The Goddess' Wings
"Guess I really went too far, huh?"
Lucretia let out a wry smile as the little girl with golden hair spoke. The wounds on her body had vanished without a trace, leaving nothing but the faint stains of blood as proof of the harm she had endured.
"Regeneration ability? No, even full recovery? This isn't your power at all."
Ji-ho instantly grasped that the rapid healing of Lucretia’s body had nothing to do with her own strength. The divine energy she wielded was undeniably immense, its defensive and restorative properties surpassing even those of the archangels.
Yet he had suppressed her healing through sheer force of will, and for at least three full minutes she should have been unable to recover at all.
Any emergency treatment in the face of his resistance was one thing, but complete regeneration was something even Lucretia—wings of the goddess spread wide—should never have managed.
"Yes, that’s the power of the archmage."
Lucretia answered without the slightest hesitation, as if hiding it were unnecessary. She offered no further explanation, however.
She could survive even if her neck were cleanly severed, and as long as the archmage remained alive, she could endure decapitation, shatter, and return reborn. Every wound would heal in an instant, and if her limbs were torn away, the severed neck would still regenerate the lower body in moments.
As long as the archmage lived, no one could ever kill her. Ji-ho had already accepted that subduing her outright was impossible; the only way to restrain her was the method he had already used—binding her so she could not move Gabriel and his wives.
"Damn the difficulty rating. Looking at the position, she’s supposed to be a mid-boss, but this is insane."
Even though he was seventy-two in Earth years, five years of living as a seventeen-year-old boy had ingrained the habit of speaking in the laid-back tone of his late twenties.
Yet right now Ji-ho was genuinely in a tight spot. The saintess Lucretia with the goddess’ wings spread was no pushover, and plenty of counter-strategies existed.
Lucretia herself realized it too late, but the moment the wings unfolded she would analyze the situation, access the Akashic Records containing all knowledge in the world simply because she was so close to the goddess, and quickly interpret the information she had gained.
Despite being no archmage, that ability alone let her quickly decode what Ji-ho had just done.
"I guessed you could only read foresight for a few seconds at most, so I tested you by having the attack land exactly ten seconds later. And that blow that reached me was deliberately aimed to ride your counterattack straight back up."
"Correct."
As Lucretia had deduced, Ji-ho had deliberately injured himself just to land a hit. He had focused solely on defense, fully blocking her strike, but instead concentrated on defense enough to take only non-lethal wounds and slipped his counterattack between the enormous waves of holy power she unleashed. The momentum of his own strike rode her attack upward and carved wounds across her body.
Ninety percent of his attack’s power was lost inside her holy waves, but the slashes he had delivered were still severe enough to cut her skin like a blade.
Yet with her body already fully healed, the whole exchange was now meaningless.
"Speaking of which… I’m curious about something else too?"
Ji-ho spoke and turned his gaze toward the eight-year-old golden-haired girl who had suddenly appeared right behind him without him noticing.
"Ah, did my appearance startle you?"
The girl smiled with an adorable brightness that made her look like a doll. If she continued to grow, she would become a beauty rivaling Lucretia—perhaps even surpassing the pinnacle of humanity’s history.
At the same time, that face was far too familiar to Ji-ho.
"Wha—! Impossible! That girl is—!"
Griffith could not hide his shock. How could he? He would never be able to forget that face, nor could he ever erase her from his memory.
The girl standing before them now was none other than Seria, the Habsburg princess born to the Habsburg Empire’s Crown Prince Ferdinand von Habsburg and the Flash Magic Swordswoman Irene.
The tragic child who had been decapitated by Irene after she was freed from brainwashing, then brutally murdered by her own mother’s hands.
The girl who had been born was a living symbol of torment and sin to Irene, and she had been removed by her mother’s own hand as a crime that should never have been committed.
She stood before them now, perfectly healthy, conversing intimately with Lucretia, and possessed combat prowess that allowed her to shadow Ji-ho.
"Lucretia, it’s time to go. The Demon King has already ordered me to return. This is pointless—any further fighting would only mean your defeat."
"My defeat?"
Lucretia turned to Seria in surprise. Or rather, she wanted to know through Seria why the archmage thought that way.
"The Demon King said that for this ancient hero there is still an option. He even mentioned that he [probably won’t use it against me]. So it’s certain. Don’t get caught and turned into a punching bag for your enemies. Just go home."
Of course, if Lucretia were captured, Ji-ho would never let her go quietly. He would ravage her thoroughly.
