Really hoping Baal gets outed soon, not just because he pulled the biggest Dick move yet, but because this massively downplays what was essentially described as chthonic gods a few chapters earlier (on top of making all the attendants look really really stupid for following for such an obvious ploy and the security look terrible for poor crisis response). As they were described even if Princess Shura is a minor, this entire event should have been a joke to her and especially to her guard unit. Its honestly not even that Baal manipulated the situation, its just embarrassing and counter to what we’ve been told for them to both be this shooken by a single crown rebelling/mutated demon and easily swayed by being rescued like a damsel in distress.
It can entirely be the case that that the Deities aren’t as invincible as rumored, but this was like hilariously pathetic. Like if Princess Shura is this week and her guards this bad at guarding the fact that she was even sent their raises some alarms for me. Based on Iruma and Azzy’s response this would literally put them belong students. If all the deities are this weak then I don’t understand how they maintained such a high position in the hierarchy (there doesn’t seem to be any corruption but maybe there’s some world government and celestial dragon level shit going on behind the scenes). It’d also mean they’re using the term deity very loosely which is unfortunate.
Also sad we didn’t see much more of milf dom badass scary beautiful 13 crown mom/escort showing up. This would have overall been a great situation to show off why the 13 crowns are the 13 crowns, why the people in attendance are considered for the position, and why the border patrol and security forces are able to maintain peace. Also not sure how everyone was panicking and only looking out to protect the people they cared about, but everyone was also able to see Baal whole heroic display and no one saw Iruma’s massive arrow combined with Az’s fire magic be blocked deliberately by a staged barrier…
I’ve been feeling weird about this chapter since rereading it and only able to pinpoint why after writing this, but this was such an anti climatic conclusion with all that build up. I mean, I assume the festivities aren’t over, but Baal’s plan is and so is the big betrayal conflict we were building too. And that was so disappointing. It was like if the Justice League invited a bunch of superheroes and all members to an induction ceremony for new heroes with new gods as special guests (or older gods), for some reason Lex Luthor was invited and staged a supervillain attack, and then no one did anything and panicked except obviously evil Lex Luthor in a room full of the most elite and trained people in the entire world and a literal god got saved like a damsel in distress.
