Lord of Envy looked at Mona in surprise, thinking that he’d seen wrong. Taking another look, though, it was indeed the soul of Śār Hesione—he wouldn’t mistake such an old acquaintance.

The Holy Light barrier that isolated the space, while weak, reeked of a conspiracy. It was clearly the strategy that the angels were most adept at—he wouldn’t mistake such a familiar trick.

In that case, it was a question whether his descent was Smedley’s idea, or had the angels set up another trap!

Lord of Envy looked disgusted as if he were seeing the Lord of Pride. He scoffed, “Hesione, why did you summon me to the human world? If you were so bored that you wanted to chat with an old friend, I can introduce you to a few others.”

Mona coldly gripped the Sacred Lance of Heaven with golden light so thick in her eyes that it was almost tangible.

“Asking for a fight?”

Lord of Envy made a thoughtful noise. Something felt wrong, but given he was here already, it would be a stain on his reputation as a demon lord to retreat without a fight. Once Pride heard, he would surely mock him.

Fine, he would play.

With a wave, Lord of Envy reshaped matter with his thoughts to conjure an ink-black greatsword, appearing identical to Smedley’s weapon of choice. Clearly, Smedley had opted to pay homage to his leader in that.

“Umar, reinforce the barrier.”

Mona raised her lance with Golden Law wrapping around it. As she smoothed her hand over the lance, it glowed with the awakening light of dawn, like it was being unsealed. The tip of the lance shimmered with brilliant light, resembling a golden waterfall that cascaded from the lance and left trails of radiance in the air.

Golden starlight adorned the inside of the lance, which resonated with the trailing light and formed a magnificent picture of a starry sky. It seemed like a golden staircase leading to Heaven, guiding the followers to a place of divinity and radiance.

Umar flew across the darkness until she reached the edge of the Holy Light barrier. The wings on her back unfurled, the feathers extending and morphing into white chains to seal the space and reinforce the barrier.

Six projections of the Gates of Heaven emerged, forming a stable square barrier. Surging light dispersed the mist of darkness, casting the isolated world in warm daylight.

Outside the barrier, Archbishop Hodgson and the clergy he led couldn’t get a clear look inside. All they perceived was the tremendous holy intention and the bell tolls of Heaven, and they reflexively began to recite the scriptures in the Sacred Tome.

Their devout faith energy was injected into the barrier, making the projected gates more and more concrete.

Inside the barrier, Wayne frowned when he heard the Lord of Envy. He often saw the name Hesione in the church’s Sacred Tome. Śār Hesione was a high-level angel—one of the four major Śārim and a commander in their ranks. Representing water in the four elements, Hesione was undoubtedly a deputy-level angel.

Was Hesione Saint George’s real name in Heaven? Was he one of the four Śārim?

Wayne cocked his head. That couldn’t be right. Saint George was portrayed as a male knight, while Hesione was portrayed with a feminine image in the Sacred Tome[1].

On second thought, though, he was being too narrow-minded about sex and gender. There were no female and male angels anyway. Even if Saint George appeared feminine in Heaven, he could still be a man in the human world. It aligned with the angels’ androgynous trait.

Even now, Wayne still hadn’t gotten suspicious of Mona. He trusted his secretary so much that he attributed her changes to the influence of Saint George’s blood, and thus, he assumed Lord of Envy was talking about Saint George when addressing Mona.

The contract between master and servant remained stable, and Mona continued to desire him on every flat surface under the roof. Wayne never even considered the possibility that she might be the last reincarnated angel.

Ha, no reincarnated angel would seek out a fake one and sell themselves out for a contract. That’d be pathetic. It was impossible, simply impossible!

Lord of Envy wore a long robe with a black greatsword in his hand, his long black hair fluttering in the air. Connected to the Astral Plane, he created pieces of abysses that would swallow everything.

His greatsword shimmered with dark, devilish light. Amid thunderous rumbles, the darkness shook the isolated space and dyed everything in its vicinity pitch black.

The dividing line between light and darkness was stark and clearly defined. Pure energy clashed and rippled, engulfing everything in the area.

As the two figures confronted each other with escalating intensity, Lord of Envy was the first to waver. He had entered the mortal realm through Smedley’s forced self-sacrifice, so he had descended with limited thoughts, far from his peak power. Moreover, his descent today was unusual in many ways, leading him to the suspicion that Hesione had set him up. He wasn’t eager for a fight.

Boom!

Boundless darkness trailed after his black greatsword, swallowing everything in an instant. With a dim sword aura, he slashed and left black cracks in the air. The earth-shattering energy threatened to tear the world apart.

Mona responded in kind with her sacred lance. Golden Law ignited brilliant light to illuminate the darkness and disperse the negativity that infused it.

Dust and stones scattered as the two crossed paths. Unable to bear the heavy impact, the ground suddenly collapsed, tearing deep scars into the space. Every visible thing started trembling at this moment.

Lord of Envy was still testing the waters, while Mona had gone all out, escalating the battle to a heated climax. Her sacred lance swung fiercely and poured out massive swathes of golden light, suppressing the Lord of Envy as soon as the fight began and leaving him haggard. Covered in dust, he painted quite a pitiful picture.

