Helena spoke again, her tone calmer now, as if the battlefield around them had momentarily lost its importance.

“There was a story,” she said, “about a certain monkey. A monkey born from stone.”

Riona did not look impressed.

“Girl, buying time will not help you,” she replied. “If you have something left, use it. I can wait. As your senior, it is my duty to allow a little rest to my junior.”

Helena let out a small amused breath. “Looks like you’ve already decided I’m your junior.”

“I did not decide it,” Riona said evenly. “Her Majesty already wrote your fate. I do not mind a troublesome junior. I will teach you manners myself.”

Her gaze sharpened slightly.

“But first, I will show you why I stand above you.”

Helena shook her head lightly. “Yeah, let’s drop the talk. I don’t think sharing my favorite story with you is going anywhere.”

She raised her hand and opened her palm. Resting there was her storage ring.

“But listen carefully, Lady Angel,” she continued. “This may not be the original one, but it works well enough.”

The ring activated.

A small amount of liquid metal flowed out, stretching and reshaping itself into a staff, with the ring forming its core. Helena caught it firmly in her hand and adjusted her grip.

It was not the true Ruyi Jingu Bang.

But it was something she had made to function the same way. Perhaps even better.

Helena lowered her stance, the staff angled forward as she looked up at Riona. Behind the archangel, the sky was still filled with a storm of golden swords, their glow bright enough to make the night feel like day.

Helena bent her knees.

Then she jumped.

The ground beneath her cracked outward in a web-like pattern as she launched herself upward. This time she did not take a roundabout approach. She moved straight toward Riona, aiming for a direct clash.

Riona responded immediately. She summoned two additional swords into her hands, distinct from the others. Their designs were more intricate, with complex white patterns running along their blades.

Then she descended.

From the sky, she fell like a golden comet, the river of Nirvana swords following behind her in a sweeping arc.

From below, Helena rose like a surge of force pushing upward.

They closed the distance rapidly.

Before the two could collide, Helena made the first move.

She swung her staff in a wide arc.

Riona’s brows furrowed slightly. The motion did not match the expected trajectory of an attack. Her instincts warned her something was off.

She adjusted immediately, slowing her descent and shifting her position. In the next moment, she vanished within her own formation of swords. The river of blades closed in, forming something like the open jaws of a massive creature ready to swallow Helena whole.

But Helena’s swing did not stop.

As the staff completed its motion, she spoke a single word.

“Stretch.”

The weapon extended instantly.

What had been a normal swing expanded into something far larger. The staff lengthened at an unnatural speed, sweeping across the sky like a massive arc cutting through space itself.

The river of golden swords split apart under the force of that strike.

The formation broke into two halves.

Riona avoided the blow by moving away in time, but even she recognized that the attack had been far more dangerous than it first appeared.

The staff shrank back to its original size, returning to Helena’s grip.

Helena did not pause.

She pushed forward immediately.

The distance between them was still significant, but it did not matter. As she thrust the staff forward, it extended again, covering the gap almost instantly. The motion resembled a beam shooting straight from her hand toward Riona.

Riona tightened her grip on her swords and moved to block the attack.

The staff met her blade.

But there was no sound.

For a fraction of a second, it looked as though the attack had simply passed through her defense.

The reason became clear too late.

At the moment of contact, Helena had altered the front portion of the staff, turning it into liquid while maintaining its shape. The weapon flowed through Riona’s sword like water slipping past an obstacle.

Then, as it reached her, it solidified again.

The impact struck directly against Riona’s chest armor.

The armor shattered on contact.

Riona felt the air leave her chest as the blow landed. Her body folded slightly before she was flung backward, this time completely out of Helena’s estate. She could not even tell how the attack had connected. One moment she had been in control, and the next she was being launched like a projectile.

Her eyes forced open as she tried to spread her wings and slow herself before she crashed into something. Pain ran through her body, but she focused on stabilizing.

