“Lord Celestial God, the beings below have somehow gained a power that pierces our defenses,” an Angel reported, his voice thready like wind through reeds, his body painted in blood.

She sat on a throne woven from pure energy, legs crossed, chin propped on one hand, her gaze sweeping him like a winter blade over still water.

His chest tightened; fear bloomed like frost on glass before he could breathe.

She gave a small nod, a stone dropping in a quiet lake. “I know. It’s fine. I knew the cause long ago. It’s that one again, leading the charge. I didn’t expect he’d cooperate with him.”

“You mean—?” The Angel’s question slipped out like a startled bird.

Her glance cut over, cold moonlight on steel. He shuddered like a leaf and bowed hard. “I was out of line. I’ll withdraw.”

He fled like a shadow at dawn. Only then did she speak, her voice level as falling snow. “All forces, the Fiends stir again. Don’t grow lax. Someone even wore a stolen skin and stood before me.”

She reached out, her hand drifting across ten thousand miles like a quiet tide, and pinched the Angel who had just left.

Her eyes held no ripple, black wells without stars. Her fingers moved, and he popped like a crushed berry, meat and blood raining from the sky.

Angels nearby stared at the drifting clots, astonished. “Human blood…”

Armor fell into place like thunderheads rolling in. In the same breath, every Angel donned heavy plate and raised holy weapons brighter than any army’s steel, then brought slaughter down on the resisting races like a scythe through wheat.

A Seraph with six vast light-wings sighed, a sun behind his shoulders, and spread his hands like a priest parting a veil. “We Gods were absent for mere centuries. We descend again, and fools already scheme to replace the Celestial God. Letting the wise multiply unchecked was a grave mistake.”

He shone like a noonday star. Divine might rippled out from him like a tidal flare, and every creature that dared to approach burned to ash in its wake.

His voice rolled like temple bells. “You shouldn’t have trusted that so‑called Hero. You betrayed the Celestial God. We descend judgment again. Remember the fear that bears our name.”

Elsewhere, other six‑winged Angels, dimmer suns in the firmament, loosed their own divine might in the same beat.

Holy light drowned the battlefield like dawn flooding a valley; black clouds were scrubbed away by Angels as if by a cleansing rain.

Drawn by the four Seraphs, the lesser Angels poured their power into a single veil of light, a glacier spreading, cold and merciless.

Scorching energy ate through the armies like wildfire through dry reeds.

Leaders from every race wore storm-dark faces, thunder gathering in their eyes.

Giant Squid ground his teeth, the taste of salt and iron thick as the sea. Retreat now would be a wave breaking on rock.

He watched lines waver, courage ebbing like a tide pulled by a blood-red moon, and he sighed, deep as the deep.

“These ones hit morale like hail on young shoots. We need them off the sky.”

He glanced at the Seraph’s spreading corona and the countless Angels swarming like starlings, frowned, and for a breath stood adrift like a boat in fog.

“This is when a Godslayer Weapon matters. If it can’t kill a Celestial God in one stroke, it can at least punch through this.”

A gale whooshed past, a white blade of wind. He looked up. A man in silver standard armor, black hair streaming like a banner, flashed by with a broken longsword, moving like the wind itself.

Where he passed, crimson fury surged like a river in flood, unweaving the vast divine energy as if it were rotten silk.

The Seraph, mid-‘purification,’ felt death press in like a cold knife at his throat.

He flinched, raising a barrier like a shield of glass, but he was a heartbeat late.

Birand, rage towering like a storm surge, lifted his broken blade. He met the Seraph’s shock with a sneer sharp as flint. “Galiel, you’re still brain-dead.”

The sword fell. Crimson light, veined with deep blue cold as abyssal ice, cleaved straight at Seraph Galiel.

“Shen Tuo!”

The arc split the sky like a fault line. One half burned crimson; the other sank into an eerie dark blue. Birand held the blade and flicked free golden blood like sunlit rain. He smiled. “Die.”

Boom.

Balance snapped. The mingled powers detonated like a volcano, and the blast swept Angels aside like leaves in a gale.

Giant Squid smashed his scepter with a crack like breaking coral. “All troops! With me!”

“Kill!”

Birand’s charge turned into a whetted sword, hacking a gaping wound through the seamless curtain of light like tearing silk.

In the shadows, Edlyn frowned, the darkness clinging like smoke. She glanced up at the Celestial God above, her brows knotted like a drawn bow. “That one still won’t move? Her own Angels are falling, and she’s calm as stone.”

Other six‑winged Angels streaked over like meteors homing in.

Birand laughed coldly, voice like sleet. “You’re all losers I’ve already beaten. Forgot how I treated you centuries ago?”