You’re mad, woman!

Lord of Envy cursed silently. He was but a wisp of thoughts descended to the human world, so defeating him wouldn’t be anything to write home about. Was it really necessary to go for the throat as soon as they met? Was there that much bad blood between them?

Why didn’t they sit down and talk? He would propose a plan to eliminate the Lord of Pride with Hesione. Then, with the achievement under her belt, Hesione would be second only to the Heavenly Father, superior to all other angels. Meanwhile, Envy would acquire Pride’s territory and become the unequivocal top dog in Hell. They would both get what they wanted.

Why not go for the win-win situation?

Lord of Envy struggled to parry Mona’s attacks. He had descended all of a sudden, gotten into a fight all of a sudden, and met Hesione all of a sudden. Did the Lord of Pride orchestrate this to make him into the latest laughingstock in Hell?

Lord of Envy could not even put up a resistance under Mona’s relentless offense, suffering the same humiliating fate as Smedley. He only had to be pinned down to the ground to complete the picture.

(一`´一)

Wayne squinted. As expected of his personal secretary, she wielded raw power like a blunt weapon and fought in a violent style, and her cheat made her grow almost as fast as he did.

Also, wasn’t the demon lord from Hell too weak? Wayne could take Envy as well.

The angel and demon collided in the air, exchanging more than a hundred moves in the blink of an eye. The more Envy fought, the more suspicious he became. As the hundred-meter-long sacred lance swung down, he growled and blocked it with his sword.

With a boom, violent energy pushed away the blackness and whiteness in the world, crashing into the six Gates of Heaven and creating rippling shockwaves.

Umar grunted. Though she was away from the battlefield, she was the one under the greatest pressure.

Blocking the sacred lance, Lord of Envy stared at Mona with fierce light flickering in his dark eyes. He had wanted to get this fight over with, but not wanting to fight didn’t mean he was a pushover. Hesione could’ve banished him directly, yet opted to toy with him to humiliate him. In that case, he would get a little more serious.

Bam!

Fearsome black abyss rose from the ground. Darkness rushed out like tides, swallowing all light in the proximity.

Forcefully drawing more of his thoughts to the mortal realm, Lord of Envy exuded an aura of death and terror. The air thickened with smothering tension. His icy, vicious eyes of darkness glinted with an insanity that would devour all lives and souls.

Boom!!

Darkness descended. The demon lord swung his greatsword with surging aura, hitting the Sacred Lance of Heaven. His incredible power trumped everything, putting Mona to the ground without any elaborate techniques.

Amid the rising dust, Heaven’s light was cornered by darkness.

The Golden Law of Angels resisted. Countless golden bands morphed into golden chains and pierced through the darkness, wrapping around Lord of Envy’s limbs to drag him out.

Mona clutched the golden bands in one hand and raised her sacred lance in the other. The Eye of Judgment behind her glowed, manifesting the phantom of a golden eye with cross pupils in the air. The radiance scorched Lord of Envy’s thoughts with infinite power, driving away the negativity and the Divine Comedy of the Seven Deadly Sins that he was so proud of.

It was the cantos on the Terrace of Envy.

Golden chains contracted as Mona yanked Envy toward her. Tucking her sacred lance to her side, she thrust at the quickly approaching demon lord.

Envy screamed when the sacred lance pierced through his chest. The next second, he disappeared and reappeared in the darkness, face pale. With a strange look on his face, he suddenly burst out laughing. “So this is it, Hesione. I know what you’re planning.”

“You’ve descended to the human world through reincarnation, but haven’t retrieved all your power. You want to awaken more of your power through me...”

“Nice plan. No wonder I’d descended successfully under your watch!”

Envy laughed uncontrollably, his laughter growing frosty. Ecstasy glinted in his eyes.

By contrast, Mona remained expressionless. Influenced by Hesione’s memories, she had allowed Smedley to call to Envy, using him to expedite her awakening. That, however, wasn’t Hesione’s full plan.

She had been sealed!

The seal of hellish curse prevented her from taking full control of her body. As an outsider, she could only watch in exasperation as Wayne had his way with her.

After being reincarnated into the human world, angels would slowly awaken through contact with Holy Light. In the process, their memories from Heaven and their human memories would gradually integrate into one single personality.

Compared to an angel’s long existence, their time as a human was nothing. In the end, the angel would be the only personality that remained, uninfluenced by their human memories.

Given the great disparity in the volume of memories, an angel could simply erase or ignore their human memories to avoid having their purity corrupted. Kael, who faithfully followed tanky women around, was a good example.

After awakening, Gerar never once considered integrating Kael’s memories, treating it like an infection to be cut out. He refused to admit that Kael was his reincarnated self. Instead, he saw Kael as a tool to conceal him so that he could remain incognito unless necessary.

Such was an angel’s pride and purity.

1. The raw says, “Hesione is female in the Sacred Tome,” but it’s been stated that angels have no sexual traits until they are reincarnated as humans, and the following paragraphs mention it again. I’ve chosen to phrase it a little more ambiguously to maintain consistency. ☜