.

"Okay, that's enough," the man at the middle commanded.

Julius Fredrick, The chief of the UN task force, was a normal human. He was a man of virtue and even though his job was to deal with superhumans with god-like powers, he did so unwaveringly. He was the first person to suggest building a force with these Awakened. He was also the one who personally convinced the top gods to join hands with the UN.

"I have a very interesting thing to discuss with you guys," he said after the five people were all ears.

"A new clan got registered two days ago, they have a very unusual hierarchy, the likes of which we have never seen before."

He stood up and walked towards a huge screen on the wall. As he started up the screen a picture of an old man was shown on the display.

"The first thing I would like to address is about this man. Apparently, he is an Angel of this clan. It is very rare for old people to awaken much less as powerful ones but this man is an A tier angel,"

The face of all those in the room changed after they heard that. They all knew the implication of the appearance of an A tier angel.

"What's more interesting is, I know this man. Daniel Davidson, A genius strategist who served in the British army years ago. He was an extraordinary leader as well, I personally admired this man and even strived to be like him."

The gods had respect for Julius as they had acknowledged his insight and leadership qualities. They had rarely seen him praise someone else so they were getting curious about the man who he was so heartily praising in front of them.

"He is someone I would want by our side," Julius said as he changed the slide and the pictures of Marcellus and Yahiko.

Maria, who had been standing behind her god, devoid of expression until now raised her eyebrows as the pictures of two boys appeared on the screen. The other pacifiers noticed her concern and started wondering what could have made the Ice girl suddenly look like she was showing emotions.

"These two scored 4.8 on their CPG. However, the Asian guy has only been awakened for a month and the other guy has been one only for about two weeks. They scored 5.7 and 5.6 on their aura test so sooner or later they will also reach A tier."

"You mean, These three are from the same clan? 3 A tier angels?" The man who was called thor asked with utmost curiosity as everyone else were alarmed by the shocking revelation.

"Exactly," Julius said and changed the picture again.

"I-Ivanna? That's Ivanna right?" The young man jumped off of his seat to get a clearer look at the picture, "I have never seen her without the special effects, Man she is too damn beautiful,"

The pretty woman clicked her tongue at that remark.

"You dare call another woman beautiful in the presence of Aphrodite, the goddess of beauty herself?" she said mockingly but there was also a hint of irritation in her tone.

"Shut up old hag," The young man immediately dismissed her," She does not need her aura to make others believe that she is pretty, the only thing going on about you is that unnecessarily large chest of yours,"

Leila, the redheaded goddess of beauty was enraged at the young man.

"I'm only 29," She screamed as a dark purple aura started emanating from her body.

Thor tried to calm her down while also holding his laughter at the same time, " He is too young to understand the appeal of a mature woman, don't be fuming now Leila,"

"Don't call me mature woman, I'm still young," her anger now shifted towards him.

Despite his scary looks, Nash Worthem was a very cheerful man true to his desires. He did what he liked and believed that whatever he liked was the right thing to do. He had short orange hair and very thick eyebrows. He had eyes comparatively small for his size of a face so his eyes would always be closed whenever he laughed. He gave off brawl-more -than-brain vibes.

Each person standing behind the gods were their respective pacifiers. The person standing behind Thor was a young girl who seemed to be very nervous standing in the room full of such big names. Nina Blanca, Her blond voluptuous hair and her upward slanted eyes gave her a very fierce appearance but despite her fierce appearance, she was quite a reserved and shy person. Her being only 17 years old played a big part in it.

Nico Hellion, a 17-year-old troublemaker was the youngest of all the gods above S tier. His personality was too similar to the god that he was believed to be. He had blonde spiky hair and a grin that never left his face. He was also the shortest and smallest one in the room.

"Calm down now, He is just a kid," The man behind Leila put his palms on her shoulder. Surprisingly, that calmed her down immediately as if she was obeying him.

Wayne Viktor, a man who was famous for having one of the strongest fusions among those in the S tier was a pacifier and also the husband of Leila. A tall skinhead man whose body screamed the strength he possessed.

"I can't believe that you boisterous bunch are one of the most powerful people on the planet," Amun calmly said from his seat.

Amun Ashraf was one of the very few people who were coincidentally named as the Gods they awakened to be. He was tall and had a dark complexion with short curly hair. He liked privacy and lacked common social skills.

He was accompanied by a man who looked the second oldest in the room after Julius. He had short white hair and was fairly tall. He was the same as his God in his tendency to like quietness.

"If you are done with your bickering, Can I carry on now?" Julius demanded attention and it was given to him right away.

"At first I was under the impression that this girl was frail at heart considering how she avoided addressing to her fans despite being so popular. I personally went to the research centre headquarters to have a look at these people. The first surprise I encountered was meeting Mr Davidson whose demise was reported some years ago and the next was that young girl. Even though she was above Mr Davidson in power hierarchy being the pacifier, He should have been the one to be taking charge in matters regarding their clan. I say that because I have seen his capabilities in person, He is good enough to even replace me here as your leader. However, It was shocking to see him act as an advisor to the young girl. In absence of their god, she was clearly the one who took charge and my assumption of her changed immediately. She is no ordinary girl."

"Maria," The black-haired man spoke for the first time," It's her right? The one you said you met a few days back,"

"Yes sir," Maria replied softly.

All eyes turned on her. The other pacifiers had been curious why she seemed concerned about this topic and now they got to know why.

