Vale stood frozen, unable to move, as the scene unfolded before him, this moment that marked the beginning of Dagon’s descent into madness.

  Yet what unsettled him even more than Dagon’s silent departure was **her**.

  Artoria.

  She was powerful, undeniably so, but never, in all his assumptions and half-formed theories, had Vale believed she could be connected to Dagon in such a way. Not as an equal. Not as someone who could stand where even legends hesitated.

  High above them, the blood-smeared angel crouched upon the cliff’s edge, its bloody wings folding and unfolding with obscene anticipation. It did not pursue Dagon.

  It allowed him to leave.

  The creature intended to savor what remained.

  After several agonizing seconds, Dagon finally clenched his fists, his entire body trembling with restrained fury. He turned away, then stopped.

  Without looking back fully, he spoke, his voice hoarse and burning.

  “Give him hell.”

  Artoria met his gaze and nodded once.

  That was all.

  Dagon vanished, space folding around him as he escaped through the gate.

  The angel smiled.

  It was not a grin of triumph, but of indulgence.

  Artoria exhaled slowly and drew her sword. Her expression hardened, every trace of fear burned away and replaced by unrelenting resolve. She planted her feet, steadying herself.

  Then the angel moved.

  It crossed the distance in less than an instant.

  Vale felt it before he truly understood it. Artoria was a Paragon, perhaps even approaching the level of an Archon like Barbatos, but this creature was a Crowned Spawn.

  And suddenly a strange thought struck him.

  'How do I know all this?'

  The impact shattered the world.

  Artoria blocked the first strike, her blade catching the angel’s claws in a deafening collision. The ground beneath them collapsed instantly, the planet’s crust fracturing outward in a vast shockwave. Artoria screamed, not in fear, but exertion, as she retaliated, slashing upward with titanic force.

  The angel was hurled hundreds of kilometers away.

  Artoria was already there.

  She erased the distance between them, appearing in its path in a flash of warped space. But the angel reacted, raising its arm.

  And Artoria’s arm separated cleanly from her body.

  Her eyes widened in disbelief as blood sprayed into the air.

  Vale clenched his teeth. “I guess she did as well as she could,” he muttered grimly.

  But Artoria was not finished.

  She was a Pendragon after all.

  Her expression hardened, teeth grinding as she twisted reality itself, erasing the space between her severed arm and her body. In an instant, the wound reversed, flesh and bone snapping back into place as if the injury had never existed.

  The angel’s grin widened. Its infant wings wailed in shrill, unnatural unison.

  Artoria vanished again, reappearing beside it and swinging her blade in a devastating arc. The angel caught the sword with one thin, skeletal limb and laughed.

  One of the infant mouths opened.

  A beam of pure annihilation erupted at point-blank range.

  It never reached her.

  Space folded inward, collapsing the blast into nothingness, erased entirely.

  For the first time, the angel looked stunned.

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  Artoria drove her fist into its face, sending it spiraling away.

  She was exploiting something crucial.

  This creature was an apex predator in a stagnant world, a god among insects. It had never faced resistance worthy of its full strength, and now, confronted by an opponent beyond its usual prey, it hesitated.

  That hesitation was her opening.

  Artoria erased the distance once more, appearing above the angel mid-flight. She raised her leg and drove it downward, kicking the creature straight into the planet’s surface. The impact split the land open, continents fracturing as it screamed at last, truly enraged.

  Its wings roared.

  Dozens of energy blasts tore through the sky.

  Artoria’s eyes widened as she frantically folded space upon itself, destroying some, but not all of the attacks. One blast tore past her, ripping through the heavens and striking the white sun.

  The star was consumed.

  Darkness fell across the battlefield.

  In the next instant, the angel appeared before her.

  It seized both of Artoria’s arms and tore them from her body in a brutal motion. She spat blood as the creature kicked her away, sending her crashing hundreds of kilometers across the dead world.

  Vale watched in horror as she landed on her knees, vomiting blood. Her golden hair was matted crimson, her body broken and bleeding as she forced herself upright.

  The angel laughed, a hollow, corpse-like sound, its wings shrieking with glee.

  For one fleeting moment, desperation flickered in Artoria’s eyes.

  Then it vanished.

  She clenched her teeth and spoke, her voice shaking but unbroken.

  “A knight always protects her people.”

  Reality answered her call.

  Two celestial dragons manifested behind her, one emerald, one violet. Vale’s eyes widened in realization.

  Chronith and Spatium.

  Time and Space.

