Just as the last remnants of the explosion began to dissipate and a huge cloud of smoke still covered a good part of the sky, a shadow descended from above at an absurd speed. One of the Fallen Angels barely managed to make out the figure through the smoke before his eyes flew open. "INCOMING ATTACK!"
Damon moved in a red flash, cutting through everything in his path, stopping for nothing in the world. He extended both hands, and dozens of energy spheres began to form around him. It didn't take a second for them to start falling directly onto the great horde of Fallen Angels.
One of these spheres fell in the middle of a group of Fallen Angels, imploding in a huge bluish explosion, while those around it were sent flying in all directions. Many more began to hit different parts of the horde, making chaos explode everywhere.
"SPREAD OUT!" Shemazai shouted from further back as he saw his soldiers beginning to group together out of pure instinct. "DON'T STAY TOGETHER!"
But that was easier said than done, because there was no exact pattern to the attacks. Damon simply let them fall across different zones, forcing the Fallen Angels to keep moving constantly while explosions appeared around them without rest, instilling fear in their hearts. The screams began to mix with the explosions as bodies and black feathers fell across the sky.
Baraqiel wasn't one to just stand and watch. He appeared in front of another sphere before it could reach the Fallen behind him, his energy building in his arm as golden lightning swirled around it. He clenched his fist and struck the sphere head-on. The explosion pushed him back several meters, but the Cadre held his position in the air, smoke rising from his arm.
Some Fallen Angels tried to attack him directly. But Damon was too fast for them to pose a challenge. In less than a second he landed in the center of the formation with his feet barely touching the ground. The nearest one was just turning when the redhead's right hand closed around his throat. The Fallen Angel dug his nails into that hand, clawing without effect, and his eyes flew open in the exact instant he understood that the grip wasn't going to give. Damon channeled his wind chakra into his palm. The head burst with a wet pop, and a fine red mist hung in the air for a second before falling onto the shoulders of those nearby.
"I'm not going to let you keep doing this," Baraqiel roared, furious, in a burst of lightning. He appeared in front of Damon just as Penemue rose above, hurling spears of light downward.
A third angel was approaching from behind the redhead, his spear aimed directly at Damon's shoulder, and the moment it made impact, it shattered into splinters of light. The Fallen didn't even have a chance to cry out his surprise: Damon cut off his arms in a single motion, and the heart-rending scream that tore out of him drowned in blood when the redhead grabbed him by the neck and spun him toward Penemue's attacks.
The first spear entered with a dull, wet thud. The second, a heartbeat later. The angel's body shuddered with each impact, releasing a mouthful of hot blood that splattered across the redhead's face, and Damon held him steady, his cold eyes fixed on those of the Fallen he was holding, watching the light go out in them without blinking. Then he let him drop like a sack of potatoes, alive, trembling on the ground, to suffer as a reward for helping him defend himself.
Baraqiel saw all of it with bloodshot eyes. He appeared in front of Damon wrapped in what looked like an armor of lightning, his great fist inches from the redhead's face. Damon saw it coming in slow motion and vanished in a red flash, reappearing behind Baraqiel, who was now flanked by two Fallen Angels. Damon spun on himself. The current of air around his left arm stretched into an invisible blade, and with a single sweep he cut off both their heads from behind.
A double snap sounded, dry and clean, and the two heads hit the ground with a dull thud at different moments. Blood gushed from their necks in two streams that splattered all over Baraqiel, hot against his face, and the Cadre blinked, blood getting into his eyes, the metallic taste filling his mouth.
Covered in blood and more furious than ever, Baraqiel snarled: "You bastard." He was about to throw himself at him when, in an unprecedented action, a fire axe fell on him, sending him plummeting to the ground. He barely withstood the impact thanks to his lightning armor and his resistant body, getting embedded in the earth. He jumped up to see who had attacked him, and found Amaterasu watching him from the sky, surrounded by light.
The goddess drew her black katana. She hurled it toward the ground like a missile, embedding it in the earth and cracking it. Amaterasu appeared above it, giving a small jump to plant her foot on the end of the hilt. For an instant, the entire field seemed to hold its breath; even the Fallen Angels who were fleeing stopped to watch.
