About half a minute later, the light faded and the world returned to night once again.
The scent of the Shadow Demon also disappeared.
“Pure numerical power… If I had taken that attack head-on, I probably wouldn’t have survived,” Truth said with a sigh after watching the entire scene.
Then again, why would she take it head-on? She could simply run away in advance.
“Sorry, I had a small matter to deal with just now. Where was I? Oh right, Truth, what reward would you like?” The voice of the Goddess of Life sounded again in Truth’s mind.
…
At the bottom of the Chaotic Abyss, the center of Hell, Mary stood high above and looked down at the ancient battlefield beneath her feet.
Under her leadership, more than one hundred thousand low-intelligence fodder demons were repairing the ancient portal destroyed during the war.
They worked day and night in orderly formation, like worker ants.
Once the portal was repaired, the demons would once again gain the ability to deploy forces to every corner of the world.
“Rip!”
A black-purple spatial rift suddenly appeared in midair above the ruins of the ancient portal without any warning, causing Mary to frown slightly. Who was visiting so suddenly?
Soon, Mary sensed a strong and familiar aura.
It seemed to be… the Shadow Demon?
“Roar!”
The Shadow Demon crawled out of the rift in a miserable state. Foul black liquid continuously flowed out from the rift behind it. That liquid was its blood.
“Soros!”
Because eight of the Shadow Demon’s nine claws had already been purified by the Goddess of Life, it could only use its one remaining claw to drag itself out of the rift.
Combined with the severe injuries across its body, every movement caused unbearable pain.
Two thirds of its body had already been purified, and its soul was close to shattering.
After being exposed to the Saintlight of the Goddess of Life for five seconds, the Shadow Demon had used every method available to isolate a small space.
It then sacrificed its epic weapon to tear open a passage back to Hell, barely saving its life.
If Mary could see a health bar, the Shadow Demon’s health would only be about one tenth remaining.
Barely alive.
“Who the hell beat you into this state?!” Mary exclaimed in shock.
In her memory, the Shadow Demon was the type who only fought battles where the chance of victory exceeded ninety percent.
One could say it was cowardly to the extreme.
The most glorious moment of its life was sneaking into the Divine Domain of the Goddess of Life, stealing something, and escaping without a scratch.
If it were forced into a fair fight, it would simply demonstrate the terrifying stealth abilities of a true assassin.
Even if someone wanted to beat it up, they would first need to find it.
But now the Shadow Demon had been beaten half to death outside.
What exactly had happened?
“You could say this was partly my fault,” a voice suddenly said.
At that moment, Soros’s enormous eye appeared behind Mary as he continued speaking.
“I thought the Ninth Saintess’s Shadow Guard possessed extremely powerful Sin-Concealment abilities. I assumed he was a rare scouting Shadow Guard, which was why I could not observe him. But in reality…”
“Stop building suspense and get to the point!”
“The Ninth Saintess doesn’t have a Shadow Guard at all. Instead… she is personally protected by the Goddess of Life.”
If he had not witnessed it himself, Soros would never have believed that the Goddess of Life would personally guard a border Saintess twenty-four hours a day. Even favoritism should not go this far.
“The Goddess of Life herself?! What exactly is the background of this Ninth Saintess?!” Mary was even more shocked.
Fortunately, she had not chosen to directly contact the Ninth Saintess earlier. Otherwise she might have run straight into the Goddess of Life.
“How would I know? With the Goddess of Life protecting her, I cannot see any of her movements. And didn’t we already turn Deya City upside down before? We barely gathered any information about the Ninth Saintess. I’m starting to suspect she might be the Goddess of Life’s biological daughter!” Soros replied.
“Keep your stupid thoughts to yourself. Don’t say them to me. Her daughter? Are you scared stupid? If gods could have children, they would have produced a whole bunch hundreds of years ago! Also, why did you suddenly try to contact the Ninth Saintess in the first place?”
“Soros, that idiot, told me to lure away the Ninth Saintess’s Shadow Guard so they could secretly deliver a letter to her,” the Shadow Demon said viciously as it lay at the edge of the cliff, glaring at Soros.
