Lightning tore across the darkened sky as the island quaked beneath celestial rage. Zian stood at the edge of a broken cliff, her golden eyes alight with a terrifying calm. Across from her, the fallen angel hovered—his once-lustrous wings now gnarled and burned by betrayal. His divine sword crackled with energy capable of annihilating a continent.
"You should have died that day," he growled, voice laced with fear and fury.
"I did," Zian replied, shadows and radiant light swirling around her. "But death didn't stop me… and it won't save you."
The angel screamed and charged, his blade burning bright. Each strike he launched shattered the earth and tore through the air like divine fire. Zian blocked, parried, and evaded—her movements growing sharper with each blow, fragments of her past surging back.
She remembered the betrayal—the eleven angels who turned their blades on their creator. She remembered standing alone, her wings tattered, her body broken—but unyielding. She remembered darkness offering her a hand in the ruins of heaven.
And she remembered accepting it.
With a roar, Zian's power exploded. Black and gold wings unfurled behind her, vast and radiant. A golden halo split in half and merged with a crown of writhing shadows. Her sword lengthened, glowing with both celestial brilliance and the void's hunger.
"You dare merge light and darkness?!" the angel howled, unleashing a final, cataclysmic attack—a beam of raw divine energy, vast enough to scorch the earth itself.
Zian didn't flinch.
She raised her sword, eyes blazing. "This is for the god you betrayed."
She slashed.
A wave of fused light and shadow erupted from her blade, splitting the angel's attack in half—then tearing through his body.
For a moment, silence.
Then the angel screamed as he was obliterated, atom by atom, vanishing into dust under the weight of Zian's fury. His essence was consumed, erased, denied even reincarnation.
The skies calmed.
Zian collapsed to one knee, surrounded by the charred remnants of the battlefield. Her shadow soldiers stood silent guard.
The world had been spared.
But as her breaths slowed, the ground trembled again.
A claw, massive and ancient, broke through the forest floor.
A dragon's growl echoed through the island.
Zian turned, exhausted. Her eyes widened.
One of the Twelve Dragons who killed the god… had arrived.
Everyone nearby was unconscious—except for two.
Kaen, who stood at the cliff, watching calmly.
And Lirien, stepping forward, drawing her blade, her crimson eyes burning.