Apologies for the delay. Life sucks. Anyway, here's the chapter, enjoy!

Vyne had grown stronger than Lucifer had thought. He was under the impression that Vyne still hadn’t awoken, but Lucifer’s grandson had already undergone the progress.

Erebus noticed, but he turned a blind eye to it. He acted as if he hadn’t known anything about it despite the fact that he knew that Vyne was now far more powerful than Magnus and Stone.

Mostly because he found it amusing to watch Vyne try so hard to hide the truth.

Nevertheless, Vyne was completely different in this form. His body was surging with unfamiliar energy, but he was confident in his ability to harness it.

Gabriel, too, had unleashed his full power. His body radiated a glowing light and his wings had stretched, likewise to Vyne, his height had grown greatly. A halo had appeared over his head, lighting the air around it with heavenly glory.

Two goliaths stared each other down.

Gabriel rose his bow and arrow while Vyne readied his sword. As if an unheard signal had been fired, the two shot towards each other.

A crack of thunder sounded when Vyne’s sword deflected one of Gabriel’s arrows, the arrow flew in the other direction, tearing and ripping through the homes of the slain. It landed somewhere far off, in the distance, another explosion sounded.

Vyne ground his teeth when one of Gabriel’s arrows pierced his shoulder, the wound was healed in a short amount of time, but Gabriel’s holiness still burned Vyne.

Damn angel, his brightness is repulsive, Vyne thought bitterly.

The two continued their fight, Gabriel constantly letting go torrents of arrows, Vyne blocking nearly all of them.

Neither side was budging.

They’d injure each other, then the wound would heal within seconds. Their surroundings had been practically destroyed by their fighting, but none of them cared about that anymore.

The destruction of the other.

That was their sole purpose, their only goal in the heat of the moment.

Bloodlust controlled them, the more they fought, the more their consciousness drifted away and left them in a bloodthirsty frenzy.

Vyne’s sword removed Gabriel’s arm, in which its place another one grew out of the stub. The cycle repeated itself on both of the men. An arm there, a leg here, all of them regrowing within moments.

Neither of them was concerned with such minor wounds, or rather, the pain of being injured no longer had any effect on them. Their blood spilled on the ground, dampening the dirt.

Gabriel raised his bow and arrow into the air, releasing arrows up into the sky that came raining down. The arrows pierced through Vyne’s body, hundreds of wounds appearing on his body.

Vyne grunted, incurring too much damage to heal it as quickly as he had before. He fell to one knee, using his sword to hold himself stable.

The archangel shot a single arrow at Vyne, intending to deal the deathblow. The demon reacted quickly, raising his sword to deflect the arrow, but the force still blew him back.

Vynes body was blasted away, thumping and twisting like a ragdoll until he landed far off. His transformation began to wear off, his body growing smaller and his original appearance coming back.

“Dammit,” he growled at how quickly it had been undone. It was only an experimental run, and it had shown good results, but his opponent was too strong for him to use it safely. He overshot his boundaries faster than he had imagined.

He had been overconfident. Vyne hadn’t even thought of the possibility that Gabriel would be capable of his own transformation. The archangel had taken him by surprise, he had ruined Vyne’s plan, meaning the demon had to think of a new one--quickly.

Gabriel flew over, descending to the ground slowly to stand above the weakened Vyne. “You are weak,” he said. “A child who doesn’t even know the extents of his own power or how to control it tried to challenge me?” Gabriel sneered. “I’m insulted.”

He withdrew the sword from his side, pointing the blade at Vyne.

“Die,” he commanded, swinging the sword to cleave Vyne’s head off from his body.

The demon moved just in time, thrusting out his sword and impaling Gabriel’s heart. Archangel Gabriel’s own weapon stopped, cutting only slightly into Vyne’s neck.

“You,” Gabriel spat, blood bubbling up and dripping out of his mouth. “Tricked me? Do you have any dignity?”

Vyne shrugged, standing up and dusting himself off. “I was never that injured in the first place.”

His wounds had more or less healed, but he used his ability to create illusions to fool Gabriel into believing that Vyne was incapable of fighting anymore.

The demon smirked, twisting his sword. “You angels are always so straightforward, it makes you an easier opponent.”

Gabriel fell to his knees, golden blood pouring out of the wound when Vyne ripped out his sword. “Damn you, filthy demon.”

