He bobbed on the skin of the sea for a long time, like driftwood stalled between breath and tide.

Frustration came first, heavy as salt on his tongue. Birand still couldn’t find a way to slip past the Abyss without it sensing him, without waking its trap.

The Abyss hung over him like a black storm, its weight always above his head.

He wanted to use this window to approach the Inferno.

Probably… no.

He shook his head, irritability flaring like nettles under skin. That thing down there—who knew how old—made him uneasy.

Mind like a vat of poison, gut steeped in bad water. If he just rushed in, he’d die without a grave, swallowed by dark currents.

“Ugh. This is a mess!”

Time blurred. The whole sea went eerily still, a blue mirror without a single wave.

Birand hung in the air, and no energy ripples moved around him, as if the world held its breath.

If anyone saw him now, they’d be spooked.

No wings, no support. Yet he floated.

His eyes turned deep, reflecting a power that felt born of the Celestial Realm.

That gaze held everything. It held pain.

The space around him began to tremble, like glass under ice.

His thoughts slid back to the day he struck the Celestial Realm.

Thias’s blade caught the dying sun. Blood set into a dark sheen, and the sword looked ruined, a relic gnawed by time.

But it made the mortally wounded Akenachel shudder head to toe.

Birand took in her pallid face, her wounds rimmed in fresh red. He smiled, thin and sharp. “Angels, did you ever think you’d end up like this—crawling before a lesser species?”

“Did you ever think, the lives you seized matter to someone the way yours does to you?”

His tone cooled like frost creeping over stone. He glanced at the godwings on her back and let a cruel smile bloom.

He drove a fist down at Akenachel’s face, a hammer falling from a midnight bell.

She crumpled, trembling; her body spoke for her master, every shake spelling out agony.

Caw—caw—

The eerie calls threaded the air. Birand’s expression settled back to calm.

The half-dead he had missed, the ones feigning death, the careless leftovers—finished.

The ravens had returned. Next, he’d unmake the next celestial ward.

He snapped his fingers. The orange sky folded into him like silk.

Blue returned overhead, deep as ocean. The stars did not shift.

Akenachel trembled, her face tilted up toward the primeval Fiend.

Birand studied her delicate features, then chuckled. “Tsk. I just remembered—weren’t you one of those who took Icarina’s key people?”

He crouched and brushed her cheek, a cold hand on warm skin.

Gooseflesh ran over her. It felt worse than a clean kill.

“You… what are you going to do?” Akenachel’s voice shook.

She felt a familiar aura knitting her wounds, a soft warmth undoing ragged edges.

Hope’s power. The Hero’s gift.

For a god, it was a rich tonic.

But inside it ran a thread of the Abyss, cold iron under silk.

She couldn’t fight it. She could only watch this man who once was the Hero mend the wounds his ravens had torn open.

Divine power flooded back inside her, broad as a river after rain.

She almost lunged to strike Birand down right there.

Then the Abyss-thread detonated. Her inner forces went feral, like horses stampeding a burning stable.

Hope’s power. Divine strength regrown by hope. Abyssal force.

Three powers rammed through her body, tearing halls and ripping doors.

It felt like someone stood over her with a meat grinder, chewing her insides to pulp.

Birand watched that pain bloom on her face. He watched, and he enjoyed.

Then her pupils widened. Her resistance thinned like paper soaked through.

Birand frowned.

Too dull. She’d die after a little play?

Bored, he let go of her hair. He kicked hard between her wings, heel like a falling meteor.

The three forces squeezed out of her, forced from her body in a single violent surge.

Edlyn’s brow creased. This… was cruelty honed past steel.

She gritted her teeth and kept watching. She had to know what could subdue a Hero like this.

Birand grabbed Akenachel’s hair again. He dragged her forward, slow steps cutting a pale arc over wet stone. “You don’t get to die easy. You’ll watch me wipe out the eight wards of the Celestial Realm. Then I’ll grant you death.”

He patted his own head, rueful. “Man, I’m getting way too edgy. Not good.”

Akenachel wailed, powerless against the Hero.

She reached up, clutching his right hand tangled in her hair, struggling like a netted bird.