Its injuries would take years to fully recover. Even now, the Saintlight of the Goddess of Life was still burning its body, preventing natural healing.
“You’ll be compensated. At least you didn’t die,” Soros sighed. This time they had been outplayed by the Goddess of Life and had no choice but to accept the loss.
“Wait!” Mary suddenly placed her hands on her hips and looked at the two Primal Greater Demons as if they were idiots.
“You’re telling me that you caused all of this just to deliver a letter to the Ninth Saintess? Are you both idiots? I clearly said we should act discreetly, yet you still tried to deliver the letter yourselves. Why not keep it simple and just send it through the post office so it gets delivered to the cathedral? And you call yourself the smartest demon!”
“Post office? What is that? Another small human invention? Hmph. We demons have no interest in using human things,” Soros replied coldly with great arrogance.
But in reality, he was just being stubborn.
Wait… humans do have post offices…
Soros suddenly froze internally. Of course he knew what a post office was. Why had he not thought of that method?
In the past, Mary often mocked him for his lack of flexibility. Later, under her insistence, Soros had gradually begun studying the inventions of humans. Many of them were indeed interesting.
Still, Soros continued to look down on humans.
“Then why didn’t you send the letter through the post office?” the Shadow Demon asked.
If sending a letter was that simple, why had Mary not done it herself?
“It’s not time yet! When the time comes, we can just give the letter to Suna and have her pass it to the Ninth Saintess. Why are you two in such a hurry? No brains at all. No wonder you’ve been suppressed by those gods for hundreds of years!”
Mary unleashed a full barrage of criticism, leaving Soros with little chance to respond.
Although Soros could easily crush Mary with one hand, what she said was true, so he had to listen seriously.
Before Mary joined the demon faction, demons had been stagnant for years.
They had neither formed a strong alliance with the Demon Race to fight the gods nor rebuilt Hell after wars to maintain social order among demons.
At most, they had attempted to break through the King Rank blockade imposed by the gods while ensuring the demon population did not go extinct.
Everything only began to improve gradually after Mary arrived.
“From now on, without my permission, no demon is allowed to approach the Ninth Saintess. Also, quickly have the demons in Snowveil City reestablish contact with Suna. She has been out of contact for a long time!”
Mary issued the order seriously.
In order to take revenge on that pretentious Goddess of Life, she had been planning very carefully.
Meanwhile, in Snowveil City, at the Royal Magic Academy.
“Suna, please just tell me. Stop fooling me with the Mist. Tell me everything you know about the Hermit. I’ll agree to anything!”
Inside the dean’s office, Vieno had already called Suna in for the fourth time, trying to persuade her through persistence.
As a Ninth-tier powerhouse, how could she fail to see the unusual circumstances surrounding Suna?
At a glance, it was obvious she had received help from some powerful benefactor.
From being a wealthy young lady in a border region, to becoming a friend of a Saintess, then being noticed by Wilona and brought to the Royal Magic Academy, and later being favored by the Heavenfire Lord.
In less than one month, she had encountered three major opportunities.
Her luck could no longer be described as extraordinary. It was simply unbelievable.
Vieno suspected that everything Suna had gained came from the help of the Hermit.
Therefore, Vieno also wanted the Hermit’s Blessing.
“It’s not a blessing! That person is a demon! It’s a curse, a curse!” Suna pushed away Vieno’s eager face and hurriedly replied.
No matter how she explained it, the dean refused to give up.
Was this really how a Magic Academy dean and a Ninth-tier powerhouse should behave?
Clinging to a student’s waist and begging like this?
Suna almost began to feel soft-hearted.
But if the dean went to meet Truth, wouldn’t it become very easy for the truth about the great demon around Truth to be exposed?
So in order to protect Truth, Suna had always insisted that if someone wanted to meet the Hermit, they should simply wander around inside the Mist.
There was a chance they might encounter the Hermit there.
However, Suna’s lie had already been exposed by Vieno’s contract beast.
Whenever Suna said something without confidence, the colorful bird would chirp nonstop, making Vieno even more difficult to deal with.
“Please stop lying to me. You know that I have always believed in the Hermit. I have been a disciple of that great being since the day I was born.”