Myths Reawakened

Wrath whirled around and blocked the sneak attack as if he had eyes on the back of his head. His fingers, wrapped in blackness to form a weapon, blocked Wayne’s greatsword of Holy Light with enough force to make screeching noises.

“Who are you? You don’t fight like any of the old friends I know.”

Powerful energy shot out of Wrath’s palms in the form of dense clusters of black rays, slicing toward Wayne like a physical blade.

The demon lord was incredibly strong. Though only parts of his thoughts had descended, though he was under the suppression of an angel’s halo, he remained a formidable enemy.

Wayne felt a headache brewing. If possible, he would like to wait for the two demons to destroy each other before taking the winner down. However, he had lost contact with Regina, and the two demon lords weren’t fools. They had been moving toward the volcano while they fought and wouldn’t determine a winner until they saw the ultimate prize.

The demon lords were experienced in being villains, while Wayne felt restricted by the role of a hero. He wore the angel disguise like an ill-fitted skin and ended up one-upped by the demon lords.

Lesson learned. He would continue to play villains from now on. Let others take on the role of heroes.

Clang!

Black dragon claws tore five crimson gashes into space, extending a thousand meters downward. Wayne dodged the attack, switching to Pale Knight mode under the humanoid skin. The fake white wings behind his back lost their stiffness, and the greatsword of Holy Light became radiant.

On the Book of Greed’s cover, the large eyeball radiated sacred white light.

Bam!!

Wayne’s speed surged. In the blink of an eye, he reached Wrath. The demon lord raised his claws to block the attack, ready to replicate the earlier exchange by crushing Wayne’s greatsword of Holy Light. After they passed each other with Wayne’s blade gleaming, however, it was Wrath’s black dragon claws that ended up flying into the sky, splattering tainted black blood.

The sacred flames clinging to the stump of the severed arm burst, burning the dragon claws of thoughts to ashes.

Wrath was shocked. The mysterious angel had gone all in, demonstrating incredible holy intent of the Golden Law. He wasn’t faking it. He was indeed someone of a high status in Heaven. However, Wrath could not figure out who the angel was, even after reaching out with his thoughts.

It wouldn’t make sense for the angel’s soul to change shape after reincarnation... Who was he? Did Heaven have more secret forces?

Another slash was coming. With no time to dwell on the question, Wrath moved aside, but it was already too late for him to dodge the attack. Blood gushed out of his chest before his heart was carved out by Wayne’s following swipe.

Wayne crushed Wrath’s heart. Wrapping his fist with sacred flames, he burned away the sinful black sludge.

A quick succession of flickering sword aura shattered space and soon rendered Wrath a shell with no heart or lungs. The physical pain wasn’t the problem, but the weakening of his thoughts. With every slash, Wayne erased the thoughts that filled Wrath’s body, giving him no time to react.

After a few exchanges, Wrath had to consider retreating.

The fight today was alarming. From the moment it began, it felt like he and Gluttony had stepped into Heaven’s trap. When Wayne first said that a legion of angels was soon arriving, he hadn’t believed it, but now he had to consider the possibility.

The white mask Wayne was wearing, especially, meant that his identity would be a great revelation, or the angel wouldn’t have covered his face so thoroughly.

Things have changed. Better cut my losses here!

Wrath made up his mind. He stopped drawing more thoughts to the human world and instead regenerated his limbs. Black scales surfaced on his skin before his body burst through his clothes. He transformed into a black half-dragon.

He now stood at two and a half meters tall with long, slim limbs, a long, thick, powerful tail, vicious horns on his head, and eyes so crimson that they seemed to be bleeding. When he opened his fanged mouth, white steam poured out.

Boom!!

A black beam of light shot out of Wrath’s mouth like lightning, imbued with incredibly dangerous compressed energy. After Wayne dodged it, the light beam hit Hestia, who was fighting Gluttony.

The metal angel fell from the sky with rising black smoke, unsure what had happened.

Wayne apologized silently, rushing Wrath in a streak of white light to thrust his greatsword at the demon’s chest. It was a bit of a disappointment that Wrath hadn’t transformed into a great dragon, leaving Wayne with no use for his dragonslaying swordsmanship.