He answered with a lazy backhand, a whipcrack of impatience.

Patience gone, he tossed her aside and stepped behind her.

His left half turned to magma, heat wobbling the air like summer over stone. He spread both hands and tore her two godwings clean off, cast them aside like broken banners.

Akenachel’s eyes rolled back. The scream stuck. Pain drowned her into blankness.

Birand poured energy through her like wine through cracked clay. He forced her awake.

Her pupils went glassy. Will fled.

Only then did Birand nod, satisfied.

He hauled Akenachel and strolled on.

Blood from the severed wings dripped down, thread by thread, stitching a long red line behind them.

Edlyn frowned, stepped over the trail, and followed.

At the second celestial ward, the gate Angels fell in an instant. Heads rolled. Souls were swallowed.

Soul devouring? Not likely.

The ones left were not easy prey.

He wasn’t back to his peak.

No way he could just open his mouth and pull them in like before.

Back then, he had only revenge for a goal.

He couldn’t absorb like that again, without a thought.

Suddenly, Birand remembered the one who joined midway. The masked man.

If not for him, Birand wouldn’t need a second run.

Black and white hair twined in order, tied to a front-side ponytail, the kind that looked neat but promised trouble. White tips lay over his shoulder. A butterfly mask hid his face. Two long swords crossed his back.

He wore traveler’s clothes. He carried a lazy air, like smoke drifting. He stood nearly the same height as Birand. An Adam’s apple. A man.

His power felt odd, with ripples like the Abyss, but not the same.

Birand narrowed his eyes, chasing that unknown current in memory. He reached out into the air and closed his fingers.

He pinched at emptiness like he’d caught a thread.

He shut his eyes, brought it to his nose, and breathed in.

The way he drew aid felt a touch like Birand’s own Judge Mode.

If it was a judge… fuse it with the Abyss?

Good idea.

Birand’s eyes lit. Then he sighed.

“Tsk. No go. I can’t use Judge Mode anymore.” He exhaled.

Now he was a soul wired for revenge. He couldn’t fuse with the natural elements.

It would tear his flawed soul apart, like floodwater through a rotten dam.

Birand’s body wore ill-omened fire like a cloak. His left side shone molten, the heat biting the air.

Whenever he caught an Angel’s head, fire leaped fast across it, a bloom of flame, and the victim’s cry twisted into the wind.

Only then did Birand crush the skull, ash to silence.

Akenachel’s numb face filled with fear again.

Tears seeped from her eyes, slow as spring water. She shivered. She feared the man who looked like a god of slaughter.

Why had she joined that plan? Why hadn’t she stopped the Celestial God?

It was the worst decision of her life.

Birand pondered a moment, then shrugged, helpless, like a wave that couldn’t reach the shore.

“There aren’t any Angels here to feed my flames. Not even talking about whether I can win like this. Problem is, I can’t find an Angel nearby.”

He stared at his right hand as it began to fade, and he clenched his fist. “No. Not yet.”

He glanced not far away at Thias, the one he’d tossed there from the start, and he gave a bleak smile. “I’m sorry… I’m sorry.”

People sighed. Under the gaze of the Celestial God’s true form, hearts eased a fraction, like sails catching a steadier wind.

Thias’s light dimmed. Birand reached out, and gathered Thias into his arms, slow as dusk closing over a field.

Yulia blinked, then snapped, “Not good!”

She thrust out her hands, and a vast aura surged toward Birand, like storm water breaking a levee.

“How… how could this be… Thias actually…” Shock took Yulia like frost takes leaves.

“Too late!” Birand’s body firmed, no longer an energy haze.

He stood as his human self again.

His eyes lost color. Madness and cruelty flowed in to take their place, a tide rolling over stones.

He washed Yulia’s power away in a single sweep.

A hard wind burst out and flung the closest away like dry leaves.

Birand rose into the air and lifted his face to the endless star river.

“The Holy Sword… is broken, after all.”

He wavered, then chose. He’d sink into the sea and think in the dark.

Maybe there was hope below?

Probably not. But maybe he’d find a leak in the lock. Who knows.