“W-What’s going on...?” Even the angels themselves seemed baffled; they couldn't believe that they were resurrected. Meanwhile, the radiant holy light was still shining down on them. “Hey, is this some kind of joke?” Siegfried muttered. He checked the HP bars of the angels and gnashed his teeth. [Low-Tier Fallen Angel] The HP of the angels who were dead on the ground just a few seconds ago was fully restored. “You’ve gotta be kidding me...” Siegfried grumbled in disbelief. “Brothers and sisters!” A powerful voice rang throughout Mount Amon. “Do not fear death. The blessing of immortality is upon you! Fight without hesitation and slaughter those heretics! Exterminate every last one of them!” It was the voice of the Archangel, Auriel. The angels stood dazed for a while, but they soon snapped out of it and picked up their weapons. “Heaven’s judgement will smite you!” Their morale soared, and they immediately charged at Siegfried and the others. “Tsk... Do you think coming back to life changes anything?” Siegfried clicked his tongue. Without hesitation, Siegfried activated Embrace of Despair and Eternal Flames, debuffing the resurrected angels. “We can just kill them again!” Fueled by Siegfried’s debuffs, the Adventurers clashed against the angels. A battle that had already been won in overwhelming fashion was bound to end up with the same results. If they had already won once, then there was no reason they couldn’t win twice. The resurrected angels were slaughtered yet again, their lifeless bodies strewn all over the ground. Once again, the divine light came cascading down from the sky. “Again...?” Siegfried muttered while waiting to see what would happen this time. “Our Father’s blessing is upon us!” The angels rose from the dead once more and charged at Siegfried’s party. ‘I’ll just kill them again,’ Siegfried thought, unleashing Absolute Zero to freeze the angels. The moment they were immobilized, the party cast every area-of-effect skill they had at the angels. It went without saying that the angels were decimated in the blink of an eye. And just like that, the third battle ended with another decisive victory for Siegfried’s forces. [Alert: You have obtained Experience Points!] [Alert: You have obtained Experience Points!] [Alert: You have obtained Experience Points!] [Alert: You have obtained Experience Points!] [Alert: You have obtained Experience Points!] The one silver lining from the angels resurrecting was that they still gave Experience Points when killed once again. Perhaps this was the reason that no Adventurers were grumbling. Of course, they would be very annoyed if they stood to gain nothing from the repeated battles. “They’re not gonna revive again, right...? I mean, resurrecting three times is just crossing the line,” Siegfried grumbled, narrowing his eyes. As if on cue, the radiant light came cascading down from the sky once again, resurrecting the angels for a third time. “You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me! What the fuck?!” Siegfried screamed in anger. Who the hell could imagine fighting an enemy capable of resurrecting three times? ‘Fine. Resurrect ten times if you want—no, make that a hundred times. I don’t give a damn. I’ll beat the shit out of you angels every single time.’ Completely fed up, Siegfried led the Adventurers into yet another battle against the angels. At this point, this battle had turned into a battle of attrition with their pride on the line. Who would give up first? The one doing the killing or the one resurrecting? Just like that, three hours passed since the first battle... The Adventurers were utterly exhausted after fighting nonstop for three hours, and they were on the verge of collapse. After endlessly slaughtering the resurrecting angels, they had finally run out of divine power. This was the main problem with divine power. Mana and Stamina could be easily replenished with potions or spells. There was no artificial way to restore it. The only way to refill it was to wait for it to regenerate naturally. And that was the precise moment the tide turned against Siegfried’s forces. With their divine power depleted, the Adventurers could no longer fight the angels. They started getting pushed back bit by bit, as the angels started cutting them down. The lack of divine power rendered the angels nearly invincible against Siegfried’s forces, as they now dealt ninety-five percent less damage against the celestial beings. ‘Damn it... I have no other choice...’ In the end, Siegfried had to tell his comrades to retreat while he stepped up and fought at the forefront. It was all because he was the only one who still had divine power. “Retreat! We’re pulling back!” Siegfried had no choice but to sound the retreat. Contrary to what he expected, the angels didn't just revive a few times. No, they resurrected hundreds of times—so many times that he had already lost count. Every time they revived, they would charge at Siegfried and his comrades like immortal warriors. [Divine Power: ⬛⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜] Even Siegfried had his limits when it came to divine power, so he had no other choice but to retreat. As the leader of the Church of Heroes, his divine power regenerated faster than others, but even he couldn’t keep up with an enemy that was capable of coming back to life nonstop. “Where do you think you’re going?!” “Chase those heathens down! Wipe them out!” “Exterminate those heretics!” The angels, armed with immortality, chased after Siegfried’s forces. ‘Those damned angels!’ Siegfried gnashed his teeth in anger after being forced to run away from a bunch of weak angels. Unfortunately, he had no other choice. If he continued fighting this war of attrition against an opponent that was capable of endlessly coming back to life, then the only outcome awaiting him was a complete disaster. Grinding his teeth in frustration, Siegfried abandoned their attempt to scale Mount Amon and fell back. “Run, you wretched insects! You will never step foot into our sanctuary!” “We are victorious, brothers and sisters! The blessing of immortality has protected us from the heathens!” The angels triumphantly roared, their voices echoing throughout the battlefield, while Siegfried fled with his comrades. “Huh? So, it happened to you guys, too? Damn it...” Siegfried clicked his tongue at the scene before him after arriving at the rendezvous point. The troops led by Brunhilde and Draculis had already arrived ahead of him. They looked beaten, battered, and downtrodden. It turned out that Siegfried’s forces weren't the only ones who failed to break through the angels, as the other groups had suffered the same fate as them. Brunhilde approached Siegfried with her head hung low and said, “I’m sorry, dear... We failed...” “No, the enemies kept reviving, didn’t they?” Siegfried shook his head and replied. “Huh? How did you know that? Did it happen to you, too?” “Yeah. And there was no way around it. They kept coming back to life, and I eventually ran out of divine power first,” Siegfried replied with a sigh. “I see... Though, I still find it hard to believe even after witnessing it myself.” Brunhilde was not the only one baffled by the whole thing. “This does not make any sense! Even if they are angels, how can they resurrect endlessly? This is an abomination that defies the natural order! It makes no sense!” Draculis growled, seething with frustration. ‘I think so, too,’ Siegfried fully understood their outrage. The angels guarding their path were not that powerful. In fact, they were so weak that they were easily crushed in a head-on battle. However, the damned light that kept resurrecting them no matter how many times they died made it almost impossible to win. ‘How the hell did they pull that off, though? Even angels shouldn’t be able to abuse resurrection ...’ Siegfried found the whole thing to be strange, but he had no other solution. There was no solution to their predicament, and the fact that the endless resurrections occurred in all three battlefields made things even worse. However, there was one thing he could deduce from what he had gathered so far, and that was the fact that the one endlessly resurrecting the angels was not on the battlefield. It would be highly likely that the culprit was casting whatever skill they had from afar. ‘But I didn’t notice anything... So how the hell are they doing it?’ Siegfried wracked his brains trying to find answers. In the end, there were no answers, so he decided to give up for now and observe. After all, it was highly unlikely for someone to figure out the raid pattern of a dungeon from a single attempt. Thus, Siegfried’s only option now was to throw himself into battle again and again until he figured out the secret behind the endless resurrection of the angels. Siegfried continued his campaign to liberate Mount Amon from the clutches of the angels. However, it was always his side that would eventually suffer losses and be forced to retreat from the battlefield, not the angels. Breaking through the enemy was downright impossible when the enemies could endlessly come back to life. By the time a week had passed since the campaign began— “This isn’t working. We cannot keep going .” Siegfried had no choice but to call for a strategy meeting after failing to find a breakthrough point. In the past week, they had been failing to breach the enemy lines, and they had yet to identify the one reviving the angels. Something drastic had to be done, and they had to do it right now. Unfortunately, if even Siegfried was struggling to figure this one out, then it was highly likely that everyone else was struggling to figure out a solution as well. Perhaps that was the reason, but nobody spoke up or offered any new ideas during the meeting. ‘Tsk... should we just ignore the fact they can revive and just brute force our way through? What if I make a run for it and throw Phoenix into the crater?’ It sounded like an absurd idea, but it was a viable option no matter how absurd it sounded. After all, the angels would have no reason to occupy Mount Amon anymore if Siegfried managed to melt down the Holy Sword: Phoenix. The outcome wouldn't be bad at all, but the problem was that they would have to sacrifice about eighty to ninety percent of their entire forces. “Do I have to... make the call?” Siegfried muttered. Hamchi entered his tent and said, “Kyuu! Owner punk! You have a visitor.” “Huh? A visitor? Who is it? Cheon Woo-Jin?” Siegfried asked, tilting his head in confusion. “Kyuuu! Just come see for yourself!” “I wonder who came to visit? I can’t think of anyone that would visit me all the way here...” Siegfried wondered while following Hamchi outside. The moment he clapped his eyes on the visitor— “Why, you little! Wanna go at it right now?!” Siegfried snarled in a hostile manner. It was all because the one standing before him was— —none other than the Phoenix. “You’ve gotta be kidding me. Hey, are you here to make fun of me, bastard?” Siegfried was already in a foul mood after going on a week-long losing streak against the angels. And now, the damned overgrown bird had decided to show up out of nowhere to squawk at him? Siegfried's blood pressure skyrocketed. “You’re so dead, asshole,” Siegfried growled while rolling his sleeves up. Then, he took out his +16 Vanquisher’s Grasp and got serious. He was going to capture this mythical bird today, even if it was the last thing he would do. “Kyuuu! No! Owner punk!” Hamchi quickly intervened. Then, he added, “I don’t think that bird is here to fight! “What? Hey, Hamchi. You don’t know what the hell you’re talking about, man. Do you have any idea how much crap I went through because of that feathered bastard?!” “Kyuuu! I mean it! I can’t fully understand what it’s saying, but I’m certain that it’s not here to fight!” “Yeah, right. Why don’t you take a crap and tell me it’s brownies. You’ll probably have better luck convincing me to eat your shit instead,” Siegfried scoffed. Just thinking about the two hours he had spent being toyed with by this damn bird made his blood boil. “Kyuuu! Then let’s ask the Three-Legged Crow!” “Kyuuu! Who knows? Maybe the crow can understand what the Phoenix is saying!” “I can talk to the crow, remember?! So if it interprets what the Phoenix says to me, then Hamchi can interpret it for you! Kyuuu!” “C-Can we even have a conversation like that...?” Siegfried found the whole thing to be quite complicated, but he thought that Hamchi had a point. “Kyu! Let’s give it a shot! Hamchi thinks the Phoenix has something important to tell you, owner punk!” After a brief moment of contemplation, Siegfried decided to go along with Hamchi’s plan. Even if he ended up getting toyed with by the mythical bird, he would not lose anything aside from getting frustrated, annoyed, and having his pride tarnished. Thus, with nothing else to lose but everything to gain, Siegfried decided to give it a shot.