As the words fell.
Another sword light came furiously.
The archangel, now wary, quickly tried to draw back.
He still chanted softly, his many wings—one already severed—flapping and at times trembling faintly.
Blood fell from the air.
All the angels in Angel Realm sensed the summons and gathered this way.
Amos, still holding his own cub, was slightly restricted in his movements, but for a furious parent, that wasn’t much of a limitation.
What’s more, the wings behind Amos spread out in an instant—
Now, Amos’s speed was totally beyond what the archangel could match.
Still cradling his cub, Amos watched as the little one, raising Cupid’s Bow, seized opportunities to attack.
—They still had a very important goal.
If they wanted to leave here, just as before, they had to smash the Stones of Divine Blessing.
Those things all floated above the sky pavilions—
And clearly, the archangel was a definite obstacle.
That special power barrier did present some obstruction for Amos.
“Magic, is it?”
Amos’s mental blade stabbed into the heavily reinforced magical barrier and halted.
The archangel kept retreating.
Behind him, more angels arrived, each shocked at the scene—
“They are invaders—vermin here to pollute the Angel Realm, don’t let them leave alive! If they escape, they’ll become our greatest trouble. Hold them, I will—”
That power started from a point, as if deep within some vast ocean, something was churning but not yet surfaced in its stillness; then, from the point of clash, it rippled out like a wave.
Boom—
“Doesn’t matter, break through it.”
The archangel staggered in midair, as more painstakingly raised angels fell from the sky behind him.
His four wings, now again cut down, lost their lift—they faltered in the air, then, stung by pain, barely kept him aloft.
Amos, holding the cub with one hand, executed a neat movement, then casually lifted his hand, asking, “How does it feel to have your wings chopped off? Next time—”
Amos gestured.
“It’ll be this side.”
No—
No, it shouldn’t be like this!!
The archangel had never seen such power.
He panicked instinctively, retreating so fast he couldn’t care for the other angels.
He gripped the already-cracked staff, muttering continuously—
Amos moved with blinding speed. This place was not like elsewhere—in Angel Realm, Amos felt no need to preserve the environment or avoid collateral damage.
The light of the mental arrows never paused.
Wings—arms—and finally, as the archangel fell, targeting his head and torso.
Last time, the mental blade had not been nailed into his head.
“This time, there won’t be any accidents.”
Amos said, watching as the archangel crashed to the ground, and the angels trying to resist also fell, leaving just a few weaker ones fleeing in confusion, not really even understanding what was happening in the Angel Realm.
Little Chu Zao clung to his chest, exhausted after using up much of his own ability, curling up in Amos’s arms, and breathing hard.
Watching all this, the young cub felt a bit dazed, his emotions complicated.
“Baba,” the cub’s halo atop his head flickered, “is it all over?”
He asked softly, a little confused.
Were all the things that used to terrify Zao Zao truly gone now?
Amos glanced at the scattered, fleeing angels, thinking there were even fewer—and weaker—than he’d expected.
The wings on his back fluttered, and he drifted lightly downward.
“No.”
Amos thought for a second, then replied to his cub.
“Do you remember how Anya and the others dealt with variant beasts before?”
The cub’s little wings at his back twitched a few times—
Like—
“Mother taught us very seriously,” Amos recalled with some helplessness but also clear approval as he approached with his sword, “that after a task is done, you must make sure to finish it well—deliver the final strike.”
Mother—
Amos’s mother, Little Chu Zao’s unseen grandmother, the former Holy Cas queen, herself a fierce Crown Clan whose halo had shattered amid corruption and now buried—Solan—had deeply influenced Amos.
And on this matter of finishing blows, the entire Dwight family kept it in mind—though back on the interstellar fields, the cleanup was usually left to siblings or the Holy Cas army.
Now, left alone with his cub, the head of family had to do it himself.
The little one nodded knowingly.
“Grandma was right.”
Zao Zao would learn to do the same.