Roooar—

As Hestia fell from the sky, Gluttony turned around and rushed toward the mouth of the volcano without hesitation. The sacred dragon of Heaven roared out a blazing light beam to intercept him. At the same time, Derrida took Hestia’s place and barely managed to block a few attacks from the demon lord. Once Hestia returned to the battlefield, he continued to radiate light to buff his two teammates, shining bright despite the dirt and grime on his face.

The battlefield dissolved into chaos. Gluttony and Wrath found themselves with their backs pressed together, flanked by Wayne and Hestia, along with a sacred dragon in the sky.

“There’s a slight problem with my territory in Hell, Gluttony,” Wrath said in a low, frustrated voice. “I can’t draw more of my thoughts at this moment even with the evolution path right before me. It seems that I’ll have to let you take all the benefits this time.”

I knew you would say that!

“My power is greatly weakened, too, perhaps due to Heaven’s seal,” Gluttony said darkly. “I cannot summon more of my thoughts. While you cannot acquire Mechanical Augmentation, I can’t, either.”

Then what? x2

They both found the other’s craftiness troublesome. Gluttony was suppressing his gluttonous nature when the food was right within reach, and Wrath was staying calm in the face of danger; neither lived up to their monikers.

They looked at each other with distaste. They knew that it was high time that they worked together, but they couldn’t help but be suspicious of a fellow demon.

One demon made a dragon, but two demons made a worm. It was impossible for them to work together. It would be a miracle if they didn’t actively work against each other.

After a ponderous moment, Gluttony said, “We’ll each fight for ourselves. May the greater demon win!”

“Alright.”

It seemed that they were still going to act independently, only they didn’t have to be wary of each other and could focus their full power on their opponents.

At least that was what it looked like!

Wrath growled, charging at Hestia before Gluttony to make sure that he was facing the weaker enemy. Cursing out ‘despicable demon’ in his head, Gluttony confronted the mysterious Wayne, his eyes glinting with viciousness. With a growl, he transformed into a massive fly.

He was an amalgamation of sins wearing the skin of a fly. His terrifying mouthparts opened to reveal a vortex-shaped opening, with yellow fangs lining the slimy innards. Extending from his abdomen were enlarged human arms of different thickness. He was a nightmare to those with trypophobia.

In the center of his torso was a vertical line. When it opened, it revealed the actual consumption organ.

“Hmph, you think you’re the only one who could transform?”

Wayne spoke in the same androgynous voice. His body melted into white sludge with three pairs of unfurled wings, which grew in size along with his body, radiating the light of the Golden Law.

The ethereal radiance was captivatingly beautiful.

Aside from the Golden Law, however, there was nothing holy about the form. It was frightening. The pale sphere of flesh had extended six massive wings, with bands of light spinning around it. In the center of the sphere, a vertical line ripped sideways to form a single large eye.

It was very much in line with Heaven’s aesthetic. Neither the angels nor the demons found anything wrong with it. The only thing that bothered the demons was how foreign the form was to them. They compared the appearance to that of their many old friends, and none really fit.

Hestia found it unfamiliar, too. Wayne didn’t look like the Śār’s form in Heaven. He was missing many arms, and the holy, loving head was missing, too.

Boom!!

The two monsters slammed into each other. Gluttony opened the large maw on his chest to bite the pale sphere. Before he could do it, though, a bone-chilling coldness seized his heart. His instinct told him that this wasn’t something he should consume. While it looked scrumptious and juicy, consuming it would have dire consequences.

Following his instinctual alarm, the demon lord slammed into the pale sphere instead, dragging it toward the mouth of the volcano.

Meanwhile, Wrath had done almost the same. Transforming into a sinful dragon of Hell, he dragged Hestia’s sacred dragon of Heaven to the sky above the volcano.

The Seven Deadly Sins interwove with the Golden Law. The radiant light and the thick darkness entered a momentary battle of strength. Amid thunderous noises, space neared the verge of falling apart, with snaking cracks spreading outward.

The space that the volcano inhabited was a Philosopher’s Stone, similar to the spaces that the headquarters of the Church of Nature and the Church of Darkness occupied. They were stable on the inside and could resist directional blasting.

That, however, would depend on who was doing the demolition. None of the participants in this fight was a regular human. The weakest among them was a demigod-level Throne.

With the rampant energy going berserk, the space wouldn’t last long.

Boom!!

Gluttony, in the form of a massive fly, plunged to the ground. Submerged in lava, he growled continuously in fury. The rapid loss of thoughts forced him to revert to his human form.

