Myths Reawakened

There wasn’t much to say about the two Pontiffs’ fight. Kenneth wasn’t even good enough to be Reza’s errand boy.

Kenneth had a Philosopher’s Stone, but Reza had more. If they were to compete with their equipment, despite both being Pontiffs of their respective churches, Reza could crush the entire Church of Death by throwing equipment at them alone, given that the Church of Heavenly Father had the strongest foundation in the Chosen Land.

Even without equipment—or even if Kenneth was armed with equipment while Reza was fighting without anything but his own fists—the fight would still be one-sided.

At the moment of contact, Kenneth was overpowered.

Kenneth’s Philosopher’s Stone allowed him to wield the power of a demigod as a legendary mage. Reza was also a legendary mage, but he was able to wield the power of a demigod without additional items. That alone set him apart from the other leaders of the churches.

Knowledge was power. Reza had mastered so much knowledge that it allowed him to transcend his rank.

It was a hopeless battle for Kenneth, and he even had Duin helping him. Otherwise, things would only be uglier for him!

“This is just sad, Sukra.” Wayne glanced at them and shook his head. “How could you, with your power, end up being chased away by them?”

Sukra spread her hands. “Can’t help it. The Church of Death’s headquarters are too well hidden, and Duin can offset my power with the power of a subordinate god in her eye. I couldn’t launch an effective counterattack while protecting you...”

Thinking back, Sukra had to acknowledge her naivety. Wayne was born to wield the power of Death, so he never needed her protection. She had willfully believed that she was granting him a grace period while he grew from a novice.

“No, without your protection, I wouldn’t have led such a pleasant life.” Wayne glanced at her. “You should go back to lying down after today, however you want to lie down. I’ll keep you well-fed from now on.”

Sukra nodded. She had never heard a more attractive proposition. “I’m getting married to the sofa once I go back, till death do us part.”

“I still don’t understand why it must be a sofa,” Wayne grumbled.

“It’s not about the sofa, but where it’s placed,” Sukra tried to explain the joy of being a slacker. “The living room and the kitchen both do. The joy of melding with the sofa is the joy of seeing others being busy, while I’m chilling so hard that I’m freezing.”

“Then the bedroom will do, too!”

“Nah, then others won’t see me chilling around, and I won’t see others busying about.”

“Take my bedroom, and I promise you’ll see me being busy.”

Sukra rolled her eyes.

She would consider it, but not now. She was a Holy Maiden for now and wouldn’t resign until the goddess returned to re-establish order and restore the Underworld to normalcy, leaving her unable to carry out her duty.

Wayne was used to running his mouth. If he knew what Sukra was thinking, he would curse at his carelessness. He shouldn’t have promised to be a slacker’s sugar daddy.

After three minutes—or perhaps not even that—Pontiff Reza put an end to the demonstration of his prowess by punching through the bone dragon in front of him. Facing the vast, boundless vitality domain, he inserted his hands into the ground and conjured sacred flames with Holy Light, creating a volcanic eruption of sacred flames in Kenneth's incomplete vitality domain.

Throughout the process, Reza kept a kind smile on his face.

The eruption dealt a serious blow to Kenneth’s thoughts. He staggered, almost collapsing.

Duin was shocked. She didn’t understand why Reza was stronger than every other legendary mage. Transforming into a skeleton, she rushed up to help, only to be knocked to the ground by a hand chop from Reza.

When Duin turned around, Reza had already reached Kenneth and inserted a hand into his chest to trigger an internal combustion of sacred flames, burning his body and thoughts. With his other hand, he clutched Kenneth’s head and yanked the skull out.

Lifting Kenneth’s skull, Reza unleashed Holy Light from his palms. The overpowering radiance washed over the skull until the cold light dancing in the eye sockets dimmed and faded.

Kenneth, Pontiff of the Church of Death, had challenged Pontiff Reza of the Church of Heavenly Father outside the Papal State, and, after dozens of exchanges, Kenneth unfortunately lost by a hair.

With Kenneth’s passing, the vitality domain receded. The members of the Church of Death lost their protection and ended up picked off by the angels, cardinals, and Order of Holy Light. The way they leveraged their numbers showed the Church of Heavenly Father’s justice.

Just then, Duin finally finished the preparation for her ultimate attack. Roiling Death energy rushed out of her right eye and enveloped her body, changing her life essence and reshaping her physical form. Her bones mutated and expanded as she transformed into a bone dragon over a hundred meters long.

Great dragons had many evolution paths. The Death path included two branches: the corpse dragons and the bone dragons. Sizorn, the Wings of Winter, was a corpse dragon.

Roooar—

The bone dragon exhaled grey breath. The Death energy swept across the land, accelerating the decay of vegetation and corroding the ground until it sank. Everything in the vicinity fell apart.

The angels and the cardinals stepped up. The angels sent out chains of Golden Law, while the cardinals conjured barriers of Holy Light. Together, they trapped the bone dragon inside.

Reza narrowed his eyes. Rather than killing the bone dragon immediately, he came up to Wayne and offered him the Philosopher’s Stone with both hands.

