Michael's strength should have been at first-class level among Heretic Gods. As the strongest battle angel of the Christian pantheon, his position was similar to Verethragna, both being war gods who protected their faith.
Even more so, the two had considerable origins in their spiritual foundations, with part of Michael's spiritual foundation originating from Verethragna.
With his strength, if he cooperated with his [Judgment] and [Condemnation] authorities, he could easily enhance his special attacks while applying debuffs to Jibril.
If he just extended the battle time slightly and prepared the strongest authority [Right Light] bestowed by the Lord, the outcome of this battle would really be uncertain.
After all, although Jibril had compensated for her disadvantage in technique through Conceptual Armament, she still hadn't recovered to her peak period.
In her young state, her spiritual power was only one-tenth of what it was before, unable to maintain that crushing-level advantage.
However, in this kind of one-on-one duel, it was still Jibril who achieved complete victory.
There was no helping it—the Flügel fighting style was too crazy. The approach of consuming half the energy in one's body in a single burst wasn't something ordinary Heretic Gods could adapt to.
Therefore, with quick strikes, Michael was cut down before he could display all his advantages.
"Hmph! You dare challenge me in front of Master with just this?"
Looking at Michael's gradually disappearing body, Jibril proudly raised her head.
When she turned back to look at Ryuga, her expression immediately changed from arrogant to seeking praise, staring at Ryuga like a loyal dog expecting its master's compliment.
"Ryuga-sama, I won!"
"Well done."
Ryuga nodded and praised her.
His gaze, however, remained fixed on Michael's gradually disappearing body.
When Heretic Gods are defeated, their bodies disappear because their main bodies return to the divine realm.
But right now, they were in the divine realm, so his main body couldn't go anywhere else.
"The authority has begun to transfer. The [Sword of Original Sin] technique activated normally, proving that the conditions for slaying a god have been met. I have already obtained Michael's divine core."
"But I didn't feel the power of the Original Divine Core."
Feeling the additional power within his body, Ryuga confirmed his suspicion.
Actually, this was shown in later parts of the original work—even if you slay gods in the divine realm, what you get in the end is only the god's ordinary divine core, not the Original Divine Core that serves as the template for divine cores.
In this regard, there was no difference from slaying Heretic Gods.
Ryuga's purpose for this trip was the [Original Divine Core]. If he could only obtain ordinary divine cores, then this would be equivalent to a wasted trip.
However, he didn't feel anxious.
Because the current changes were within his expectations.
"[Sword of Original Sin] is like the Ring of Usurpation—it still cannot directly interfere with Original Divine Cores. Here, I must use power that's closer to Original Divine Cores."
While he was thinking, seeing Michael's death, the angelic legions directly went berserk.
"Damn heretics, how dare you attack the Prince of Light!"
"The Lord will punish sinners with thunder and flame!"
"Army of Light, engage in full battle! The enemies are heretical angels and blasphemous evildoers!"
Uriel, the archangel who controlled hellfire, was immediately enraged, completely ignoring the fallen angels and demons—their mortal enemies—and locked his battle target on Ryuga and Jibril.
Those fallen angels who should have taken the opportunity to attack also tactfully chose to observe.
Hellfire descended from the sky, igniting the wings of tens of thousands of angels, burning the sky red.
Besides Uriel, the angelic legion was not lacking in famous angels. Among them, the strong ones had strength equivalent to surviving Heretic Gods, and even the weakest unnamed angels, under the legion's enhancement, could display power at the level of top-tier subordinate gods.
The lineup before them could basically be called an entire divine legion.
Facing this formation that could almost crush her, Jibril held her head high and chest out, showing no fear on her face, but instead wearing a contemptuous smile.
A legion-level Heretic God was not such an easy opponent to deal with, even for her at her previous peak.
No matter how much energy she had in her body, she couldn't compete with an entire army.
However, she remained completely calm, because Ryuga stood behind her.
Her master was an existence who could directly use [Divine Strike].
Even a legion-level Heretic God would have absolutely no chance of survival under such a world-destroying blow.
Jibril maintained this confidence until Ryuga's next words.
"Jibril, I'll leave these guys to you."
"Hah?"
Hearing this, Jibril was slightly stunned, then turned around in shock, pointing at herself with her finger, completely confused.
"Me?"
