Chapter 2277: The END Archangel

Azrael’s body burned with dark power, and she stared down at Baal’s broken body; and her eyes then shifted back to the Avatar. "Nyar, your end is near."

The Avatar laughed and looked at her, amused and amazed. "The Primal Portfolio of the END. How curious. You aren’t even charged up to a tenth of your former power, and you’re just a celestial, not a divine god, to use that power fully."

Nyar was right, even if Azrael was an Archangel, she is still just a celestial, an angel that should be working under a god, a god powerful enough to fuel her with power.

"So what if you just fueled yourself a bit? You’re nowhere near your prime, and even that prime wasn’t able to stop me." As he giggled, Azrael slowly moved her scythe, drawing a half-moon of shadows in the air.

"Creation, and Destruction."

"Entropy, and Stillness."

"Eternity, and Ephemerality."

"The Beginning, and The End."

She chanted, and the crust of the universe shook.

"My Divine had died Eons ago, and his corpse had become the Shadow Realm... That was his End." Her robe burned with black flames, and the forming Gravastar in the back cast its deadly shadow upon them.

"Hoo, trying to use a mortal as your god? You’ll just kill them." Nyar’s Avatar lifted his tentacles and, in the blink of an eye, sent them all toward Azrael in a single titanic attack.

BAM! The crust beneath Azrael exploded as she flapped her wings and flew forward, engulfed by shadows and tearing time itself apart. Her large scythe cut through Nyar’s tentacle like weed, and she quickly made her way toward him with ease and swung her scythe at his neck, only for him to block the attack with his arm.

"As expected, still weak." Nyar pushed her scythe away and smacked her back with one of his tentacles. "It doesn’t matter if you’re an angel, archangel, or archon... all of the celestial rely solely on their god for power."

"You talk a lot, don’t you?" Azrael jumped back and then took a stance. "Then mind explaining your plan?"

He laughed. "Yog should’ve already figured it out. I want to force Arad Orion out. He is very killable right now, and I better get rid of him now." His tentacles moved at a blinding speed, aiming at Baal to finish him off as Nyar knew that Azrael will defend him.

"If I hurt his wives, or kill one of them, he is bound to come out, and come drowned in rage. Even if I couldn’t kill him, that exertion would be enough to cripple his evolution, and I might even be able to allow Vorvadoss to banish him away into the void where he won’t be able to return for decades." He laughed, "Even if this plan fails miserably, I’d love to see how Amaterasu would explain hiding him to the other gods. This will at least shake the gods’ ranks."

Hearing that, and as she deflected the tentacles away and cut some of them with her scythe, Azrael smiled. "You... just don’t understand how hard an iron fist Amaterasu keeps on the gods."

"I know that she can do whatever she wants. But what about the other gods, archangels, and their followers? Can you, Azrael of the End, bend down and kneel to Death herself, knowing that Arad exists, that he is back?"

He flew at her at immense speed, and his tentacles moved like whips. "Your answer doesn’t even matter. What you feel and will do won’t be the same as every other archangels, some would be willing to wait, some won’t... that will break the ranks of the strongest and bring on the god’s defeat in due time."

Azrael had to answer that Question now. Can she still go back and kneel to Death herself? Can she follow her orders knowing that AO is back? She can perfectly understand what Nyar is aiming for. Many would choose to follow Arad, but... Arad now can’t support them all; it’s more efficient for the archangels to stay with their current gods.

She then started laughing. "You’re a fool, still a fool, and will always be a fool. You understand nothing about us archangels or the primordial concepts." She slashed all of the Avatar’s tentacles with her scythe and glared at him with white flames burning out of her skull mask.

A massive white magic circle emerged in the sky above them, and Azrael kicked Nyar’s avatar back as she floated up, expanding her massive black wings to cover the entire battlefield.

"We are archangels! Tools bereft of heart and emotions. We were created to serve, and we lived to serve." Her body started crackling with divine magic beyond what any god could ever hope to have.

"I shall speak in the name of my god. I have grown tired of your charade, so I challenge you. A wisp of my fading, feeble power against your abhorrent existence. Don’t you dare run away, Parasite."

Nyar’s avatar looked up and he would’ve frowned if he had a face. This wasn’t a regular celestial like before. She was now acting the same way the archangels acted when AO still walked the mortal world. They were powerful, cruel, and ruthless executioners that refused to acknowledge the existence of any abomination as more than parasites to be exterminated.

Azrael wasn’t going to just blow this Avatar away, but this entire battlefield. The most accurate way to describe the Archangels was to compare them to the Natural Killer cells. They don’t stay in one place; they don’t need orders or specific instruction. The moment they spot a threat, it’s kill on sight and as violently as possible.

Azrael here was once the Archangel working under the END, the primordial concept representing the end of everything that has started, and that primordial concept is Death’s predecessor.

[Harvest Festival]

Azrael came down like a storm, and the shadow realm poured into the battlefield like an endless flood of black tar and roaring ghosts who all looked like Azrael. There were in the thousands, and they swarmed everything from the Avatars to the regular abominations, slashing their way through with extreme prejudice.

The ghosts of Azrael didn’t care about anything or anyone. If an angel didn’t get out of the way quickly enough, they would kill them as well. Even gods were caught in her rampage and almost ended up being killed.

One of the gods who almost got killed was Hecate, who was running away from Eris’s tent with Selica behind her, and both of them were terrified. Even if Hecate was hundreds of times stronger than Selica, the two of them were far too weak to help with anything in this fight, so the best they could do was run and take command of some angels.

It was then that Azrael’s flood of death reached them, and one of the ghosts swung its scythe at Hecate as she didn’t get out of the way fast enough. Selica quickly pushed her aside and swung a fist at the ghost, only for her fist to pass right through it, and her explosions did nothing at all.

But surprisingly, the emotionless and mindless ghost of slaughter halted, bent down, sniffed Selica, caught Arad’s scent on it, and moved along, without killing them.

"What did you do to it? Why did it stop?" Looking around, the ghosts weren’t stopping for no one.

"Like hell I know?!" Selica growled, "Let’s run..." She grabbed Hecate by the hand and dragged her away. "And... stop being a bitch and move on your own! You’re supposed to be stronger than me, so show it!"

Looking far away, they could see and feel the ground shaking as Azrael and Nyar’s avatar clashed in the distance, the echoes of their titanic battle far to horrifying and absurd that even the angels knew they’ll be having nightmares about it for the coming centuries.

Back inside the forming Gravastar, Luminous flew at blinding speed and punched Vorvadoss in the face, grabbed his bald head, and threw him down with enough force to accelerate him to near the speed of light.

^Linda, are you okay? Have you been getting hotter and more unstable lately?^ Luminous thought, and Linda growled back at her. ^This archon... the one who calls herself Azrael came to my thoughts and begged me to let her worship me as a goddess of shadows and the End. She said that Baal’s life was on the line, and Arad’s shadow seemed to agree with her, so I complied...^

^What? You’re a goddess now?^

^No, just a conduit between that Archangel and the Shadow Realm... she needed me since I’m the strongest Shadow user here besides Death Herself... who can’t transfer the power of shadows and the END since she is already the goddess of Death.^

"Damn it..." Luminous growled as her clash with Vorvadoss grew even more violent. ^You’re just an open hole that links her to the Shadow Realm... great... I hope that doesn’t doom us here.^

^I can handle it by reversing time on my body, soul and mind to heal any damage, so don’t worry about me and fight to your heart’s content. I’ll give you as much time power as you need, and give that Archangel as many shadows as she wants. If I’m not experienced enough to fight directly, then I’ll act as support.^