“I’m insulted,” Vyne repeated Gabriel’s words. “You thought that such a pure being as yourself could stand against me?”

The angel growled at Vyne.

“That isn’t very holy, is it?” Vyne poked Gabriel with his sword. “This is very interesting for me to watch, you see? Your body is trying to heal itself, but it can’t because of the poisoning that entered your body. Rapidly, it is trying to break down the toxins, break down and heal, break down and heal. But it won’t be able to, in the end. You’ll just die a slow and painful death. I’m learning so much right now, I’ll have to memorize it all to write later.”

Gabriel looked at Vyne with smoldering hatred burning in his eyes. He was dying, his body was trying to stop it, but it was inevitable.

He would die.

Unless someone came and saved him right now, his life would be over. Gabriel had never thought about dying, he never thought about losing. Perhaps it was foolishness on his own part to challenge this demon without knowing exactly what it was capable of.

He was arrogant, and that arrogance would be the death of him.

Vyne was an arrogant being himself, so full of self-confidence it was nearly revolting to see. But he had won. And in the end, that was all that mattered.

Gabriel wanted to cry out that it was unfair, that he hadn’t known it would end this way.

But that wasn’t how the world worked. It was too late to turn back, he was going to die.

His God would recreate him, but he wouldn’t be the same Gabriel. He would be a new shell, a different being completely. This Gabriel’s lifetime had reached its limit. Gabriel’s ego didn’t want to allow that, he didn’t want any of this to happen.

He could only feel contempt for Vyne, who stood above him gloating about his achievement.

Gabriel’s life finally faded away.

Vyne sighed heavily, his shoulders collapsing in relief. He had been acting confident, he hadn’t been one hundred percent sure that Gabriel would die, and honestly, he didn’t have that much left in him to defeat the angel.

“That was unpleasant,” he remarked, staring off into the distance here he could see the lights and hear the explosions of another battle going on. It was probably his grandfather, and if he went over there, he’d undoubtedly be dragged in.

Vyne settled on collecting Gabriel’s body, he used a storage stone he had snuck out of the castle and transported the corpse inside of it. Storage stones were, for the lack of a better word, rare. They were coveted, expensive, and hard to find.

Of course, Lord Erebus had plenty in his possession, but it wasn’t exactly open for his servants to use. Vyne could only hope that he would be forgiven.

Vyne began the trek over to his grandfather, the old man would be pleased to know Vyne had killed Gabriel. Maybe he would leave him alone after this. As much as he wanted to turn and retreat, he felt as if something bad would happen if he decided to go with that option, so he kept moving forward.

He moved at a slow pace, walking leisurely as he was not in a rush. Instead, he worked on committing the facts of Gabriel’s death to his memory, it would be quite the shame if he forgot everything.

Afterall, it wasn’t every day that he got to kill an archangel.

Vyne hummed a tune under his breath, ignoring the constant rumbling and shaking of the earth.

He stopped walking as soon as the scene was completely viewable. Lucifer and Beta were fighting against three archangels, well, two. One was on the ground with its wings torn off and it was bleeding profusely.

Uriel... Vyne believed that was the one on the ground.

The other two, Michael and an archangel Vyne had never seen before were engaged in an intense battle.

Beta, Vyne had never met him before, but he felt as if the man was stronger than just being called a mere Demon Emperor. Rather, he was fighting with ease along with Lucifer.

Vyne watched them fight with detached interest, he had never seen how powerful his grandfather actually was.

From the looks of it, Lucifer was playing around. It reminded Vyne of how his lord would toy with those weaker than him, providing him with mild entertainment to watch them struggle to breach a gap that they would never be able to.

Vyne felt as if they would get along well if they actually sat down and talked to each other, which was unsettling.

He tried to imagine Lucifer getting more involved in his life, the concept made him want to puke.

Yep, definitely unpleasant.

Vyne banished the thought from his head, focusing back on what was going on before him.

Beta had isolated Michael and was dealing with him on his own while Lucifer was “fighting” the unknown angel. Beta was obvious the more serious of the two, as he was pouring his energy into this fight.

Clicking his tongue, Vyne felt disdain for Beta. From the looks of it, the man was still stronger than Vyne, Vyne wasn't at that level yet. Gabriel was comparatively weak to the angels that they were fighting, Vyne could tell that much just from a single glance.

There was more that he had to do. More power that he had to gain, he wouldn’t be satisfied until he had it.