Chapter 917: Metatron
The next second, countless portals manifested in the sky, each glowing with overwhelming Divine Power. From within them emerged weapons of the gods—blades, spears, halberds—each one forged from sanctified radiance, gleaming with the authority of Heaven.
There was no war cry, no sound of trumpets. Only inevitability. The Archangel extended his hand.
"ZNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN!"
The sky screamed as reality split apart. Hundreds of divine weapons fell in a single volley, raining down faster than shooting stars, each strike carrying a momentum so sharp it seemed capable of piercing through worlds themselves.
Hajack reacted instantly. His titanic wings folded over his massive body like a shield of living obsidian, scales reinforced with molten fire. The Demon Lord beside him was not so fortunate.
He lacked his master’s defenses, so the only thing he could do was raise his colossal weapon and strike back at the barrage, roaring as he swung with every ounce of his strength. But the first clash drained the color from his face. It took everything he had to shatter a single god-forged spear—only for the next to pierce his left shoulder, crippling his arm. He had no time to recover. A second volley struck, and then another. The Demon Lord’s body was blasted apart, torn into bloody fragments beneath the relentless rain.
The Legendary Demons never even had a chance. Within a heartbeat, the army that had Hazon and Vlad just a few hours ago was nothing more than splatters of ash and blood staining the volcanic ground.
Through it all, the Archangel’s eyes did not move. His face was utterly blank, as though none of this slaughter even registered. His gaze remained locked on Hajack, watching as the titanic demon-dragon hybrid endured what had annihilated everything else.
Hajack’s wings cracked beneath the divine storm. Cuts opened across their molten surface, each wound hissing as divine fire seared through flesh and bone. The weight of each impact grew, the momentum stacking until it hammered the Demon Lord downward, shaking the land, splintering the black stone beneath his feet.
Blood leaked from Hajack’s mouth. His body screamed in agony, but his will did not falter. He was a Demon Lord, a conqueror of countless battlefields, a survivor of wars that had drowned realms in fire. Even with death pressing down on him, his focus did not waver.
He endured.
More wounds blossomed across his body, but he clenched his teeth, forcing his wings to hold, until finally—
The barrage faltered.
The Archangel’s expression did not shift, but his aura dimmed. Such overwhelming force carried a cost, and even an overlord of Heaven could not unleash that kind of devastation forever.
The instant the pressure relented, Hajack moved. His wings snapped open, scattering the remaining divine weapons, blasting them away with a surge of infernal might. His chest swelled, abyssal sigils burning across his flesh. Then his maw opened wide, and from it erupted a beam of annihilation.
A pillar of abyssal energy roared upward, devouring the sky. It was a beam capable of reducing worlds to ash, a torrent that consumed every divine weapon in its path as it drove forward toward the Archangel himself.
The Archangel’s face remained expressionless. He did not flinch. He merely extended his right hand and spoke a single word.
"Excalibur."
A new portal bloomed into existence, and from it descended a blade. At first glance, it was plain, almost unimpressive. A simple metallic sword, far humbler than the radiant weapons that had preceded it. Yet the moment it touched the Archangel’s grasp, the heavens themselves trembled.
Holding the sword in both hands, the Archangel swung.
The abyssal beam that could have consumed a world split in two as though it were nothing more than smoke. The two halves screamed across the sky, igniting it into a blazing inferno as they tore apart mountains and boiled seas.
For the first time, the Archangel’s eyes narrowed, his intent sharpening. He prepared to strike the final blow—
But Hajack was gone.
The space where the Demon Lord had stood was empty, as though he had evaporated into smoke. The Archangel’s gaze hardened, fury flashing for the first time. He let out a slow breath, then lowered Excalibur. With a thought, the weapon and the portals both faded into nothingness.
"There was no reason to bother with that insect, Lord Metatron," the enigmatic figure beside him said at last. His tone was soft, deferential, adopting the mannerisms of a servant who had merely watched the slaughter.
The Archangel turned his cold, unblinking eyes toward him. "Emanon," he said, voice as sharp as judgment itself. "You brought me here with the promise of a Primordial God’s corpse. Yet you said nothing of this beast. Are you trying to keep things from me?"
