Myths Reawakened

Wayne didn’t wait for his opponent to finish his transformation like an antagonist would; as the hero, he prided himself on his lack of chivalrous spirit and rode Julia into a portal.

Rip!

Shadow Nightmare swung down, shattering the armor of red crystals. Death energy found its way through the cracks and reached Marius’s scales, covering them in a layer of grey. The persistent poison could not be shaken off, and it was a fool’s errand to try to defend against it with simple armor.

Red light shot out of Marius’s eyes, clashing with and erasing the Death energy haunting him. A massive claw whooshed down toward Wayne and Julia. The portal opened just in time for the undead warhorse to bring Wayne to Marius’s shoulder.

As soon as the four hooves made a landing, Shadow Nightmare thrust toward Marius’s eye. The black eye burst, and Death energy rushed in with all its corruptive power. Death spread rapidly like poison, soon making the demon’s scales and flesh fall off, revealing the white bone around the eye socket.

A hiss of pain came from the partially revealed skull, and the crocodile-like maw opened wide, shooting Blood energy at the Death Knight from point-blank range.

Facing the open maw, Wayne was tempted to dive into Marius’s stomach to make a mess of him from the inside, but on second thought, he decided against it. He would be a real joke if he ended up getting stuck in Marius’s throat.

Shadow Nightmare glowed with white light, cutting through the crimson energy with a rippling aura. Wayne’s tattered cape morphed into eight grey tentacles and burrowed into Marius’s eyes, ears, and nose, reaching his brain to empty the crocodile demon’s skull.

The cube barrier remained. Wayne swung his tentacles once more.

The space within the barrier froze all of a sudden, and the crimson color took concrete form, sealing everything within the barrier. Six red chains climbed and wrapped around the cube to seal it. In the end, the subspace shrank to the size of a fist before falling to the ground, pulsing with red glow like a crystal heart.

Marius leaped out of the barrier, picking up the cube. He was now two meters tall. While maintaining the appearance of a crocodile man, his bloated, bulging build had shrunk proportionally, creating a more aesthetically pleasing yet still powerful physique.

“Got you.”

Marius wasn’t surprised by his success in capturing the Death Knight alone. The Death Knight’s power was divided, and this newly appointed knight hadn’t had Shadow Nightmare for long. Marius didn’t need the two cowardly and indecisive deadweights that were supposed to be his teammates. He could defeat the knight on his own.

“My lord’s seal can keep even a demon lord at the same rank from escaping. It’s a waste to use it on you.” Marius clutched the cube.

The demon alliance had paid a great price to bring the three familiars to the human world, delaying the opening of the gate of hell in the ceiling of the underground catacombs. And due to the steep cost, there was a limit to the number of familiars that could be brought to this world and their level of strength.

Marius’s master had exploited the restriction to stream only part of Marius’s power to the human world, making room for the cube to be transmitted with him. The reason was straightforward enough: the Blood Tyrant had a different plan. Not satisfied with sharing the Death Knight with the alliance, the demon wanted full control.

Thus, Blood Tyrant gave Marius the cube, having him seal the new Death Knight and use that to start over in Londan, creating another underground catacombs and a gate of hell.

Those in hell were an honestly dishonest bunch. Any random demon was an expert player of 4D chess. Even Blood Tyrant, known for their brawn, had a familiar whose apparent unintelligence belied a calculating mind.

“Hahaha—”

Having sealed the Death Knight and completed his master’s mission, Marius couldn’t help but laugh out loud.

Clack!

His laughter was cut short when he realized, to his shock, that the cube in his hand had cracked. Wisps of Death energy overflowed. Hackles raised, he tossed the cube away hurriedly.

It hit the ground and exploded. Roaring Death energy lunged out, brandishing grey tentacles that wreaked havoc on space itself and distorted it. Amid the grey mist, Marius seemed to see a massive demonic eye.

When he regained focus, the eye was gone. Violent waves of Death energy lifted him off his feet, hurling him tens of meters away.

He knocked down several tombstones, the impacts disturbing the slumbering residents of the cemetery. They climbed out of their coffins one by one, opening their mouths wide in silent protest.

Blood crystals continued to peel off Marius, gradually releasing the Death energy in his body. Muscles and scales regenerated to cover his skeletal parts. He watched in horror as the undead horse jumped out of a portal.

“Impossible!”

Marius gaped in shock, smelling Death in the human world. He remembered very well that when his lord gifted him the cube, they had said that it would be impossible to break out of the seal unless the target possessed a power rivaling theirs. In other words, this Death Knight had to be as powerful as his master.

