The field of Zerathis trembled.
At the far end of the carnage, the leader finally stood.
It was tall—too tall—its body a cathedral of black bone and writhing crimson veins, horns spiraling like broken halos. One arm hung partially severed, flesh knitting slowly as if reality itself was reluctant to finish the job. Its eyes—too many of them—watched with something that was no longer hunger.
It was caution.
In front of it, three hundred thousand demonic creatures surged forward like a living tide.
They did not hesitate.
They did not think.
They rushed.
Their shrieks tore the sky open as claws, fangs, and warped bodies flooded toward a single man standing calmly in their path.
Alzwalt Light exhaled once.
And then—
He was gone.
Not vanished.
Moved.
At faster-than-light speed, Alzwalt carved through the horde like judgment given form. Demons detonated into ash and blood before their screams could finish forming. Limbs flew. Bodies imploded. Light burned through dark matter like it was paper.
Fifty thousand died before the first realized fear.
A hundred thousand died before the ground could register their weight.
At one hundred and fifty thousand, Alzwalt stopped.
He landed.
The earth cratered beneath his foot as he stepped down on a demon's skull, crushing it into nothing. His other hand seized a horned creature mid-lunge—fingers closing around its head—and with a sharp twist, he tore it free and tossed the corpse aside.
He released his sword.
It vanished in light.
Alzwalt moved forward bare-handed.
His fist came up.
Boom.
A demon's head disappeared—no explosion, no gore—just gone, erased by force alone. He pivoted, leapt, and kicked another creature clean through the chest, then spun midair and drove his heel into a second demon's face, snapping its spine backward.
He landed lightly.
His sword reappeared in his hand.
Alzwalt drew back—
—and threw it.
The blade of light pierced the skull of the one hundred and fiftieth thousandth demon, pinning it to the ground like an offering.
Silence fell.
The remaining one hundred and fifty thousand demons surrounded him.
They did not attack.
They trembled.
Instinct screamed louder than hunger now.
Because they knew.
This wasn't just power.
This was natural order.
Light stood before them—not as mercy, not as salvation—but as predation.
An Arctype Angel.
A being whose very existence defined the extinction of demonkind.
Alzwalt straightened.
Bodies lay stacked around him, glowing faintly as they dissolved under his presence. He looked down at the remaining horde, eyes calm, expression almost amused.
"Come," he said, voice carrying effortlessly across the field,
"and repent, peasants."
He rose.
Slowly.
Gracefully.
His right hand lowered, sword angled downward beside him.
His left arm lifted, palm open to the sky.
Behind him—
Six golden wings unfurled, vast and radiant, blotting out the crimson sky.
The heavens answered.
"Revelations."
The sky split.
A colossal sword of light descended—not falling, not summoned—pronounced into existence. It crushed downward with divine inevitability, obliterating the battlefield in a single, blinding stroke.
Light swallowed screams.
When it faded—
Every demon was gone.
Ash drifted like snow.
Only one figure remained.
The leader stood at the epicenter, half its body scorched, one arm completely severed. It staggered once… then laughed.
The severed limb regrew, flesh knitting with a wet, unnatural sound.
It lifted its gaze to Alzwalt, eyes gleaming with something darkly amused.
"For an angel," the leader said, voice low and reverent,
"you are remarkably… demonic."
Alzwalt smiled.
A slow, knowing curve of the lips.
"And who," he replied calmly, stepping forward,
"told you angels are gentle?"
The two began to walk toward each other.
Light and abyss.
Judgment and defiance.
The air screamed between them.