Hajack stared at the destruction of Orous with shock and dread. The Demon Lord could scarcely believe what he had witnessed. The Archangel had sacrificed a lot in that final strike, weakening him greatly, but Hajack was in no condition to capitalize on that weakness.
tatron’s last strike with Excalibur had ravaged him—his life force flickered like a dying star, his body unstable, and most of his internal organs were half-destroyed. He had no strength left to fight. Even to move seed a miracle.
The Demon Lord’s only thought was escape. His colossal body trembled, wings twitching to take flight. Yet before he could move, tatron’s weary gaze turned toward him. That look alone made his heart falter, but it lasted only an instant.
Pain struck—sharp, blinding, final.
Hajack looked down in horror to see a blade driven through his chest, piercing directly into his heart. His eyes widened as he beheld the figure standing before him. Small in comparison to his draconic bulk, yet infinitely more terrifying in that mont.
"How...?" Hajack gasped as the one who attacked was no tatron, but soone the Demon Lord believed to be death.
He rembered very well Orous’ burning arm piercing Vlad’s chest earlier, annihilating his heart. Even a Devil Lord would have been crippled, perhaps slain outright. How then was Vlad alive? Not to ntion, there was not a single wound on his body, only a ravenous hunger reflected in his burning eyes.
Unforualty for the Demon Lord, there was no asnwer to his question, only a drain of his life force and soul at an astonishing rate. The sword in his chest was not rely steel—it was a conduit, a maw that drank him whole. Every beat of his heart fed Vlad’s ascension.
Across the battlefield, tatron’s narrowed eyes caught the scene. He wanted to intervene, but his energy was in complete disarray. His soul wavered under the backlash of Excalibur’s final strike. He needed a few seconds to stabilize himself.
Luckily for Vlad, seconds were all he required.
The True Depravita of Wrath smiled as Hajack’s vitality rushed into him. His strength surged, his body filling with renewed power. Even with his immortal fra, regenerating a destroyed heart demanded an imnse amount of Depravita Aura, psychic force, and ti. But Vlad had planned for this. He could have dodged Orous’s earlier strike. He had chosen not to.
He had let himself appear naïve, a fool caught unprepared. That deception had convinced the Devil Lord and the Demon Lord to believe he was finished. They had turned all their fury on tatron, pouring out every weapon, every drop of power. They had fought to the death, leaving themselves broken.
And Vlad had waited. Silent. Hidden. A shadow lurking for the perfect mont.
Now his patience bore fruit. Hajack’s body withered in his grasp, his essence drained away until nothing remained but a hollow shell. Vlad wrenched his blade free, letting the Demon Lord’s corpse fall lifelessly to the ground.
He rose into the air, wings unfurled.
It was a sight both strange and awe-inspiring. With the fusion of the True Depravitas of Gluttony, Greed, Envy, and Lust into his soul, Vlad’s form resembled that of an Archangel. His wings mirrored the grandeur of the top echelon of Heaven—majestic, radiant, yet twisted with darkness, burning with dominion over the Seven Sins.
Vlad fixed his gaze on tatron. His voice carried a mocking lilt.
"I suppose we can’t shake hands and call it a day, can we?"
In truth, he did not want this fight. Even wounded, tatron was a powerhouse of Heaven’s highest echelon. Vlad had other matters to see to, other wars to wage. But the Archangel’s eyes—cold, rciless, brimming with killing intent—left no doubt. There would be no peace here. Only death.
Vlad sighed, rolling his shoulders as though preparing for a spar rather than a battle between gods.
"Ahhh... fuck it."
In the next instant, his figure blurred, vanishing into a storm of speed. Energy roared through him, the dinsion itself pouring into his weapon under the pull of the Eye of Gluttony. His charge carried the force of an apocalyptic tempest.
tatron raised his right hand. Portals blossod around him, spitting forth divine weapons. But where once he could summon tens of thousands, now only hundreds erged. Their radiance dimd, their power thinned.
It was not enough.
Vlad tore through them all, his wings slicing through the air, his blade flashing as the Laws of Space, Death, and Lightning coiled around it. Each strike shattered god-weapons like fragile glass. He did not slow. He advanced, inexorable.
Sharp determination flared in tatron’s eyes. Even in his weakened state, he was no fool. He would not underestimate soone who could return to the battle after their heart was destroyed. With a voice that thundered across the tomb, he summoned a weapon of his own.
"Durendal!"