“Mr. Wayne, under your wise leadership and excellent strategy, we succeeded in retrieving the Philosopher’s Stone of the Church of Death.”

“Um, you don’t have to speak like that...”

Unnerved, Wayne weighed the Philosopher’s Stone in his hand and consumed it before inspecting it closely. He found the coordinates of the Church of Death’s headquarters.

The headquarters were in Enoria at the moment, en route to Wayne’s destination, Sicilia. The operative word was ‘at the moment’. Because of Sukra and her incredibly powerful ultimate attack, the Church of Death had been moving constantly to avoid a total party kill.

The Goddess of Death had gone into a deep slumber, allowing the three subordinate gods to take over the Underworld. The Church of Death thus changed hands. There were those with vested interests, like High Prophet Duin, fence-sitters like Pontiff Kenneth, and disciples who refused to yield like Sukra.

Unfortunately, Death’s loyal disciples had been wiped out.

The church’s headquarters had become Kenneth and Duin’s personal army, with more than five hundred members, so the church’s foundation hadn’t been completely destroyed. Those mages now followed Sizorn, the Wings of Winter, who was the strongest among the three subordinate gods and was most likely to become the next deity of Death.

After the inspection, Wayne tossed the Philosopher’s Stone to Sukra. “You’re the Church of Death’s Holy Maiden. The rebuild of the church...”

“Whose Philosopher’s Stone is this? Why is it in my hands?” Sukra hurriedly put the stone back in Wayne’s hand, her pretty face scrunching up. “You know me, Wayne. I just want to lie down. You may do what you want to do with the Church of Death.”

The hot potato was too hot for Sukra. She worried that if she took it, she would end up working until she became the Pontiff. Once the goddess made Her comeback, She would have Sukra work for another century since She had no one else to command.

Sukra would rather die!

Wayne took the stone back in resignation, putting it in his personal storage. Regarding the reconstruction of the Church of Death, he had a suggestion.

It wasn’t much. Since the Holy Maiden of Death didn’t care, it was even less the Death Knight’s concern. The church should just continue in a decentralized framework.

He decided to swing by the headquarters and had a heart-to-heart with the traitors as the Death Knight. It would be Death’s judgment and the price that the traitors had to pay. He had to honor those martyrs who had died resisting.

He wasn’t going to forgive and forget just because the church needed manpower. Otherwise, wouldn’t the martyrs’ resistance become worthless?

Even if the Church of Death’s headquarters would be wiped out, even if the Church of Death’s influence in the human world would wane completely, the traitors had to pay. They deserved it!

Boom!!

As Reza expected, the bone dragon staggered out of the barrier and brought down a screen of Death that enveloped the area. Amid the grey fog of absolute decay, the bone dragon didn’t show any desire for a fight. She just wanted to flee.

“You trash, it’s been five minutes,” Reza snapped. “You can’t even do this much. How are you going to uphold the church’s justice in the future?”

As if he were teleporting, he intercepted the bone dragon by predicting its movement. Unfurling a pair of radiant wings, he created a barrier with tremendous sacred power to cut off the bone dragon’s escape.

Without waiting for his fellow church members to arrive, Reza unleashed sacred flames of radiant Holy Light to damage Duin’s thoughts. He followed that up with a heavy punch, knocking the bone dragon off the sky. The dragon plunged... right toward Wayne.

(눈_눈)

It was obviously on purpose. The Pontiff was too much of a veteran.

Seeing the bone dragon’s mountainous body in free fall, Sukra went up to kill her old rival with a glance.

“This doesn’t concern you. The flattery is meant for me.”

Wayne shook his head and rose from his seat. With a tap of his foot, he soared into the sky. He bent his knee and kicked the dragon’s thick spine squarely. Following a dull rumble, the massive bone dragon shot heavenward.

The moment Wayne kicked the bone dragon—or the moment the dragon went into a free fall—he realized that the dragon was half dead. Any Gold-ranked mage would be able to kill it.

Pontiff Reza had put in a lot of effort for the flattery. Since he had worked so hard, Wayne decided to play along and throw in some extra special effects as confetti for the Church of Death’s departure.

While he floated down, he opened his mouth and triggered the stigma on the tip of his tongue. A golden lightbeam shot into the sky, wrapped in two bands of Golden Law. The blinding radiance erased the last of the thoughts residing in the bone dragon.

With a boom, fireworks bloomed in the sky. Sacred flames rained down, burning the remains of the bone dragon to ashes before any could land.

Wayne sat back down with a hand propping his chin. He said flatly, “Filthy fireworks.”

“Mr. Wayne, this incompetent subordinate has given you a scare.”

Reza rushed up to plead guilty to Wayne with reddened eyes. He seemed ready to knock his head into the chair to kill himself.

Wayne nodded evenly. “Everyone makes mistakes. It’s natural that you would slip after you’ve fought so hard.”

“Even so, this subordinate has shown my incompetence!” Reza clenched his fists with tears in his fierce eyes, as if Wayne’s mercy had only compounded his guilt.

The angels and cardinals realized what was happening and similarly confessed their faults. The Order of Holy Light had even knelt in a row.