"What do you think of her?" Julius asked.

"She is very mysterious, In fact, even the boys are. We had a little face-off with our aura for a moment. I was fully aware that I had an advantage considering I seemed to have a better mana pool but I was subconsciously threatened by her aura throughout the entire time. I don't know how to describe it, perhaps I was intimidated? was it fear? I could have been delusional. The standard mana comparison we do to determine the potential of an Awakened did not seem to apply to them. I really can't describe it." She said looking very thoughtful as she browsed through her memories of the encounter.

It came as a shock to everyone that Maria just spoke in multiple sentences. It was even more shocking to them than what she was talking about. Just what kind of person was this Ivanna to leave such an impression on her?

"By the way, The way she just described her experience, we have felt that too haven't we?" Leila said, looking serious for the first time. The room turned grim for a moment which went unnoticed by Julius as he was looking at the screen.

"We do not have much information on her. She is supposed to be an orphan who was brought to the US as an artist. She has been here since she was 14 so all she has been doing since that young age is singing. However, She radiates the energy of a ruler who has survived countless battlefields. I wonder what kind of experiences built her to have such a disposition," Julius said looking very concerned.

"So? what about the god? what kind of man leads such an astounding group of people?" Amun raised the question that everyone was thinking of.

"Now, that's where everything falls apart for them," Julius sighed as he put up Kael's picture on the screen, "Their god is unlike anyone we have ever seen,"

"Terribly underwhelming," he said after a brief pause.

"Even though he has supposedly already awakened he cannot even call forth his aura as of our last encounter."

"I mean, we would have felt his aura at least once if he was really an S plus tier. Basically, every awaken can feel the aura of an S plus tier god as long as they are on the same side of the earth's hemisphere," Nico stated.

"As the things stand, he won't even make it to B tier and I remember all of you being S plus tier from the moment you awakened," Julius said.

Awakening of the S plus tier would often adversely affect the environment on a continental level. The first god to ever awaken was Solomon. His awakening was what made people term these awakened as gods. The coastal areas across the whole continent were flooded with tidal waves as high as 40 meters and the closest three oceans were greatly affected causing rain for several days even in the areas where rain was very rare. Luckily he was able to adapt to his powers within hours and prevented any major destruction. From then on, the awakened were matched with any deity their abilities were similar to as the people came to the conclusion that these abilities were nothing but godly. Even with their best effort to contain their powers, the aura would overflow from them to cause great electromagnetic disturbances. It took a while for these 15 gods to have their presence hidden and their effects contained.

"So that was the problem in recruiting them and they straight up rejected the offer on top of that," Julius came back to his seat still sighing.

"Let's observe them for a while and see if there would be any changes to that god," Nash suggested.

"Speaking of observing," Solomon spoke," There is something I had in mind,"

"The quiet guy is being quite talkative today," Nash interjected.

"He said like 7 words this whole time," Nico cut in.

Solomon chose to ignore them as he intended the message for the chief.

"There is something suspicious about the seven gods."

The topic drew the attention of all the people in the room, it was partly because the speaker was the person who would mostly be a quiet listener with no opinions in these meetings.

"The eight Gods who are affiliated with the UN are enforcers of discipline and self-control of the awakened to prevent any danger to the society. However even we cannot help but cause little accidents from time to time because we do not understand our powers fully. It may come from us Gods or our angels but mistakes do happen and sometimes they become a major issue. The first thing I find unusual about these clans is that there hasn't been a single report of such accidents from any member of these clans. Are they just that good or are they covering up well?"

The other gods grew more interested as they had also wondered about that a few times.

"Next, All seven of these gods possess great wealth and belong to a family which has been well off for generations and the most noticeable thing is that they progress very quickly compared to us. All of them have fine aura control and everyone down to their regular followers have been trained so well that our quality of awakened looks weaker compared to them,"

"It's like they had already developed these training methods or had the knowledge about it before awakening started," Julius said, more like confirmed to himself.

"And on the top of these people stands that man, The wealthiest and the most powerful of all," Solomon had a very serious look on his face.

"I have been meaning to ask this," Julius said with his chin rested on his fingers, "I know you said it's a feeling you get, but what is it exactly? Why do you consider him the most powerful when he hasn't even released much of his aura?"

The question made everyone's face turn grim. It made them contemplate deeply about their experiences when they encountered that man.

"I don't know how to describe it, I just can't seem to bring myself to look into his eyes as an equal," Leila said.

"It's because you can't sense the aura, chief. It's just the overflowing aura that escapes from him, but every time we come in contact with it, it makes us feel like a baby deer in front of a sleeping lion. At any cost, we do not want to wake him up. It's a gut feeling but all of us can feel it. Even, Solomon and Liu feel the same way and they are the closest to being the most powerful." Nico said remembering all his encounters with the man in question.

"He is the one to keep an eye on, but that goes for all seven of them. I feel like There's much more to all this than we know," Solomon said as he stood up preparing to leave.

All the other gods followed him shortly while the chief remained on his seat thinking back to what Davidson had said to him before parting ways.

It might have been a friendly warning or premonition but there was a hint of distress on his face while he said it,

"I'm grateful that you have gathered such powerful forces to fight by the side of humanity, Julius. You should see to it that they reach the limits of their abilities and be prepared. I'm afraid the world is heading towards a very harsh future and we need to be more capable than the gods of myths themselves to secure a place for ourselves,"