CHAPTER 436: CHAPTER 436: THE DEMON’S LAST STAND

The massive crater left by Elara’s ultimate spell still smoldered with residual magical energy, the glass-smooth surface reflecting the morning sky like a mirror forged in the deepest circles of hell. Scorched earth stretched in all directions where an entire district had once stood, the very air shimmering with heat distortion that made distant objects dance like mirages.

But at the crater’s center stood Azaroth Pyron, completely regenerated, his form more terrible than before.

Elara knelt at the crater’s edge, her body wracked with the aftereffects of channeling power far beyond her mortal limits. Her fire blade flickered weakly in her grip, the golden flames that usually blazed with stellar intensity now barely maintaining their form as they sputtered and died before reigniting with desperate effort. Blood dripped steadily from her nose, staining her, while her hands shook with uncontrollable tremors that spoke of fundamental exhaustion.

Can barely... hold the blade, she thought through the haze of pain and depletion. That spell took everything. More than everything. Drew from reserves I didn’t even know I had.

Her vision blurred and cleared in waves, consciousness flickering like a candle in a hurricane. But beneath the physical collapse, her tactical mind still functioned in sharp bursts of clarity, analyzing, calculating, searching for any advantage in what seemed like an impossible situation.

Azaroth approached with deliberate slowness, each step sending small tremors through the glass crater that rang like funeral bells. The regeneration hadn’t been the effortless process he wanted her to believe, she could see that now in the subtle tensions of his movements, the way his form seemed to require conscious effort to maintain its perfection.

"The Mother’s gift is regeneration beyond your comprehension, little Archon," he said, his voice carrying its usual cold professionalism despite the underlying strain she could now detect. "Did you think your parlor tricks could harm a Knight of the Supreme Curia?"

He’s trying to sound unaffected, Elara realized with crystalline clarity, but that regeneration cost him. Not infinite. Just... extensively powerful. There has to be a limit.

Despite her exhaustion, she forced herself to stand. Her legs trembled like a newborn colt’s, threatening to give out at any moment, but sheer willpower and years of combat discipline kept her upright. Her flames sputtered and died completely, then reignited weakly around her sword like dying embers refusing to surrender.

"I’m... not finished yet," she managed, each word requiring tremendous effort.

Azaroth’s professional facade cracked slightly, annoyance bleeding through his controlled demeanor. His form began to shift, becoming more monstrous as patience gave way to the desire to end this irritating resistance. His jagged black feathers spread like wings of living shadow that seemed to absorb light itself, and his single red eye blazed with cruel anticipation mixed with something that looked almost like... respect?

"Your determination is admirable, I’ll grant you that," he said, raising his clawed hand as shadow-fire coiled around it in a spear of pure destruction. "But determination alone cannot bridge the gap between mortal and divine power. Yes, little Archon, you are finished."

The killing blow descended toward Elara’s heart with lethal precision, trailing darkness that seemed to cut reality itself.

A pillar of pure solar energy erupted between them, moving faster than thought, faster than light, faster than the concept of speed itself. The Sun Empress materialized in the space between demon and Archon, her hand catching Azaroth’s strike with such casual ease that it seemed almost insulting.

The crater, which had been a realm of smoke and residual fire, transformed instantly into a blazing realm of absolute radiance. The Sun Empress stood wreathed in solar power that made the morning sun seem like a dying ember by comparison, her very presence rewriting the fundamental nature of the space around them. The glass beneath her feet began to glow white-hot, and the air itself became a medium for pure energy.

Her voice carried absolute authority when she spoke, each word resonating with the power that forged worlds: "Demon. You dare threaten my Archon in my empire?"

For the first time since the battle began, genuine fear flickered in Azaroth’s burning eye. His professional composure, maintained through centuries of warfare and conquest, cracked like ice under pressure as he recognized the divine power before him.

This wasn’t just another powerful mortal. This was cosmic authority given physical form.

"The Sun Empress... impossible," he breathed, taking an involuntary step backward. "You were bound, trapped in endless sleep by our most powerful relics!"

"I was freed by one wiser than you anticipated," she replied, her golden-crimson eyes blazing with stellar fire that held the birth and death of stars. "And now you face the full wrath of the Solar Throne."

Her presence alone was transforming the battlefield. Where moments ago there had been smoke and ash, now there was brilliant illumination that revealed truth and burned away deception. The very molecules of air around her began to undergo fusion reactions, creating a miniature star system with the Empress at its center.

Behind her, Elara collapsed fully, her body finally surrendering to exhaustion. But relief flooded her features as consciousness faded, salvation had arrived in the form of divine intervention. Her last coherent thought was gratitude that her sacrifice hadn’t been in vain.

Azaroth abandoned all pretense of restraint, launching himself forward with supernatural speed that blurred the line between movement and teleportation. His clawed strike, backed by the full power of an Infernal Knight, should have been capable of shattering mountains.

The Sun Empress was faster, impossibly, incomprehensibly faster.

Her fist, blazing with solar energy that contained the compressed power of stellar cores, met his attack in a collision that redefined the concept of violence. The resulting shockwave didn’t just level the remaining buildings, it erased them, reducing stone and steel to their component atoms in an expanding sphere of pure energy.

The ground beneath them cracked and buckled, forming new geological features as bedrock itself was compressed and superheated. Windows shattered across the entire capital as the pressure wave raced outward, and citizens miles away were knocked from their feet by the tremors.

Where Azaroth had toyed with Elara, treating her as an amusing challenge to be savored, he was forced to fight with deadly seriousness against the Sun Empress. Every exchange of blows created localized apocalypses, small-scale demonstrations of the forces that shaped galaxies.