“Chief Tech, what is the status of the Stargate? Do we still have a chance to return to our home planet?”
“T-this... I cannot give you a definitive answer at the moment.”
Meliodas, who was fighting on Planet Froya, wearily removed his damaged Holy Light Winged Armor helmet and tossed it aside.
He continued to press the technician who was working at full capacity beside him. The Froya Defense Force was retreating steadily in their attempt to resist the Great Devourer units descending from space. It was only because Meliodas had led reinforcements to the scene that they had managed to hold onto a few positions.
In the distance, the Great Devourer's giant World Tree rose from the ground, surrounded by hideous and terrifying nests.
“If we don't find a way out soon, we will be buried here,” Meliodas muttered to himself, looking around blankly.
Although the entire city had been hastily converted into a fortress, everywhere he looked, he saw displaced refugees and soldiers who had been beaten back. The morale of the entire army had reached its lowest point.
Soldiers and civilians alike had suffered countless casualties, and the air was filled with the sounds of mourning. They had certainly killed an equal number of enemy troops, but those enemies were pure combat organisms, devoid of humanity. They charged fearlessly, stepping over the mountain of their comrades' corpses.
They were not opponents that students who had recently held pens, clerks who had sat at desks, or workers who had spent their days laboring could stand against just by picking up weapons on short notice.
“But there are still people alive! There are children here!”
“Our potions and the priests' holy power are almost exhausted! Rather than letting the severely wounded linger in pain, we should prioritize treating those who still have a chance to live!”
The priests were arguing incessantly. Some advocated for treating the severely wounded, while others insisted on abandoning them to prioritize those with better prospects for survival.
“I am sorry, Goddess. I implore you to protect us through this crisis...” Nearby, someone felt the remaining holy power within their body and prayed fervently to the Goddess, strengthening the conviction in their heart.
‘The home planet was also attacked. Even the Palace of Sacred Radiance, where that Great One resides, was not spared.’
Meliodas had already learned from Archbishop Rabiel that the home planet was being ravaged by war. Rabiel said that the power of the Goddess enveloping the entire home planet was vast and holy, so those terrifying Great Devourers did not dare to invade easily.
But Meliodas knew that this protection was not infinite. Just like Planet Froya now, if the territories fell one after another, the home planet's barrier would gradually be breached.
If all the believers who bathed in the Goddess's grace and received her divine protection were wiped out, she would no longer be a high-tier deity. At that point, she would be nothing more than an ordinary god with slightly more strength.
“They have likely set their sights on exactly that.”
Meliodas concluded that the Great Devourer's goal was to eliminate all her servants and perhaps even completely erase the Goddess herself. It was the most logical and only viable method.
“...Hmm?”
“What is this? Is it snowing? It is currently summer in the northern hemisphere; how can it be snowing?”
At that moment, fine, tiny foreign objects began to drift down from the murky, grey sky. It was a substance similar to sleet—small, light, and as dark and cloudy as soot.
“This is bad! Activate the purification formula immediately!” Meliodas shouted in alarm.
Toxins were a weapon the Great Devourer had been using since the beginning, and they had suffered greatly because of them in the past. To resist the highly acidic toxins and poisonous gases that could corrode steel, they had already prepared sophisticated purification formulas and devices.
However, the strange toxin falling from the sky now was completely different from before. This was not an indiscriminate lethal agent, but rather something closer to a paralyzing toxin. It was as if a spider or a queen bee had paralyzed its prey to preserve it as food.
“My body feels wrong...”
In an instant, many people who didn't have time to prepare inhaled the spores and collapsed straight to the ground, their bodies becoming stiff and rigid, frozen like desiccated mummies.
“Activate the purification formulas at full speed!”
“Put on your gas masks immediately!”
A holy forcefield containing purification power suddenly expanded, blocking out the grey powder falling from the sky. The soldiers quickly put on their gas masks and urged the civilians to wear protective gear, guiding everyone to seek refuge in the barrier shelters as quickly as possible.
“There is no need to struggle and resist. Perhaps when you wake up, all conflict will have come to an end.”
“Damn it...”
The Great Devourer's final assault began abruptly at that very moment. The Great Devourer army, which had been resting briefly, pressed forward in force. When Legion Commander Yuno appeared on the battlefield holding her exclusive black spear, Meliodas gritted his teeth tightly.
In fact, they had already anticipated this scene. Everyone had long been prepared to die in battle. Not just Froya, but all battlefields would end in total annihilation after a desperate resistance, reaching a tragic conclusion.
“Yuno, what is it you actually want? We, who have dedicated our souls, minds, and bodies entirely to the Goddess, will only...”
“Will only seek martyrdom and fight to the last moment? I know. I have heard those words so many times I have grown tired of them.”
In the center of the tragic battlefield where the roar of artillery and the screams of the dying rose and fell, Yuno interrupted Meliodas as he stood in her way. After speaking, she lightly shook her spear and shook her head slightly.
“Meliodas, there is no need to go this far. You do not have to die. There will soon be a new answer for how to serve the Goddess. I will personally remove your mask, and I will personally administer this anesthesia to you.”
Yuno had already learned of Elise's entire plan through the hive mind. The operation code name was Queen Bee.
The plan was to use a newly synthesized sleep toxin to anesthetize all the servants of the Church of the Goddess of Light who were putting up a stubborn resistance. This was not ordinary anesthesia, but a state that would plunge the living beings into a complete biological suspended animation, a state close to death.
If not for the Great Devourer's ability to manipulate cells to cultivate strange mutants and create biological weapons, as well as their integrated system for coordinating massive resources, this operation would have been impossible to carry out. Furthermore, this operation needed to cover countless planets and hundreds of millions of living beings.
In this way, the Goddess would be completely severed from the mental link with all her servants. Her Divine Status would plummet to the absolute bottom, and all the preparations to drag her down from her pedestal would be complete.
“Yuno, what on earth are you trying to do?” Meliodas asked, his voice trembling with extreme fear.
“...It is better than dying, is it not?”
Yuno fell silent and said no more. Elise's plan could absolutely not be leaked. Although Lin Miao had warned that excessive treatment of the Goddess Hestia might provoke a backlash from the other gods, he had not explicitly forbidden taking action against Hestia and her forces if they refused to surrender.
Therefore, Elise had already made her decision in her heart: ‘As long as there are no visible flaws on the surface, that will be enough.’
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