The silence that followed the fall of the door was more terrifying than the crash. Marble dust and forge soot hung in the air, mingling with the reddish vapor emanating from what remained of the Archbishop.
Samael did not recoil. He stepped forward, his bare feet sinking into the warm pool of blood, and the sound was a rhythmic, obscene thud. He didn't look like a monster; he looked like a fallen god, sculpted in agony and perfection. He looked at King, Ignis, and Lirien not as enemies, but as new materials for his experiment.
Samael tilted his head, and a dry crack came from his neck. His red eyes gleamed with the residue of the electricity that had fried Valthor's organs.
His voice was a whisper that filled the chapel, vibrating in King's gauntlets—"Do you feel it? The smell of heavenly metal trying to purify the air of a slaughterhouse?" It's poetic. It almost makes me feel sorry for having to turn you to ashes so soon.
He extended his silvery fingers. The air around his hands began to distort, not with fire, but with a gravitational pressure that made the stones on the ground levitate.
King didn't wait for the speech to finish. The Goliath took a step that cracked the floor, the weight of the meteoric iron in his fists acting as anchors of reality. He wasn't there to save a soul; he was there to tame what the blacksmith called "untamable."
The bluish glow of his gauntlets pulsed to a warlike rhythm.
Ignis growled, his chest puffing out. His scales, still dull from the forge dust, began to glow a reddish-orange, the same shade as steel when it's about to become liquid. The heat emanating from it was so intense that Valthor's blood on the ground began to bubble again before Samael even touched it. Lirien was the only one who didn't vibrate. She was the ice against the fire. Her crystal-tipped arrow was aimed directly at Samael's throat. She saw his "beauty" as a hollow, disgusting shell.
"Don't let him get close!" she commanded, her silken voice now sharp as steel. "If his energy connects to the marble, he'll use the entire building against us!"
The atmosphere crackled as Lirien released the bowstring. The crystal arrow was no ordinary shot; it traveled like a silver lightning bolt, cutting through the blood mist with a sonic buzz that promised to pierce Samael's skull.
His movement, however, was an insult to physics.
Without even averting his gaze from King, Samael raised his right hand. The sound of the impact wasn't of wood or bone, but a dry, vacuum-like crack. His silver fingers closed around the arrow shaft millimeters from his left eye. The force of inertia made the tips of his black hair whip back, but his arm didn't recoil an inch.
He twirled the arrow between his fingers, observing the crystal tip with a boredom bordering on nausea, before splitting it in two as if it were a rotten twig.
He looked at Lirien, his voice echoing, deep and vibrant, rising above the crackling of the flames—"Get the Queen and these pathetic things out of here. Now."
He threw the arrow fragments at Lirien's feet. His eyes gleamed with a promise of destruction that would make Valthor's massacre seem like an act of mercy.
"I don't want their cries to interrupt the sound of their bones breaking. And I would hate for the audience to die before I finish sculpting what's left of you."
He took a step forward, Kyton's aura expanding like an oil slick on water, suffocating the light of the chapel.
Samael: — Go. Before I decide to use their blood to polish my hands.
Lirien didn't hesitate. She knew the weight of a promise from Kyton and knew that, in that unstable state of "perfection," Samael was more dangerous than any army. She lowered her bow, but kept her fingers close to the string, her eyes fixed on the twenty-five-year-old figure who challenged them.
"You two! Hold him!" Lirien commanded, her voice cutting through the air like a whip.
She glided across the marble, moving with the fluidity of a shadow. In seconds, she was beside Safira. The Queen was a dead weight of grief and shock, but Lirien lifted her with a strength born of desperation. With her free arm, she grabbed Aqua by the tunic and shoved Noah toward the broken exit.
"Don't look back!" the elf hissed to the children, dragging them away from the trail of boiling blood.
As Lirien withdrew the royal family, the front line closed. King stepped forward, his massive shadow obscuring Samael's path. He clashed his meteoric-iron gauntlets, creating a deafening metallic sound that served as a final challenge. The bluish glow of the celestial metal reacted violently to Samael's abyssal aura.
Ignis, beside him, exhaled a puff of black smoke from her nostrils. Her hands never stopped glowing; she was a living furnace ready to explode. She didn't look at the departing survivors; her focus was entirely on the pale-skinned man.
Samael watched the retreat with a wry smile, almost satisfied. He shrugged, feeling the freedom of his new anatomy. The silence that settled after the children left was dense, broken only by the crackling of the flames.
Samael: — Finally... — He snapped his silver knuckles, and an aura of solid shadows began to swirl around him, forming blades of darkness. —There's no innocence left to spare my ears.
He looked at King, his red eyes now completely black.
Samael: —We never had a chance to really fight, did we, King? —His voice was always mocking. —Let's see what that star metal of yours is made of, Goliath.
In the blink of an eye, Samael vanished in a blur of speed. He didn't attack with ranged magic; he appeared directly in front of King, aiming for the giant's throat with his left hand charged with Shocking Touch, while his right prepared a thrust of pure energy.
King and Ignis formed a barrier of metal and fire. Without the need to protect civilians, their aggression overflowed.
Samael moved first. He didn't run; he lunged. The young Kyton glided through the air as if gravity were a suggestion, his silver hand extended in an arc of black electricity.
