Melissa staggered out of the dungeon, dragging her blade behind her like dead weight. Blood traced the curve of her cheek, still fresh, still weeping. Her fingernails scraped at her neck until crimson spilled beneath them.
"What went wrong?"
Her voice was a cracked whisper.
She had won. She had survived. She had been promised godhood. And yet—nothing.
She was making her way toward the path that led back to Floria when:
"Melissa Guildford."
A voice called out from above — elegant, harmonic, and uncomfortably familiar.
Melissa looked up.
Descending through the clouds came a woman draped in pure white, her expression serene, her form bathed in celestial glow. Wings stretched behind her, impossibly long, as if painting the sky itself.
Her very presence was divine.
Melissa squinted, blood still fresh on her face.
"Are you delivering my godhood?" she asked.
The woman laughed — a soft, haunting giggle.
"No. I'm here to take your life."
Melissa's stomach dropped. Her mouth dried. That wasn't the answer she expected.
"What...?"
"I am the Fifth Angel, Alabendo. Angel of Fruition."
She smiled sweetly. "I tend the garden of ascension. And you, my dear, are a rotted seed."
Melissa's fists clenched. Her breath came sharp through her nose.
"So… no ascension? Just execution?"
"Exactly!" Alabendo chirped, spinning joyfully midair. "Thidos himself gave me the task. He said weed the failures. And that's what I do."
Melissa's heart was thundering — with fear, with rage, with something darker. But her mouth curled into a grin.
"Then I just have to kill you, right?"
The angel beamed, as if Melissa had just passed some cheerful quiz.
"Yes! Most of you run. This will be fun."
A white blade formed in her hand — not summoned, but bloomed, like a flower made of divine wrath.
She vanished.
Melissa's eyes widened—then froze.
Alabendo stood inches in front of her, smiling softly.
"Let me see if you're worth your blood."
Melissa clapped her hands around the angel's head, stunning her, before following up with a brutal kick. Alabendo somersaulted from the impact, but caught herself mid-air — bouncing off the air itself like it had weight.
"Judgement's Design."
Her body shimmered, transforming into pure white divinity. She sliced through the sky itself with absurd precision, her blade carving rifts like paper as Melissa dodged these bizarre, physics-defying strikes.
With a giggle, Alabendo reached into the heavens, grabbed the sun, and twisted it into a cartoonish construct — sunglasses and a smiley face sketched across its molten face. She hurled it at Melissa, who leapt onto the blazing mass, cracked its surface, and shattered it into a thousand laughing fragments.
Alabendo clapped gleefully. "Don't worry! I'll make another soon~"
She launched herself again, reshaping her blade into armor mid-flight. Her body slammed into Melissa like a cannonball, crushing bone.
"What the fuck?" Melissa gasped, coughing blood, dazed by the unreal assault. She crashed miles away, skidding to a halt near the dungeon ruins.
As she struggled to rise, Alabendo appeared beside her — smiling.
And stomped on her face.
Again.
And again.
And again.
"I thought you said you were gonna kill me?" the angel mocked, hovering above her. "Where's that passion now?"
She floated higher and conjured a black hole, bending time and space with a cartoonish pop.
"Don't worry about the destruction," Alabendo said casually. "This is my domain."
A veil expanded around them — thick, white, unbreakable.
"Now DIE."
Melissa shut her eyes. She couldn't fight that. Not this.
Then —
A new voice, ethereal. Calm. Male. Final.
"Enough."
The veil cracked.
The black hole shriveled into nothing.
Time resumed.
A man hovered in the distance. Wings like Alabendo's — but black. Pitch-black. Shadow devoured his form, his face veiled in absence.
Alabendo rolled her eyes.
"Of course you had to ruin this. First Saint…"
She sneered.
"Or should I say… the First Angel — Amarze."