The Demon King raised his colossal sword, the flames coiling and writhing around the black metal as if they were living, venomous serpents. The heat forced Aaron to shield his eyes momentarily, the intensity radiating outward like a collapsed, localized star.
"...I will kill you like I did to Azrael and the rest of you fools…"
The words were not accidental; they were a precise, tailored cruelty. The Demon King, whose true name was Chaos—or Zargoth, as the ancient orders had named him—never wasted an opportunity for psychological warfare. He knew which threads to pull to maximize the pain of his foes.
Azrael. The name struck Aaron like a warhammer to the chest. Azrael, the Arch-Guardian, the man who had taught him how to wield a blade before he had seen his first whore. Azrael, the leader of the now-broken covenant, whose light had been snuffed out mere weeks ago, plunging the righteous resistance into a cavernous darkness.
Aaron landed in a low crouch, his fingers finally settled and firm around the hilt of Storm-Eater. The demon's words, thick with malice and the stench of brimstone, had achieved what the physical blows could not: they had burned away the fog of pain, replacing it with a cold, absolute clarity. If he was to die here, he would make the bastard pay for the arrogance of even uttering that name.
He launched himself from the ground, a blinding flash of silver slicing horizontally. It was a desperate, two-handed sweep aimed not at the Chaos's center mass, but at the demon's dominant arm, a gambler's throw for a forced stagger or a brief disarmament.
Clang.
The impact was a brutal, physical shockwave. Storm-Eater met the obsidian surface of the demon's massive, flaming blade, and the collision of celestial silver and infernal black jarred Aaron's teeth. A screaming, painful thrum shot up his arms. The resistance was total, like striking a sheer cliff face of cold iron. Chaos had not even bothered to parry—he had simply met the blow head-on, supremely confident in his superior mass and power.
Aaron felt a sharp, cracking sensation in his wrist, but he held the grip fast. He dug his heels into the pulverized earth, his body a monument to bloody-minded refusal.
"Never," Aaron spat, the single word a raw testament to the righteous fury that was now the only thing keeping his meat and bone upright. His eyes, usually the calm, deep blue of a mountain lake, blazed with the reflection of the fiery battlefield and the consuming flames of his enemy's weapon. He was no longer a man; he was a conduit for the vengeance of the fallen.
He pressed the attack, driving his entire remaining weight into the lock, attempting to shift the demon's balance. Chaos, in turn, bore down with an easy, mocking strength. The muscles in Aaron's neck stood out like cords, his face a mask of sweat, blood, and the final, savage determination of a man already dead. He would not just fight for his life; he was fighting for the memory of every fallen comrade, for the shattered ideals of the Seven Guardians, and most keenly, for the light that had been Azrael.
"You'll pay for every soul you've taken, Zargoth. Especially Azrael's."
He put everything into a final, desperate shove, twisting his shoulders and pivoting his hips, forcing the demon to shift his weight back a half-step. The maneuver was small, almost invisible, but it created an opening. The demon's guard, predicated on overpowering defense, was marginally lowered. Aaron disengaged his blade just as Chaos started to swing wide.
Chaos was too strong, too fast, and too arrogant. He saw the shift, saw the vulnerability, and countered instantly. The flaming sword, which had been held defensively, now swept in a devastating arc aimed not at disarming Aaron, but at cleaving him in two vertically, from shoulder to hip.
This was it. The air was a vacuum, the heat unbearable, the silence of the fatal swing deafening. Aaron knew he couldn't dodge, couldn't block. He braced, closing his eyes, focusing his last thought on Azrael, whispering a silent, raw apology for failing to hold the line.
Just as the flaming blade began its lightning-quick descent, a sound of impossible volume ripped through the ravaged landscape. It was a sound of natural, untamed power—a deep, resonant, enormous roar that seemed to emanate not from a throat, but from the very fabric of reality. The sound was so concussive, so overwhelmingly present, that it physically stalled the demon's attack, freezing the huge flaming blade a mere foot from Aaron's skull.
A voice—a single, dominating human voice—followed the sonic wave, echoing across the ruins with a clarity that belied the distance it must have traveled.
