The Max Level Hero Has Returned!-Chapter 1055

“Tsss. Haah”

With a short, sharp breath, a lone figure began to move.

[We must stop the one interfering with the cause.]

[The balance of Hell must be preserved.]

The echoing and overlapping voices in its head caused extreme headaches, but the monster’s obsession was like a collective will merged into a single entity.

Whatever the original purpose had been, the body that had become the vessel now had only one priority: Act according to the screaming thoughts and eliminate any intruders that appeared.

As though everything that had been suppressed within the massive rift was suddenly bursting out, an overwhelming number of arms began flailing from the narrow rift, struggling to come out. However, it didn’t last long.

Crackle. Crackle!!!

When the space finally tore open, black mist spilled out, and with it came shadow monsters pouring forth.

“Davey. Give me that.” Daphne, who had been watching the creatures emerge, reached out her hand.

“No.”

“Gimme.”

“You’re just gonna break everything.”

“I’ll go easy, so just hand it over.”

With a sigh, Davey gave in to her stubbornness, pulling out a black spear from his Pocket Plane and altering its form.

Form One: Cross.

As the weapon transformed into a massive cross-shaped club, or what some would consider as a spear with a long handle, she gripped it and murmured quietly, “This cold, heavy feeling...”

“Please don’t go overboard.”

“Let’s stretch out a bit for the first time in a while.”

A pure white sacred flame began to flicker at the edge of the cross on the divine spear Longinus. Without the need for Davey’s assistance, Daphne stepped forward with a cool smile, like she had just found the perfect outlet for her pent-up stress. Compared to the other weapons Davey had, the divine spear Longinus was significantly heavier, yet she swung it around like it was nothing more than a twig before lowering her stance slightly.

Crack!!

At that moment, a massive number of shadows began spilling out from the dark rift. They looked like creatures crawling out from the Abyss. But unless they were like the gray monster who possessed overwhelming power or benefited from the laws of the Abyss, they were no match for Daphne, even if she had sealed away most of her power to facilitate her manifestation.

Boom!!

Dragging the cross along the ground, she triggered an explosion in the area and launched herself into the fray. For a priest, Daphne was shockingly good at hand-to-hand combat. Whether it was something she'd picked up after arriving in the Hall of Heroes or a natural talent of hers was unclear. Davey recalled the time after his training with Hercules, when his body had toughened up and he’d recklessly challenged Daphne, relying purely on brute strength.

“Got beat to a pulp back then,” he muttered to himself as he watched Daphne swing the cross with both reverence and holiness, smashing the first incoming shadow.

With a thunderous boom that couldn’t possibly come from just metal striking metal, the shadow was shredded to pieces without even managing to resist.

Clang!! Thud!!

Mowing them down one after another, Daphne swung the cross as if she was possessed, utterly annihilating the shadows. Each shadow, on its own, seemed to be at least Expert-level in strength. On top of that, there was something unnaturally distinct about their power, beyond what is to be expected of mere Experts.

Still, no matter how many of them gathered, and no matter what special abilities they possessed, they were no match for Daphne.

“Where do you think you’re going, bastard!?”

When one of the shadows tried to retreat after failing to attack, she grabbed it and ferociously ripped it apart with her bare hands. Even while swinging Longinus at incredible speed, she would occasionally toss it aside just so she could tear more shadows apart with her bare hands. She ripped their limbs, crushed their heads, and snapped their joints.

What she was doing was enough to horrify anyone watching.

“Oh? Still more? Bring it on.”

Anyone else would’ve been tired out by the endless flood of shadows. Yet Daphne, as if in her natural habitat, was having the time of her life venting her stress.

Davey finally looked away from the shadows and turned his gaze toward Persephone, who was embracing the gray monster and infusing it with light. The way he figured, that child wasn’t likely to be her own biological offspring. But considering the strange situation—the Monster Queen’s body having died with only her soul remaining—it wasn’t impossible to think that the child had been born naturally from an associated phenomenon.

Whatever the truth was, what mattered was that the gray monster, despite its overwhelming power, was curled up in Persephone’s arms like a baby bird clinging to its mother. Davey honestly hadn’t expected that sparing the thing back then would snowball into such a positive result.

Boom!! Bam!!

Despite the chaos, Daphne avoided touching the rift itself, instead ripping apart only the shadows that had exited from it. It was as if she was daring more to come out. Eventually, she was so frenzied that the maddened shadows actually started hesitating, visibly frightened.

“Hey. You done watching? Get out here and give me a hand,” Daphne spoke toward the inside of the rift with a cold expression. “I’ve got business with you bastards, and I’m in a real shitty mood.”

Of course, whoever was waiting inside the rift wasn’t going to respond to her words.

“Guess I’ll have to drag you out myself.” Saying that, she staked the cross into the ground and clasped her hands together.

“Daphne, don’t.”

“Too late!!”

[10th Level Transcendent Holy Magic]

[Gate of God]

It was a 10th-level transcendent holy magic that used stigma manifested by consuming holy power permanently. Davey had used it in the past, having taken a shortcut to cast it by exploiting divinity. Even so, the spell had been created by Daphne, and it showed in the sheer scale of its manifestation when she used it.

“That crazy lady.” Davey shook his head as he watched pure white feathers swirl in a vortex around her.

He couldn’t fathom just how pissed off she must have been to use that spell. Unlike the time when he had used it in the past, the Gate of God that Daphne activated was holy magic of such staggering density it left him in shock.

