Volume 4, Chapter 10-4 – My Chastisement Spirit Colleagues Are All Loyal and Righteous!

The clash of dragonfire ended.

The ashes dispersed and the dust settled. Ash drifting down from the sky looked like wavering flakes of snow.

Stella stood at the edge of the wasteland, her dragon-transformed body silently upright, traces of residual heat lingering across her pale scales.

Veronica looked extremely miserable now, charred black all over and completely motionless.

Her dragon form was beginning to recede. Her dark golden scales peeled away one after another, her incomplete dragon wings slowly folded inward, shrinking until they disappeared entirely, while her thick dragon tail also withdrew.

Before long, the charred figure had returned to human form.

A completely motionless… girl.

Stella was a little stunned.

It wasn’t that she was marveling at the power of layering black flames onto dragonfire. She was simply wondering about one thing.

‘Had I killed Veronica?’

‘No way, right?’

Stella’s original intention had merely been to teach this bristling cat Veronica a lesson and make her stop causing trouble.

From beginning to end, she’d never intended to kill her.

The Samael Dragon Attendants had trespassed into Blood Demon Manor and gotten themselves killed in retaliation. If they were dead, then they were dead. As long as Stella stubbornly denied everything, even if the Samael Family Head was furious, she wouldn’t dare act rashly against the heir of the Valentine family without evidence.

But Veronica was the Samael Family Head’s one and only precious heir.

If Stella accidentally killed her and left the Samael Family Head without a successor, the Samael Family Head would absolutely stake her life on it and mobilize the entire family to hunt Stella down.

Who knew whether her cheap mother Vivian could even stop her.

Gehenna and Katerina might help, but they were the Principal and Vice Principal of Lilith School. They couldn’t openly interfere in a feud between Electors.

‘Lainia…’

‘Forget it. As long as she could do a good job as a gatekeeper, that’s enough.’

At the thought of a huge pack of dragon-type demons hunting her down in the future, Stella instinctively shuddered.

‘No, no.’

‘Veronica absolutely couldn’t die.’

She hadn’t even finished enjoying her luxurious mansion at Blood Demon Manor yet.

She had spent several months undercover in the Abyss with her nerves constantly on edge. What was wrong with enjoying herself a little?

Stella wanted to go over and check Veronica’s condition, but she realized that compared to Veronica’s current size, her own body was simply too enormous. It was extremely inconvenient.

‘I should change back too.’

She thought.

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Stella was just about to disconnect the spiritual link to the dragon-type demon essence and try returning to human form.

But…

Before she could do anything, her viewpoint rapidly began to descend, and the surrounding scenery grew larger again.

Her pale scales receded, her dragon wings folded inward, her spine shortened vertebra by vertebra, and her limbs returned to their original shape.

In the blink of an eye, she went from an imposing pale dragon back into a succubus girl with long silver-and-red hair.

‘What’s going on?’

‘I haven’t even severed the spiritual link yet. Why did I start changing back on my own?’

Stella hurriedly sensed the condition of the Blood Shadow beneath her feet.

Within the Blood Shadow, the pale essence formed by the fusion of seven dragon-type demons had already grown dim and lightless.

They lay quietly dormant, as though their magical power had been completely exhausted. Although they still existed, they no longer overflowed with the scorching power from before.

Stella roughly formed a guess.

There seemed to be some kind of upper limit to how much of the Blood Shadow’s essence she could mobilize. Once she reached that limit, it needed time to accumulate magical power again.

While Stella was thinking, a bone-chilling wind suddenly swept past, making her shudder. Her entire body felt cold, and her teeth began chattering uncontrollably.

‘Wait…’

‘Something is wrong.’

‘Why has it suddenly gotten so cold today?’

Stella instinctively lowered her eyes and glanced at herself.

Then she fell silent.

“…”

Stella looked over her almost completely naked body, and an enormous question mark appeared in her mind.

‘No, wait. Where are my clothes?’

‘Don’t tell me that when I transformed into a dragon, I’d accidentally burst straight through my expensive evening gown.’

‘Does that mean every time I use the essence of dragon-type demons to transform in the future, I’d have to deliberately strip completely naked beforehand?’

The corner of Stella’s mouth twitched.

But…

That wasn’t right.

Back when the Dragon Attendants attacked her and Aetlana aboard the Nightmare carriage, after they transformed into dragons and were defeated, they hadn’t been naked when they reverted to human form.

‘Could it be that dragon-type demons normally carried spare clothes with them everywhere?’

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‘Forget it, forget it. There is no one around anyway, so I will ignore that issue for now.’

Barefoot, Stella quickly walked over to Veronica.

Her golden hair lay scattered across the ground. Her entire body was covered in charred marks from the black flames, while the crystals and gemstones normally used to fill the gaps in her incomplete bat wings were now scattered loosely around her, their luster gone.