They answered with their own cold curl of lips, blades speaking like winter wind. “If the Celestial God hadn’t fallen asleep, if we hadn’t poured power into balancing the Celestial Realm, and if you hadn’t picked us off unawares—do you think you’d have had a chance?”

Birand set his longsword before his chest, steel straight as a spine. “Then come try me.”

“Hero, letting you walk out of the Celestial Realm alive was our greatest mistake,” the leading female Angel roared, her voice a war-drum. “We’ll correct it ourselves. Prepare yourself.”

“Angelina, you look livelier than before,” Birand barked a wild laugh, thunder in a canyon. “No Akenachel to fight you for power—did your rank soar overnight?”

He swept his sword, a tidal surge of force, and crashed into the Angels like a storm against cliffs.

“Birand, stop trying to sow discord!” Angelina twisted past his slash like a swallow and drove a fist at his face, a comet aimed true. “Where did you trick Akenachel and Bernice into going? The Celestial God can’t revive them, so they’re alive. Where are they?”

Birand slipped aside like flowing water. Angelina’s punch hammered the air behind him, and the shockwave ripped a Seafolk soldier into bloody mist like a popped waterskin.

Other Angels lunged in with weapons bright as falling stars.

“You don’t have the Holy Sword now. Let’s see how you face the world outside!” A male Seraph kicked Birand’s blade, impact ringing like an anvil.

Birand flipped back, shedding force like rain off oilskin, then met them again, steel kissing steel in sparks like fireflies.

Meanwhile, several Angels reached Galiel and began knitting his ruined body with light, threads glowing like moonspun silk.

Giant Squid frowned, a storm line on the horizon. “Not good. If those Angels regroup, the Hero won’t hold. We’re in one boat now. If he dies and no one proves we can resist their sacred power, we all drown.”

“What’re we waiting for? Help the Hero!” Hyeok roared, voice a lion’s. He leaped, a beast-shadow tens of meters tall blooming behind him like a mountain spirit. He crushed a four-wing Angel with one blow, stone shattering, and charged toward Birand.

Other leaders unfurled their might like banners in a rising wind. First momentum is flame to tinder—hesitate, and the whole host collapses like wet paper.

High above, the Celestial God watched the field with winter-calm eyes, pulses of power rolling out like sonar, as if searching the deep.

Below, Edlyn’s heart jolted like a struck bell. The Angels had sensed something amiss.

“Old fox,” she muttered, bitterness bitter as wormwood. “You can even hold back now.”

The Demon Race had done little after the opening strike, a thorn under her tongue.

The Godslayer Weapon was cooling after forcing the Celestial God to yield, its heat hissing like iron quenched. The Demon Race lay in the mountains, coiled like serpents, waiting for a perfect strike.

Edlyn sat on a tree, the bark rough under her palm, eyes raking the field like a hunting hawk.

Behind her, a woman her height in a butterfly mask stepped up and patted her shoulder, light as falling petals. “Yo—We’re here.”

Edlyn lit up, wonder bursting like spring. “You—you really came out?”

“Of course. This is the most crucial battle for the future.” Janus smiled, swept her hair up like gathering silk, and looked at Edlyn. “So, do you still need to ask why I chose to stand with him?”

Heat rushed to Edlyn’s face, ripening like an apple in sun. “No. I know.”

“Heh. I don’t even know what mood I’m in, but I want to tease you,” Janus said, sly as a fox, eyes roaming like curious hands.

“What about him? Why don’t I see him?” Edlyn cut the thread, her voice a quick knife.

Janus blinked and pinched Edlyn’s cheek, soft as dough. “He went to invite Father.”

“So we can win?!” Hope sparked in Edlyn like flint on steel.

Janus’s head moved side to side, a slow pendulum. “I don’t know.”

“What? You don’t know?” The chill hit Edlyn like a bucket of snow. “Then that means, soon…”

Janus nodded, quiet as dew. “Soon, you’ll be me.”

Edlyn’s heart shivered; a bitter taste curled at her lips like unripe fruit.

“Victory!” Giant Squid hovered above the fray and thrust his hand toward the ranks, a lighthouse in storm. Behind him, eight colossal tentacles burst forth like ancient roots.

He unleashed his utmost power at the center of the field, and a mountain range a hundred miles long sank into a vast lake like stone into silk.

The Seafolk cheered, surf singing in their throats, and surged toward the waters like salmon to the sea.

Giant Squid roared. From the lake, thick tentacles erupted like sea dragons, swatting Angels from the sky as waves heaved high enough to mist the distant Celestial God.

For the first time, her face changed, a ripple on winter ice. She flicked her hand, and the water on her robes peeled away like shed skin. She rose, and divine might poured down from her like a collapsing mountain range.

Edlyn and Janus met eyes, sparks flashing like flint. “Good chance!”