The five high-ranking demons pressed relentlessly, their true forms blotting out stars.
Kimaris's shadow tide spilled across the ground like a living ocean, drowning knights and priests alike. Raum's black raven wings beat storms of knives through the air, every gust stripping skin from bone. Andras, towering in blood-stained armor, his helm nothing but a gaping jaw, cut down survivors in arcs of crimson flame. Valefar slithered, unseen and treacherous, blades of lies stabbing from behind every shadow. Aim, reborn, laughed with his three throats as molten iron dripped like rivers from his maw.
Aurelius fought at the center of it all. Daggers flashing, dimensions bending under his command, he blinked between strikes like a phantom of broken mirrors. Every step left trails of cracks in the air, bleeding sparks of void. Still, even he was faltering.
The Pope leaned on his staff, chanting so fast his Latin was nothing but lightning. Radiance poured outward, blinding lesser demons, yet the waves of shadow kept pressing. The Patriarch's relic strained, his arms trembling as angelic figures barely held Kimaris's tide at bay. Luther's strange hammer burned restraining Valefar's movements.
Azazel stood behind them, firing from the gaps, his pistols reloaded with trembling fingers. Each blessed bullet bought only a heartbeat of time. The Codex's whispers echoed in his skull, but they were drowned by the howls of Hell. He quickly ran through the battlefield. He shot through the chests of lesser demons, keeping them from swarming the relic-bearers, but he could feel it—
They were losing.
Numbers, strength, hearts. It was crushing them like a tide of iron and flame.
And then the worst came.
Raum and Andras pressed forward together. Raum's wings cut through Aurelius's dimensional cracks, each feather slicing like glass through stone. Andras's great sword, burning with slaughtered angel-fire, swung down like the judgment of hell itself. For the first time, Aurelius faltered. His rift-step slowed, his daggers caught in the clash of two lords.
The garden gasped as Aurelius was cornered.
"Die, Warden of Ash!" Andras bellowed, his helm-jaw opening wide. Raum's laughter pierced like ravens in the night.
And then—
A light not of relics, nor prayer broke across the battlefield.
A greatsword, glowing with sheer will, cut from behind.
The blade plunged through Andras's armored back, bursting from his chest. A burning aura lashed outward, slicing two beating hearts free in a single strike. His scream shook the heavens.
At the same instant, the sword's radiance swept outward like a wave — and Raum's wings, proud and black as night, were split in two. Feathers turned to ash midair, shredded by a cut that carried both steel and soul. Raum shrieked, staggering as his knightly armor cracked.
All turned to see the figure who had struck.
Maximilian I.
The Holy Roman Emperor stood clad not in imperial robes, but in gleaming knight's mail, battered by war yet alive with aura. His sword shone with the distilled weight of countless battles, every campaign, every oath, every field he had bled upon. His very presence pressed against the demons like a second dawn.
"Do not think Rome stands alone," Maximilian's voice thundered. "The Empire's steel is not yet rusted!"
With another swing, his aura carved through Raum's broken wings again, forcing the demon lord to stagger back. Andras stumbled, clutching at the gaping void where his hearts had been ripped free, ichor pouring down his chest.
Kimaris shifted his gaze, commanding shadows. At the same time three light spears pierced through the air. He dodged one, the other hit his head while the other hit his heart.
Shadows obscured the bodies of Raum and Andras. Maximilian didn't miss a second and slashed darkness with his heavy sword. But no attack reached its targets.