The abyss knew no sunrise.
Time here was not measured in hours, but in the slow erosion of hope. Shadows stretched over the ruins without ever breaking, and within that endless dark… something sacred stirred. Something monstrous woke.
Vael'Zaryt knelt on fractured stone, chest heaving, soul splintered. Blood streamed down his arm. Bone cracked. The taste of iron filled his mouth.
Death claimed him..again.
And yet, he rose.
Behind him, Michael's wings shimmered faintly, stripped of the brilliance they once held. In his grasp rested a sword that had shed its holiness, reshaped into a weapon to cut the throat of heaven itself.
"Forty-seven deaths," Michael said, his tone flat. "And still you're still ignorant as ever. Good."
Vael'Zaryt spat blood into the dust.
"This… is your idea of training?"
"You're the one who asked for it," Michael replied. No warmth in his voice.
The angel sighed—not from pity, but from the weight of repetition.
"Resurrection is not mercy. It's a curse. Every time you die, you learn how not to die the same way again."
The Agreement
On the first day: Beneath the shattered altar, with the air still heavy from their oath..Vael'Zaryt had asked:
"Why me?"
Michael's eyes, shadowed and steady, had answered:
"Because you are the first to carry chaos without cruelty.
You are destruction that remembers mercy.
And also because… I cannot leave this abyss."
"What does that mean? If you can't leave, why ask me to free you?"
"You'll understand," Michael had said. "Soon."
Once, Vael had dreamed of changing the broken world. Now, he dreamed of shattering its chains entirely.
Two truths anchored him:
1. He had never trained. Never fought. His life had been a mission of peace. But peace had burned away, leaving war as the only path left.
2. Even with the Chaos Dragon's power smoldering in his veins, he was far from ready to face what waited above. And before him stood a being who had once stood beside gods.
So he chose to be remade..by the best master the earth had ever borne, and the heavens had cast away.
[The training period]
For the first thirty-three days, Vael'Zaryt knew only death.
He could not stand for more than a heartbeat before Michael's blade found his throat, heart, or skull. Every strike was measured to perfection—no wasted movement, no mercy. The first cycle wasn't training. It was erasure.
Michael struck. Vael fell.
Light returned.
Repeat.
He burned alive.
He was crushed beneath celestial weight.
He was torn apart by pressure alone.
He was pulled into pieces and reassembled, bone by bone.
"You are not here to survive," Michael said on the fifth day, his voice like stone under ice. "You are here to transcend."
"Then kill me less," Vael rasped, blood on his lips.
"No. You die because you must learn. And pain—" Michael raised his blade of tarnished gold, "—is the only teacher that never lies."
The Archangel's resurrection was a forbidden art, sacred and hoarded. Michael wielded it not to preserve life, but to torture his enemy with it.
Every revival left Vael'Zaryt trembling, broken, bleeding from the eyes. Every revival made him last a bit more longer.. every second time.
His bones thickened. His blood ran heavy. Skin began to dull blades. Reflexes grew sharp, like glass spun in a storm.
Swordsmanship came first. Not the ornamental duels of mortal knights, but the killing art of angels: fluid, sacred and final.
The Heaven-Crushing Blade Arts.
"Seven forms," Michael said, sending Vael sliding across the floor. "Each for one purpose: death. Not beauty. Not honor. Death."
Form I – Whisper of Ruins: a low, silent slash that severs bone before the sound arrives.
Form II – Crescent Breaker: an upward arc that unbalances and strips away magic in a single stroke.
Form III – Black Finale: a descending dance that severs the soul from the body.
"You are not ready for the other forms," Michael said, driving his foot into Vael'Zaryt's ribs. "The others… you'll earn when you no longer need to be taught."
Hand-to-hand followed. No rules. No safe holds. Fists that could crater stone. Blindfold bouts against illusions that whispered lies into his ear. Michael didn't just punish mistakes..he made Vael'Zaryt relive them until instinct changed.
"Pain is your mirror," Michael said, pinning him beneath celestial weight. "If you feel it, you know where to cut it away."
Between agony came stillness. Meditation. And in that stillness, Vael'Zaryt began to hear it. The heartbeat of the Chaos Dragon sealed within him. A storm, caged inside his soul.
"Feel it," Michael murmured as the shadows bled across the floor. "Let it speak. Not to command you—but to remind you of what waits if you fall."