“Damn it. How could a weapon like that exist?” Bernice slipped past Edlyn’s slash, whoosh like a sparrow cutting rain.

She shot skyward like a comet and poured a tide of power down at Edlyn like a storming sea.

Edlyn raised her blade and shattered the falling surge like brittle glass, then sneered. “Oh? Dodging now? Keep playing wild. I want to see how many times I get to kill you.”

“Demonic Sever!” Her eyes went blood-red, a twin blaze. Power surged from her body and from Demon Sword Ashill, skinning her in a crimson sheen like dusk armor.

She spun like a cyclone, fused the force into the edge, then flung it skyward, a crescent of ruin scything toward Bernice.

“Celestial God Barrier.” Bernice traced a circle with both hands, moon-bright, then snapped back fast like a reed in wind.

The barrier was devoured on impact, a black river swallowing light, and the immortal force kept flying straight for Bernice like a hunting hawk.

“Damn,” Bernice ground her teeth, palms crossed over her chest, a knot of thorns tight at her heart.

“Sanctum Entry.” Her voice dropped. Her wings folded, wrapped her like a cocoon, then bled color, gold fading to dusky purple-brown like twilight bruising the sky.

When the gold was gone, the wings sealed her whole, and a purple-brown aura shrouded her like bark over sap, holding back Edlyn’s demonic qi.

Dust settled and drifted like ash snow. Edlyn panted, one hand braced on her sword, one hand on her hip, a tired ember in her eyes as she stood in the void.

She smirked, cold as winter rain. “Well now, holy Angel. Did you fall?”

Bernice opened the purple-brown shell, her wings gloom-dark like storm clouds, her gaze wary, a deer at the river’s edge.

“Fallen Angel, won’t you greet your master?” Edlyn shrugged, a casual ripple. “I’m the lord of the Demon Race, ruler over your kind.”

Who’d expect under that holy radiance to find Abyss energy, demonic qi, mold beneath snow? If I hadn’t carved you up earlier, I wouldn’t have guessed.”

“Damn.” Bernice clenched her jaw, bitterness pooling like bile. She’d dropped the special state the Celestial God granted; heaven’s majesty had faded like a receding tide.

She’d thought once she got outside, riding the Celestial God’s awakening, she could summon her angelic true form, a sun rising inside her bones.

With that power, she’d purify herself, return to her rank as a holy Angel, clean as spring water after frost.

Best case, in battle with the Demon King, she’d bleed her demonic qi out, let it drift like iron filings to a magnet, sink into the Demon King’s pull.

Too bad. The world never turns on your wish like a door on a hinge. None of it followed her plan.

When she became a holy Angel, she knew the qi still nested inside. She even thought of letting the Demon King kill her, end it once and for all like cutting a knot.

Exasperation boiled, smoke under a lid. “Are holy minds carved from stone? Can’t they turn?” The thought sat heavy, a rain cloud that wouldn’t break.

She pushed the qi out, but it circuited around the Demon King like moths to a lamp, then flowed back into her like tide returning to shore.

Frustration bit hard, a wolf gnawing bone. In the end, the Demon King forced her to use a state that largely ignored demonic qi, just to block an almost certain death blow.

“Fallen Angel, have you thought it through? Will you submit to me?” Edlyn’s mouth curved, a knife-smile.

“You damned monster, I became like this because of you!” Bernice snarled, sparks flying off steel.

“Give up. You’ve fallen, and there’s no going back skyward. The Celestial God won’t allow your like. Drop everything and follow me,” Edlyn laughed, light as wine.

“I’ll keep you eating well and drinking strong, no skimping, a feast and a fire.”

“Damn you, Demon King. I’ll fight you!” Bernice bit down, then rushed in like a hawk diving.

“Tsk. You think I’m insulting you?” Edlyn sighed, a breeze through reeds. “You’re beyond reason.”

She set her stance, then waved. Her hand passed through Bernice’s charge like wind through smoke, a ghosting thread.

“Give up. With demonic qi in you, you can’t beat me,” Edlyn said lightly, voice a cold stream. “Since you fell, I stood invincible from the start.”

“No!” Even so, Bernice hurled all her strength, and their energies clashed like thunder, boom after boom.

Edlyn unraveled them with ease, a black reef eating waves; she either swallowed the blasts or turned them back, a mirror that burns.

Their battlefield was an Abyss Edlyn dragged into shape, walls of night and iron. Inside it, Bernice felt no boon from the Celestial God’s awakening, no spring breeze.

She had cut that link herself; now she still couldn’t regain her holy Angel state, wings heavy as stone.

So the ending was written in shadow: Edlyn would win.

“How many times must I say it? You can’t win.” Edlyn tapped Ashir’s hilt with her index finger, cold gaze on Bernice kneeling like a withered reed.

“I refuse! You only win because of that Demon Sword devouring my power. Without it, I’d never lose!” Bernice hissed, a snake cornered.

“Didn’t think we’d end for a reason like that,” Edlyn muttered, scratching her head like an idle cat. “The Hero won’t look down on me, right?”

“Forget it. He wouldn’t dare.” She shrugged, shoulders rolling like lazy waves.

Just as she moved, a strange rejection surged through her body, a thorn under skin. Edlyn frowned. “Huh… we people from the future have hogged the time too long.”

She’d be forced into sleep soon, a curtain falling. “We finish fast,” her voice chilled. “Bernice, no dawdling. Show me what’s worth keeping in a fallen holy Angel.”

Bernice clenched her teeth, frost grinding. She wanted to resist, but truth was iron. That black sword and Edlyn’s pure Demon King blood pressed her down like mountains.

Strength wouldn’t gather; it scattered like sand in wind.

Just then, in front of Edlyn, space tore like silk, a seam ripping. Purple lightning crashed out of the crack, boom and crackle like storm drums.

In Bernice’s terrified eyes, Yuris stepped from the rift with a frown, shadow and thunder clinging. “Finally… back?”