Imprisoned for a Trillion Years, I Was Worshipped by All Gods!

“Heh… heh heh… HAHAHAHAHA!”

Stephen suddenly burst into manic laughter. He clutched Alan’s bloodied tooth in his hand, his entire body beginning to tremble with uncontrollable excitement.

The rage and resentment he had been bottling up for so long finally erupted in full.

“Did you see that, Alan? You’re nothing but a dog! A filthy mutt crushed beneath my heel, humiliated at my whim! With trash like you thinking you could join us at Lioncrest Academy—let me make this clear. You. Are. Not. Worthy!”

Alan lay crumpled in the corner, blood flowing freely from the corners of his mouth. His body had been ravaged by Stephen’s relentless mana strikes, leaving him bruised, battered, and utterly broken.

Moments later, Alan lost consciousness completely, his head tilting sideways as he collapsed against the cold floor.

Yet Stephen still wasn’t satisfied.

He stepped forward, fury twisting his face, and casually grabbed a nearby sacred flanged mace. Raising it high above his head, he aimed to smash Alan’s body into unrecognizable pulp.

But before the weapon could fall, something strange began to happen.

Orange-red cracks, pulsing with the glow of molten lava, began spreading outward at alarming speed from Alan’s limp body. They etched themselves into the floor like living veins, quickly expanding until the entire upper level of the monastery was engulfed in roaring flames.

But these were no ordinary flames.

They did not flicker or die with wind. They could not be extinguished with water. Even other fire-element mages attempting to absorb or neutralize them found it useless—the flames were immutable, unyielding, and devastatingly powerful.

“Damn it! What the hell kind of fire is this?!”

“This is… Hellfire.”

A soft, ethereal female voice echoed throughout the blazing rooftop chamber.

All the Legendary Mages in the room snapped to alert, turning their eyes in every direction with growing unease.

“Who’s there?! Who dares to play tricks?!”

Stephen, now deeply unnerved, spun around and shouted, trying to pinpoint the source of the voice. But the chamber gave him nothing in return—no shadows, no movement, just that relentless, all-consuming fire.

“Are you looking for me?”

The mysterious voice spoke again—this time, from directly beneath their feet.

It was then that Stephen and the rest of the Legendary Mages realized something terrifying.

At some point, without them noticing, the floor beneath them had entirely transformed into a molten lake of lava.

At its center, a glowing, sun-like orb of magma began to rise slowly from the surface—radiant, pulsing, alive.

Then, it cracked open.

Curled within the center of that miniature sun, like a newborn cradled in fire, was a woman dressed in white. Slowly, she began to unfurl her limbs, revealing herself as she stood within the light.

The magma around her was so blindingly bright that no one could make out her features. Yet her long, flame-red hair seemed to merge with the molten sea itself, an extension of the fire, swaying with otherworldly grace.

“Who are you?!”

Stephen narrowed his eyes, staring intently at the mysterious figure who had so abruptly altered the entire battlefield.

But the woman responded coolly, without the slightest hint of fear:

“Curious about who I am? You… are not worthy.”

“What did you say?!”

Stephen exploded with rage. That phrase—it was exactly what he had sneered at Alan just moments ago. And now, it was being turned back on him.

The insult was unbearable. An unforgivable humiliation!

“You damn wench! You dare say I’m not worthy?! I am the Headmaster of Lioncrest Academy! There is nothing in this world I am unworthy of knowing! You won’t tell me? Fine! I’ll beat the answer out of you!”

As soon as he finished shouting, Stephen surged toward the white-robed woman with deadly speed. Behind him trailed the residual glow of dozens of advanced magic arrays.

Each array had been etched with immense mana, and their combined destructive potential was unimaginable. This wasn’t just a strike—it was an obliteration.

But then, the woman finally moved.

She raised one hand, her voice calm, crystalline, and lethal.

“Flamme, Ignis, Ifrit—Explosion!”

The instant the words left her lips, the entire lava lake began to quake violently.

Every single fire-elemental particle in the air detonated simultaneously.

In that one moment, the Legendary Mages present felt as if they had been cast adrift in a raging ocean, their bodies tossed and thrashed like helpless leaves caught in a storm. The explosion’s force overwhelmed their senses—they could do nothing but throw up every last defensive spell they had just to survive.

As for Stephen, who had foolishly funneled most of his mana into offense, the result was catastrophic.

His robes were blown to shreds.

His body was ripped open from dozens of angles.

Blood poured from his wounds as he collapsed into a heap—a mangled, near-dead husk held together only by the final flickers of his mana. Any further depletion, and his death would be immediate.

But the white-clad woman wasn’t finished.

With a simple step, she vanished from her previous position and reappeared directly before the devastated Stephen.

She reached out, seized his hair in one hand, and yanked him up off the ground like a discarded animal—just as he had done to Alan earlier.

She stared into his eyes, her expression as cold as ice, before glancing toward the lava lake’s center, where Alan now floated within a protective mana shield.

“My boy’s been beaten half to death by the likes of you,” she said, voice soft but carrying the weight of thunder. “Have you grown tired of living?”

The sound of her words alone struck Stephen like a hammer to the soul. He froze in place, every fiber of his being paralyzed by fear.

The surrounding Legendary Mages were no less stunned.

This woman had appeared out of nowhere, rewritten the very laws of their battlefield, and brought Stephen—the pride of Lioncrest, a mage whose power had long reached the edge of the Legendary realm—to the brink of death with a single spell.

How powerful was she?

And those incantations she had spoken… no one had ever heard such terms. Where had she learned them?

While others trembled in uncertainty, one man was filled with pure, unfiltered joy.

Daniel, half-dragging the unconscious Denken from the lava lake, watched her glowing figure in reverence.

“At last… you’ve come!”

He couldn’t stop the grin spreading across his face. All the risk, the scheming, the use of the church’s sacred defenses—none of it had been in vain.

Everything had been done to buy time for Alan’s mysterious backer to arrive.

And now she was here.

Not just powerful—but utterly transcendent.

“Denken! Old man, wake up! Look! She’s here! The one behind Alan—our salvation has come!”

“What… what?”

Denken blinked slowly, roused from unconsciousness. But the moment he opened his eyes, he was stunned speechless.

The white-robed woman hovered in the air like a divine being.

Bathed in light, framed by molten fire, she seemed at once like an angel descended from the heavens—and a demon king risen from the underworld.

And Stephen—oh, poor Stephen.

He hadn’t even seen her move. In one blink, she had him in her grasp, reduced to a puppet dangling on strings.

When he looked up, he saw the final symbol of his doom.

A crimson longsword—blazing, otherworldly—floated silently above his head, its point aimed straight down, ready to strike.

“I… I…”

Stephen stammered, struggling to form words, his lips trembling.

But he had not given up just yet.

With what little strength remained, he moved one hidden hand behind his back, making a subtle gesture.

Only one person noticed—his loyal white-robed aide, the one who had followed him closely all this time.

“Go… run!” Stephen mouthed the desperate command.