Myths Reawakened

The black and white dragons collided in the air. The black dragon’s steely defense was as easily torn apart as papier-mache by the forty-meter-long Elemental Mantra. The white dragon’s horn pierced through the black dragon’s chest before swinging up to haul it overhead.

The black dragon was around two hundred and fifty meters long, while the white dragon was close to three hundred meters. The fifty-meter difference was translated into a power gap, and the black dragon of Hell that Ludwig had transformed into was pummeled immediately after his appearance.

Elemental Mantra protruded from the black dragon’s back. Viscous and scorching hot black blood fell like rain. The white dragon tipped her head up and roared. With the black dragon blood running down her futuristic body, she painted a vicious and domineering picture.

A good volume of the black blood streamed along the Life Armor and into her mouth. Senna gulped it all down, storing the dragon blood in her body. White foam writhed as Wayne studied the blood. Unfortunately, the blood was too sulfuric to be useful in refining bloodlines. Silvia or Veronica couldn’t use it.

The white dragon twisted her neck, tearing the black dragon’s chest open with Elemental Mantra. Blood gushed out and rained down from the sky. The black dragon roared in pain.

The two dragons grappled in the air. Flapping his wings, the black dragon scattered the chains of the Divine Comedy of the Seven Deadly Sins from the tips of his wings, which wound around the white dragon’s neck and limbs like vipers. They hissed, trying and failing to break through the defense of the Life Armor. The cacophony of clanging noises made it sound like a smithy.

Originally, it would have been impossible for Ludwig to break through the defense, but Wayne took pity on him and manipulated Elemental Mantra to lower the guard of the Life Armor, reluctantly accepting the delivery.

Ludwig didn’t know that there was someone else inside Senna. As soon as he saw the break in her defense, he pushed further and stabbed the chains through her scales, injecting Hell’s might into her flesh without pulling back.

“I don’t know how your knight master helped you master the Elemental Mantra, Senna, but this power of Hell is no doubt beyond his capability. Enjoy the torment of the Seven Deadly Sins and become Hell’s servant!” The black dragon growled, his red eyes glinting viciously.

He cackled as he waited for the green dragon covered in white armor to turn black, for her chest to bleed nonstop, and for the pain to trigger her viciousness and make her even more agitated.

After a moment, nothing happened.

The green dragon was still green. The Life Armor became stronger all of a sudden, cutting off the black chains and once again shielding the green dragon’s body completely.

Ludwig didn’t understand. He couldn’t figure out what was going on at all. Senna just defied common sense today. She wielded the Elemental Mantra, and now she ignored the Seven Deadly Sins. She was like a god of war.

Roooar—

The black dragon roared furiously as the world spun around him and the wind whistled in his ears. When his back slammed into the ground, he threw up a mouthful of blood, shuddering in pain.

The white dragon lifted her head. Her forty-meter-long horn sliced up from the black dragon’s chest all the way to his neck like it was cutting tofu. One of his arms slumped weakly, and his head drooped to one side.

His tainted blood blackened the earth, subjecting the last remaining patch of vitality domain to heat, corruption, and sins, turning it black.

The white dragon continued to move her head around, swinging her horn and mincing the black dragon’s chest like a boxcutter. One of his arms was severed entirely, hurled into the sky.

The violent scene made Garvin’s eyes twitch. He knew that Senna had an unhinged side, but he didn’t expect her to be this unhinged. Was this their future pope? He wondered if she would be the right choice...

Behind Garvin, Desiree gaped in shock. The new Holy Maiden had seen her fair share of spectacle, but she had never seen a great dragon getting cut up alive. She thought of Senna, the graceful beauty she had met that night, and she struggled to put her and this savage dragon together. However...

She wanted to become a woman like her.

Roooar—

Under the white dragon’s flurry of slashes, the black dragon slowly stopped resisting. She growled, opening her large maw. Elemental tides rose as dozens of dragon heads emerged and took shape, targeting the black dragon below.

She was too ruthless!

Garvin found the sight unfit for children, so he blocked the bloody execution from Desiree’s view, worried that the Holy Maiden would be traumatized and led astray.

Desiree popped her head out, covering her eyes with her hands, but not fully.

(/⌓˙\)

She wanted to look. Her admiration for Senna reached its peak at that moment.

Senna was no doubt captivating. Even Veronica, who found her disagreeable in every way, had fantasized about becoming a dignified lady like her.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

A series of dense bombardments brought up waves of dust. The black dragon’s chest caved in and became minced meat, while his head had been nearly separated from his body, with only sludgy flesh barely connecting the two. His eyes had dimmed, suggesting a serene death.

Since he was a single man over a hundred years old, with no family members above or below the family tree, no one came out to protest his death.

From the tainted gore, a scream reverberated. Powerful vitality gathered into a naked man. Ludwig climbed to his feet, having somehow extracted himself from the great dragon’s body and reforged a physical form.

He was severely weakened. His skin, burned by the black dragon’s tainted blood, peeled off, revealing the pink flesh underneath.

“Senna...” Ludwig looked at the armored dragon in terror. He had never craved the Elemental Mantra more than at this moment. When she looked down at him from above, Ludwig suddenly teleported away.

“Gone?”

Gone with Ludwig were the tattered remnants of his vitality domain. It was Wayne’s first time seeing a vitality domain in action, but it was a poor imitation of the real thing, nothing to be afraid of.

With the vitality domain gone, everyone returned to the council hall. Senna’s massive body smashed the pillars and the long table, destroying the well-constructed architecture.

The four weasels, witnessing the future pope unleash divine might to kill the traitor Ludwig for betraying the goddess, pulled their vitality fields back and swore allegiance to her.

