Chapter 704 – Tragic Hero VS ill Fated Young Master [Part 2]
Lux teleported forward in a blur, reappearing midair with both daggers blazing. The angel lunged upward, sword swinging in a catastrophic upward arc.
Their weapons collided.
The impact exploded into a blinding eruption of infernal green and celestial silver. Shockwaves rippled outward, shattering floating structures and sending dinsional echoes screaming across the limbo sky.
They held the clash for a heartbeat.
Two.
Three.
Then both unleashed simultaneous finishing strikes.
Lux drove his daggers forward in a double thrust.
The angel brought its sword down in a catastrophic cleave.
The collision detonated with a thunderous explosion that hurled both combatants across the battlefield.
Lux flew backward like a ragdoll tossed by narrative convenience. He slamd into the ground, bounced once, rolled twice, and ca to a halt in a very unflattering heap.
The angel crashed into a distant slab of floating architecture, sliding down it before collapsing onto the obsidian terrain with an equally dramatic lack of dignity.
For a mont, nothing moved.
Then Lux coughed violently, spitting another mouthful of blood. He twitched one arm upward like he was trying to grasp victory but mostly grasping air.
"Curse... you..." he rasped weakly.
Across the battlefield, the angel pushed itself halfway upright. It planted its sword into the ground, trying to stand like a wounded champion refusing to fall. It trembled. Struggled. Wings twitching.
Then it collapsed anyway.
Both of them lay sprawled across the limbo terrain like two extrely expensive sacks of potatoes who had lost a bar fight with destiny.
Silence returned.
Lux let his head loll sideways. He forced shallow breaths, body twitching occasionally as if Dark Healing was failing to keep up with catastrophic injuries.
[You are actually fine.]
"Shhh," Lux whispered through barely parted lips.
The angel twitched weakly across the battlefield, fingers curling against the ground. It tried to lift its sword again but failed, arm collapsing under invisible exhaustion.
Lux slowly dragged one arm across the ground, fingers clawing uselessly at the obsidian surface like he was trying to reach an unreachable exit.
His wings trembled.
His daggers slipped from his grip, clattering dramatically across the terrain.
He coughed again.
Spat more blood.
Then went still except for shallow, ragged breathing.
Across the battlefield, the angel mirrored the performance perfectly. Its chest rose and fell in heavy, labored breaths. Its wings sagged against the ground like broken banners of lost heroism.
Both looked completely, devastatingly spent.
Lux kept one eye barely open, watching the limbo horizon through his peripheral vision.
Waiting.
[You are attempting bait tactic.]
"Yes," Lux mouthed silently.
Floating debris drifted slower now, as if the dinsion itself was holding its breath. The fractured sky shimred faintly, ripples forming along the veil between illusion layers.
Then everything... stopped.
Not gradually. Not naturally.
It was like soone hit pause on existence.
The drifting stair fragnts froze mid-spin. The broken balconies halted in place. The flickering sky snapped into a flat, colorless sheet like a painting that suddenly forgot it was supposed to move.
Lux remained sprawled across the obsidian terrain, chest rising in shallow, convincingly pathetic breaths. Blood still sared across his lip. One wing half-folded beneath him in dramatic ruin. One dagger lay just out of reach like symbolic tragedy weapon placent.
Across from him, the monstrous angel flickered.
Its massive exaggerated form glitched. The overbuilt musculature collapsed inward. The cathedral-sized wings shrank. The holy overcompensation halo fractured like glass.
Vizreel erged beneath the dissolving illusion.
The Archon lay in nearly the sa position. Armor scuffed. Sword half embedded in the ground beside him. One arm stretched forward like he had tried to stand and failed. His wings lay spread awkwardly behind him in what could only be described as "hero dying attractively."
Both of them kept still.
Both of them stayed in character.
If soone was watching... they needed to see two enemies who had nearly killed each other and now had nothing left.
Silence deepened.
Then ca the footsteps.
Slow.
asured.
Controlled.
Not Lux’s.
Not Vizreel’s.
The sound echoed across the dead-still terrain like soone walking through a courtroom where verdicts were written in blood and divine paperwork.
Lux’s pulse remained calm. His eyes stayed half-lidded. But his senses sharpened to surgical focus.
The footsteps stopped.
A new presence filled the space.
Lux couldn’t see the full figure yet, but the aura hit him first. Dense. Oppressive. Balanced with terrifying precision. Not chaotic like war angels. Not serene like council guardians.
Cold.
Calculated.
Lux’s instincts whispered danger in seventeen different languages.
He slowly shifted his gaze just enough to see the figure standing between him and Vizreel.
The angel was tall. Taller than Vizreel. Armor layered in pale silver and polished obsidian filants that moved like liquid authority. A halo floated above its head, but unlike normal celestial halos, this one rotated in segnted rings filled with engraved judgnt scripts that continuously rewrote themselves.
Its wings were narrow but impossibly long, feather edges sharpened into blade-like lines that humd with silent threat.
Lux did not recognize him.
Which ant he was either extrely new... or extrely high rank.
Probably both terrifying.
Vizreel’s eyes shifted slightly.
Lux caught it.
Shock.
Not fear.
Shock.
Vizreel knew him.
And that was worse.
Lux kept his breathing ragged, body twitching occasionally like Dark Healing was failing to keep him conscious. But inside, his mind was already building escape projections, assassination fallback contingencies, and three separate revenge portfolios.
He whispered under his breath.
"System... give status and class."
A faint interface flickered across his vision.
[Scanning target...]
[Analyzing authority signature...]
[Warning: Data access restricted.]
[Compiling partial profile...]
[Na: Arch-Luminary Seraph Vaeloryn Absolar]
[Title: Arbiter of Doctrinal Purity]
[Class: Celestial Execution]
[Level: ???]
[Threat Assessnt: Catastrophic]
[Recomndation: Pretend to stay dead.]
Lux nearly snorted.
He swallowed it and coughed weakly instead, spitting another theatrical streak of blood across the obsidian floor.
The new angel stepped closer, boots producing no sound despite the dramatic aura.
"I thought both of you were better than this," Vaeloryn said.
His voice was calm. Refined. The kind of voice that had never raised volu because it never needed to.
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