Then she noticed something beside her.

Helena was there.

It did not look like flying. It was closer to riding. Helena sat at the edge of her staff, which stretched endlessly behind her, extending all the way back toward the estate. There was no visible limit to its length. She looked completely at ease, even smiling.

Helena shifted her grip lower on the staff.

Riona understood immediately what was coming next.

The staff shrank back to its normal size in an instant. It did not retract like something mechanical. It simply returned, as if distance itself had been erased. It did not look physically possible, something that could only happen because of a highest grade artifact from another world.

Before Riona could recover, Helena swung again.

The strike hit mid-air and redirected her completely, sending her downward at a sharp angle. Her body was forced straight toward the ground.

She crashed hard enough to shake the surrounding area. The ground cracked beneath her, and the impact spread outward like a small earthquake.

Sound returned all at once. People screamed and ran in panic, trying to get away from the center of the impact.

Riona lay there, her armor reduced to scraps barely clinging to her body. She tried to push herself up, but the pain was too much. Both of her arms felt broken, even as she pushed divine power through her body to heal.

Then a voice cut through the chaos.

“FIRE IN THE HOLE!”

Riona’s eyes moved upward.

Above her, something massive was descending. At first she could only see part of it, a circular shape that felt disturbingly large. Then she realized what it was.

The staff.

Not in its normal form, but expanded into something enormous, like a giant pillar falling from the sky.

It was too big.

And it was coming straight at her.

She tried to move, but her body didn’t respond in time. The circle above her grew larger and larger until it filled her entire view.

Then it fell.

The impact shook the entire capital. Buildings trembled, the ground rippled, and even the royal castle, built on the highest point of Capital City Grant, felt the shock.

When the dust settled, a massive pillar stood in the middle of the city, stretching high into the sky. People all around could see it clearly, and many of them slowly lifted their heads to follow its length upward.

At the very top of it, a single figure stood.

Of course, it was the owner of this massive weapon, looking down at everything below.

“I hope she’s still alive, Miss Senior.”

The strongest reaction came from the people below, the ones who believed angels to be undefeated, untouchable beings. For a few moments, no one even moved. Their minds struggled to process what they had just seen. Then reality caught up, and panic followed right behind it.

A single voice broke first, shaky and disbelieving. “Oh my god… Lady Riona… has been defeated? How? No… that’s not possible… she’s a messenger of the Goddess… what did I just see… and what is that…? Now who is going to defeat that monster...?”

The confusion spread quickly through the crowd, voices overlapping, disbelief turning into fear. No one could match what they believed with what was standing in front of them.

Then a voice cut through all of it.

“LADY RIONA!!”

It was soft, filled with warmth and innocence, but trembling with fear. People instinctively looked up toward the source. A flying carriage had descended into view, carrying the flag of the Church of Thymera, the kind used by people from the Holy Land.

A girl with lavender hair leaned dangerously out of the carriage, tears streaming down her face as she stared at the place where Riona had been buried beneath the pillar. She looked like she was about to fall out at any moment. Behind her, a man with crimson hair, whose presence felt like that of a lion, held onto her firmly to stop her.

“Calm down, Saintess! Lady Riona isn’t dead!”

The carriage descended quickly. The moment it was close enough, the Saintess jumped down without waiting, stumbling as she landed before rushing forward. The crimson-haired man followed right behind her.

The Saintess didn’t look up even once. Her focus stayed completely on the pillar.

The man did.

His eyes lifted and met Helena’s.

Helena stood at the top of the pillar, watching everything like it was some kind of show. When their gazes met, she tilted her head slightly.

“...one more?” she muttered.

The man’s expression hardened immediately. A strong fighting intent surged out of him, sharp and heavy enough to be felt even from that distance. When he spoke, his voice carried across the area like thunder.

“You monster! I want a duel with you! Come down here and face me! I, the Apostle of Courage, challenge you!”

