The Max Level Hero Has Returned!-Chapter 1287.2

Illyna de Pallan.

She slowly stepped out of the pillar of light with her gaze slightly lowered. She held a massive silver longsword that radiated an aura so deep, it felt almost holy.

Her presence no longer exploded with raw power like before, but just looking at her sent chills down the spine as if a blade were pressed against the skin.

“Davey, are you hurt?” Illyna asked, glancing at his arm.

Davey hesitated for a moment, then made a face like he had been wronged. “That bastard hit me.”

In truth, it was only internal damage caused by overloading his own power, but that didn’t matter.

Hearing those words, a vein briefly pulsed on her forehead. “Them too?”

“Yeah. I have complete divinity, so I can’t kill it.

She nodded at that. “Sis, just block his movements.”

As soon as she said that, a massive black spear came crashing down from the air, falling straight toward the demon.

In response, it frantically unleashed its power, trying to obliterate the surroundings of the temple to deflect the attack.

“Pufufu!! What a pathetic trick!”

Yet, the moment it moved, a shadow suddenly sprang to life and restrained it, forcing it to stop.

Clang!! Clang clang!!

The black spear drove into its body, and it let out a guttural, painful scream.

At the same time, Josiah and Perserque appeared from within the pillar of light.

Josiah had controlled the shadows to restrain its movements, and Perserque had used her magic to pierce through its body.

Seeing the two of them silently approach Davey, he laughed mockingly at the demon. “You made a mistake.”

“Ridiculous! Not even divinity can affect me. Do you think there's anyone who can kill me besides you? Not unless you bring in the ancient dragon Eclipse or something.”

Seething, it moved its restrained arm.

Crash!!!

Part of the solid-looking black spear shattered, and a tremendous amount of time power poured out from its tip.

“Pufufu. You're all mistaken.”

With that, the power from its fingertips began to twist the surroundings. “This is not an authority that a mere creation, unable to surpass the limits of mortality without the Goddess’s blessing, can ever dare to overlook.”

With those words, time around them all began to distort and collapse in different directions.

“You’ll be trapped forever in the rift of time, never able to reach me.”

It was confident, and it had every reason to be. Its authority was overwhelming, and only beings with complete divinity even had a chance to stop it.

Now that it had returned to its original form, where the old pact with the goddess applied fully, Davey could no longer affect it with his powers.

No one bounded by the limits of mortality could possibly stop it. That’s what it believed.

In truth, its unshackled force easily twisted the powers of Perserque and Josiah. Within the confines of time, their powers broke apart in an instant.

As its wounds rapidly regenerated, it stretched its hand toward Evangeline and Abel, who were the closest.

“Aside from you, this is all they amount to. No matter how many of them gather, as long as your power can't affect me, none of them have the means to stop me.” As it spoke, the power of time wrapped around Abel and Evangeline. “Those who fall into that rift will go mad, trapped forever in a broken stream of time.”

It acted as though its victory was guaranteed, simply because Davey could no longer reach it with his powers.

However, there was one thing it didn’t know.

“Illyna.”

At Perserque’s quiet murmur, Illyna, who held the silver longsword, took a single step forward. At the same moment, she gripped the hilt with both hands. A chilling aura rose in her eyes, and the silver Caldeiras tore through the air.

[Continuum-Attacking Blade]

[One Swing Cut]

Slash!!

In but an instant, the twisted timeline and the space isolated by the demon were sliced apart. The demon, who had placed its full trust in its power, was cut in half.

It wasn’t fatal, but the damage was severe.

“W-What? What is this?”

It seemed completely unable to comprehend what had just happened to its own body.

It still didn’t know one crucial fact.

Not even Davey dared argue with Illyna.

As the demon stared in disbelief at the severed authority, Davey sneered. “The Continuum-Attacking Blade interferes with time and space.”

In other words, Illyna was the perfect hard-counter to the demon that had fully activated its pact with the goddess.

The demon flinched and tried to retreat in panic. It had crafted the opportunity so carefully! Excluding beings with divinity, no one should have had the power to defeat it. With the pact rendering beings with divinity unable to affect it, there should have been no one capable of stopping it.

However, someone who possessed no divinity had suddenly dared and managed to cut through its authority. It made no sense.

Yet Illyna didn’t care about its confusion. Her grip on her sword tightened again.

“N-No...!!”

With a single slash, the countless rifts in time that it had created were shattered and torn apart. The blade flew through them and cut into its body once more.

Thud! Clang clang clang!

Immediately after, another black spear materialized in midair and dropped into the gaping wound in its body, pinning it to the spot.

Its agonized scream echoed, “Gyaaah!!!”

Once Illyna nullified the power of time that had protected its body, it couldn’t think clearly anymore.

It had forcefully undone the space just to get to Davey, and absorbed power recklessly. Unfortunately, by doing so it had ended up summoning someone far more dangerous than Davey O’Rowane.

“Do you think stopping something like this will change anything?! Unlike you lowly beings, I’m one of the Goddess’s first children! Don’t think you can stop me with something so trivial!!”

Along with the power of time, another power spilled from its body. It was none other than hallucinations.

