When Asmodeus's body was cut cleanly in two it might have seemed, to an ignorant eye, like the end of the battle, the kind of strike that called for celebration or relief. But Alex was not ignorant, nor had he ever been so naïve as to think that victory against such a foe would come so easily.

He had fought beside his father, had once witnessed him cross blades with this very warden, and from those battles he had learned the truth of the man's vessel, partial immortality, a grotesque trick that ensured he would not die until every other incarnation of him, scattered across the prisons of whisper, had been slain. That was why Jeremiah had gone elsewhere, leaving this body to them while he hunted the others, and it was also why his father had once lost to this fiend.

And just as Alex expected, no sooner had the two halves fallen than black streaks of aura erupted from the wounds, lashing outward like liquid shadow before pulling the sundered pieces together. They wove around the body like cords, binding and tightening, wrapping the broken form in a cocoon of dark, pulsating energy.

"That was a very strong slash," came Asmodeus's voice from within, muffled at first but growing clearer with every word. Then, with sudden force, a hand thrust through the cocoon, tearing it apart, and from the remnants he stepped out whole again, his body unblemished as though the strike had never touched him. He cast a sidelong glance back toward Alex, his expression carrying a touch of surprise. "And to think you didn't even graze the village."

Alex's body stiffened at those words. He knew the truth behind them, the cruel tactic that Whisper employed in placing every one of their prisons near the fringes of villages or cities. It was never by chance. The cult held no regard for human lives, least of all the lives of those they called sinners, and so the innocent were used as a shield, a weight upon the conscience of any would-be attacker. The small village behind them might have held no more than a thousand souls, but each one would rest on his conscience should it be destroyed.

"Shall we move then?" Asmodeus asked with a smile that carried neither warmth nor mirth. "It would be a shame if the innocent were harmed." As he spoke he raised his hand, aiming it carelessly toward the village as if he might level it with the smallest flick of his wrist.

But before Alex could react he heard Lazarus's calm voice cut across the tension. "Don't waste your words on him." And when Alex turned his head, the village was no longer there. Every building, every person, every tree, every stone had vanished as if it had never existed at all, displaced in an instant by Lazarus's power.

"I had forgotten about him," Asmodeus muttered, his smile faltering just for a breath before he lashed forward, his hand swiping through the air. A line of condensed aura, sharp and bright, ripped away from his palm and sped toward Jacob without hesitation.

Alex's instincts roared, and he pulled his shield up in time to intercept the attack. His thoughts were steady, deliberate: 'I can manage that three more times, perhaps four if I am willing to push myself to the brink.' With that grim calculation in mind he forced more of his aura into the shield, layering it thickly across the metal, and then whispered enchantments came alive along its surface. The shield began to glow with a bright, steady white light, humming softly as though it were alive.

"I can do that too, you know," Asmodeus laughed.

Alex only pressed harder, fortifying his stance, his aura burning like oil on steel as he prepared for the inevitable clash that would follow.

"Sever the world, such a grandiose phrase," Asmodeus remarked, his voice carrying an almost casual scorn, "I prefer something simpler, slaughter my enemies."

Alex did not waste time trying to gauge the technique or decipher the gathering of energy in his opponent's hand; he did not even glance at the motion. He understood instinctively that whatever was coming could not be avoided and would need to be met head-on, and so his focus narrowed to the shield in his grip, bracing for the impact that his body already anticipated.

The collision came an instant later, sharp and devastating. His shield splintered under the force, fragments scattering like brittle glass, and Asmodeus's fist loomed directly before him, poised for his chest.

"The essence of battle," the warden said evenly, his aura swelling outward like a storm breaking its bounds, "is murder." Then the fist struck, and Alex's body was thrown back as though launched from a bowstring, the sheer violence of the blow propelling him across hundreds of miles.

His armour, once unblemished, now carried long fissures across its surface, black strands of hostile aura burrowing into it like worms, spreading corruption that gnawed at its structure in real time.