Wayne transformed back into a human, too. He charged at the demon with his greatsword.

In the sky, the sacred dragon was being overpowered by the sinful dragon. The two massive monsters tumbled as they wrestled. There was nothing Hestia could do.

“Let’s swap places. I’ll take care of the black dragon.”

She heard an androgynous voice say into her ear. Without hesitation, Hestia rushed at Gluttony with her lance, while Wayne charged into the battlefield of the two dragons like a streak of lightning.

He saw the sacred dragon unleash a continuous stream of white light beams before it went boneless. The sinful dragon pinned it down and tore into it, ripping a chunk off its white dragon wing.

“Wimp. How is your stamina so bad when you’re a creature of the Holy Light?”

Wayne huffed. Rising to three meters tall, he grabbed the sacred dragon’s tail with both arms and accelerated to bring it to the sky. Since the sacred dragon was grappled by the sinful dragon, Wayne had effectively taken both dragons off the ground.

Amid the whooshing currents, the dragons felt the world spinning around them, turning upside down. The next second, the impact against the ground told them that the world wasn’t flipped upside down; they were.

Wayne continued to grow in size. With tremendous power, he slammed the two great dragons around violently, leaving arcs of afterimages. The continuous impact put a grimace on the sacred dragon’s face, and the sinful dragon saw stars.

The sinful dragon—Wrath—let go, but the sacred dragon clutched onto his neck with its two short hands, refusing to be the only one suffering.

Bam! Bam! Bam!

Wayne got into a flow with power continuing to rise in his body. He could do this all day.

Catching Hestia and Gluttony’s intense fight from the corner of his eye, he detonated mana at his feet and made space creak with his step. Calculating the distance, he hurled the two great dragons toward Gluttony and Hestia.

The dark shadows poured down. Neither Gluttony nor Hestia had expected the unusual tactic from the mysterious angel/Śār. Caught off guard, they collided with the dragon projectiles.

Boom!!

Dust rose from the crater where the two dragons had slammed into. Hestia and Gluttony were crushed and concealed under their massive body.

Wayne bit the tip of his tongue and raised his hands. Unprecedented holy intent radiated from the wings on his back.

A magnificent pentagram magic circle emerged in the sky. With a diameter of over five hundred meters, the complex, glowing circle consisted entirely of the sacred scriptures of the Golden Law.

It was so complex that Derrida, despite having regained his memories as a reincarnated angel, couldn’t decipher it. It felt like the magic circle wouldn’t run, and it was as good as a brick.

Boom!

Wayne brought his hand down. The brick—no, the magnificent magic circle—fell from the sky, crushing the base of the volcano and bringing up rising dust. Below, the whines of the sinful dragon and the sacred dragon could be heard.

“Explode!”

Boom—

A waterfall of white light fell upward, turning into a five-hundred-meter-diameter pillar that connected heaven and earth, scattering the volcanic ash clouds in the sky and crushing half of the volcano. Lava poured down. Around the explosion site, deep fissures quickly crawled out, sinking the land in layers. The apocalyptic sight rapidly expanded in ripples.

;ﾟдﾟ)ノ

Derrida gaped. He believed that Hestia was still in the crater.

Nice combo! Wayne nodded approvingly. Without Hestia and the sacred dragon serving as willing bait, it would be difficult for him to critically injure both demon lords with one hit.

“Wayne...”

“What?”

Wayne had been appreciating his masterwork when Derrida called out. He turned to the angel.

Derrida opened his mouth, but then couldn’t say anything. As a non-combatant, he was worried that Wayne would slam him in the heat of the moment, too.

Dust dispersed. Hestia climbed to her feet in the crater with her armor shattered and a large chunk of her helmet missing. A strand of blonde hair fell to her ash-covered cheek. She looked up and glared at Wayne.

Well, she tried to. Wayne, sensing that the two demon lords had rushed into the volcano through the underground lava and were quickly approaching the space warship, had dashed right into the mouth of the volcano. He didn’t want to lose nature’s gift to him.

Derrida made a landing while flapping his wings, reaching out to heal Hestia.

“Why didn’t you stop him?”

“...”

Sis, you’re picking on the weak. That’s not how angels should act.

It’s fine for you to do that in the human world, but don’t bring that bad influence back to Heaven!