Chapter 305: Chapter 304: Gaming time.
The sky tore open.
Ash fell like rain, and thunder rumbled like the heart of a beast. Ureil descended through it all, four dark wings blazing with white fire. She hit the ground like a starfall, stone splitting under her boots, a crater blooming outwards.
Atlas braced himself, but she was already moving. Faster than sight.
Her sword flared, and his chest opened. One shallow breath—and his ribs were already wet with blood.
He staggered, snarling, but she didn’t stop. A backhand caught him across the jaw, snapping his head sideways. Teeth shattered. He spat red and bone into the dust.
"Pathetic," she hissed, voice like honey poured over knives.
Aurora screamed and lunged in, a light blade flashing at her throat. Ureil caught the strike mid-swing with two fingers, broke the blade in blisters, and slammed the hilt into Aurora’s face. Bone cracked. Aurora went tumbling across the stones, her flight spell snapping under her own weight.
Ureil didn’t even look back.
The Lion King roared, charging, four arms swiping with claws that could peel mountains. Ureil stepped into him, caught two wrists, and tore. Flesh ripped, tendons snapped, claws broke like glass.
His scream shook the battlefield as she planted a boot into his chest and kicked him away—armor crumpling under the force.
"King?" Ureil sneered. "You crawl like a beaten dog."
Azazel struck next, staff whipping shadows into a storm. Bolts of black fire slammed into her wings, explosions blinding. She walked through them, wings burning brighter, until the staff itself cracked in her grip. She pulled Azazel close, whispered in his ear, "Loud little devil," then crushed his face against the ground so hard the stone cratered beneath him. Blood poured from his mouth as he coughed laughter.
The Hive king Galiath shrieked, his swarm blotting the sky. Locusts bit, wings chewed, thousands of tiny mouths ripping at Ureil’s flesh. For a heartbeat, the angel disappeared inside the black tide.
And then light.
Her wings flared, white fire exploding outward, each feather a blade. The swarm burned to ash mid-air, their corpses falling in a rain of cinders. The Hive king reeled, half his mind screaming as her connection to them snapped like threads.
Ureil’s gaze turned on Galiath. "You dare?"
She crossed the ground in a blink, hand spearing through the bunny man’s abdomen. Blood gushed, ichor dripping down Ureil’s arm as she lifted the demoness like a skewered insect. Then she flung her aside, body tumbling lifeless across the battlefield.
Atlas was back on his feet. His breath came ragged, chest heaving, but his eyes blazed golden. He roared, slamming his fist into the earth, stone launching upward in slabs. He hurled them at her, one after another, the ground itself turned into artillery.
She batted them aside like toys. One stone cracked against her shoulder, another against her face—her smile only widened.
"You think brute strength will save you?" she mocked. She spread her wings, launching herself forward. Her blade pierced Atlas’s thigh, spearing clean through. He screamed as she lifted him off the ground by the weapon lodged in his leg.
Aurora came from behind, blood running down her face, her staff raised, with a hint of LAW. Ureil spun, using Atlas’s body as a shield. Aurora’s cane stabbed deep into him instead, crimson flooding her hands as she froze in horror.
Atlas’s roar shook the air. Pain, fury, betrayal, all twisted into one sound. He wrenched himself off the sword, slammed his forehead into Ureil’s nose. Blood burst across her face—but she was laughing even as it broke.
"You bleed each other better than I ever could," she spat.
With a heave, she threw Atlas into Aurora. The two crashed together, skidding across the stone in a heap of blood and broken wings.
The Lion King crawled to his feet, two arms hanging limp, blood painting his fur. He roared again, desperate, pride cracking under humiliation. He charged once more. Ureil caught his throat mid-lunge, lifted him, and crushed until cartilage snapped. His roar died to a choke, eyes bulging.
Azazel staggered up from the crater, laughter still spilling through broken teeth. "Yes... yes! Break us harder! Let him see he’s nothing without his toys!"
Ureil dropped the Lion King’s body and kicked it aside. Her eyes locked on Atlas again, golden against white fire. She pointed her sword at him, blood dripping from its edge.
"You see now?" she said. "You are not feared because you are strong. You are feared because you might become strong. But right now? You.are.prey."