"You can manage it perhaps three, four times at most," Asmodeus's voice followed him like a shadow, the man himself appearing above him almost instantly, already drawing back his arm.

Aura and faith alike converged around that strike, twisting together until they formed something akin to flame, red and searing, edged with black. "Allow me to show you what true strength at rank zero is." His lips curved faintly before the words left him: "Just for the fun of it, pierce the world."

The strike landed, not in the vast, crushing fashion Alex had feared, but with a pinpoint precision, the gathered force compressed to a single drilling thrust. It tore through the weakened armour as though it were no more than cloth, and in another heartbeat the blow threatened to pierce his chest.

Blood filled Alex's mouth, but he forced the words through, his voice rough but fast, far faster than ordinary speech, as his aura spiralled around him in response: "A dominating armour."

At once the atmosphere shifted, the weight of dominance spreading outward and suppressing all hostile energy. The faith that had crackled at Asmodeus's fist faltered and was extinguished, the aura that had fed the strike diminished, the speed and potency reduced until only the raw physicality of the attack remained. But physical strength untouched by energy was still strength, and the fist connected, driving Alex down toward the earth.

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The impact carved ruin across the land. The ground shattered, splitting and sinking inward, cracks racing outward for miles, and a dense cloud of dirt and debris erupted skyward, blotting out the horizon.

Asmodeus descended lightly a short distance away, his eyes turning with deliberate calm toward the lone observer who had yet to intervene. "Shouldn't you lend him your aid? I will kill him, you know."

The answer came cold and level: "Concentrate on your fight."

Before Asmodeus could answer, a voice rose from within the dust, steady and resonant despite the devastation. "Sever the world."

The words carried with them a weight that seemed to strip the battlefield bare. Instantly the thick curtain of dust was swept aside, the air cleared in an unnatural rush, and Alex emerged with his blade drawn, its edge blazing with a radiant blue light so fierce it forced the eye to flinch away.

The aura of dominance surged outward from him in all directions, overwhelming and absolute, and the ambient mana of the world itself was wrenched from the air, converging with violent eagerness upon the single stroke he was preparing to unleash.

Asmodeus reached for his aura, intending to summon the dark tide that had always answered him without hesitation, yet nothing came, the force slipping through his grasp like water refusing to be held, and with a faint, almost grudging acknowledgment he muttered, "it seems you might be even better at dominance than your old man."

A single, clear note split the air,

shing,

and in the same instant his body was divided once more, severed cleanly from crown to waist by a stroke too swift and absolute to resist.

Alex staggered, his knee striking the shattered ground as his chest heaved, each breath jagged and uneven. His vision wavered at the edges, blurring into a haze, the lingering cost of invoking the power he had not yet fully mastered, the strange and esoteric art of words and will, a discipline that went beyond strength and aura into something deeper, something he had only begun to understand at a level his father had walked for years.

'There are five other prisons apart from this one,' he reminded himself, the thought sluggish but clear enough to carry a weight of unease. 'Father should have destroyed at least two of his bodies by now… what's taking so long?' The rhythm of the fight had suggested aid would arrive sooner, but silence lingered, and Alex could only assume the other vessels were proving more difficult than anticipated.

In truth, he knew this body of Asmodeus was both the weakest and the strongest. The so-called gift of partial immortality, enviable as it sounded, offered little in a straightforward clash, yet it turned every encounter into a slow erosion of will, a test of endurance measured not in one fight but in many.

Each of the six vessels possessed its own distinct ability, and though none of them alone could defeat his father, together they formed an unending gauntlet that could bleed even the strongest dry, and if one could not deal with all of them, the warden became unstoppable.

Alex tried to push himself upright, his legs trembling with the effort, when he felt a steady hand press against his shoulder, grounding him. The voice that came was firm, unhurried, and unmistakably familiar. "I relocated the village and the prison to these coordinates. Your siblings are holding their own, but they're struggling. You should go to them."

