Michael raised his golden spear high and shouted a single command that echoed across the sky.
Suddenly, the hesitation vanished from his army of Angels. Bound to his authority, the soldiers who before anxiouslyngripping their weapons now surged forward like a golden tide.
They didn’t move because they wanted to. They moved because they had no choice. Michael’s command was absolute etched into their very existence.
Gabriel turned slightly toward him, his eyes narrowing. He could feel that Michael wasn’t calm. The usual cold precision that defined the Archangel was gone.
It was eplaced with something sharper and feels more erratic. A sense of agitation simmered beneath his expression tightening his jaw and made the corner of his eyes twitching
Michael never looked . Not even in the wars that shattered realms or in front of the Black Wall before.
"What’s gotten into him?" Gabriel muttered to himself.
But he didn’t dwell on it. He thought that perhaps Michael was simply reacting like all of them. Feeling pressured by the presence of an anomaly and have to deal with them.
Without further pause, Gabriel raised his hand and signaled to his own legion.
And just like that, another hundred Angel warriors launched into the air, forming rank and wave beside Michael’s soldiers.
Blazing with light and power, they charged across the broken sky toward the mansion.
The other Higher Beings—Celestials, other Archangels, and Demon Kings—stood back in silent calculation while watching them attack.
They were letting Michael and Gabriel test the waters. Letting them spend lives and strength first for them to see what would happen next.
From her position in the sky, Asqa watched them come.
She grit her teeth. Her eyes moved between the two Angel battalions hurtling toward the mansion.
She raised one arm and ten of her clones broke formation and moving toward the incoming armies.
And then the impact happened.
The two Angel armies met the ten Asqas in the sky above the ruined landmass in a blinding explosion of power and movements.
The clash was like watching a hundred stars fall at once. Asqa’s clones moved with terrifying coordination. One of them conjured a burning spear of fire and hurled it with such speed it pierced straight through three soldiers, exploding into a chain of firestorms.
Another clone move midair and unleashed a vortex of green poison mist that clung to flesh and armor and melting wings and weapons with ghastly speed.
Two clones danced together. Calling down thunderbolts in synchronized arcs that tore holes through Gabriel’s soldiers.
The lightning screaming as it carved a path through Angel flesh.
Michael’s forces struck back with holy beams and radiant blades. They tried to cage her with seals and magic nets but the clones shattered them with counterspells of bladed ice and chain lightning.
A clone landed among a formation of ten warriors without them reozing it and raised her hand. The ground air around them erupted with black vines laced with venom.
The screams of the soldiers followed next.
Another one of the clone pulled some kind of light pillar from the sky itself and shaped it into a jagged whip then spinning it in a circle as she cut the bodies of a dozen flying soldiers.
Gabriel’s forces began to falter. Michael’s were losing formation.
They had expected resistance but not this carnage.
They had expected that the woman was strong but she actually capable of slaughtering their army.
Above it all, Michael watched in silent fury as one by one his soldiers were torn apart. Gabriel narrowed his eyes beside him, hands clenched.
"Our army is dying..." Gabriel whispered.
"I guess right now even she’s still holding back," Michael muttered.
Both of them felt that dread right now.
Then Michael’s sharp and thunderous with frustration voice roared across the battlefield
"ARE THE REST OF YOU JUST GOING TO STAND THERE AND WATCH LIKE COWARDS?!"
His golden spear pointed toward the Celestials and toward the Demon Kings who had remained silent until now.
"YOU ALL CALL YOURSELVES HIGHER BEINGS BUT YOU TREMBLE BEHIND YOUR LEGIONS WHILE A SINGLE WOMAN HOLDS US OFF!" Michael shout again.
There was venom in his tone. Fury and desperation woven together. But he knew that it would work.
The insult struck nerves. The Celestials exchanged glances, their pride wounded. The Demon Kings growled low, their pride not permitting them to be mocked in front of the others.
And the gods now finally lifted their weapons.
"Tch," one of the Celestials muttered. "Fine. Let’s see if she can handle this."
"We’ll break through now," one of the jungle gods murmured, already channeling energy.
A moment later, the battlefield surged forward again.
Hordes of armies of Demons, beastly juggernauts, elemental spirits. All began moving toward Asqa’s position in a massive coordinated march.
Hundreds more, maybe thousands, coming at once in waves of chaos and light.
Asqa watched them. For the first time, she didn’t speak.
Her hands tightened into fists and for a flicker of a moment her jaw tensed with something that looked like fear.
She took a deep breath. Her body glowing again with that tricolor aura of red, green, and blue.
Her voice sounded quiet but steady when it echoed from her lips. "Not yet. I can’t die yet!"
And then dozens more clones split from her body, shimmering into being one after another.
Her aura surged and lighting up the entire sky around her like a sun that want to explode.
The new clones darted across the sky in a disciplined arc, intercepting the oncoming forces with flawless precision.
Fire clash againts steel. Lightning met with dark color. Poison met with elemental attacks.
The Ruin trembled again beneath the force of the next clash. Asqa had thrown everything she had again. And all just to buy time for Clyde.
Inside the mansion the scream from Clyde was still going on. He wasn’t aware at all about what happened outside.