But as father and son landed, seeing the archangel’s body already sliced in half and left a mangled mess by the venting of parental fury, both of them paused.
Simply because the sight was not what they’d imagined.
The archangel, who should have been dead, was twisting, limbs still twitching, but flesh was knitting itself back together with a fine mesh growing from the wounds Amos had made, merging together in a grotesque, revolting way.
What angel looked like this—this was clearly a monster!
Amos raised his hand without hesitation for a few more strikes.
Mental power swept out at once.
The cub reacted a step slower but swiftly readied his bowstring.
But from afar, a glow shot over and instantly wrapped the archangel’s remains, vanishing in that moment. Amos looked up; from above, as blood and flesh rained down, among circling Stones of Divine Blessing, the archangel was being slowly pieced back together by a strange force.
Severing wasn’t enough. Not even attacking the head worked?
The archangel as an individual was different from the other angels.
Amos, holding the cub, stood amid the carnage, shot out a few more strikes, then looked up at the archangel’s movement, a slight frown on his brow, his own halo flickering as if affected by something.
“Baba—”
The power here was clearly stronger than at the Hymn Organization. The cub’s arrow could not cleanly pierce through.
It was blocked outside the barrier and dissipated.
“The final blow…?”
The cub looked up at Amos, trying to find an explanation.
Amos considered.
“He didn’t give us the chance.”
He’d meant to finish it properly, but clearly—this situation was bizarre.
The bodies hacked down were being pieced back together, making horrible wet, cracking sounds. The archangel, brimming with blood, stared with golden eyes that were gradually turning a mad, scarlet shade.
Where his flesh rejoined, one red sphere after another appeared, making him now utterly un-angelic; he was fully a monster.
Or—he resembled the corrupted beast commanders they’d encountered before, though not exactly the same.
“Ah—”
The archangel let out a furious snarl.
“See what you’ve done? Do you know what you’ve done to the passionate, kind, and strong angel race? You’ll be swallowed by the God of Nature—the God of Nature will strip your power!”
Countless Stones of Divine Blessing flashed as if answering his muttered incantations.
And Amos realized what had been making him uncomfortable.
Behind the archangel, around the Stones of Divine Blessing, a rift slowly tore open—a pitch-dark hole twisted gently, and in the next instant, a pair of blood-red eyes slowly opened from the darkness!
Gray-black mist began to spread outward, leeching all color wherever it went—
This scene was only too familiar to Amos—
Wasn’t this what happened during a pollution outbreak?
Amos’s mental power sharply vibrated at that instant, his crown, disturbed, began to waver—
He retreated half a step. Pollution—the Crown Clan’s nemesis.
“Haha, hahahaha—”
The archangel watched Amos, keenly perceiving Amos’s fear of the God of Nature and the threat of his power being seized.
“So that’s it, so that’s it—”
“I want to see what you’ll do—just let yourselves be swallowed, become part of the force of plunder—”
Little Chu Zao instinctively looked at Amos, reached out, and grabbed Amos’s crown.
A chill ran down Amos’s scalp as he saw his cub’s heartfelt concern.
The cub’s eyes widened, small and round.
“He won’t let us finish him?”
The little one was incredulous; he didn’t understand how, after all that, the archangel could get up again—
“We should show Uncle what real cockroaches are!”
But Little Chu Zao wasn’t afraid; he whimpered to his parent.
“Mm.”
Amos himself was at a loss. He almost heard his mother’s voice—Finish it! Finish it! Finish it! Don’t forget the final blow! Fail to finish off a beast and you copy Holy Cas’s history three times!
Amos gripped his mental blade, thinking—
It’s not like he doesn’t want to finish him.
There just wasn’t time to do so properly.
Amos dodged the attacks with ease, but he had to admit—those eyes felt terribly wrong. And since the eyes appeared, the archangel’s strength kept rising; Amos could sense it.
He was considering countermeasures.
But for now, he still had the upper hand.
He glanced at his cub and still had time to soothe him.
“It’s alright. Baba will break his weapon first; it’s almost done for.”
