"...Tired. Tell me, why breed so many for nothing? My hands are numb from killing." Birand sat atop a mountain of corpses, built from shattered Celestial limbs.
His head drooped, weariness hanging like mist. He stared at the seven archangels he’d bound.
"Well? Like I said—what’s the point birthing so many?" Birand blinked, heavy-lidded, and echoed himself.
The archangels, except the last caught—Angelina of the Seventh Sector—wore wooden faces streaked with tears. Their features held no ripple of feeling.
Birand sighed. He walked over and kicked Akenachel. "Hey. Don’t ignore me. Makes this boring."
Edlyn wiped the cold sweat on her brow.
In three days, Birand butchered all seven sectors. Each sector’s archangel, he beat bloody, then kept alive to watch him kill. Not mortals—gods.
Angelina glared up at him, thrashing like a snared hawk.
She drew his eye. He clapped, strolling over. "Oh? Great Angel, anything you wanna say?"
He crouched, eyes crinkling. Then he reached out. A brute surge of power tore the sealing script from her mouth.
Angelina writhed with a hiss. Birand, already annoyed, backhanded her.
Under her burning stare, Birand drew Thias and raked the blade across her face.
"Don’t make it complicated. I didn’t kill you. What are you sulking for?" He patted her cheek.
Edlyn sighed. Another round of him working someone over?
But Birand eased off. He pushed to his feet and stretched like a cat at dawn.
His voice went dry with mockery. "This last sector’s support-class, right? That’s where the Celestial God sleeps."
A spark returned to the archangels’ eyes, but it was shock mixed with wrath.
Birand’s smile turned feral. Cracks spidered across his left cheek again. He patted it, almost tender.
"Tsk, no. No. Gotta keep it together." He drew a long breath. The fissures on his left cheek slowly sealed.
"You! The Celestial God will never forgive you! Hero—no, monster! Damn Fiend! He’ll curse you to never reincarnate!" Bernice propped herself up and spat at him.
Birand blinked, then took in Bernice’s face and chuckled. He shook his head, almost amused.
He sauntered over and drove a kick into her head.
She shot away like a broken comet. Birand shrugged and watched her vanish into the distance. He gave a wry grin. "Bit too hard. She’ll probably wake up with no memory."
He shrugged again, unconcerned. That single kick booted Bernice from the Celestial Realm into the Abyss. When she woke, she thought she’d infiltrated it for some special mission. But that’s another story.
Akenachel watched, numb. She had no strength left to resist.
As the chief archangel, she’d been the first he singled out.
From the start, she’d been his favorite toy. Long before her six peers, she’d hovered a breath from death.
Now her only hope lay in the Celestial God coming to end him.
But after stripping the Hero’s power, the Celestial God had sunk into deep sleep.
Their duty was to guard the Celestial Realm until His awakening, to keep it in order.
Birand’s arrival smashed all of that to dust.
Everywhere the eye could reach lay fields of corpses, and ravens wheeled in the sky.
Akenachel’s gaze was empty. She only watched Birand in silence.
Birand hauled six Angels by energy chains at their throats and headed for the last sector.
There waited the end of all things—and the last task of this vengeful shade.
He walked on, dazed. His eyes flickered between fog and clarity, like stormlight behind smoke.
Edlyn nodded to herself. As expected—he was scraping bottom.
The final sector held few fighters. After Birand cut down a handful of guards, resistance thinned to a trickle.
No one imagined anyone could breach the layered wards to reach this central support zone.
Here sacred things were born—rare flora, herbs, holy water.
Most were support staff—stronger than mortals, sure. In Birand’s hands, they were no different from mortals at all.
Tired of the tedium of killing, Birand let flocks of ravens finish the work.
He dragged his weary body, and six half-dead Angels, onward.
At last he stopped before a waterfall pouring out of the stars.
Edlyn frowned at Birand’s avatar. What was he planning?
Birand tilted his head back, half-release, half-agony, like a man tasting snow and ash together.
Water of unknown source fell from the starry vault, feeding the pool before him. Petals of spray kept blooming.
"The River of Life and the Abyssal River are perfect opposites," Akenachel’s voice reached Edlyn as she wavered. "They’re the birthplaces of the Abyss and the Celestial God."
Edlyn glanced back. Akenachel stood behind her, wistful eyes on the scene.
Edlyn frowned. "What did you do back then to make him hate you this much? He’s almost wiped out the whole Celestial Realm."
"...It’s tangled. I can’t tell you now," Akenachel sighed.
"Your Celestial Realm’s weak, then," Edlyn said, disdain filling the gap where words failed.
Akenachel gave her a hollow look. "Send that maniac to your Inferno. No one there could stop him either."
"...What power did he get? Why is he this terrifying?" Edlyn asked.
Akenachel shook her head. "I don’t know. It’s beyond me."
She had little to offer; she’d only just recovered these memories herself.
Edlyn let it drop and kept watching.
Birand loosened his grip. The ropes on the Angels slackened.
He walked to the pool’s edge. He sank to one knee.
From his breast he drew a fractured soul. He meant to set it, gently, into the River of Life.
That was when it broke.
A lightning-forged javelin screamed past his face.
It blasted him back. Then it punched through his heart and nailed him to the ground.
Edlyn’s pupils tightened. That lightning—she couldn’t even track it.
She followed Birand’s gaze.
A figure sheathed in light descended from the river’s source, only outline visible.
It spoke. "Birand. You still won’t give up."
The voice was woven from others—child to elder, male and female.
When it spoke, it was as if a chorus spoke as one.
"...Celestial God..." Edlyn stared at the figure and drew Ashir in a guarded motion. Battle heat surged in her bones.
Birand gripped the javelin in his chest and wrenched it free. The lightning unraveled into air.
Edlyn glanced at his hand, grim. That had been power of pure thunder.
Birand gave a thin laugh. "Finally awake. Another hour and I’d have finished your whole realm."
The Celestial God seemed to sigh, tone edged with weariness. "Let it go, Birand. You won’t succeed."
"Heh. Give up? I crawled out of the Inferno for you. Give up? Hah. Celestial God, didn’t know you had jokes."
The Celestial God fell silent. It raised an arm. A pure, attribute-less force flowed out and bound Birand’s limbs.
Birand ground his teeth and roared, "You think that still works? To beat you, I gave up everything! Hahaha!"
As he spoke, the left half of his body dissolved again, becoming lava. The magma burned the God’s force away.
He flung his hands wide. The right side melted to lava too. "Watching your children butchered—does it please you? Enrage you?"
The Celestial God paused, then explained, almost gently, "I have no feelings."
"Hahaha. That’s rich. You—end this life already!" Birand roared and charged.
The Celestial God twitched a finger. Wave after wave of force slammed him down.
Birand strained against it and bellowed, "Unless you die, I’ll drag you down, even from the Inferno! I’ll make the flames of vengeance burn in the Celestial Realm forever, never to go out!"