He did not need to turn to know who spoke, nor to recognise that the man's advice was sound, yet stubbornness welled up in him as naturally as breath. "I will slay him on my own," Alex said, forcing himself upright, shrugging off the hand as though the gesture had been a shackle.

"You don't understand," Lazarus called after him, his tone edged with warning rather than command, "he will soon start fearing for his life, and when he does he will become serious, and then I might not be able to save you."

Alex allowed a faint, humourless laugh to escape, a small spark of defiance even through his exhaustion. "Ha. Says the man who can stop time."

Lazarus exhaled, a sigh drawn as much from familiarity as from concern, and watched in silence as Alex advanced toward the dark cocoon already forming again around Asmodeus, the shell of black aura pulling together the two halves as though the previous wound had never existed.

"I don't have time for this you… guagh—" Asmodeus's voice broke into a strained groan, and Alex, though he did not yet smile easily in the midst of battle, felt the corner of his mouth lift at the sound.

His father must have succeeded in destroying a third vessel, cutting deeper into the chain that tethered this fiend to life. All he had to do was endure, to hold on a little longer, just long enough for the rest to fall.

"Fuck off."

At first Alex assumed it was no more than a taunt, a simple bark of irritation meant to throw him off, but before the thought had even settled he felt a strange emptiness to his right, a sudden absence where there should have been weight and motion. Turning slightly, he realised with a slow, creeping shock that his right hand was no longer there, the limb simply gone as though erased from his body.

"What…?" he muttered under his breath, confusion breaking through his exhaustion as his eyes lifted again.

Before him stood Asmodeus, and in that moment the fiend looked different, his red eyes burned with an anger so raw it almost seemed unrestrained, his hair had grown wild and heavy, strands of crimson spilling across his face, and most disturbingly of all his mouth was clamped around something.

Alex stared, horrified, as he realised what it was: his missing hand, clenched between the warden's teeth like some grotesque prize, while the man himself remained utterly still, every line of his body rigid with fury.

Alex turned his head toward Lazarus, his gaze heavy with a rare, bitter note of shame. "You have ten seconds," Lazarus said evenly, the words sharp but without cruelty, "give up and live, or stay and die."

Without delay he lifted his hand, and a rune flared to life above the severed stump, glowing faintly for only a heartbeat before the impossible occurred, the hand that had been torn away returned, not grown anew but restored, time itself drawn backward to undo the injury.

He looked back at Asmodeus, whose mouth was now empty, the fragment of time devoured by Lazarus's interference, and he clenched his restored fist tightly as if to test the reality of it.

"Five seconds," Lazarus reminded him calmly.

Grinding his teeth against the frustration that boiled inside him, Alex finally turned away, anger and shame bound together in silence. He walked towards the old man, every step heavy with reluctance, before muttering, "Send me there."

With those words his figure vanished, swallowed in an instant by the manipulation of time, and immediately after, the world around them resumed its natural flow.

"Old man," Asmodeus growled, his voice rough, "you'd better move out of the way before you die."

Lazarus only laughed quietly, raising one hand in a gesture that was almost careless. "Don't trouble yourself over my death," he replied, "you should be more concerned with Jeremiah."

The moment the name was spoken Asmodeus buckled, his body folding inwards as he dropped to his knees, blood spilling from his mouth in harsh coughs, his hand clutching at his own hair as though that could steady him.

He tried to stand, tried to force his body upright with sheer will, but the effort collapsed almost instantly and he sank back down, though this time no blood followed, only an emptiness, an absence he had not felt in centuries, as if something fundamental had been torn away from within him.

"It seems Jeremiah is finished," Lazarus said, and there was a strange ease in his tone, as though the words were not a declaration but a simple fact. He stepped forward slightly, the faintest smile on his lips, calm and unshaken. "So, why don't we have one final fight?"

And in that quiet, steady expression, Asmodeus thought he saw something more dangerous than rage, a smile that carried the weight not of confidence but inevitability, a smile he could only liken to that of the devil himself.

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