Baraqiel roared again in fury. A lightning sword appeared in his hand and he threw himself at the goddess. Amaterasu sketched a half-smile. As the Cadre approached from a distance, she grabbed her sword and in a flash she was already in front of him, her katana trying to cut his neck. Barely, through pure speed, Baraqiel dodged; a small graze crossed his cheek and became an unpleasant burn. The Cadre brought his sword close, ready to run Amaterasu through, but just when it was inches away, a golden pulse crossed the goddess's eyes. Baraqiel's arm refused to advance, the tip of his sword trembling a finger's width from her, and in the instant his lightning armor began to crack under that weight, he was sent flying back against the ground, the impact opening a furrow in the earth.
Damon appeared in front of him, his hand already descending to cut his neck. But in that instant, fortunately for Baraqiel, Penemue and Shemazai appeared at the redhead's sides, ready to riddle him. Damon saw it coming and vanished in a second; the two attacks collided with the ground.
Amaterasu, now above the three of them, brought her katana down against the two Cadres. Thinking fast, Penemue and Shemazai manipulated their light into a super-reinforced sword, crossing it between them to receive the impact head-on. The clash sounded like metal striking metal, a sharp ring that spread across the field, and their feet sank into the ground under the weight of the blow, teeth clenched, along with their arms completely tense.
And while Amaterasu kept the two Cadres occupied, Damon took the opportunity to deal with Baraqiel, something the Cadre was already mentally preparing for. The Cadre turned his head, the blood of the two decapitated men still hot on his face, and found Damon already in front of him, less than two meters away, hands at his sides and cold eyes fixed on his.
"Come on, get up and fight," Damon said in a low voice.
Baraqiel wasn't one to bite the hook out of pride. Being a born leader, he knew when a fight was a trap. But even the most intelligent person sees his thoughts completely blurred when he's against the sword and the wall, and everyone you swore to lead is, if not already dead, on their way to dying around you. So with another roar he threw himself, the lightning armor igniting around his body with a crackle that made the air vibrate.
Baraqiel attacked with a jab straight to the face, and Damon deflected it with his forearm, the impact sounding like wood against wood. The Cadre didn't stop for anything; quickly he threw a knee strike that Damon dodged by turning his hip. Each of Baraqiel's blows came loaded with years of strength, but Damon only retreated as much as necessary, letting the Cadre spend his fury as much as he wanted.
"Fight, damn you," Baraqiel snarled, throwing a combination of three blows that Damon dodged by moving only his head.
Damon didn't respond, but he couldn't help coming to the conclusion that Baraqiel really reminded him of the Fourth Raikage; they weren't exactly the same, but in his own way Baraqiel had some similar characteristics.
Putting those thoughts aside, Damon caught the Cadre's incoming punch mid-flight with a dry snap, and Baraqiel blinked, surprised that Damon had stopped that blow head-on. Damon pushed the Cadre forward, but the force behind it made Baraqiel lose his balance and take a few steps forward to keep from falling.
What the Cadre did quickly proved to be a mistake, because Damon planted himself in front of him, a meter away, and lowered his torso slightly, bending his knees in a stance Baraqiel didn't recognize.
But Baraqiel didn't need to know what it was to know it was dangerous, as was everything related to Damon, so he quickly raised his arms to cover himself, the lightning armor bursting with more force.
And in that very instant Damon turned his hands, the wind compressing around him with a whistle, and alongside it coiled his destructive power in a combination strange to many. Quickly, the energy and elements formed into a spiral of air and destruction that wrapped around his forearms.
Baraqiel opened his mouth to shout something, an order, a warning, anything.
Unfortunately, he wasn't given time. In a single motion, Damon launched both open palms forward at once, straight, into the exact center of the Cadre's chest.
Baraqiel's lightning armor shattered in the instant of contact, splintering into golden fragments that peeled off his body as if nothing. The Cadre had no time to scream. His chest caved in under Damon's palms, and the shockwave passed through his torso front to back in a single devastating line.
A wet crunch of bone and cartilage, breaking, echoed across the field. Baraqiel's back split wide open, skin and muscle tearing from within like old cloth.
The heart shot out from his back in an explosion of flesh, bone, and lungs that scattered across the ground behind him, a wet red that splattered the earth. The Cadre stayed standing for a few seconds with his eyes wide open as if his brain was barely registering what had happened, his mouth in a grimace that never became a scream. A bubbling sound escaped his throat, and then he fell to his knees with a dull thud. He stayed like that for a second, trembling, before falling face-first onto the ground in a pool of his own blood.
A sepulchral silence fell over the place as the blood froze in Penemue and Shemazai's veins. The two Cadres were wondering if this really was the end for them, too.