He didn’t hesitate. He knew he wasn’t stronger than Riona, but that didn’t matter to him. If anything, it only made his resolve clearer.

Helena looked down at him with mild curiosity, as if she had just discovered something interesting. She could feel the intensity in him even from above. He was strong, and his fighting spirit was unusually fierce.

The Apostle didn’t wait. He moved toward the pillar and placed one hand against it, his veins glowing golden beneath his skin as he poured strength into his body and tried to lift it. His muscles tensed, power surging through him, but the pillar didn’t move even slightly.

Then Helena heard something.

A voice.

The Saintess had dropped to her knees near the base of the pillar. She didn’t care about the dirt staining her white clothes. She didn’t look around. She didn’t react to anything else.

She began to sing.

A hymn.

Her voice was soft, trembling, but steady. It carried through the air in a way that didn’t need volume to be heard.

At the same time, Riona’s presence, which had been fading beneath the pillar, began to rise again. Slowly at first, then more clearly, growing stronger with each passing second.

The Apostle reacted immediately. The aggression in him vanished as he stepped back and dropped to one knee, lowering his head without hesitation.

Helena felt it too. A strange calmness pressed against her mind, like a weight settling over her thoughts. It felt like something was trying to slow everything down, to make her stop and simply accept the moment. The feeling was gentle, but unnatural.

She snapped out of it almost instantly.

Her eyes shifted toward the Saintess, studying her with interest.

Around them, the crowd had already begun to kneel. People covered their ears and even their eyes, as if reacting to something they couldn’t control. It spread unnaturally fast, like a command had been placed over them.

Then Helena felt something else.

Something from below.

It wasn’t the hymn, and it wasn’t the divine energy.

It was deeper than that.

She focused downward, through the pillar beneath her feet. A presence was building below, something vast and unsettling. At the same time, a voice began to echo, repeating over and over in a way that overlapped itself.

“DoNotBeAfraidDoNotBeAfraidDoNotBeAfraidDoNotBeAfraidDoNotBeAfraidDoNotBeAfraidDoNotBeAfraidDoNotBeAfraidDoNotBeAfraidDoNotBeAfraiddonotbeafraiddonotbeafraiddonotbeafraiddonotbeafraiddonotbeafraidDoNotBeAfraidDoNotBeAfraidDoNotBeAfraidDoNotBeAfraidDoNotBeAfraidDoNotBeAfraidDoNotBeAfraidDoNotBeAfraidDoNotBeAfraidDoNotBeAfraiddonotbeafraiddonotbeafraiddonotbeafraiddonotbeafraiddonotbeafraidDONOTBEAFRAIDDONOTBEAFRAIDDONOTBEAFRAIDDONOTBEAFRAIDDONOTBEAFRAIDyouSHOULDbeAfraidAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA”

The voice sounded glitched, like it was coming from somewhere deep and hollow, like an echo from an abyss. But at the same time, it carried a strange sense of holiness.

The contradiction made it worse.

Helena frowned slightly, trying to make sense of it. For a moment, she wondered if the hymn was interfering with her perception.

But the presence below only grew stronger.

No one in the capital was looking up anymore. Everyone had lowered themselves, covering their ears and faces as if something had overridden their will.

Then the pillar beneath Helena shifted.

It tilted slightly.

At the same time, the ground below began to glow faintly, like something massive was lighting up beneath the surface.

The Saintess didn’t stop singing.

The pressure built.

Then the ground broke.

A massive tentacle burst out from beneath the earth, tearing through the surface. Its flesh twisted unnaturally, covered in countless blood-red eyes that opened all at once.

Helena’s expression changed instantly.

Then she laughed.

“Ah… ah… ahahaha… AHAHAHAHA!… I knew it… you weren’t just a few pieces of scraps…”

She leaned forward slightly, gripping her staff, her eyes fixed on what had emerged.

“Show me what a true angel is capable of.”