And of course…

Veronica was naked too.

“…”

Stella said nothing.

She understood now. A dragon-type demon transforming into a dragon inevitably blew apart their clothes.

First, she needed to check Veronica’s condition.

Stella thought.

She crouched down and carefully examined Veronica.

After only one look, Stella started to panic.

The power of black flames layered onto dragonfire had been far greater than she expected.

Veronica’s chest was barely rising at all.

Some of the charred wounds were so deep that bone could be seen. Dark golden blood slowly seeped out, with no signs of healing.

She was already breathing out more than she was breathing in.

A faint pulse beat softly once, like the final drop of water left in a dried-up stream, barely sustaining the last thread of her life.

She was probably about to ascend to heaven.

‘Speaking of which, if a demon died, shouldn’t they go to hell?’

The enraged face of the Samael Family Head instantly flashed through Stella’s mind.

As an Archdemon, if the Samael Family Head found out that her bloodline had been cut off, wouldn’t she do everything possible and risk her life to kill Stella?

No.

If Veronica died, this would become a huge problem.

She had to find a way to pull her back.

If it were a human on the verge of death, Stella could simply cast Holy Healing and snatch them back from the hands of death.

But there was a problem.

Veronica was a genuine pureblood demon.

Using Holy Light to heal a demon was basically asking whether she wasn’t dying fast enough.

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The reason Holy Light countered demons was because Holy Light possessed a will of its own, and that will was extremely aggressive toward the presence of demons.

You could say that the moment Holy Light discovered a demon, it immediately launched an attack. There was absolutely no possibility of it revealing its gentle, healing side.

‘What am I supposed to do now?’

She couldn’t use the Holy Healing she was best at, and Veronica looked like she was about to head straight to hell. She wouldn’t last long enough for Stella to fetch a demon doctor.

For a moment, Stella had no idea what to do.

Holy Light hated demons.

Unless she erased the will of the Holy Light, one healing spell would send Veronica straight to hell.

But Stella couldn’t just watch Veronica die either.

Was there any way to bypass the will of Holy Light and forcibly bring out its gentle, healing side?

Stella thought very seriously, nearly thinking a hole straight through her head.

‘Hmm…’

‘There seems to be one?’

Stella remembered an extremely simple Holy Art that could indeed manifest Holy Light in a neutral form.

Divine Blessing.

It was said that Divine Blessing was the Lord’s most direct gift to the people of the world.

It was an ancient sacred utterance that predated the descent of Holy Light.

Using Divine Blessing was equivalent to praying directly to the Lord for a miracle rather than going through Holy Light.

If the Lord was willing, the blessing would take effect.

If the Lord was unwilling, most of the time nothing would happen.

Exactly what happened depended entirely on the Lord’s mood.

Stella remembered that when she first met Lainia, Lainia had a Divine Blessing on her. Although Stella had completely devoured it, there was no doubt that it had been divine protection.

Generally speaking, Divine Blessing was something people prayed to have bestowed upon humans.

Stella didn’t know whether it would work on a demon, and no one before her had ever tried.

After all…

Who in their right mind would cast Divine Blessing on a pureblood demon?

But now there was another problem.

To use Divine Blessing, one at least needed to spend time gathering a large amount of highly pure Holy Light in order to establish a sacred connection with the Lord.

Stella glanced at Veronica.

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She estimated that Veronica wouldn’t even last half a Watch.

She had finally managed to come up with a solution, only to discover that she couldn’t actually carry it out?

Stella sighed, completely at a loss.

Right then, the barren surroundings suddenly lit up, and gentle white light dispelled the darkness over the scorched earth.

Stella discovered that the source of the light was twenty-four white-robed spirits floating toward her.

The Chastisement spirits had regrouped and returned.

The White Tower jailers had probably only just finished reconsolidating their spirit particles. Since the coordinates of the Chastisement Brand were right here with Stella, they had rushed over without stopping to protect her.

What dependable colleagues.

Just as Stella was marveling at that, she suddenly froze.

She stared at the Chastisement spirits floating around her, and everything instantly clicked into place.

‘Speaking of which…’

‘Weren’t Chastisement spirits themselves spiritual entities directly condensed from highly pure Holy Light?’

‘In that case…’

‘Couldn’t I simply use the Chastisement spirits as the medium for Divine Blessing, skip the gathering process, and directly draw energy from my colleagues?’

No need to gather Holy Light herself.

No need to waste time.

Ready-made highly pure Holy Light was right here.

Twenty-four of them.

Every single one loyal and righteous.

Stella’s eyes immediately lit up.

‘Oh my~ Oh my~’

‘Colleagues, you’ve arrived at exactly the right time.’

Translator Note

Stella becoming more and more heretic xD