A sword appeared in his grasp, magnificent and terrible. Its hilt radiated golden brilliance, carrying the purest authority of Heaven. Unlike Excalibur’s destructive brilliance, Durendal’s power was defense—unyielding, unbreakable. The mont tatron tightened his grip, his body beca as invincible as the Heavens themselves.
"BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMM!"
The collision shook the tomb. Vlad poured every ounce of his charge into a single devastating swing. tatron caught it with Durendal, the clash birthing an explosion of cosmic fire.
And yet—the Archangel did not budge.
Instead, it was Vlad who staggered, blood spilling from the corner of his mouth. It felt like striking an immovable mountain. The recoil rattled his bones, threatening to hurl him back.
But the True Depravita of Wrath was not so easily repelled.
He clenched his teeth, enduring the backlash, twisting his body to strike again. His blade flashed toward tatron’s eyes, wreathed in black fire of death.
Even invincibility had limits.
tatron leaned back, narrowly avoiding the deadly stroke. In the sa instant, Durendal whistled through the air, slashing toward Vlad’s neck.
The Archangel’s intent was clear. Vlad’s immortality ant little. If his head was severed from his body, both could be sealed apart for eternity.
Durendal moved with blinding speed, the Archangel wielding it with flawless precision. The blade carved across Vlad’s throat, a strike ant to sever his head from his body. Yet instead of decapitation, the weapon only slashed through the great arteries of his neck. Blood sprayed in violent arcs, staining the air.
For any other Lord, such a wound would have been fatal. But Vlad was no ordinary being—he was a True Depravita. His regenerative powers surged at once, knitting flesh and sealing the ruptured vessels. What would have spelled certain death for others was little more than a temporary setback for him.
He ignored the injury entirely. Instead, he seized the opening. His sword shot upward like a stream of lightning, swift and rciless. The blade drove into the soft hollow beneath tatron’s armpit, the perfect angle to sever the Archangel’s arm from his body. Yet when steel t flesh, the strike faltered. It cut shallowly, leaving only a bleeding line across divine skin.
The resilience Durendal granted its wielder was on a level beyond comprehension. Still, Vlad did not falter. He pressed on with unrelenting aggression. He twisted his blade free and intercepted the counterstrike from Durendal, then imdiately pivoted into another cut aid at tatron’s left shoulder. Another shallow wound blood, thin but precise, blood trickling from the line.
For the first ti, tatron’s eyes widened.
The cuts were not deep—barely centiters into the flesh. Durendal had blunted their lethality. Yet Vlad’s strikes were no ordinary slashes. They were aid at the softest points of the Archangel’s body, places where muscle and bone could not fully shield the tendons, nerves, and veins beneath.
Already, tatron felt it—a faint tingling in his left arm. His reaction ti diminished, his motions subtly slowed. If Vlad continued this thodical assault, the arm would weaken further. Paralysis lood at the edge of inevitability.
But the Archangel did not yield to panic. His eyes flared, radiant with divine determination. He surged forward, swinging Durendal in a wide arc.
Vlad t him without hesitation. Their blades collided, sparks of cosmic force bursting from the clash. The True Depravita felt the force behind Durendal’s invulnerability—unyielding, eternal. But he also recognized its flaw. Durendal protected tatron’s body with godlike durability, yet it did not amplify the raw strength of his strikes. For that reason, Vlad could match him in direct contest, holding back the Archangel’s sword with snarling defiance.
He was about to pivot into another surgical strike when danger blossod behind tatron.
Golden portals spiraled open, haloing the Archangel like a crown of judgnt. Vlad’s eyes narrowed. He recognized the tactic too late.
From those portals ca volleys of god-weapons—blades, spears, and arrows of divine wrath—fired in a relentless storm. And Vlad, still locked against Durendal, had no room to maneuver.
With a violent beat of his wings, the True Depravita wrenched himself free, vanishing in a streak of black light. He put distance between himself and the Archangel, twisting through the sky to evade the rain of divine weapons. Explosions tore through the battlefield, each detonation shaking the tomb’s foundations.
But tatron was rciless. He refused to allow his foe a mont’s reprieve.
The Archangel’s wings flared, and he surged through his own barrage of weapons, gliding between the golden projectiles with impossible grace. He cut through blind angles, exploiting gaps that even Vlad’s keen eyes struggled to predict.
Durendal glead, its edge burning with unyielding light.
Vlad crossed his sword in defense, wings folding around him as a shield.
"BOOOOMMMM!"
The impact drove him from the sky, blasting his body into the ground. Stone and fire erupted on impact, the earth splitting as though struck by a falling star.
Yet even buried beneath rubble and fla, the True Depravita stirred, imdiately flashing back to the fray.
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