Charles spread his legs slightly and snapped his hands in quick motions, batting aside every Rebellion Sword Estarossa sent flying under his control.
At the same time, Estarossa charged beneath a rain of sword-shadows. It was a smart call.
If he couldn't keep up with Charles's reactions, he'd carpet the area with dense attacks—so long as Charles struck back, Full Counter would trigger.
Charles saw what Estarossa was aiming for and of course wasn't about to let him have it.
He opened his mouth; a magic circle like molten lava flared wide.
"Fire Dragon's Roar!"
Estarossa reacted fast, abandoning his offense and springing back at once. He thrust out his palm, unleashing a torrent of darkness to meet the surging flame.
"Paltry fire—be devoured by darkness!"
Even as he said the flag-raising line, Estarossa's expression twisted; it made you worry about his mental state just looking at him.
Memory and soul are inextricably bound; the one the forbidden spell from Gowther of Selflessness damaged most was, of course, Estarossa.
And after gaining the Commandment of Charity, his mind grew even more distorted.
A Commandment binds its bearer as well; if he could fight without hatred, then obviously he was smothering it with something else.
That only made his mind twist further. In that state, though, his darkness raged all the more violently.
The pitch-black energy blocked Charles's flame and spread fast, looking as if it would swallow every blaze.
Seeing it, Estarossa's smile warped further; he poured in more magic, and the darkness raced even faster.
Charles's face didn't change. There was no way his fire would be swallowed that easily.
Sure enough, the darkness's spread suddenly halted, no matter how much force Estarossa added.
Cooling a little, Estarossa finally saw it wasn't that the darkness had stopped spreading—it was that everything it touched had been burned into nothing.
He then noticed that the portions of flame already "devoured" were surging again, the black turning crimson.
The fire hadn't been swallowed; it had been building—and now it had hit its limit. What followed was an earth-shaking explosion, all of it pouring onto Estarossa.
"Dammit!"
Roaring wouldn't help; Estarossa was blown away. His robe turned to ash, and burns mottled every inch of exposed skin.
He flew who knew how far before smashing into a distant cliff and finally stopping.
Tumbling down with the shattered rock, Estarossa propped himself up on a Rebellion Sword and stood.
He was already pineapple-pineapple\* and still refused to fall.
Charles couldn't help getting annoyed. He'd held back too much. Escanor had blown him off the map with a single Merciless Sun.
Charles took a step forward, ready to end it and strip Charity's Commandment from Estarossa's body.
Suddenly, the overcast sky above Byzel was pierced by several shafts of light, each becoming a clear pillar that speared down to the battlefield, suffused with an inexplicable holiness.
Zeldris slashed Meliodas back with his shortsword, frowned at the sky's anomaly, and hissed, "How I hate that magic."
His voice was full of loathing and spite, as if he'd seen something filthy.
Diane backed behind King and looked up at the falling pillars. "What's happening?"
"No idea," King said, shaking his head.
Gloxinia and Drole didn't press the fight; both turned toward the light, thoughtful.
Charles, too, stopped and looked up. He had felt those several formidable signatures above the clouds the moment they arrived.
In Britannia, who else possessed such vast power—so saturated with the aura of light? There was only one answer: the Goddess Clan.
But back then, to activate the Coffin of Eternal Darkness, the goddesses had sacrificed their bodies and lodged their souls in relics.
So where had these goddesses come from? And among them, three auras were especially strong, above most of the Ten Commandments.
No need to guess—the Three Archangels.
Feathers—white, like down—seemed to drift within the pillars. It was like the pure gates of heaven had opened.
Silhouettes with white wings spread from their backs descended through the light.
…
"The Goddess Clan! How are they here?"
Watching through a crystal ball in distant Camelot, Merlin said as much, though no one could read the shadowed expression on her face.
"So those are the goddesses? I thought they sacrificed themselves to seal the Demons during the Holy War?" Elizabeth asked.
Merlin, of course, didn't answer—and didn't tell Elizabeth she had left the materials to resurrect the goddesses with the Kingdom of Liones.
Charles's appearance hadn't been part of Merlin's plan, but it had let her glimpse a hope of achieving her goal.
So she decided not to wait any longer and triggered more of her arrangements, pushing all her chips in on this one chance at success.
…
Meliodas's expression soured too, because among those descending goddesses he recognized several faces.
They were his friends—the Druids—who had preserved the strength that had been separated from him and helped him recover it.
Now their eyes glowed with the goddess's signature triangular dart-shaped sigil, and white wings spread from their backs.
The situation was simple: the goddesses had borrowed Druid bodies to resurrect.
The Druids had long worshiped the Goddess Clan—it was likely they offered themselves willingly as vessels. That didn't mean Meliodas approved.
Other than Elizabeth, Meliodas had little fondness for the goddesses.
Three thousand years ago, Ludociel's despicable massacre of demons had already shown him what those outwardly holy beings truly were.
Charles's face went dark as well, because the moment the goddesses appeared, they struck an ugly pose.
"Well done, human warriors. Your deeds in battling the demons will be legend."
The leading woman spoke from on high, and the soul within her body was Ludociel, chief of the Four Archangels.
The air of a superior commending subordinates made Charles bristle—and what he did next made Charles's face go black.
Ludociel spied the spent Estarossa and lifted a finger. Radiant light gathered at the tip, then fired straight toward Estarossa's brow.
The kill-steal blindsided everyone. A Four Archangels, doing something so undignified in public!
Zeldris stepped in front of Estarossa in time and cut the beam aside.
As the Demon King's agent, Zeldris was the soul of reason. "We're withdrawing. Now."
Derieri, who hated the goddesses most, started to speak, but Monspeet caught her arm and shook his head.
She ground her teeth, glanced once at the goddesses above, and spread her black energy wings.
Zeldris steadied Estarossa and unfurled his own dark wings. They flew without so much as a parting threat.
One of the goddesses looked down at the Seven Deadly Sins and Charles and demanded, "What are you doing? Why didn't you stop them?"
Ban smirked. "Pretty sure we don't owe you an explanation."
The others sheathed their weapons as well. After Ludociel's little stunt, no one had any fondness for him—they weren't about to cater to a bunch of self-important prigs.
"You lot—!"
The goddess was about to flare up when Ludociel raised a hand to stop him. "Our enemy is the Demon Clan. Don't create pointless conflict."
His "magnanimity" did nothing to change Charles's view. The only thought he had was that this guy was scheming something yet again.
\*TN: Japanese onomatopoeia ("boroboro da") for battered to a pulp.
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