Like a carp spirit ordered to kill Tang Sanzang and his disciples, Jibril began to suspect whether her master was dissatisfied with her and wanted to take the opportunity to get rid of her.
Otherwise, with her current state, how could she possibly defeat an entire divine legion!
"That's right, you."
Ryuga nodded slightly, repeating once before extending his hand and passing a golden-glowing divine artifact to her, while patting Jibril's head.
"Is this enough?"
"...Enough! Master, I'll go tear through these feathered birds right now!"
Taking the Golden Grail and feeling the blessing that Ryuga transmitted to her, Jibril's attitude immediately did a 180-degree turn, and she eagerly spread her wings.
After receiving the Grail, Jibril's body immediately began to change, gradually growing from a seven-eight-year-old girl to about twelve-thirteen years old.
Although she still hadn't recovered to her peak period, the aura she displayed was completely different.
And on the back of her hand, a silver sword pattern could be seen.
That was the mark of sword blessing, representing that Ryuga had opened the mythical technique permissions of the Steel Hero God system to her.
"Don't let them disturb me."
Ryuga casually instructed while directly reaching out toward the light points scattered from Michael's body.
At such close distance, even Jibril couldn't understand what Ryuga was doing.
Clearly Ryuga had only extended one hand, yet for some reason she saw three overlapping shadows.
With the Flügel's talent, she could easily determine that the first layer was a physical shadow, the second layer was an energy shadow, but that third layer, she completely couldn't understand.
The flickering blue, star-like thread of light was as illusory and beautiful as nebulae.
Although she couldn't tell what substance it was, she could see that after Ryuga made his move, similar light points in Michael's body vibrated and separated, forming golden structures.
In that structure, she sensed the aura of gods, even purer than gods.
"...Yes!"
Jibril immediately acknowledged the order.
Although she didn't know what Ryuga was doing, her master's trust in her was very apparent—he directly entrusted his back to her, not worrying about anyone's sneak attacks at all.
Clearly, she was just a servant who had recently sworn allegiance.
Faced with this level of trust, even Jibril couldn't help but develop the thought of absolutely not betraying this expectation.
So—
"I'm truly sorry, but Ryuga-sama needs a quiet venue."
She slowly turned around, showing an extremely elegant smile to the Army of Light before her.
"So, could you please go die?"
The moment her words hit the ground, killing intent filled heaven and earth.
Two pure white wings spread open, all energy in her body was constrained to the limit—this was the extremely familiar starting stance for the Flügel's strongest technique—[Heaven's Strike].
However, this [Heaven's Strike] was different from usual.
Besides Jibril not having recovered to her peak period, with energy scale reduced by more than half.
More importantly, this time what she condensed wasn't the usual light spear, but a crescent moon-like silver sword light.
"I swear here that this body is the strongest sword possessed by Ryuga-sama. I will not allow the existence of anything that can interfere with Master."
"So—goodbye, everyone!"
The moment her words fell, energy magnificent enough to shake heaven and earth spread out under the drive of silver sword light, like silk cutting through everything before them in an instant.
In that instant, except for a few archangels and some grand angels who managed to dodge in time, the entire Army of Light was pierced through by the silver sword light.
Like a beautiful painting being cut in half at the waist, the angels didn't even feel pain in the first instant, nor did they sense the killing intent.
They only felt the cool breeze, and their heads were spinning and falling along with their upper bodies to the ground.
Like cutting wheat, the angels fell to the ground one after another, completely scattered.
The Army of Light, numbering in the tens of thousands, was more than half annihilated in just one encounter.
The young version of [Heaven's Strike] combined with [Rending Silver Hand] burst forth with unprecedented destructive power.
Not only did it far exceed the original [Heaven's Strike], it even had a trace of [Divine Strike]'s essence.
That energy torrent capable of easily destroying countries was amplified to the extreme by the sword's authority.
Even if God had given the Army of Light multiple layers of blessing and defense, before this unmatched energy torrent and the steel authority that could tear through everything, it was all meaningless and completely reduced to nothing.
Seeing this scene, whether it was Uriel of Hellfire or the fallen angels watching from the sidelines, all were completely shocked.
They had never seen such magnificent sword light, nor had they ever seen such a fierce enemy.
One person had cut down an entire Army of Light?
In the divine realm where the Lord didn't exist, even Satan, the strongest devil of Christianity, didn't have this level of power, right?
This heretical angel... what exactly was her background?
To be continued...
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