Atlas wiped blood from his mouth, chest rising and falling like a beast caged in rage. His golden eyes narrowed. He spat onto the stone, red staining black rock.
"Prey bites hardest," he growled.
Ureil laughed, wings spreading wide, fire casting a false dawn over the battlefield.
"Then show me your fangs before I tear them out."
Blood dripped into Atlas’s eyes. His body screamed, his bones rattled from every strike Ureil had dealt. He was on his knees, chest heaving, when a flicker of memory struck him—raw, jagged, out of place.
A controller in his hand. His room lit only by a flickering monitor. The loading screen of the game. The name: Ureil, the fallen Seraph of White Flame.
He remembered her. He remembered this.
The night he raged and cursed at her scripted patterns, dying over and over until his knuckles bled from smashing the desk. Forty-eight times. Forty-eight failures. And then—victory. Her move set had seared itself into his muscle memory, every slash, every wing beat, every cruel counter.
Atlas wiped the blood from his mouth, grinning through broken teeth. "You’re not a god," he muttered. "You’re a fucking boss fight."
Ureil’s head tilted, sensing something change. Her wings flared, fire dripping like molten gold. "Still laughing at your own funeral?"
Atlas stood, shaky but steady. He turned, shouting to the others—his voice sharp, commanding.
"Three seconds! That’s all I need!"
Aurora, still spitting blood, stared at him like he’d lost his mind. "Three seconds against her?"
"Trust me," Atlas growled. "I know how she moves. Every strike. Every dodge. Just give me the window!"
The Succubus Queen Jenny—lips split, horn chipped—licked blood from her teeth and smirked. "You’re insane... but I like insane." Her aura rippled, emotions bending in waves, seeping into Ureil’s mind like poisoned honey.
Galiath, hive-mind tyrant, snarled but obeyed. His swarm reformed, tendrils of thought reaching, stabbing at Ureil’s psyche. A thousand insectile whispers clawed at her mind, gnawing at her focus.
Aurora closed her eyes. The skin of her forehead split, and her third eye opened—raw and luminous, a gaze that pierced the veil of thought itself. Light burst from it, striking Ureil square in the skull.
Ureil staggered. For the first time, her movements faltered, the certainty in her wings dimming. Rage flared across her features, a scream building—but it was there. The gap.
Three seconds.
Atlas moved.
He surged forward faster than sight, his body remembering not just the fight, but the rhythm. Ureil’s blade cut left—he was already ducking. Her wing swept wide—he spun beneath it, slamming a fist into her ribs. Bones cracked. She staggered, eyes widening.
He chained the motions together like a player spamming a practiced combo. Step. Duck. Uppercut. Elbow. Sweep the leg. Knee the jaw. Every counter came before her attack fully landed. He knew them all. He had memorized her.
Ureil screamed as his fists slammed into her chest, one after another. Golden light bled from his eyes as he poured every ounce of will into his strikes. Her wings flared desperately, but each move she made, Atlas was already inside it—anticipating, dismantling, punishing.
The elder, watching from the shadows, froze. His veiled head tilted, robes rippling as if caught in unseen wind.
"He knows her... he fights her as if he’s walked this path before, this present before...a prophet, a true prophet..."
Atlas roared, the last strike building in his chest. He feinted left, the exact way she expected him to fail—and then twisted right, his fist slamming into her throat. Her breath cut short, body reeling. He followed with a brutal haymaker that cracked across her jaw, snapping her head sideways.
She fell.
Ureil, the terror of the demons, the re-forged angel of Heaven’s hidden war, crashed to her knees. Blood spilled from her mouth, feathers torn from her wings scattering across the ash.
Atlas loomed over her, chest heaving, golden eyes blazing like suns. "Forty-eight times," he whispered. "That’s how many times I died learning how to kill you. And you won’t get a forty-ninth."
The battlefield stilled. Aurora stared in shock. Jenny licked her lips in wicked delight. Galiath hissed in disbelief, his swarm trembling from the backlash of Ureil’s resistance.
From the shadows, the elder’s whisper curled into the hive of the Fourth Layer:
"He is not Chosen because of prophecy. He is Chosen because of memory."
And in the silence that followed, Atlas raised his fist again—ready to end her once and for all.