  The dragons roared before dissolving into radiant dust, merging with Artoria’s body. Light exploded outward as her arms reformed, blazing with power. She summoned her sword once more and screamed, a cry of defiance, sacrifice, and absolute resolve.

  She launched herself forward.

  The collision shattered the sky.

  Artoria struck the angel with overwhelming force, blasting it upward before erasing the distance between them again and again, hundreds of blows delivered in impossible succession.

  But the angel had had enough.

  It opened its mouth and whispered a cursed word.

  A hole tore through Artoria’s torso.

  She spat blood as the light in her eyes dimmed.

  For a moment, it seemed she would fall.

  Still she refused.

  With a roar, she erased the wound itself, restoring her body through sheer will. Her blade came down in a final, devastating arc, launching the Crowned Spawn through mountains, continents, and deep into the planet’s core once more.

  Vale stood trembling, witnessing not just a battle, but the cost of heroism.

  The angel tore through the planet with terrifying force, its body moving with a precision born of raw, awakened power. Artoria erased the space between them, destroying the distance in an instant, but the angel refused to relent. Even as the space collapsed, it continued along its trajectory, unstoppable, unyielding.

  Artoria braced herself. The angel’s fist struck her squarely in the abdomen. Her armor held, but the impact was cataclysmic, her organs felt as if they had been pulverized from the inside. She was hurled violently through the air, pain searing her body with every heartbeat. Yet she forced herself to recover. With grim determination, she planted her sword into the fractured earth, anchoring herself against the momentum of the blow.

  She looked up at the angel hovering above, wings shifting ominously as a radiant, corrupted sphere of energy coalesced above it. Artoria’s eyes widened; the sheer scale of it made evasion impossible. Even if she could dodge, the area of effect would consume her regardless. Her chest heaved as she clenched her teeth, frustration and resolve warring within her.

  “Very well,” she whispered, her voice a blade of steel.

  Emerald and violet light surged around her, the colors of Chronith and Spatium, her lords and guardians of Space and Time. Radiant energy enveloped her entire being, flowing through her veins, through her blade, through her very soul.

  “Hear me, my lords,” she called into the void, her voice unwavering. “I, your humble servant, request your strength to extinguish this evil. In return, I offer my life!”

  Her tone carried no hesitation, no doubt. She would give her life without question, because that was what heroes did. Vale’s chest tightened at the thought. She was Callum, embodied in a woman, unflinching in the face of annihilation, unwavering in her duty to protect her people.

  The dragons of Chronith and Spatium answered. Light coalesced around her sword, brightening with each heartbeat, saturating her armor, her body, the very air around her. She lifted the weapon high.

  “With this relic of my family,” she declared, her voice echoing across space itself, “I shall erase your filthy existence from this universe, you devil!”

  The angel responded with a roar, feral, unholy, a sound that seemed to pierce not just ears but the very soul. It launched the corrupted sphere toward her, and she met it head-on.

  “In Excalibur’s name!” she shouted, releasing all her power through her blade. “You shall perish!”

  Their lights collided. For a brief, heart-stopping moment, they were evenly matched. Then, as inevitability often follows courage, the sphere’s dark radiance overpowered her beam. Artoria gritted her teeth, pouring every ounce of her strength into the attack, but the corrupted light consumed her weapon, her aura, her very body in seconds.

  The sphere expanded. It grew. It consumed everything. Stars, planets, moons, entire worlds vanished beneath its unrelenting light. The solar system itself was erased. And yet… Artoria’s lifeless body floated through the void, a lone sentinel amidst the ruins of creation.

  The angel appeared before her, a shadow of death made flesh. Its claws gripped her head, lifting it. A wicked smile twisted its face as Artoria’s body began to twitch. Her skin darkened, the golden glow of her former self extinguished, replaced with a deep, unnatural grey.

  When her eyes opened, they were no longer hers. Hollow, consumed, voided of light, transformed into the very thing she had sworn to destroy. The hero who had given everything for her people was now their nightmare incarnate.

  Vale stumbled backward, his breaths shallow and ragged. The memory released him violently, and he collapsed onto a table behind him, trembling. His hands shook, his chest heaving. His mind reeled with horror.

  Before him, Artoria’s dark, hollow eyes opened, fixed onto him. A terror unlike any he had ever known surged through him, a cold, suffocating dread that clawed at his soul. The angel’s curse was no longer a distant memory, it was a living nightmare, and the full weight of what had happened settled upon Vale like a mountain.