Myths Reawakened

“I’m in!!”

Hestia clenched her jaw, the words hissing through her teeth. She had awakened and recovered her real name in Heaven, integrating her memories and reclaiming her power. Though it would take more time to fully restore her power, she had still progressed much further than Wayne. Besides, he was fighting her as a demon with an incomplete Philosopher’s Stone. The borrowed power further increased their gap in strength.

Simply put, she had the upper hand!

“That’s a promise,” Wayne said. “No take-back.”

“I should be the one to say that. You’ll honor your word!”

“Ha, just ask around in Londan. Everyone knows that I’m a man of honor. Even demons would flip me off when they hear my name.” Wayne sounded proud of himself. He wasn’t known as a man of his word for nothing.

Hestia’s heart burned. She had had enough of his nonsense. Pointing her lance forward, she rode the massive dragon into a charge.

There was less than a hundred meters between them, so the roaring dragon reached Wayne immediately after dashing, sacred flames gathering in its large, vicious maw. It shot out in a straight beam of rolling flames, sweeping across the sky and casting the deep blue sky in waves of white.

Amid the blinding light, the black-winged demon raised his longsword to defend himself. As his black triangular shield disintegrated, the light burned him to ashes.

Or so it seemed. Wayne suddenly reappeared right above the dragon, swinging the greatsword at Hestia in a downward arc.

Parlor trick!

Hestia dismissed the straightforward attacks for lacking in skill or strategy. If Wayne had run out of tricks to use, he should just use Holy Light magic. She wouldn’t mind the switch around since he had already proven his character.

He didn’t have any!

Hestia’s Sacred Lance of Heaven conjured soaring sacred flames that shot out along with her swing. The tremendous power dragged space itself along and tore open a visible screen of light. At the tip of the lance, the Golden Law of Angels condensed into a tiny orb of golden radiance.

The lance collided with the greatsword. One side was a sacred radiance, while the other side was a sinful darkness. The Golden Law and the Seven Deadly Sins confronted each other with a clear division. After a temporary stalemate, neither could do anything to the other.

Hestia made a soft noise of surprise. Again, she believed Wayne had mastered too many of the Seven Deadly Sins. If the Pope hadn’t vouched for Wayne, she would assume someone like him was a demon, killing him before judging him.

Wait, he’s not a demon, is he?

Hestia’s heart sank. Thinking carefully, the Pope, Archibald, and Kael had vouched for Wayne and said that he was an angel based on the Sacred Tome of Golden Law. She wasn’t insinuating that the Sacred Tome was unreliable or that those who had vouched for Wayne were all freaks who couldn’t be trusted, but seeing was believing, and hearing wasn’t.

Hestia had never seen Wayne use Holy Light magic. He had been using only the Seven Deadly Sins of Hell and played a demon so convincingly that even an angel couldn’t tell the difference. So...

Could it be that the real Wayne was dead, and this one was an imposter?

Perhaps a demon had discovered the reincarnated angel and assassinated him before he could awaken, taking his appearance to masquerade as a reincarnated angel. Since stigma and Eye of Judgment couldn’t be fabricated, he had accumulated achievements to make his disguise believable.

Those demons that Wayne had defeated weren’t actually banished. They had merely played their role in his act!

Hestia’s heart sank. She wasn’t an angel who was all doom and gloom, but this matter was too serious not to be taken seriously. After all...

That thing looked like a demon and talked like a demon, speaking of Pride one second and Lust the next second. Even actual demons would have trouble saying that he wasn’t one, let alone an angel.

The more Hestia thought about it, the more convinced she was of her theory. She pushed the black greatsword down with her lance and demanded, “Are you a demon?”

“Patience, Lust incarnate. You haven’t won!”

“No, I mean...” Hestia voiced her speculation. “You’re a demon pretending to be a reincarnated angel, and all the demons who have been banished from the human world were acting!”

