Mael's body swelled to a full three meters tall, one black wing and one white wing unfurling behind him.
A pair of thick white horns sprouted from his head, and a weeping mask covered his face.
From top to bottom, three Commandment sigils were arrayed across his chest—the source of his power.
Now Mael's hatred was no longer fixed on Gowther; in his eyes, Charles was far more hateful.
The second sigil on Mael's chest blurred, then vanished, and a harp appeared in his hands. As Mael plucked the strings, sound waves spread along with magic.
The Commandment of Repose seals the magic of those who fight without ceasing. In Mael's hands, it could now display its true power—the harp was that power made manifest.
A sigil flickered on Charles's brow; his eyelids sank, a wave of drowsiness crashing into his mind.
As the flames around Charles wilted, the harp in Mael's hands vanished and reformed as the sigil on his chest.
Next, the third sigil disappeared, and a short blade with a curved edge appeared in Mael's hand.
This was the sacred weapon formed from the Commandment of Patience. Patience doubles the pain of those who cannot endure it; wounds left by this blade not only won't heal, the agony is more than most can bear.
Wielding the short blade, Mael stabbed at Charles without ceremony.
Caught off guard by the sudden mental assault, Charles still recovered quickly. Forcing down the rolling drowsiness, he summoned his Innate Armament to catch the blade.
Sparks skittered where the edge scraped the plates. Charles clenched the short sword in his fist and lashed out with a kick that sent Mael flying.
The short blade shattered in Charles's grip and turned back into a sigil that returned to Mael's chest. Immediately after, the sigil representing Love disappeared.
It reappeared as a sphere of light in Mael's hand, and as Charles charged in, the orb blazed with a blinding glare.
The Light Orb formed from Love was a massive magic bomb—powerful enough to level a mountain.
Worse, Love's power can convert pain into pleasure, drowning a person in blissful sleep.
Mael didn't hesitate; he detonated the Orb of Love in his hand!
The blast was so violent that even Stella and Chandler, locked in fierce battle at a distance, had to fall back for the moment. When the smoke cleared, everyone came back into view.
Diane's Diamond Shield lay shattered in fragments, revealing the group inside a sphere formed by plant filaments like seaweed.
It was King's Spirit Spear, Form Eight: Pollen Garden—not only incredibly defensive, but able to heal those within.
Merlin still hadn't recovered from the mental shock of the forbidden spell breaking; fortunately the others reacted in time and blocked Mael's attack.
Smoke curled from Charles's gauntleted forearms—that was the residue of the blast's impact.
The sigils on Mael's chest reappeared. He spread his hands; light and darkness gathered and then lanced out intermingled at Charles and everyone else.
Mael was a Goddess to begin with and could wield light, and the dark power from the Commandments added to it—making even his "basic" attacks devastating.
"Fire Dragon's Roar!"
Dropping his arms, Charles drew a deep breath and spewed searing flame at the two-toned storm of beams.
Fire and light collided head-on, triggering a chain of explosions.
Before Mael could react, the weeping mask snapped to the side—his head rocked by a heavy blow as Charles rushed in the instant the beamstorm cleared.
Whatever that mask was made of, it didn't so much as crack after Charles's solid punch.
Charles's eyes lit up, and he drove in a Fire Dragon King's Crushing Fist.
Blood burst from the eyeholes of the mask, and still it didn't shatter—truly tough.
Mael shot backward from the hit, but stopped himself midair.
Merlin's Sacred Treasure flared; around Mael, wind, flame, frost, lightning—every element—erupted at once, triggering a cataclysmic chain detonation.
Mael barely dragged himself free of the blast's heart when a three-section staff whipped in and cracked him across the head.
Ban let out his signature beastly yell, his arms and staff leaving a blur. Mael's body convulsed under the barrage.
With a final hit, Ban slammed him toward the ground—only for a diamond pillar to thrust up and pop Mael back into the air.
High above, a massive vine unfurled a blossom at its tip, and the Spirit Spear's Luminosity form trained on Mael and unleashed a powerful magic barrage.
The force pinned Mael and smashed him straight into the ground in a booming explosion.
When Mael emerged again, the horn atop his head was broken, and even his white garments hung in tatters.
"To remain standing under the assault of the Seven Deadly Sins—that is arrogance."
Escanor leapt high, hoisting the Divine Axe Rhitta.
"Cruel Sun!"
Using Rhitta's storage-and-release properties, Escanor forged an unprecedentedly massive fireball and hurled it down at Mael.
Even Charles, a Fire Dragonslayer, felt a lick of the heat; before it even landed, Escanor's strike had melted a hemispheric crater into the ground.
If Merlin and Diane hadn't reinforced the terrain together, this floating island might have been destroyed on the spot.
Mael looked even more wretched. The mask that had survived two of Charles's punches was half shattered, exposing a contorted half-face. The two pairs of black-and-white wings behind him were reduced to half a ragged wing.
And the assault didn't stop—this time, it was Elizabeth. With a simple reach, the struggling Mael was sealed inside a rhomboid prism of light.
With her memories restored, Elizabeth's magic was restored as well.
She no longer needed anyone's protection. Merlin's respect for Elizabeth wasn't just sentiment.
Elizabeth was the daughter of the Supreme Deity; in raw magic, she could even match the Four Archangels.
Three thousand years ago, she fought side by side with Meliodas against the Demon King and the Supreme Deity.
In the early Holy War, she had even given peak Meliodas a hard time; in the Demon Realm, she was known as "Bloody Eli."
The Goddess Clan's unique ability, "Ark," when paired with Elizabeth's immense magic, had astounding purifying power.
But this was the darkness of three Commandments; Elizabeth couldn't cleanse Mael in an instant. Instead, she intensified the pain from the conflict raging inside him, drawing a bone-chilling scream.
Even Charles couldn't help shaking his head. Much as Mael rubbed him the wrong way, he almost wanted to stamp a big, bold "MISERABLE" across him.
Gowther stepped forward. "This won't work. He has to give up the Commandments himself. Let me."
Without giving anyone time to object, Gowther walked up to Mael, hands glowing pink, and pressed them to his head, clearly diving into his mental world.
Charles held his hand for the moment. After a righteous pile-on like that, if Mael still wouldn't listen, no one could save him.
But it looked like a better ending. Soon a smile spread across Gowther's face as he let go, and the darkness shrouding Mael began to ebb.
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