"Lion's Roar!"
The impact of the voice, the command it carried, seemed to momentarily short-circuit the Demon King's millennia-old reflexes. Chaos—Zargoth—jolted, his immense body trembling, not from fear, but from profound, bewildering recognition. His dark eyes, which were moments before alight with murderous triumph, widened slightly. The flames coiling around his sword sputtered, momentarily losing their vivid intensity.
"W-was that... Azrael?" the Demon King mumbled, his voice for the first time laced with a shred of doubt, a phantom dread born of a successful history. It was impossible. He had personally overseen the disintegration of Azrael's light-essence. Yet, the familiar surge of Aura—that specific, lionine signature of overwhelming, protective power—was unmistakable.
As Chaos grappled with this contradiction, a figure began to emerge from the dense cloud of smoke and ash kicked up by the battle. The entrance was theatrical, deliberate, and awe-inspiring.
He was tall, commanding a staggering presence that immediately relegated Chaos to a secondary focus, despite the demon's size. The figure was clad in a long, magnificent coat that flowed like a cape of woven lightning, dyed in rich, deep gold and brilliant azure blue. The garment was absurdly opulent for a battlefield, a defiant splash of color against the ashes, and yet it seemed untouched by the grit.
Beneath the open coat, the figure was topless, displaying a physique that defied biology. It was not merely muscular; it was clockwork. Smooth, burnished metals—gold, silver, and something that shimmered like polished copper—were seamlessly integrated with taut flesh and sinew, forming an intricate tapestry of power and artifice. Pistons hissed softly beneath the skin of his chest, and bands of glowing, blue energy pulsed rhythmically beneath the metallic plating of his torso and arms. It was the body of a god crafted by a masterful watchmaker.
But it was the head that demanded all attention. Covering his face was a masterful black and gold lion mask. It was a stylized, predatory face, all sharp angles and regal lines, with a silent, open roar fixed in the metal. From the crest of the mask erupted an enormous, lush blue mane, streaked with vibrant black highlights, crackling with latent, volatile energy. The mane was not hair; it was an incandescent manifestation of raw power, shimmering like captured starlight.
The newcomer strode across the pulverized ground, his gait economical and utterly confident, pausing only when he reached Aaron's side, shielding the wounded warrior with his own massive form. He carried no weapon, but the mechanical power radiating from his body was a shield in itself.
Chaos stared at the figure, his lips curled back in a snarl of baffled rage. His initial flicker of fear was replaced by a more familiar, towering fury. The sight of such defiance, such blatant power—power that rivaled his own—infuriated him. He had killed the protectors of this realm. Who dared to rise now?
"Who are you?" Chaos demanded again, the roar less authoritative, laced with an undeniable, grinding annoyance. He adjusted his grip on the flaming scimitar, prepared to strike again, this time with double the force, double the malice.
The masked figure turned his head slightly, the huge blue mane swaying with the movement. The eyes visible through the mask's slits were an impossible, piercing gold.
"I'm Kaiel, son of Azrael!"
The admission hung in the air, a profound challenge. The son of the man Chaos had slain. It made sense now—the shared aura, the lion motif, the sudden emergence. But the sheer audacity of the claim, and the sheer power of the son, only stoked the demon king's arrogance.
Chaos threw back his head and laughed—a harsh, rattling sound that was devoid of any humor, pure venom and dismissive cruelty. The sound scraped against the damaged stones of Veridia.
"The spawn of the failed prophet! Pathetic! The Guardians fought me, and the Guardians died! You think a mere echo of a man stands a chance where the originals failed? You'll join your father and the rest of the Seven Guardians in the dust! I will rip that gaudy coat from your shoulders and melt that ridiculous mask to your skull! Now move, before I make your death slow and meaningful!"
Kaiel remained utterly still, his posture relaxed, yet ready. He regarded the screaming, incandescent mass of the demon king with a profound, almost boring calmness. There was no fear, no struggle, only an unnerving, absolute certainty. The gold of his coat seemed to absorb the demon's flames, untouched.
