The garden was no longer a garden.
It was a scar. A battlefield of fire and ash.
Aurelius's daggers dripped black light as he dragged them across his arms, blood spilling freely into the cracks of reality. Each drop bled into the seams of the world, and from them bloomed endless maws—rifts with teeth like shattered glass, chewing lesser demons into fragments of shadow. His voice cut through the roar of battle:
"Maximilian! You've hidden your hand long enough. If you have anything left—use it!"
The Emperor, his armor cracked, his chest heaving, grinned like a wolf cornered. His sword—broad and thick as iron fate—shone with a condensation of aura so dense it hummed. The air warped around the blade.
"But! Aurelius!!!"
Aurelius turned his head, crimson eyes burning through the chaos.
"DO IT!"
He faced the three leaders—the Pope clutching his radiant staff, the Patriarch veined with fire from his relic, Luther snarling and gripping the Hammer of Saint Joseph.
"PRAY NOW!"
For a heartbeat, the three stared at one another. Centuries of grudges flickered between them. But then, almost as if Heaven itself demanded it, they lifted their relics together.
Latin, Greek, and Germanic syllables crashed together in one prayer. Discordant, yet somehow whole.
The first started Patriarch of the Orthodox:
"God of the spirits in all flesh,
You spared Noah from the waters,
Spare now Your children from the fire of devils."
Light spilled like dawn breaking, radiant beyond words. The garden bent to their will. The earth shivered as grass grew green where their light touched. The ruined fountains burst with living water. For an instant, even the demons paused—the whole of creation seemed to tilt toward its makers' song.
The lords of Hell screamed. Seals broken, their real forms now fully unrestrained, they surged forward like mountains of rage. Kimaris's tides became oceans of shadow, Raum's blades of wings darkened the moonlight, Aim's molten forms poured rivers of iron, Andras's helm roared fire with every breath.
Aurelius's blood-fed rifts devoured everything they touched. Maximilian raised his sword, aura compressed into a single, trembling point. The air buzzed like thunder held too long.
"Aurelius, MOVE!" Maximilian's voice cracked through the din.
But Aurelius stood firm, bleeding into the rifts, calm as stone.
"No. Use it on me!"
Maximilian's face twisted in fury, but he obeyed. The greatsword fell.
The world cracked.
A perfect arc of aura and destruction tore through existence.
It sheared through Aurelius, carving half his body away in an explosion of blood and reality. It didn't stop. The arc stretched further, ripping Raum in half, cleaving through his black feathers, through his throne of shadows, and even into Balaam.
The grand palace beyond them quaked. A line cut clean through its marble towers, splitting it as though it were nothing but parchment before God's blade.
Balaam staggered, his void-flesh ripped open, ichor pouring. But he did not scream. He laughed. His real form began to shudder, split, and collapse inward.
And then came his degeneration.
It was no mere transformation—it was unmaking. Balaam's wounds festered outward, spreading like rot into the world itself. Marble crumbled into black sand. Living knights turned to withered husks where his blood touched. Even the air screamed as sound itself warped, unraveling into silence. His voice crawled into their minds instead, oily and thick:
"You cannot kill a King..."
Johann Weyer did not flinch.
Azazel's body—his body now—moved like lightning, pistols glowing like suns in his hands. But it wasn't only two. Phantoms shimmered into being—ten, twenty, thirty pistols floating in a halo around him, glowing with scripture.
They fired. Always. Endless.
Every bullet had a choice—
Some pierced through everything, even through degeneration of Balaam.
Others warped Johann's vessel to their strike point, teleporting him in flashes of white-blue fire.
The last kind multiplied, each bullet birthing another phantom pistol that joined the swarm.
The sky filled with scripture's thunder. The ground glowed like constellations of fire.
Balaam swatted pistols from the air with void wings, tore through teleport strikes with his claws, regenerated hearts by ripping life from lesser demons. Still—he staggered. Already, two hearts throbbed in ruin, one completely obliterated. Ten remained.
Pope's mouse opened in a solemn prayer:
"Do not let the cruel ones rule,
Bind them in the place of judgment.
Let Your light rise as a flood,
And wash the earth of their corruption."
And then Maximilian struck again.
His vertical slash tore Raum's regenerating body into ash, the trail cutting into Balaam's shoulder. Flesh that should have healed instantly only festered, Maximilian's aura poisoning his regeneration.
"Enough!" Balaam erupted in fury. He burst forward, appearing before the Emperor in a single blink of void-light. His claw, as big as a cathedral door, came down with the weight of mountains.
Maximilian raised his sword, but it would not be enough, on that last attack he used most of his accumulated aura.
A flash.
Johann's pistol-fire curved through air, one bullet teleporting him directly before Maximilian. Azazel's mask took the full force of the King's blow.