"Enough talk."
The Hero of Light raised his sword, its golden aura erupting like a newborn star. "Now—ready to die, demon?"
At his word, a billion soldiers of light surged forward. The sky turned white, the ground drowned beneath an ocean of radiant blades and spears all crashing toward the lone figure standing in the center of the ruined world.
Azrael didn't move.
The moment the first rank reached him, his eyes opened fully.
The iris turned pitch-black, a ring of red symbols spinning within—
The Eye of Destruction.
"No." Azrael's voice was calm, almost bored. "You die first."
Reality shook.
A silent shockwave burst from his gaze. Every light soldier that entered its field began to crumble—not cut, not burned, but utterly disintegrated. Armor, weapons, bodies and souls—all erased in less than a heartbeat.
Rows upon rows vanished. Lines of divine warriors became dust. Even the Hero flinched as the wave slammed into him-holy armor cracking, flesh tearing, golden blood spraying into the air.
He crashed onto the shattered ground, coughing, his chest burned open, parts of his body flickering between light and void.
"Hah… hah…" He forced himself up, his hand aglow as divine mana poured into his wounds. Flesh rewove, bones reformed. "That attack… can easily erase a universe… and yet—"
He looked around.
The planet beneath them was cracked, scorched… but not broken. The sky above, though wounded, held.
The Hero narrowed his eyes and activated another power. His pupils turned silver, glowing with complex sigils.
The Eye of Honesty.
In that vision, the illusions fell away. He was no longer seeing ruins and smoke; he saw layers of barriers wrapped around the world like armor, innumerable seals absorbing and redirecting the destruction.
"You…" Hero laughed, a low, disbelieving sound. "You're holding the entire world together. You've put up a barrier to keep our fight from touching the other planets.
Azrael rolled his shoulder. "Someone has to clean up your mess."
A devious smile crawled onto the Hero's face. "I was right. You're on a different league entirely, Demon Lord. But…" He scanned further, his brow furrowed. "Why can't I sense any other life force on this planet? Don't tell me… you shifted them."
Azrael smiled wryly. "It is a bother to fight while stepping on the civilians."
The Hero started laughing—hard, almost hysterical. "You're insane. You moved an entire population so you could have a clean fight? You're crazier than the gods!"
Azrael raised Breseark, the black blade humming with quiet menace. "You gathered a billion lives to use as disposable light puppets… and I'm the crazy one?"
Golden wings burst from the Hero's back as he flew forward, sword ablaze. "Shut up! My power saved them from weakness!"
They clashed.
The Hero swung a slash of compressed divine mana—
"Judgment Ray!"
A beam of light cut across the sky, splitting clouds, ripping mountains in half.
Azrael met it with a casual swing. "Void Sever."
Breseark sliced the beam itself. The attack unraveled, threads of light swallowed by the blade's abyssal edge.
The Hero darted behind him, thrusting. "Heaven's Lance!"
Dozens of spears of light rained down.
Azrael simply stepped forward. Space twisted around him—every spear bent off-course, and exploded far away, harmless.
"You call this justice?" Azrael mocked. "Killing children in alleys, turning civilians into weapons? Is that the 'struggle' you're so proud of?"
"Don't act like you're better!" roared the Hero. "You ruled nine worlds with fear!"
"I ended their wars." Azrael's aura flared, crushing the ground. "You started new ones to feel important."
The Hero burst in again, his sword quivering with rage. "Shut up! Shut up! I fought for those who had nothing!"
Azrael blocked; sparks of black and gold flew. "You fought for your own broken pride."
He vanished.
In less time than it took to blink, he was behind the Hero. Breseark slid forward, almost languidly.
"Oblivion Edge."
The blade went through the Hero's chest.
There was no blood—only light spilling out, like a shattered sun.
Hero was frozen; he stared down at the katana sticking out of him. His hands were shaking as he grasped the blade, unable to pull it out. His aura collapsed, the gold soldiers long gone as his borrowed divinity peeled away.
Azrael leaned in closer, voice low. "Your ideals were based on hatred, not hope. You never wanted to save the weak; you wanted the world to pay for your pain.
The Hero gritted his teeth, his eyes burning with rage and something like grief. "What do you know…? You…cursed thing…"
Azrael pulled Breseark free. "Enough. Rest, Hero of Light. Your story ends here."
The Hero dropped to his knees, light leaking from cracks in his body.
As his form began to fade, he glared up at Azrael with pure, unyielding spite. "I'll hunt you," he hissed. "Demon King… even if you reincarnate… even if worlds die and are reborn… I will come for you. I will kill you… again… and again…"
Azrael said nothing.
The Hero's body shattered into fragments of light, drifted upward, and vanished into the void.
Silence ensued.
The battlefield was gone, replaced around them by a dead, broken world. Continents showed cracks, oceans had boiled away, mountains lay flat. Only Azrael remained, standing amidst the ruin.
He looked up at the sky, the barrier fading, the world no longer protected from the scars of their fight.
"This planet is done for," he muttered, eyes fatigued.
Memories flashed: worlds he had saved, worlds he had failed, innumerable lives lost between light and shadow.
Azrael raised Breseark one last time. His final stroke cleansed a shattered world, turning the broken planet into quiet dust and sealing away the last remnants of their battle. His words echoed out as everything faded into the empty void: "Peace… always comes at the price of blood." The scene dissolved into white. Somewhere, someday, on a different world… The eyes of a child, Rael, would open.