(・˘_˘・)

Wayne didn’t say anything. He could hear his demon investors cursing—not at him, but at Hestia.

“Why aren’t you saying anything? Feeling guilty?”

“I have no fcuk to say[1]. Interpret this yourself.” Wayne raised the hand that wasn’t holding a weapon and balled it into a fist. Under Hestia’s confused gaze, he slowly extended the middle finger.

“How vulgar!” Hestia snarled. “You really are a demon!”

“How lewd, you really are Lust!” Wayne shouted louder. His greatsword shook slightly, the tip of the blade sliding along the lance and swinging toward Hestia’s shoulder as he accelerated with a flap of his wings. The attack was backed up by incredible power, tearing through the air with a howl.

If that hit, Hestia would at least lose her top. Worse, she would lose an arm, and worse still, the Golden Law would fail to resist the Seven Deadly Sins. She would become actual Lust incarnate, corrupted by Hell’s darkness.

Hestia was a seasoned fighter. Facing the incoming greatsword, she flapped her wings for a swift retreat while conjuring radiance with a slide of her delicate fingers. A metal gauntlet encased her hand, allowing her to catch the black greatsword steadily.

The greatsword surged with black light, but the sinful poison was entirely blocked by the metal gauntlet, unable to touch Hestia. The gauntlet then spread along her arm all the way to her shoulder, chest, and back, putting a futuristic white armor on her.

The white armor was adorned with intersecting golden circuit lines, just like the armor that the great dragon she rode was wearing. In addition to the full-body armor, where her helmet should be, two golden patterns stretched horizontally before three vertical lines extended from her lower eyelids. Her two wings were also encased, turning them into metal wings with extended, gleaming feathers, the golden radiance harsh and chilling.

So cool!

Looking at the metal angel with smooth lines, Wayne extracted his greatsword and retreated. Glancing at his body, he muttered, “Transform.”

It had no effect at all.

Hestia had wings and glowed, clearly marking her as a character of justice. Wayne had to hide his envy. Remembering the stigma that Hesione had etched on him, he debated whether he should start a holy transformation, too.

“Stop acting, Demon. You’re no angel, and you can’t transform.”

“If you say that, I won’t transform!” Wayne huffed. Knowing that the demon transformation powered by the incomplete Philosopher’s Stone won’t defeat Hestia, he decisively gave himself a buff.

Outside, he still appeared as a black-winged demon with long limbs, but inside, he had turned into the Pale Knight.

Rumble!

His black greatsword hummed and trembled, unleashing strange energy ripples. Wielding the blade with one hand, Wayne splayed his other hand to manifest the Seven Deadly Sins into five chains.

That seemed like physical proof of Hestia’s speculation. A demon’s existence was a natural provocation to an angel. Thoroughly provoked, the metal angel rode her dragon and charged toward him, snarling in fury.

The killing intent suggested that she would not stop until one of them died!

A light beam of violent sacred flames crashed down like waves, evaporating the blue ocean sky at contact. The land of clouds was cut into segments, too, and the golden mountains fell apart.

“Hestia, what are you doing? It’s supposed to be a spar. You’ve gone too far.”

Derrida tried to reach Hestia, but she never responded. Cursing under his breath, he turned to Wayne’s two secretaries and said resignedly, “Your boss has a sharp tongue. Hestia has always been quick-tempered, so when he insulted her... Speaking of which, he clearly did that on purpose.”

“Thanks for the compliment.”

“He’s always been good at insults.”

You two are incorrigible, too!

Like boss, like secretaries. Derrida covered his face and groaned, “If you don’t care, I’m not going to care, either.”

Still, he had to do something.

Drawing his Sacred Lance of Heaven, he held it before his chest with both hands. His eyes turned gold as he radiated powerful waves of protective power to enhance his vitality field, in case Hestia got so lost in her intent to kill that she tore his vitality field apart.

They were on a mission that required stealth. He had to keep the angelic energy from leaking.

