Chapter 171

Chapter 171: Chapter 171

Seraphine’s voice, when she spoke, carried the weight of three centuries of power, three centuries of protecting her domain, three centuries of being the last line of defense for those who had nowhere else to go.

"You shall pay for what you did to my people."

The words weren’t a threat. They weren’t bravado or false confidence. They were a promise, spoken with absolute conviction by someone who’d decided that compromise was no longer an option.

The environment around them responded to her fury. The corrupted spires began glowing with energy that matched her aura. The very ground cracked not from physical force but from the sheer intensity of her rage made manifest. The sky darkened as if reality itself was acknowledging the battle about to unfold.

The Reaper smiled—not his casual, bored smile from before, but something different. Something excited.

"Finally," he said. "Finally, someone who’s actually going to make me try."

His own aura flared in response, three hundred years of accumulated power meeting three hundred years of protective fury. The clash of their presences alone shattered windows in buildings half a mile away.

Behind Seraphine, her commanders had stopped crawling. They lay on the broken ground, watching their lord stand between them and annihilation, watching her prepare to fight with power they’d never seen her use before.

"My lady..." Lilith whispered, her voice carrying awe and terror in equal measure.

Seraphine didn’t look back. Her eyes remained fixed on The Reaper, every fiber of her being focused on the battle that was about to begin.

This was no longer five commanders against an invincible hero.

This was a demon lord protecting her home against the strongest hero humanity had ever produced.

This was where everything would be decided.

And somewhere in the central spire, Satou felt the surge of power and knew.

The real fight was about to begin.

—-------

The air itself screamed as reality bent around Seraphine’s unleashed power.

Her corrupted wings expanded, each blade-feather multiplying until she had hundreds of them, thousands, creating a storm of cutting edges that surrounded her like a living tornado. Her mismatched eyes blazed with light that hurt to look at—one eye burning with holy radiance that could purify demons, the other swirling with corruption so deep it could twist angels into monsters.

This was the power that had earned her the 4th seat among demon lords.

This was why even other demon lords feared her.

"You wanted to see my full power?" Seraphine’s voice echoed with multiple tones—angelic choir mixed with demonic growl. "Then witness what happens when an angel falls so far that even Hell itself cannot contain her!"

Her aura exploded outward, a wave of pure transformative energy that cracked the ground for miles in every direction. Buildings that had stood for centuries crumbled. The sky itself turned dark, storm clouds forming from the sheer pressure of her presence.

The Reaper’s eyes widened. Not with fear, but with something else.

Excitement.

"Now that’s what I’m talking about!" he laughed, his casual demeanor finally cracking into genuine enthusiasm. "This is the power I sensed! This is what I came here for!"

Seraphine moved.

Not flew—moved. She crossed three hundred meters in a fraction of a second, her blade-wings extending like spears, each one carrying enough corrupting energy to turn a city block into twisted nightmares.

The Reaper raised his sword to block.

BOOM!

The collision sent shockwaves rippling outward. The ground beneath them vaporized. Nearby buildings that had somehow survived this long disintegrated into dust. The sound was deafening—not just noise but pressure, a wall of force that knocked unconscious warriors a mile away even further back.

Seraphine’s assault was relentless. Her blade-wings struck from every angle simultaneously—hundreds of attacks per second, each one capable of cutting through reinforced steel like paper. She combined physical strikes with corruption magic that tried to bind, transform, dominate.

The Reaper blocked, dodged, deflected. But for the first time in the entire battle, he was actually moving with intent. Actually trying. His sword blurred with speed that broke the sound barrier repeatedly, creating sonic booms with every deflection.

"Yes!" The Reaper shouted over the cacophony of their clash. "This is it! This is what I’ve been waiting for!"

Seraphine didn’t respond with words. She responded with Angelic Wrath.

Her holy eye blazed, and a beam of pure divine light erupted—not the gentle healing light of priests, but the terrible radiance that angels used to smite demons. It was light with weight, with substance, with the absolute certainty of divine judgment behind it.

The beam struck The Reaper directly.

He was sent flying.

For the first time in the entire battle, The Reaper was actually knocked back. His body crashed through three buildings before he managed to stop himself, his coat smoking slightly from the divine energy.

"Holy magic," he said, examining the slight burn on his hand. "Real, genuine angelic holy magic, not that watered-down priest stuff. Now that’s rare. That actually hurt a little!"

He sounded delighted.

Seraphine didn’t give him time to recover. She teleported—not through space but through corruption itself, stepping through twisted reality—and appeared directly above him. Her corruption eye blazed, and tendrils of transformative energy erupted from her palm.

Corruption Domain: Garden of Fallen Grace

The area around The Reaper twisted. The broken buildings began changing, transforming into organic structures of flesh and crystal. The ground became a carpet of corrupted flowers that tried to root into anything they touched. The air itself became thick with transformative magic that attempted to rewrite anyone caught within it.

The Reaper looked around at the transformed landscape with genuine appreciation. "This is beautiful, in a horrifying sort of way. You’ve turned reality itself into your weapon. That’s artist-level magic work."

He raised his hand, and divine light erupted from his palm—the same holy magic Seraphine had used moments ago, already adapted and integrated.

Divine Purge

The holy light burned away the corruption domain, restoring twisted reality to normal. But Seraphine had expected that. She’d used the domain as a distraction.

Her real attack came from behind—a blade-wing extended to impossible length, wreathed in both holy light and corruption simultaneously, creating a paradox of energy that shouldn’t be able to coexist.