However, there was another way to escape from the barrier, which was how Marius had gotten out: the barrier only trapped an enemy and not an ally, so one could get out by using the faith of Blood.

The truth was right within reach, but since it was in Marius’s blind spot, he couldn’t reach it no matter how hard he racked his brain. All he could think of was how powerful and unbeatable his enemy turned out to be, and how grave a mistake the alliance had made in intelligence work.

“I thought you were a crocodile man, but you’re a reptilian.”

Wayne rode Julia out, cursing silently at what had just happened. If he didn’t know several foreign languages, he would’ve been trapped.

He hadn’t broken out of the cube barrier with faith in Blood, but with the power of the Divine Comedy of the Seven Deadly Sins. The power of hell worked like a key on the barrier of hell, and he got out on his first try.

Marius had lost his fighting spirit. Flexing his arms and roaring, he turned on his heels and bolted. His aerodynamic body allowed him to run swiftly, moving more than a hundred meters in the blink of an eye. Unfortunately, the undead horse could create portals, and no matter how fast Marius was, he couldn’t outrun teleportations.

Wayne intercepted Marius, slicing off one of his arms with Shadow Nightmare and the aura of the waning moon. Marius’s fear compounded, compelling him to call out for help—to Caim and Juliette.

At that moment, Wayne’s killing intent surged, and the longsword thrust through Marius’s chest. The eight grey tentacles of Death energy wrapped around the demon, eroding his thoughts.

The Book of Greed hurriedly reminded Wayne to spare the demon for a good meal. He retracted his Death energy and lowered the jawbone of his skull, spitting out a clump of white foam at Marius’s head.

The white foam burrowed into the demon’s flesh and took root in the skull, chasing Marius’s thoughts and making head-splitting whispers. Marius didn’t understand anything. He only found the whispers grating.

Realizing that his thoughts were being corrupted, he resisted frantically, all the while the Death energy was destroying his vitality and erasing his thoughts.

The two sources of torment plagued Marius for ten full minutes, until his thoughts were exhausted, and his flesh had all rotten away, leaving only his skeleton. Wayne had a skeleton soldier carry it into a coffin to cultivate it into an elite unit.

After that, he ordered Do and Bo to leave.

***

At the edge of the sewer system, Wayne sent Shadow Nightmare away. He looked disheveled. On his collar was a lip print left by the High Reverend. Filomina had quite the possessive streak, and after its awakening from twenty years of dormancy, she almost smothered Wayne with her obsession.

On the ground, four tentacles extended from the white foam and moved toward Wayne, attaching to and burrowing into his skin. Wayne frowned as he focused on his senses. He had gained little faith of Blood due to the Death energy’s corruption of Marius’s thoughts. Sensing the Book of Greed’s hunger for the treat, he balled his right hand into a fist and swung it.

Bam!

Torrents of white mist ravaged the walls of the sewers, scattering dust and rubble. The undefinable taste seemed to have strengthened his power, but it wasn’t reflected in the Book of Greed. The number of small eyeballs remained unchanged.

The Book of Greed’s greedy mouth only ate and never spoke. Although Wayne was curious about the reason he had gotten stronger, there was no user manual for him to consult.

There were two other familiars. Perhaps a few more meals would enlighten him.

“Master!”

Mona found Wayne at the end of the sewer, shaking her head slightly at him.

Receiving his telepathic order, she had waited in the cemetery for a while, but detected no traces of other demons.

“Caim and Juliette,” Wayne said. “I interrogated Marius’s thoughts and found out there are another two demons in Londan—or familiars, to be more precise. Tell Gunther to look into the names.”

Mona nodded in understanding. She noticed the lip print on Wayne’s collar and filed that away in her head, planning to try it next time.

“Wait...” Wayne raised a hand to stop her. “The three familiars came for the Death Knight. Don’t say anything about my existence. Just tell Gunther that we were passing by the Great Cemetery and happened to witness everything.”

“Master, Archbishop Gunther will be curious why we were passing by the cemetery this late at night.”

“Tell him that we were on a date, and I liked doing it outside at night.”

Mona nodded with a serious expression. Although that didn’t sound appropriate, she didn’t mind when her angel master was tarnishing his own reputation to fight demons.

“Also, have Gunther contact the Ministry of Magic—” Wayne shook his head. “No, I’ll do that myself. Tell him to keep a low profile. Investigate in secret and pretend to be in the dark.”

“Are you not going to the cathedral with me, Master?”

“No, the two demons are good at hiding. The cathedral stands out too much. I don’t want to reveal our cards.”

Wayne cursed silently. If the demons could bring their familiars to the human world once, they could do it again. He would be fine, but he was concerned about Londan.

It might fall under the demons’ temptation!