Then, the balance of the surroundings began to twist. It was as if a fragment of the Saint Sanctuary had been transplanted into the place. Amid the overwhelming change, she reached out and clenched her fist.

Crack!!

The surrounding space twisted violently as the rift began to fall apart.

She was trying to erase it entirely.

Fssshhh. Fssshhh.

The overwhelming power spread through the area, completely dominating it. When it couldn't withstand any more, the narrow rift burst wide open, and her spell came crashing down with a blinding white flash.

When the flash faded, both Daphne and Davey found themselves staring at a group of knights. Unlike the shadows, these figures had clearly defined forms. Their glowing red eyes flashed as they raised their swords and began charging toward Daphne. At the center, behind them all stood a single, armored figure, calm and unmoving while watching over the scene.

“The balance must be preserved. Only Persephone may be the Monster Queen.”

“Do not disturb her existence.”

A horrible noise echoed with overlapping voices. The knights launched into a ferocious assault on Daphne. Yet, despite being a priest, Daphne moved with unbelievable grace, effortlessly redirecting their strikes.

Clash!!

In fact, she wasn’t just dodging. She used their own attacks against them, turning each blow into a counterstrike.

“Damn, even I needed a long time to learn that.”

Davey found it hard to believe she had learned such powerful techniques from anyone in the Hall of Heroes. It was far more likely she had mastered them on her own.

Their helmets were shattered, their bodies crushed and ripped apart by Longinus. Despite their impressive strength, they weren’t strong enough to even touch Daphne. It wasn’t that they were weak. Rather, it was Daphne who was never supposed to be in that place facing them.

If even one of the knights made it to the continent, it’d cause total chaos. Still, the monster lair Hell wasn’t like the Abyss or the Malicious Spirits. It wasn’t unbalanced to the point of nonsense, so the outcome was clear with Daphne’s presence.

Crack! Crack!!

Dozens of knights were reduced to twisted metal scraps. Only then did the final knight in the rear begin to move, carrying a small dagger in one hand and a long longsword in the other.

“The world’s balance must be preserved.”

“Balance, my ass. What you’re doing isn’t balance. It’s delusion, you bastard.”

Clearly, the boss, the true form of all the others, and the very source of the disaster, a mass of thought and will, the knight in the rear launched its attack on her.

“What do you think? Want some help?”

“Get lost, I’ve got this. Just make sure Persephone is okay.”

Persephone’s soul had greatly improved, and if everything went well, she might finally be freed from her shackles and enter reincarnation. Filled with such hope, Daphne was focused entirely on keeping Persephone stable.

Clang!!

“Daphne... You who know not the truth.”

“The truth is a bitter drink.”

“Our conviction was not wrong.”

Davey gathered that the two knew each other as he stared at the knight. Despite being fully encased in armor, he could clearly tell that the monster knight’s body originally belonged to Kasato Yoshiki.

‘So that’s where he disappeared to. That actually might be for the best, saving me the effort.’

He’d planned to deal with him eventually anyway. Inside Kasato’s body were countless souls fused together, which he figured likely belonged to the rest of the traitors Daphne had mentioned. They were ones who had been driven mad by the terror of Hell, knights who’d fought Daphne to worship the Monster Queen.

“Since you already died once, dying again shouldn’t be a problem.”

Thud!!!

Daphne’s small, pale hand easily dented the knight’s armor. The creature didn’t stand a chance in a direct fight. And so, despite preaching about balance, Yoshiki—now the knight—was being relentlessly beaten down by her.

“Brace yourself, asshole.”

Seeing the tiniest opening, Daphne finally gripped Longinus with both hands and firmly planted her feet.

[Strength]

[High Strength]

[High Strength]

Clang!!

First stacking powerful buff magic, she then slammed a full swing right into its abdomen. The resulting explosion of sound was deafening. The creature went flying like a rag doll, crashing into the ground as more than half of the armor holding it together was ripped to shreds.

“Phew! That felt good,” she said, wiping the sweat trickling down her forehead.

Davey narrowed his eyes while watching her. Sure, the way she ignored tactics and just went for brute-force brawling was insane, but the fact that she won so one-sidedly by doing so was even more astonishing.

“Well, I guess there was a good reason she lasted longer than expected during the Strongest Hero Selection Tournament.”

Davey felt a sudden wave of helpless amusement.

Just as Daphne was about to tear apart Kasato’s body and the monster souls sealed within it, Persephone, still holding the gray monster in her arms and imbuing it with light, suddenly cried out in desperation.

“No!! Don’t kill them!”

“What? What kind of nonsense are you spewing now? Focus on the transfer!”

Daphne stomped down on the remains of the half-shredded armor, channeling power again.

“Don’t kill them! Please!”

Her insistence on mercy made Daphne scowl. The light flickering in the monster knight’s eyes, coupled with its repeated mumbling about balance, had made it clear that its mind was already long gone.

“There’s a limit to how far you can take selflessness and mercy.” Daphne’s expression twisted with a fierce grimace.

“T-They’re just mad. That’s all!”

“I know they’re mad. They’ve lost it! That’s why they pulled this crap, and so what?”

Crunch!!

Unlike the selfless Persephone, Daphne had always been aggressively straightforward.

Visit freewe𝑏n(o)v𝒆l.𝑐𝘰𝑚 for the best novel reading experience