The archangel’s staff was already webbed with cracks; it looked every moment as if a tap would shatter it.
The cub nodded, but couldn’t help worrying.
“Baba, is your mental power okay?”
He could sense the agitation in Amos’s mental energy, so he quickly turned to grip Amos’s halo.
Amos wanted to reassure his child he was fine—when the cub, cheeks puffed with anger, turned furiously toward the archangel.
He was so angry. He thought it was all over.
If picking on him wasn’t enough, now the archangel was bullying his baba!
The cub’s eyes went wide, watching the archangel in the distance, weaving more magic and letting pollution spread.
Amos struck suddenly, mental power surging out—
Again the mental blade crashed against the barrier weapon. For the Crown Clan, pollution was troublesome, but thank goodness Zao Zao was here.
“Useless.”
The archangel’s eyes, already monstrous, stared unblinking at Amos.
“Can’t you feel it? Your attacks have no effect on me anymore, and now I am your nemesis—before you die, spare yourself the trouble—”
“Is that so?”
Amos glanced at his own wounded hand, shifted to hide it, and asked with a soft laugh.
The archangel was rattled by Amos’s calm and composure. He glared at Amos, about to speak, when a sound of breaking caught his ear.
He froze, looking to the staff in his grip.
The symbol of Angel Realm, the emblem of angelic power.
Now cracks covered the staff, all the fissures meeting and spreading, golden powder flaking off in a rain.
Little Chu Zao poured all his mental power to steady Amos’s crown. Watching the archangel, he spoke in anger: “You’re nothing like what you claim, you’re nothing like an angel at all—!”
He stared at the archangel, clutching Baba’s crown tighter, thinking.
Angels aren’t like this—
Angels definitely—aren’t like this.
So ugly, so twisted, so misleading—
Boom—
The archangel’s staff exploded.
The archangel and Amos, clutching the cub, drew back at once.
Amos glanced at the cub’s pocket.
‘Yes—they’re no angels at all—’
Little Chu Zao was stunned, looking up instinctively, seeing nothing, but hearing a gentle, familiar voice—at the moment the archangel’s staff shattered, it was—the system’s voice?
“System?”
Little Chu Zao blurted out, searching all around.
The voice was still weak and faint, gentle, as if it was the murmur of a flowing spring.
Amos couldn’t hear the system, but saw the crown above his cub’s head glow a shade brighter.
And in the cub’s pocket, a faint light shimmered, ever brighter—Angel Fountain Stone.
“No—what’s happening?”
The archangel reached reflexively for the fragments, but caught only air.
And the consciousness from the Angel Fountain Stone was now felt by both the cub and Amos—
It was howling, rage points rocketing up, leaping and hopping.
—That guy, that monster is no angel!!
—They were outsiders, and only because the angels were kind did they take them in, only to have their power stolen step by step—monsters who seized the Angel Realm and claimed its use!!
—All of Angel Realm has been governed by that staff, which has no mind of its own, only recognizing those who fit the power of angels… including any behavior toward the clan.
Little Chu Zao looked to the archangel in the sky.
“He’s not an angel?”
—He’s not! He only dressed himself and those born of his power as angels.
The whole Angel Realm was deceived.
Cheated by an outside impostor.
That’s how things became this way.
The Angel Fountain Stone was slow to realize—it merely maintained stability, sustaining a world while outside, spaces reminiscent of the Angel Realm would absorb other unstable powers from the stars. Normally, the races living within such spaces would correspond to a particular immortal race in the galaxy.
So it was oblivious to the reproduction of the Angel Realm’s species—
Until the other’s predatory actions gradually revealed themselves.
Passion, kindness, strength—those are truly angelic traits: never theirs.
So he kept them forever on his lips.
“Then Zao Zao—”
Little Chu Zao still couldn’t quite grasp why he was born here, what exactly he was.
“Angel—?”
—Only you are different, from the day you fell into the Angel Fountain.