Bam!!

“Kekeke—”

Up in the sky, the false demon raised his greatsword, unleashing infinite darkness as he let out piercing cackles. The darkness morphed into a several-meter-tall projection of a demon god, with swirling black mist that distorted the air like demonic flames. It should’ve been an illusion of pure energy, but wrapped in the chains of the Seven Deadly Sins, the heavy vice empowered it to touch reality.

Wayne had developed the move for his demon form based on the research data he had acquired from the Church of Darkness.

The demon god made a heavy swing, stirring up violent currents of darkness and forming a great river of black sludge. Colliding with the pillar of sacred flames, the devastating clash rumbled like thunder, the gold and black energies pushing against each other.

At the heart of the volatile energy field, the projected demon god marched forward, forging a way with his hands until reaching the great dragon.

The dragon opened its large maw. In the center of the rims of metal fangs, golden light converged, readying another light beam. The demon god clenched his fist and made a swing at the great dragon. Following a muffled sound, the fist lodged straight into the dragon’s mouth...

After a moment of silence, the dragon clamped its mouth shut, refusing to let go.

In its mouth cavity, the gold and black continued to clash and cross, the uncontrolled energy gushing out through the gaps between the teeth. One second, it was a colorful gold, and the next, it became a colorful darkness.

The great dragon had bitten into the demon god’s arm, while the demon god had clutched the great dragon’s tongue. It was hard to tell whether Wayne had pinned down Hestia or if it was the other way around.

Anyway, they looked inappropriate from the audience’s perspective.

“As expected of Lust incarnate.” x3

Bam!

The energy gathering in the great dragon’s mouth came to a breaking point, and the Golden Law and the Seven Deadly Sins reached a stalemate. Neither could destroy the other, but both couldn’t co-exist. As a result, the energies erupted like a volcano.

The hundred-meter-long dragon became a taut line, visibly inflated and hardening. The dragon’s mouth became the opening of the gun barrel, and following the boom, the gold and black splattered onto the demon god’s face.

Afterwards, the dragon turned flaccid, swirling with smoke. It lost its earlier aura and intimidating prowess. The demon god also seemed weak. The great impact seemed to have drained him, making him deflate.

It was a familiar sight to Wayne with all his experience. He quickly recovered, clutching the dragon’s tongue and slamming it around. The impacts rang out. As the clouds and the golden light shattered, a violent quake spread from the heart of the battlefield to the audience seats.

The world spun around Hestia. At first, she could still stay on her feet by holding onto the dragon’s horns, but when she started seeing stars, she abandoned her mount and flew into the sky.

Infinite darkness rumbled toward her. Hestia looked up and saw a massive hand reaching for her, wrapped in the chains of the Seven Deadly Sins. Below the chains, she could clearly make out the lines on the demon’s palms, forming sinful faces that converged and diverged in quick succession.

The frightening scene made Hestia’s scalp tingle. Her armor radiated golden light as she raised her sacred lance overhead.

Suddenly, the demon’s hand accelerated, giving Hestia no time to use her ultimate attack. Closing his hand to trap her, he hurled her hard at the ground.

Bam!

A crater appeared on the land of clouds. Before a dazed Hestia could pick herself up, she heard howling air whooshing toward her.

A hundred-meter shadow enveloped her. She looked up and saw that the demon was swinging the great dragon at her like a blunt weapon.

Bam! Bam! Bam!

A cheerful rhythm followed. After dozens more slams, the metal armor on the great dragon shattered and peeled away. The dragon vanished with a whine.

Wayne was left empty-handed. It was a pity to lose the weapon after he’d gotten used to it.

In the crater, Hestia struggled to stand up with her sacred lance as a crutch, staggering like a drunkard.

Wayne scoffed. What did he say about alcohol and sex being bad for health? That was why he never drank.

1. Intentionally spelled wrong by the author. ☜