King roared, a sound that made the remaining stained-glass fragments vibrate. He didn't retreat. The Goliath planted his feet, cracking the marble beneath his boots, and delivered a counterpunch to Samael's attack. The clash between the Meteor-Iron Gauntlet and Samael's electrified palm generated an explosion of blue and black energy that hurled blood vapor against the walls.
The meteor-iron absorbed the charge, but Samael's kinetic force was superhuman. King felt the bones in his arm protest, but he didn't yield. With his other hand, he delivered a short, upward hook, aiming for the demon's porcelain chin.
Samael tilted his head with unnatural flexibility, King's fist passing millimeters from his face. But he hadn't anticipated Ignis.
The dragon-like creature leaped over the rubble of a prayer bench, spinning in the air. Its tail, heavy and covered in scales hardened by the heat of the forge, whipped with the force of an oak trunk, striking Samael in the ribs.
The impact was dry and heavy. Samael was thrown sideways, but before he could touch the ground, Ignis opened its jaws.
"MELT!" it screamed.
A jet of bluish-white fire, the peak of its Forge Breath, struck Samael squarely while he was still in the air. The heat was so intense that the stones behind him became incandescent.
From within the flames of Ignis, a melodic and disturbing laugh echoed.
Samael emerged from the fire. His new 25-year-old skin was terribly burned on one side of his face and chest, revealing not red muscle, but metallic and silvery Kyton fibers beneath the human dermis. He didn't seem to feel pain; he seemed ecstatic.
His face broke into a smile as he regenerated—This... this heat... almost reminds me of home!
He extended his arms and 2nd-level magic manifested: Cloud of Daggers. Dozens of daggers materialized in the air and shot off like projectiles.
King used his gauntlets as shields, the daggers clashing against the metal with sounds of metal tearing metal. One of the blades cut his cheek, leaving a trail of abyssal cold.
Ignis rolled to the side, but one of the daggers lodged in his leg, causing him to growl in pain as darkness tried to "drink" his inner heat.
Taking advantage of Samael's focus on holding the blades, King advanced. He didn't use a regular punch. He concentrated all his weight and the inertia of the meteoric iron into a Seismic Strike.
He leaped and struck the ground directly between himself and Samael. The shockwave wasn't just physical; the meteoric iron resonated with a celestial frequency that destabilized Samael's Kyton form. The marble floor rose in waves of stone and blood, hurling Samael high into the air.
In the air, unbalanced, Samael was vulnerable.
King: — Now, Ignis! Don't let him land!
Ignis, ignoring the wound on his leg, prepared for a final leap, his claws glowing with a heat that promised to pierce Samael's chest and touch the void he called his soul.
However, upon being struck by the fire, it is revealed that it was an illusion; Samael was on the ground leaning against a pillar, waiting to be noticed. Ignis grunts in disappointment.
The fight reaches a level of technical violence. Samael, now operating with the full reserve of his Level 5 sorcery, is no longer just a sadistic demon; he is an engine of magical destruction. He knows that King's meteoric iron and Ignis's fire are real threats, so he stops playing with shadows and begins to manipulate the very structure of the combat.
The Counterattack: Metamagic and Speed
The moment King prepares the final blow and Ignis is trapped by the wrists, Samael smiles. He spends his sorcery points on a Metamagic: Accelerated Spell.
Without releasing Ignis, he casts Misty Step as a bonus action. In a snap of silvery mist, he vanishes from King's grip, instantly reappearing on the Goliath's back.
Before King can turn the massive body, Samael extends his free hand and unleashes his level's signature spell:
— Fireball! —He doesn't throw it from a distance; he detonates it at ground zero, between himself, King, and Ignis.
An explosion of scarlet flames consumes the center of the chapel. The impact throws King against the altar and hurls Ignis against the stone walls.
Samael emerges from the smoke, his skin now peeling in strips, revealing the cold sheen of Kyton fibers beneath. He leaps within inches of King, the air around him distorted by the heat. He looks at King, who is trying to stand up using a column for support, and at Ignis, who is coughing up black smoke.
Samael: — You try so hard... but you're still bound by the laws of matter. — He raises his hands, and strands of bluish energy begin to spring from his fingers. — I am the heartbeat of this place now.
He casts Accelerate on himself. The world seems to slow down for King and Ignis, while Samael becomes a gray blur.
With his speed doubled by magic, Samael begins a devastating sequence:
He lunges at King and unleashes a Shocking Touch, targeting the Goliath's entire body, paralyzing it with lightning.
— Power! Unlimited, Damn It! — He shouted, increasing the voltage on the Goliath.
Immediately after knocking King down, he turns to Ignis to cast Magic Missiles. Seven darts of pure energy shoot from his fingers, contouring the rubble and striking the open wounds in the dragon's scales with surgical precision.
King feels his body go numb under the electric shock, the meteoric iron vibrating at a painful frequency. Ignis is pushed back by the successive impacts of the missiles, each one eliciting a groan of agony.
Samael stops in the center of the trail of blood, his arms outstretched, his chest rising and falling with euphoric exhaustion.
Samael: — What was that? Is the star metal getting heavy? Is the fire cooling down?
King and Ignis are seriously wounded, but Samael has expended a large part of his sorcery reserves. That battle was far from over, but Samael didn't seem to want it to end.