Looking at Lilith acting smug—her chin raised, her crimson eyes half-lidded with satisfaction, her lips curled into that insufferable, adorable smirk—Gabriel was amused. He smiled, slow and easy, because he had no intention of losing anyway.
"Don’t rejoice too early, babe," he said, his voice light but carrying an undercurrent of promise. "You know what I’m capable of."
Lilith’s smirk widened into a full grin. Her fangs glinted in the artificial sunlight.
"Fufu! Bring it on!"
Just as the couple was bickering—trading barbs and challenges like two children arguing over a ga—the ground rumbled.
At first, it was a low vibration, barely perceptible, like the distant shudder of an earthquake. Then it grew. The sand beneath their feet began to dance, small grains leaping into the air. Cracks spread across the baked clay, fissures that widened into crevices, crevices that deepened into chasms.
From those chasms, they ca.
The sky darkened.
Not with clouds—the artificial sun still blazed overhead—but with bodies. Countless monsters erged from every direction, from every hiding place, from every crack and shadow the desert had to offer. They were nurous. So nurous it was no longer a battle or a hunt.
It was a horde.
On the ground, the monsters charged furiously.
Giant sand desert scorpions led the vanguard, their massive pincers snapping, their venomous tails arched high. Each one was the size of a carriage, their chitinous shells gleaming like polished obsidian. Behind them ca Sand Worms—enormous, segnted creatures that burrowed through the earth and erupted without warning, their circular maws lined with rows of grinding teeth.
Sand Hyenas followed, lean and vicious, their fur the color of dried blood. They moved in packs, flanking the larger monsters, their yellow eyes fixed on the couple with predatory hunger. Salamanders slithered among them, their bodies glowing with internal heat, leaving trails of molten sand in their wake. And bringing up the rear were the Drakes—smaller cousins of true dragons, but no less deadly. Their copper scales shimred, their wings unfurled, and their throats glowed with the promise of fla.
It was an army. A legion. A tide of fang and claw and chitin that stretched from one horizon to the other.
Above, the sky was no safer.
Countless wyverns circled like vultures, their leathery wings blotting out the artificial sun. They dove and soared in coordinated formations, their amber eyes locked onto Gabriel’s golden figure. Among them flew Sand Sky Harpies—grotesque creatures with the torsos of won and the wings of vultures, their claws sharp enough to tear through steel, their screams loud enough to shatter eardrums.
Giant Wasps buzzed in dense swarms, each one the size of a horse, their stingers dripping with paralytic venom. They wove between the wyverns and harpies, their compound eyes reflecting the chaos below.
There was no end to them. For every monster that erged, ten more followed. For every ten, a hundred. The desert had beco a spawning ground, and the dungeon had emptied its reserves.
It was as if the dungeon itself—that ancient, fearful spirit—was trying everything in its power to kill them. To overwhelm them with numbers. To drown them in bodies.
The couple exchanged a look.
It was not a look of fear. Not a look of concern. Not even a look of surprise.
Both wore crazed smiles—wide, unhinged, beautiful smiles that did not belong on an angel and a demon, but sohow suited them perfectly. Their eyes burned with undisguised lust for slaughter. Their bodies humd with barely contained mana.
They spoke simultaneously.
"I’ll take the sky."
"I’ll stay on the ground."
A beat of silence. Then Lilith added, her voice dripping with provocation, "Good luck, hubby. Well, I’ll win anyway."
Even with countless monsters closing in on them from above and below—even with the ground trembling and the sky darkening—there was no tension in her voice. No urgency. No fear. She might as well have been discussing the weather.
Facing her provocation, Gabriel simply smirked. His cross-shaped pupils glead.
Then his twelve golden wings unfurled—majestic, radiant, each feather blazing with ancient runes—and he shot toward the sky like a cot of light. Sand and dust erupted behind him, forming a crater where he had stood.
As he ascended, two golden portals ripped open beside him. From each portal stepped a clone—identical to Gabriel in every way, save for their six wings instead of twelve. They moved in perfect synchronization, flanking their original, their golden spears already materializing in their hands.
The three archangels rose to et the horde above.
Lilith watched her man ascend, her eyes trailing his beautiful form until he vanished into the swarm of wyverns and harpies. She whistled softly—a low, admiring sound.
"As expected of my man," she murmured. "I must not be undone."
She turned to face the horde below.
The ground shook. The scorpions, worms, hyenas, salamanders, and drakes were almost upon her—a wall of fangs and claws and chitin that stretched across the entire desert.
Lilith raised her bastard sword.
Darkness answered her call.
From her shadow, from the shadows of the dunes, from the shadows cast by the monsters themselves, her army rose. Two hundred shadow undeads erupted from the ground—towering cyclopes with blue-fla eyes, their phantom weapons gleaming. They ford ranks behind her, silent and patient, their smoky bodies rippling in the hot wind.
Lilith stood at their head, her crimson robe billowing, her silver hair dancing, her sword raised high.
She looked like a general. A queen. A goddess of death.
"Charge," she ordered.
And two hundred shadows charged.
Above, Gabriel and his clones t the sky horde head-on. Golden light exploded outward, illuminating the desert below. Wyverns fell in burning heaps. Harpies were torn apart by temporal lances. Giant wasps dissolved in waves of pure radiance.
BOOM. BOOM. BOOM.
Each impact was a thunderclap. Each explosion was a sunrise.
Below, Lilith’s shadow army crashed into the ground horde. Scorpion’s pincers snapped around smoky limbs that reford instantly. Sand worms swallowed shadows whole, only to have those shadows carve their way out from within. Hyenas leaped and were t by phantom axes. Salamanders burned and found that shadow undeads did not fear fire.
Lilith herself waded into the carnage, her bastard sword singing. Purple lightning danced. Hell fla roared. Every swing killed a dozen monsters. Every step crushed a score more.
The couple could not see each other through the chaos.
But they could feel each other.
And there were smiling.
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