Chapter 235 (1): My Sword Can be Fierce, Too

The white world above the clouds contained tall pillars that comprised the gate to heaven. This was Celeste’s vitality field and his world. The legendary mage had built it after heaven to show his unwavering faith.

It was hard to say if his faith was actually unwavering, but he had put up a good front. Even an angel would commend his effort.

Two figures streaked across the cloudy sky. The eight-legged spider demon fled, while the Death Knight chased after her doggedly. Juliette had devoured the energy of the elemental fiend and merged with it to become stronger, reaching an incredible height. Unfortunately, she was a familiar whose power was gifted by the master she followed. While she could accumulate strength, she could not break through to a higher rank.

Familiars came in different tiers. One type was weak in the beginning but could get stronger through training until they rivaled their master; the other type was powerful in the beginning but could not rank up. They would forever be their master’s tool, and they were strong only when their master was strong.

Due to hell’s culture, betrayal was the norm, and there was no place for loyalty. Demons rarely recruited familiars with great potential. Most of the time, a demon would remake their apostle into a familiar and be done with it.

The Seven Demon Lords were the exceptions. The strong did not fear challenge or betrayal. Their familiars could evolve and advance in ranks. With raw power came influence. Greater raw power led to greater ambition and the desire to gain the influence they deserved. With the demon lord’s permission, they would become independent and leave their master to claim another demon’s territory.

Juliette’s master, for example, had once been the Lord of Lust’s familiar. Rather than mass-produced succubi-like creations, her master had her own path of evolution. The mission Juliette received concerned Windsor rather than the Death Knight.

Windsor was a rare case of a nation breaking free of the control of the Church of Heavenly Father. As a large nation, Windsor was incredibly valuable, and establishing it as the base of faith would be worth enough to warrant giving up one’s territory in hell. Thus, Juliette didn’t seek out the Death Knight first thing after her arrival.

Caim had received a similar mission, but he, unluckily, fell into the grasp of the mysterious man and was unable to carry out his mission. Exhaustion killed him like laborers working twenty-four seven[1].

Juliette thought she would be able to avoid the menace as long as she didn’t actively seek out the Death Knight, but death came uninvited just when her plan was reaching the most important stage.

He killed all of her children as soon as he appeared.

It didn’t matter that Celeste’s children had died, but Edward’s children were precious due to his divine blood. Now, her hard work over the past month had gone to waste. None of her children survived.

Hindsight was twenty-twenty. She should’ve worked with the other two familiars to kill the Death Knight. Juliette deeply regretted her decisions. Facing the pervasive Death energy, she unleashed waves of energy to resist it.

The Goddess of Death’s prowess was undeniable. Very few in the world could resist Death, and Juliette’s master wasn’t one of the few. Just like the Lord of Blood, her faith magic did nothing to a skeleton.

The continuous clash between two energies quickly drained Juliette’s power, and inside Celeste’s world, she still had to watch out for potential sneak attacks from the legendary mage.

Juliette pulled every trick at her disposal, pushing her insidious charm to the limit. If she couldn’t destroy the Death Knight’s physical form, she would undermine his resolve through seduction.

Objectively speaking, her charm was incredible. She was more beautiful and sinister than the Lord of Lust’s vessel in the human world, or she wouldn’t have successfully caught Celeste off guard and stolen his blood.

Wayne, however, was in a league of his own. As the Death Knight, he only thought with his upper head and was rational to the point of being emotionless. His empty skull knew no worldly desires.

Wielding Shadow Nightmare with flickering white light as eyes and Death energy surrounding him, he made attack after attack, forcing Juliette to spend a great amount of energy to defend herself. Flurry of slashes came for her amid the thick Death energy, accompanied by chilling, horrifying laughter.

Celeste watched the battle play out from the gate of heaven, assessing the Death Knight’s might and marveling at the powerful Law the knight had mastered. He didn’t get involved, offering no help to either side. All he did was provide a battlefield for the Death Knight and Juliette to tear into each other’s throats.

He was still thinking about what the Death Knight had said:

tell the Queen that I’m demanding extra for tonight.

The Queen had reached a secret agreement with the Death Knight!

Celeste’s expression underwent several changes. He wanted to keep the Death Knight in his world, but he worried that the skeleton would be too much for him to chew. After a debate with himself, he decided to be loyal to his identity as a free mage of the Ministry of Magic.

He, Celeste, had pledged himself to the Queen. He wasn’t a spy of the Church of Heavenly Father, as the rumors would suggest.

Celeste’s eyes glinted. The square gate to heaven radiated a profound energy as winged angels wielding sacred lances flew out, unleashing powerful waves of holy light to help the Death Knight kill the demon from hell.