Emanon dropped instantly to one knee. "Never, Lord Metatron. I only knew of the path to this domain and the treasures hidden within it. But this place is ancient beyond comprehension. Some truths must have slipped past even me. I would never dare to deceive the Voice of Heaven."
Metatron’s gaze lingered on him, cold and unreadable. Then, finally, he turned away, his attention drifting to the burning horizon.
"Let us move. I do not wish to remain in this rotting place a moment longer than necessary."
"Yes, Lord Metatron."
Emanon bowed deeply, then rose. As he followed the Archangel into the distance, the glimmer in his eyes betrayed what his words had hidden: a secret satisfaction, a meaningful light as he gazed over the cursed realm.
Meanwhile, in another corner of the Sacred Realm, Hazon and Barkial led their respective forces across the fractured land. Their armies were weary, bloodied from clashes with monsters, Demons, and rival Devils. Yet at last, their paths converged.
The Devils of Sector 4 reunited.
The True Depravitas greeted one another with smiles, but their expressions quickly hardened. For before them stretched the place they had been seeking since the beginning.
The core of the dimension.
It was no mere fortress, but a colossal infernal citadel, impossibly vast and carved into existence like a wound upon reality itself. It rose from a foundation of jagged black stone that jutted upward out of rivers of molten lava, the entire structure less like something constructed and more like a nightmare. It looked alive—an edifice molded from obsidian and brimstone, pulsing with veins of magma that throbbed through its walls like the arteries of a living beast.
The fortress towered like a spire without end, its gothic walls covered in carvings that writhed when seen from the corner of one’s eye. The scale was incomprehensible. Each wall and buttress dwarfed mountains. Each gate was the size of a continent. It was clear this citadel had never been designed for mortals—it was a throne for titans, a mausoleum for gods of ruin.
Around the base of the structure stretched a wasteland of fire. Fiery chasms yawned wide, their molten rivers cascading in every direction, merging into an endless ocean of lava that boiled and frothed with malevolent life. The citadel itself stood upon a volcanic plateau, its foundations wrapped in a moat of molten rock. The heat radiating from it was so intense that even standing nearby would sear the flesh from High Legends. Even a Lord would struggle to survive if they were to fall into such ruin.
It was a stronghold worthy of a Primordial God. Waves of pressure radiated from it, an oppressive tide of cosmic force that seemed to echo the beginning of reality itself. The sheer purity of the cosmic might made the citadel throb with creation and destruction both, as though the Laws themselves had taken root and grown into this impossible monument.
The Devils exchanged meaningful glances. Primordial Gods were Laws made flesh. If such a being had truly perished here, then the residue of its corpse would be enough to transform reality. The citadel’s aura was proof enough; their assumption that they had reached the resting place of a fallen god grew only stronger.
But it was not unguarded.
The plains surrounding the fortress swarmed with nightmares made flesh. Mutated beasts of impossible size and grotesque design prowled the fire-scorched land, their forms warped by the residual Laws that bled from the citadel. Some were twisted into wolves with molten hides and too many heads, serpents whose scales glowed like burning glass, winged horrors that dripped acid as they circled above. Others were things no sane mind could comprehend: masses of tendrils stitched together with bone, eyeless giants that bellowed flame, insectoid hulks with obsidian carapaces. Each radiated a power that would have marked them as apex predators in any other land.
And there were legions of them.
The path to the citadel’s gates was a gauntlet of abominations, each one snapping and roaring with hunger at the sight of intruders.
There was no point in hesitation. The Devils knew what had to be done.
Without another word, their auras flared, igniting the air around them with waves of infernal energy. Power surged like an oncoming storm, shaking the volcanic plateau and sending shockwaves across the fiery moat. Then, with a roar that split the ash-filled sky, the full might of the Fourth Sector of Hell flashed forward.
It was not a march. It was a charge.
Like black lightning, they hurled themselves into the sea of nightmares, a storm of blades, spells, and wrath colliding with the hordes that barred their way. The air filled with shrieks, fire, and the thunder of clashing powers as the Devils and True Depravitas massacred everything in their path in order to reach the citadel.