The Angel Fountain Stone shimmered, countless light points rising from the ground, gathering toward Little Chu Zao.
And the system’s voice, gentle as a lullaby—
“Zao Zao, you can do it—you are a little Crown Clan, and because your homeland was destroyed, it sent you here; you were born from the Angel Fountain, and you are the last little angel of this world.” —That’s why there came to be a little Crown Clan with a golden crown.
“So that’s why this guy acted that way.”
Amos quickly caught on, sneering.
“To exploit others’ kindness and seize their power, and when something went wrong, the first reaction is always fear—”
The fear of someone doing to them what they did to others.
“So you never were angels!”
Little Chu Zao finally realized, watching the monstrous archangel in the sky.
He gripped his little bow tight.
The staff was utterly destroyed; after a brief panic, the archangel seemed to regain his calm.
He looked at the angry, wide-eyed cub.
His mouth twisted in a slightly eerie smile.
“I say I am an angel, so I am. Those virtues belong to angels, and we are angels—”
He looked down at the rising light dots.
As if remembering something.
“These foolish, kind races, when exterminated, present such a beautiful sight; their power is taken and buried under this land—”
He looked up again at Amos and the cub.
“Well, enough empty words and pleasantries.”
His body twisted, a rift tearing longer behind him.
“So there really are other worlds with your kind of power—surprising, but this is where you end—”
“Even this much power couldn’t touch or harm me; like I said before, what can you change? What can you bring?”
The archangel laughed.
“Become the power of the Stones of Plunder—when I rebuild again, so what? Angel Realm will be more beautiful than ever—a dreamland for all, and you’ll be its foundation—”
Little Chu Zao drew back his bow; he actually had many things still unclear, many questions he wanted to ask the system that finally reappeared.
The system’s voice was so gentle, coaxing, as if soothing a child—so gentle that the little one nearly lost himself, wanting to cry—what was this feeling? He didn’t know, but somehow it felt like he’d heard voices like this when he was even younger, before he could remember.
But amidst it all, several voices urged him on—draw the bowstring.
Zao Zao drew, countless points of light gathering, all merging into his crown.
The wings behind him pricked for a second, as if something was about to break free.
The enemy’s pollution power was now too strong; it wasn’t safe to get close.
Amos pressed his mental power to Zao Zao’s bowstring, the arrow with its tail of black flame growing larger—
The archangel’s power surged forward, clashing fiercely with theirs.
In the black rift, that terrifying red eye slowly opened another, burning with hunger and greed for flesh.
The archangel held a weapon shaped like a crossbow, volley after volley of power raining down; he watched the arrow nocked by Little Chu Zao, the one he blocked with his force—
He sneered, “Useless, you’ve tried this before, haven’t you? This power—it’s your nemesis—Chu Zao, this is the name granted by the Angel Fountain, the only name bestowed by the fountain, but you are no different from before, still the same pathetic, cowardly little thing, good for nothing, as always.”
Amos’s crown shone to the extreme, a torrent of mental power resisting and pushing back, unable to find a better tactic for now, so he decided to destroy the foe a few more times—surely there was a limit to rebirth, right? But before that: “You sure talk a lot.”
Just then, countless points of starlight gathered onto Zao Zao’s crown. Amid the clash of forces, the wings behind the cub shivered—then, all at once, a new pair of small wings burst from his back—
Amos paused.
At the same time, the arrow fired.
In that instant, piercing through the shield—black flame entwined with the Angel Realm’s radiance, ripping the shields and powers asunder, surging up to the archangel’s face.
The burning black fire began to unravel all the powers nearby layer by layer, swallowing up the Stones of Divine Blessing beside the archangel. For the first time, the archangel, who had shown only composure and contempt, panicked—why was his power… collapsing?
The cub, now with six little wings, drew the bow once more.
His eyes looked straight through, seeming to see into the foe’s heart—without fear or timidity.
As if saying—the coward you once knew was your greatest misunderstanding.
In a blink, the arrow was before him—