The Filthy Candlelight

The shattered, turbulent clouds splashed like broken tiles. In the eternal night, the firefly-like lights of the grand city’s galaxy flowed and pulsed like blood.

Looking up at the sky, the enormous lamp seemed like the world’s only sun.

Demon Goddess Lilith used her supreme power to transform this demon paradise into a never-ending night without day.

Yet, the arrival of Hestia, the Goddess of Lampfire, brought the only source of light to this land, slumbering in darkness for thousands of years, by burning her own soul.

The slaughters between deities were always silent and brutal. The lingering power unleashed by authorities beyond human logic and imagination caused thousands of beings to vanish in an instant.

The demons were like unkillable insects, being slaughtered only to swarm back like a black tide.

White-robed Reincarnation Cult believers held their candle lamps in this long, dark night where one could easily lose oneself, nurturing their faith with flesh, blood, and shouts.

A demon’s horn pierced a human believer’s abdomen. Crimson blood uncontrollably gushed from their mouth.

Life ebbed away with the loss of warmth, and the dying executor, in turn, seized the demon’s body within the black mud.

Blazing flames, fueled by the demon’s body, emitted light, slightly dispelling the surrounding darkness and pointing the way into the deep darkness for their companions behind them.

The two suns of different colors in the sky drew increasingly close.

Hestia’s figure in the golden sun was rapidly dissipating like a burning candlewick, but with the complete release of her divine nature, the golden sun’s light was rapidly overpowering the purple sun.

“Hestia, you’re insane!”

Within the purple sun, Lilith’s face showed a terrified expression. She had never expected her opponent in this divine war to fight so desperately and recklessly.

‘Burning your divine nature is like an unquenchable fire. If this continues, even if you win the war, your existence, your past, your future will all vanish like scattered ashes!’

If there was one ultimate wish for deities, it was probably to reach the height of a Creation God, to obtain a true body and existence. Only then would the deities’ journey end.

But once divine nature was ignited, all meaning was lost.

To personally erase one’s past self, destroy one’s current existence, and deny future possibilities—this was no longer the madness of playing with fire and burning oneself, but a calculated, purposeful mutual destruction!

“If our demise can illuminate a more correct path for those who come after, then the fall of deities may not necessarily be a regression.”

In her burning silver eyes, Hestia was like a moth flying into a flame. Her silver Valkyrie battle armor, scorched by the flames, liquefied and merged into the radiant light surrounding her.

The light from the lamp in her hand was maximized. Its golden radiance was no less than the sun above the firmament.

The swirling, burning flames were like an unceasing furnace, transforming all available stakes into the light that blossomed in life’s final moment.

“Absurd! Deities are the stars that guide mortals forward. If the stars fall, then they will lose their direction!”

When faced with life and death, Lilith also revealed all her trump cards without reservation.

Countless demons behind her sacrificed their lives, solely to make the purple sun in the sky shine brighter.

But this was far from enough.

Even if corpses formed mountains, even if blood gathered into rivers, the power gained through others was like the difference between a firefly and the bright moon before a deity who feared no death.

Lives exchanged for lives, generals and archbishops fighting desperately until, in the sky, the two suns struggled for dominance as they broke free from their restraints.

Just when you thought all of this would conclude with a grand and magnificent ending befitting them,

The two suns in the sky, about to collide, extinguished…

The brightest golden sun extinguished silently, without any reason, without any warning.

The bewildered and despairing lamp-wielding believers looked up at the sky. They saw the body of the goddess they worshipped plummeting from the high heavens.

Rather than extinguished, it was more accurate to say the light had changed. The light burning around Hestia was no longer dazzling gold, but a dark purple, lost in the shadows.

In mid-air during her fall, Hestia weakly turned her head to look at the figure on the mountaintop, the one most intimately connected to her—the Saintess of the Reincarnation Cult, who had gathered the faith of millions of believers into a single mass, directing everyone’s light towards the deity’s core.

Excluding the two deities, her light should have been the brightest on the entire battlefield. But now, everything had changed. The Saintess ceased her duties as the core. She cut off all connections between the believers and the goddess, until people clearly saw what she held in her hand.

It was a blood-stained, still-beating dark purple heart—a succubus seed, mixed with rich demonic power and temptation.

It should have been a “poison” that the Demon Tribe used to divide the Reincarnation Cult believers. But now, the Saintess, the very core of the entire Reincarnation Cult, was holding that poison in her own hands!

Finally, under the astonished and incredulous gazes of all the believers, the girl in simple clothes beside them raised her head and stuffed the beating heart into her mouth, chewing meticulously.

Purple blood splattered and flowed from her mouth, leaving distinct traces.

On the entire expanding battlefield, it seemed every believer, every demon, could clearly hear the faint sound of the heart muscle being chewed by teeth, until Lilith’s sinister laughter echoed from the sky.

“Hehehe, good! You made the right choice! Welcome and accept your new body as a succubus!”

As Lilith’s voice resounded, the girl who had raised her head suddenly let out a painful groan.

She clutched her head with both hands, her body convulsing like a shrimp struck hard, twisting and struggling on the ground.

Eerie purple flames erupted from within her, enveloping her entire body. All anomalies began then. Countless bewitching purple patterns appeared on the girl’s skin.

Black demon horns sprouted from her formerly smooth forehead. Her brilliant golden hair, wreathed in demonic energy, was dyed dark purple.

Until finally, her clear sky-blue eyes also underwent a strange transformation.

Eerie, twisting blood vessels extended from the whites of her eyes, invading and contaminating the azure.

Her normal pupils seemed to stretch, becoming sharp, and the azure, polluted and muddied, eventually transformed entirely into a demonic purplish-blue.

On this battlefield, watched by countless eyes, the Saintess of the Reincarnation Cult abandoned her human identity, swallowed the succubus seed, and embraced a demonic body.

And with the anomaly, the previously clear and brilliant river of faith quickly became polluted due to the core’s transformation.

The candle flames held by the lamp-wielders all, without exception, turned purplish-blue. Some believers suddenly collapsed, convulsing and struggling with symptoms of complete demonization, while others had their candle flames directly extinguished, their lives ending the second before the light dissipated…

The tragic screams of the believers and the cheers of the demons acted like an alarm clock, waking the dreaming girl.

Selina sat up abruptly in bed, drenched in sweat. She touched her damp forehead, looking at her sweat-soaked pajamas.

Her temples throbbed, and her head felt severely dizzy.

“Just now… was that Hestia’s memory?”

The girl murmured weakly, looking at her damp palms.