A continent’s most beautiful woman, already seasoned and seasoned with the best spices, dressed in the sexiest attire—how many men could endure such temptation? Especially after Lucretia had deliberately provoked him earlier by saying she wanted to taste him and to be subdued.
Just remembering that provocation was enough for Ji-ho to realize he would never have left her alone.
"I wanted to take those bitches back with me… That’s a shame."
Looking at the still-unbound archangel Gabriel and his wives Rachel, Ruina, Silvia, and Kim Da-gyeom, Lucretia sighed with genuine regret.
"That’s something to leave to the Demon King. Let’s go quickly. I feel like they’re about to start attacking us."
"Yeah. Who sends people off so easily? I came here freely, but leaving is a different story!"
Ji-ho was about to swing his sword at Lucretia when Seria’s eyes flashed bright red. Her small body moved with impossible speed, slamming a fist straight into his abdomen.
"Cough!"
Ji-ho spat blood and was blasted backward ten meters. Even though it was in the air, so he had moved farther than usual, and he had poured all his defensive power into his stomach, the fact that he had still been pushed back was astonishing.
Though he had been focusing on Lucretia, he had paid little attention to Seria, but even so, the fist that had closed the distance instantly and struck him was no ordinary blow.
It was clearly the fist of a well-trained expert who had honed her craft for countless years.
'How can an eight-year-old child do this?'
Ji-ho had wondered at the time, but the red light in Seria’s eyes had been his clue to a secret he had failed to notice earlier.
"It’s not red, it’s blue—so that’s why I didn’t understand. Seria, you’re a demon race."
"Yes, that’s right. This body is a demon race."
Seria lifted her chin slightly with a proud, dignified air as she declared her true nature. Because she had hidden her demonic energy, nothing was obvious, but she was unmistakably a demon. And a demon of a level so powerful it was terrifying.
Her current combat power was on par with Lucretia’s, the saintess with the goddess’ wings spread. Unlike Lucretia, who relied on those divine powers, Seria matched her through sheer overwhelming physical ability.
In short, if one had to divide them into "terrifying special abilities" versus "terrifying physical strength," that was the distinction.
"Hah… I’m losing my mind. Is this difficulty rating seriously too high?"
Ji-ho grumbled again at the absurd difficulty. Seria was not even stronger than him.
He possessed a wide array of special abilities capable of countering Lucretia’s, so combining Lucretia’s and Seria’s strengths was essentially what he faced anyway.
Unlike the pure combat ability of Lucretia or the power of her divinity that looked weaker than Seria’s, he was a jack-of-all-trades with both.
The problem was there were not one or two enemies to face—there were two.
And Ji-ho had to admit that holding them any longer would be far too dangerous with his wives still bound. It was better to simply release them rather than force them to drag his wives away.
Ji-ho said nothing, but Seria, who read his mood and understood he had given up on capturing them, turned and left the place with Lucretia at once. Ji-ho watched them disappear without a word, though his heart was heavy.
'Seria said she was just a normal, innocent eight-year-old girl with no power. Even if she had come back from the dead, how the hell did she get that kind of strength?'
The question lingered, but since he could not chase the vanished Seria, Ji-ho buried it in the back of his mind and descended to the ground. He then checked each of his companions one by one and asked.
"Is anyone seriously injured?"
"No."
"None."
"Hah… I showed you a miserable sight."
Ji-ho had fought alone, yet his companions had been nearly useless. Especially Gabriel and his wives, still bound by Lucretia’s power.
Especially since they had stayed behind to protect them—Mikael, Raphael, and Uriel—so they could only feel guilty.
"Sorry…"
"Sorry…"
"I’m so sorry…"
Accepting their apologies, Ji-ho forced a wry smile and sliced the light ropes binding them with his archangel’s sword.
The light ropes that seemed impossible to dispel for Mikael, Raphael, and Uriel were cut away as easily as thread by Ji-ho’s blade. Thanks to him, they were freed and could move again.
"Thank you. But you’re incredible. You cut those ropes in an instant."
"Thank you, honey."
"Thank you."
"Thank you, Ji-ho."
Ji-ho received the gratitude of Gabriel and his wives, but the heaviness in his heart from moments ago made him nod with a weak smile.
"Yeah… Let’s rest for a while. I probably overdid my power."
The injury from Lucretia’s attack was serious enough to bleed a lot, but it was not a life-threatening wound. Still, mental exhaustion weighed heavily on him.
So Ji-ho decided to rest for now.