"You speak of death, Zargoth," Kaiel said, his voice level, resonant, and utterly tranquil, a stark contrast to the violence of the moment. He spoke the ancient name of the demon, a further calculated insult. "But you do not yet understand the nature of the blade that killed my father. You see only the failure of the resistance, but you have failed to grasp the one thing they achieved."
He lifted his bare, mechanically detailed hand, palm facing the demon. The intricate plates of his forearm shifted with the motion, glowing with blue light. It wasn't a combat stance; it was a simple gesture of presentation.
"You have been hit by a celestial weapon," Kaiel stated, the words pronounced not as a threat, but as an undeniable, cold fact of physics.
Chaos blinked. Hit? When? He hadn't been touched. He hadn't even felt a breath of wind from the boy. He glanced down at his body, searching for the invisible strike, the unseen laceration. Nothing. The arrogance returned, bubbling up through the demon's skin like lava.
"Lies! You strike at me with words, boy? You think you can—"
He never finished the sentence.
A searing, agonizing pain struck Chaos, not externally, but internally. It was a profound, systemic collapse that began deep within his core, originating from the nexus of his infernal energy. It was not the pain of a cut or a burn; it was the pain of anti-existence. The celestial energy, whatever it was, was not damaging his physical form, but actively corroding the non-physical, the very spiritual essence that defined him as a Demon King.
Chaos staggered back a step, the colossal flaming sword dropping slightly. He instinctively clamped his free hand over his massive heart, but the agony was coming from inside, spreading like an unstoppable acid wash. He began to gasp, a raw, wheezing sound that quickly transformed into a high-pitched scream of utter despair.
He looked down at his arm again, horrified. Dark patches were appearing on his obsidian skin, not wounds, but areas where the infernal energy was simply ceasing to be, spreading like necrotic rot. The light in his eyes dimmed, and the flames that had wreathed his weapon and body began to sputter, shrink, and finally die.
"What is this... trick?" Chaos shrieked, the volume of his voice fading as his power waned. His consciousness was dissolving, his millennia of conquest and terror dissolving with it. He tried to fight back, to lash out with the last vestiges of his strength, but his limbs were leaden, unresponsive. The celestial energy was quiet, inexorable, and unstoppable. It was the ultimate counter to his nature.
He realized the awful, terrifying truth. Kaiel had done what his father, Azrael, had only managed to wound him doing. Azrael had created the weapon, but Kaiel had delivered the killing stroke, perhaps one of the only true spiritual attacks capable of eradicating an entity of his stature. The realization wasn't just pain; it was utter, absolute failure. The ultimate humiliation was being dispatched by a child he had just mocked.
His massive form began to dissolve, not into blood, but into motes of gritty, black ash. His existence was being unwritten, molecule by molecule, spirit fragment by spirit fragment. The black dust rose from the ground, swirling weakly in the air, a monument to a conquered evil.
"I will have my vengeance, boy! This world will burn! I will find you, Kaiel, and I will tear your very essence apart!"
Chaos's final curse was a raw, impotent promise, a whisper of a threat carried on the wind of his own disintegration, before the last speck of the great Demon King, Zargoth, turned completely to dust, scattering on the battlefield wind.
The silence that followed was profound. The world, moments ago a cacophony of fire and demonic roars, was suddenly quiet save for the heavy, labored breathing of Aaron.
Kaiel, the Son of Azrael, stood amidst the settling ash, his blue and gold coat immaculate, the lion mask reflecting the dying, bruised light of the permanent twilight. His golden eyes, visible through the slits, remained focused on the spot where Chaos had stood. Only after confirming the total cessation of the demon's presence did he slowly turn, his attention finally shifting to the crumpled, bloodied figure of Aaron. The immediate danger had passed, but the cost had been almost fatal. The heir to the Guardianship was now faced with the immediate consequence of the battle—the critically wounded man who had held the line long enough for salvation to arrive.
This is a stark, powerful entry into the world of Kaiel and Aaron. The fate of the remnant resistance now rests upon the Son of Azrael.