However, Illyna, Josiah, and Perserque weren’t the only ones threatening the cornered demon.

“That’s a disturbing kind of power.”

Dressed in an animal onesie, Marky reached out her hand, as did Verdandi, who clutched a leather-bound book. Both of them clashed their powers head-on against its authority.

Each of the three wielded different types of power, but they had one thing in common—they could manipulate illusions.

Whether it was illusion or hallucination, it all stemmed from the same principle. Though they couldn’t completely neutralize it, it wasn’t hard to cancel it out through direct collision.

The demon finally began to panic.

“If you’d done a little more research on us, it wouldn’t have had to come to this.”

Of course, there was no way the Priest Roam, who had aided it, could have known that.

Davey shifted his gaze toward Roam, who stood in a daze just outside the ruined sacred temple, as well as toward Bishop Tophenne, suspended midair with a blade stuck through him.

The demon, now fully cornered, lowered its head as it watched its enemies close in. Then it let out a faint laugh, “Heh. Hehehehe. Hehehehehe.”

As if it had lost its mind, it raised its head and laughed some more.

It had been pushed into a dead end. If Illyna slashed it again, it could truly end up dying.

It let out a desperate scream, “How could you throw me away like a piece of trash?! My mother! Was I nothing more than a defective product to you?!”

Despite its agonizing cry, the Goddess didn’t appear.

“All we ever wanted... was your love and attention.”

The Goddess had left them and created a perfect world elsewhere. She had made new children there—those who had never been abandoned.

Meanwhile, those of its kind who had waited endlessly in their broken world, crying out for her, had all vanished one by one. The memory of them still haunted the demon.

Yet the beings of this world, the perfect world, knew nothing of such sorrow. All they ever did was chase after their own desires.

That resentment turned into deep, venomous hatred that pressed down on the surroundings. Some even flinched at the sheer malice it radiated.

“Fine. If you truly intend to abandon us to the end, then I will resist you until my final breath.”

With a voice filled with despair, the demon stretched out its hand toward Bishop Tophenne, who was still floating in the air. “Your life is done, anyway. Offer it to me.”

“W-What? What have I... Ugh! Kahak! What have I done?!” Bishop Tophenne, still suspended in the air and muttering in guilt, suddenly screamed in agony and twisted violently.

“I’ll use you to overturn everything.”

As the demon mysteriously began forcing some kind of transformation onto the bishop, Illyna raised her sword again.

However, something surprising happened. The force pressing down on Tophenne was forcibly halted, as something within his body suddenly began to emit light.

It soon slowly emerged on its own.

“W-What?!”

“This... This is...”

What emerged from Bishop Topenne was none other than the very object given to him by the woman who was dressed in the garments of a diocesan bishop he had bumped into.

As if it had been waiting for this very moment, the holy relic unleashed a tremendous surge of divine power, pushing back against the demon’s force and purifying Bishop Tophenne. Once it entirely severed the demon’s power, Priest Roam rushed forward in a panic, trying to stab Tophenne with a black dagger.

“N-No! It can’t end like this!”

Right before the dagger landed on him, a pure-white rabbit, who no one had noticed arriving, pinned him to the ground.

“Kyu.” Letting out a cry that didn’t match its appearance at all, its red eyes darted around. The demon’s face sank into despair.

Then, a voice whispered in its head, as if someone were speaking directly into its soul.

[See? I told you, the Goddess abandoned us in the end. To that Goddess you kept believing in and waiting for, we’re nothing but disposable trash.]

The playful tone twisted through its thoughts.

The moment Illyna raised her sword to finish it, an enormous amount of red mist burst out of its body. At the same time, a shadowy form emerged from the fog and collided with Illyna, neutralizing her attack.

“How? You should be dead!” Even the demon’s eyes widened in disbelief.

This time, it wasn’t a voice echoing in its head. It rang out like a declaration across the sky, “Rest in peace, my kin. We will inherit your hatred and fury toward the Goddess who abandoned us. The time for war has come, and the ungrateful creations will soon know their reality.

“Ah, dearest Goddess, do you see us now? Your forsaken sons and daughters have returned.”

With that voice, a massive amount of unidentifiable things detached themselves from the demon’s body and scattered into the skies above. It was as if countless entities, hidden within it all this time, had been released in an instant, completely leaving the demon behind.

Left alone, it sank to its knees. With a hollow, dying look in its eyes, it let out a powerless laugh. “Ah. My kin, you were there all along. Through me, you suffered for so long. Grieving, cursing, waiting...”

Then it turned to Davey.

“We, the Goddess’s failures, declare war on you! As long as you cannot touch me, you’ll have to gather every single being that walks this land to stand against us. Whether we win or lose, our purpose has already been fulfilled.”

Its voice was laced with sorrow and bitterness. “Ah. Goddess, are you watching now? The final moments of the children you cast away.”

Having expelled everything from its body, the demon collapsed slowly, closing its eyes as if at peace.

However, no one cheered for victory.

The cries, filled with anguish, grief, resentment, and regret, weighed heavily on the hearts of all who heard them.