An ability unique to legendary mages, the vitality field allowed a mage to create their own world. Within it, they were omnipotent and could control every aspect of their opponent.

Celeste distorted Juliette’s senses and made her see the endless legion of angels. He had used the same trick during the previous fight, but it failed due to Juliette’s indiscriminate, large-scale attacks with incredible energy.

Now that Juliette had exhausted much of her energy facing Death, preventing her from making continuous attacks, her senses succumbed to the manipulation, and the sacred lances raining down from the sky left her helpless.

Wayne’s senses hadn’t been distorted. He detected an energy distortion, after which Juliette started jumping from nothing as if she were overtaken by hysteria. Her long black hair floated and morphed into ghostly hands, shooting rays of Darkness energy.

The pure Darkness had nothing to do with hell but the faith in the Goddess of Darkness. Wayne didn’t know how Juliette had acquired the power. He only knew that her lumps of flesh had incredible jiggle physics.

Shadow Nightmare thrust down. Tentacles of grey mist wrapped around Juliette’s arms and neck, rotting her flesh and bones until her human parts became sludge. The lower spider body hissed darkly. A large fanged maw opened in the chest area that had connected to the human torso, sputtering venom all over Wayne.

It was ineffective. The Death energy offset the venom and prevented it from hitting Wayne, and even if it had hit, there would be no flesh to melt.

Wayne wiped away the supernatural venom on his skull and jumped onto the spider's body with a cackle, thrusting his longsword downward to inject Juliette with Death energy.

Demon familiars were difficult to kill, almost indestructible. Only by painstakingly erasing their thoughts could they be killed completely.

Witnessing the scene, Celeste suspected the Death Knight of pulling his punches, but on second thought, he realized that the Death Knight had to be wary of him.

He puffed out his chest proudly.

Growl—

With Juliette’s upper body cut and unable to regenerate due to the Death energy, her lower body expanded dramatically all of a sudden, and the rotten maw opened wide to spit out spider webs coated in venom.

Swinging Shadow Nightmare, Wayne easily sliced through the webs and rotted them, but the next second, an irresistible force pulled him slowly toward Juliette.

The spider parts grew to fifteen meters tall with eight slim legs. As its abdomen turned a bright red, the power of hell replaced Darkness and regenerated a naked upper body. The black-haired beauty spread her arms to embrace the Death Knight into her insidious bosom, her long hair dancing in the wind.

Wayne saw a shadow behind her. The beautiful spider lady resembled Juliette and had a pair of alluring purple eyes. He speculated that she was Juliette’s master, Mattea the Abyssal Spider Queen.

“Divine art?”

Wayne clutched his sword with one hand and allowed his body to be taken by the powerful pull, entering Juliette’s large maw. It was scorching hot, boiling, and twisted inside. The sulfuric, suffocating world was like a furnace. Every time he breathed, it felt like inhaling fire.

Wayne didn’t have to breathe. Wrapping himself in Death energy, he immediately felt cooler.

He looked around and found an inverted pentagram in the heart of the scorching world, rippling with clear red light. He walked into the magic circle and pierced the ground with a downward thrust. Tentacles of Death energy burrowed underground and dissolved the world, destroying Juliette’s thoughts.

A gut-wrenching scream resounded. The upper bodies of identical beautiful women popped out like they had grown out of the spider’s stomach. They swung their arms around and murmured, either seducing him or muttering unintelligibly in an attempt to corrupt his thoughts.

If not for the Death Knight disguise, Wayne would’ve sat down and chatted with the girl.

He ignored Juliette’s harassment. Her vocabulary was so pathetic that it made him more alert rather than causing him to lose his mind.

Once Juliette realized that she had been making wasted effort, the upper bodies melted into the ground, replaced by a pair of slowly opening white hands.

The massive upper body of a beautiful lady occupied half of the scorching world. Her long hair and eyes were both purple, so were her lips and the peaks of her bosom. Wayne made a curious sound, unleashing more Death energy before turning around.

The thoughts didn’t belong to Juliette, but Mattea, who was using her as a host.

Turning one’s familiar into a vessel... Is that how hell does things?

Wayne had learned another lesson. Every demon was more cunning and afraid of death than the previous one. The next time he met a demon, he had to make sure to erase them thoroughly. Otherwise, they would continue to grow like weeds.

1. The raw is ‘007’, which doesn’t refer to James Bond but the common expression in China, ‘996’. It means working from nine to nine for six days every week, or more generally, the act of overworking employees without overtime pay. ‘007’ takes it one step further to mean working around the clock every day, mostly used hyperbolically. ☜