I pick Senna. She has the support of the common people! x4

No matter if they had any grievances, they wouldn’t dare to hold onto those feelings.

Ignoring the opportunists, Senna flew out of the isolated space where the council hall was located. Her massive body hovered in the vast sky of the church’s headquarters. Her overwhelming might and the forty-meter-long sword on her forehead astounded everyone who saw her.

Because of its strong vitality, they recognized the horn as the Elemental Mantra, the divine artifact of the chosen knight.

“Such a powerful dragon. Is that the Elemental Mantra?”

“Whose mount is it? Sir Knight’s?”

“What exactly happened in the council hall? Why would the Order of Nature lock it down... Where’s His Holiness?”

Hundreds of mages bowed out of respect for Elemental Mantra. Watching the white dragon leave, they whispered among themselves.

Boom!

The great dragon landed. Amid rising dust, Senna turned human. Armored in white Life Armor with the Elemental Mantra in her grip, her long hair dancing in the air without wind, she looked even more like a deity of war.

Her eyes glinted coldly as they landed on the Pope’s Basilica. She stalked toward the gates.

The space that the Church of Nature inhabited was still under lockdown. She could sense Ludwig’s weakened energy. Tracing it, she cut through layers upon layers of defenses and wards like butter, spotting Ludwig in the enclave on the far side.

Dressed in the long white robe of the Pope, Ludwig stood in an activated, glowing magic circle. The radiance cast shadows on his skinless face.

“You look even more like a demon without your mask,” Senna commented.

“Don’t forget your place. You should’ve been inferior to me!” Ludwig gritted his teeth with jealousy and resentment that he couldn’t contain. “If not for your knight master, you wouldn’t have gained the recognition of the Elemental Mantra or defeated me.”

“Not necessarily,” Senna said, thinking about her other self. Her overpowering desire reared up. She wanted to kill the same person in both worlds.

Sensing her killing intent, Ludwig raised a long sword in one hand while clutching a rough red stone in his other hand. It was the Philosopher’s Stone!

Unlike the half-complete ones Wayne had encountered, this stone had been forged from a demigod. It had many uses and could easily create a space for the headquarters of the Church of Nature.

Wayne hadn’t seen the stone in the inner world. He salivated over it, thanking nature for the generosity.

“Ludwig, hand over the Philosopher’s Stone. You’re no longer the Pope.” Senna didn’t censor herself at all.

“Hahaha, you continue to dream even now!” Ludwig’s face contorted and dripped with blood. “I’ll open the Gate of Hell here, and all of you will become my stepping stones to Hell.”

Senna scoffed. She didn’t have the time to worry about what the magic circle was, what it did, or whether it was a trap. She rushed toward Ludwig with her blade.

Clang!

Her Life Armor collided with the light emitted from the magic circle. Senna took two steps back with an icy expression, her forehead slightly reddened.

Elemental Mantra had failed to cut through the magic circle, which was unusual.

“It won’t work,” Ludwig scoffed. “This is the defense on the Gate of Hell, a seal created by an absolute power from Heaven. Aside from angels, no other living beings can go through it, not even your knight master.”

“Heaven...”

Senna narrowed her eyes at the magic circle. It did look like the Church of Heavenly Father’s style, but the manifestation was different. The energy waves also differed from the Holy Light she knew.

“Charge through it,” Wayne said. “I’ve given you another buff. The sealing power of Heaven does not work on you now.”

The power sounded impressive, but Wayne had even entered a Śār. Why would the defense stop him? He only had to switch mode.

Without hesitation, Senna charged at an accelerated speed.

Ludwig laughed, waiting for her to make a fool of herself. What an arrogant woman. He had just said that no living beings could enter aside from angels. Did she really think she was special just because she could use the Elemental Mantra?

The Lord of Wrath had sworn that not even the chosen knights would be able to break through the defense. If one did, he would let the Lord of Gluttony eat him!

Ludwig saw a flash. When he didn’t hear the sound of a head colliding with an unbreakable wall, his heart sank. His hand suddenly felt lighter. He could no longer sense the Philosopher’s Stone.

Looking down, he realized that he had not only lost the stone, but also his left hand. It had been sliced cleanly at the wrist.

“Heaven’s sealing power? It’s nothing before the Elemental Mantra.” Standing outside the magic circle, Senna burned Ludwig’s left hand with conjured fire, putting the Philosopher’s Stone in her personal storage.

“This... this...” Ludwig was shocked beyond measure, in such disbelief that the pain didn’t even register. ”Did the demon lord lie to me... No, are you an angel?”

“You’re free to think whatever you want.” Senna wasn’t going to tell him the truth. In a flash, she knocked him out of the magic circle and broke the circle’s patterns with a stomp, interrupting the summoning of Hell.

In the corner, Ludwig held his blade with his remaining hand. It had pierced deeply through his chest, making him cough up blood.

He was on the verge of death.

When he saw Senna come up with the Elemental Mantra to finish him off, he glared at her with hatred and frustration. “You can’t kill me. Your knight master would want my life. He gave you the power to defeat me, so you should leave me to him.”

However little time he could buy, he would try to buy it. He had to survive to have any hope.

Ludwig firmly believed that, given his worth, Wayne wouldn’t just kill him, and given a little more time, he would be able to reach demigodhood and head to... to... Well, he didn’t care where he headed to, be it the Divine Realm, Hell, or even the Astral Plane.

Whoosh!

Following a flash of white light, Ludwig’s head rolled. Then, more glinting slashes cut the head into pieces, destroying his thoughts.

Only after making sure that Ludwig was deader than dead did Senna say, “He’s always been here...”

“I’m not the one who killed you.”