The world seemed to shake as the mirror dimension collapsed, pouring out its inhabitants. The moment they stepped out, they saw that the empire’s sky was covered by black clouds and swirling portals, spilling strange creatures. But the beings were disappearing the moment they came out. They could see a golden protective barrier over the empire, keeping the people in an illusion and protecting them at the same time.

At the same time, they could see the current battles ongoing with the golden beings and some other beings, and the golden beings seemed to be winning.

"Hmm... Something is wrong..." Ethan muttered, his eyes peering through the barrier. That’s when he saw that, although the golden beings had protected the empire and were engaging their enemies, their solution wasn’t really foolproof. It was just a matter of time before the barrier, along with the mage guardian and the leviathan, fell.

"Leave it to me," Lilith suddenly said, her voice full of confidence. She was right to be confident because before she even came here, she was very close to being a demigod. Now that she had evolved to a higher form and decided to continue threading on the Saint Realm, her power had increased by a huge margin.

She was the most powerful of Ethan’s wives after Asteria.

Her silvery-white hair, which now reached her knees, swayed as she walked in the air. For some reason, after the ascension, her horns had disappeared, which left her confused. But she felt more powerful than ever. Her wings had also become beautiful but no less demonic.

Lilith smiled. Her smile was wide, but subtle, almost like she was mocking the world.

Ethan studied her for a brief moment, recalling his time with her when he was Lucifer. She was a meek and cute person, but when she decided to do something, especially and mostly for her lover, she would make sure to announce it, and that was what she was about to do. The world would soon witness the power of the Demon Empress for the first time.

"I trust you," Ethan said softly, making her blush.

"Remember to reward me afterwards," she said, her blush deepening, while her eyes gazed below his abdomen.

"..."

"Hehe! Cute..." she smiled mischievously at Ethan’s blank expression, completely ignoring the death stares she was getting from the rest of the soulmates.

The battlefield gasped the moment she entered.

At once, the golden beings across the battlefield froze mid-combat. Their movement stuttered like unfinished thoughts... then, without resistance, they dissolved into streams of light and surged back toward Ethan, flowing into him as easily as breath returning to the lungs.

Lilith appeared high above the empire, suspended at the precise center of the sky. The clouds recoiled from her presence, spiraling outward as if repelled by a superior predator.

She spread her wings.

They were vast now, layered in iridescent purplish black membranes veined with faint gold. Each edge seemed to reflect a different emotion, desire, fury, disdain, or hunger. The air screamed as pressure collapsed inward.

Kassiel noticed first.

The dark seraph turned mid-flight, his broken halos clattering as his six wings snapped open. Nyxirra followed a heartbeat later, her six void-tails lashing as her slit-pupil eyes locked onto Lilith.

"...That’s it?" Nyxirra scoffed. "One woman?"

Kassiel narrowed his eyes. "She’s alone."

They lunged.

Lilith didn’t move.

The first wave of power hit her like a tidal surge, void claws tearing space, corrupted holy light scouring reality. It engulfed her completely, blotting her from sight.

For three full seconds, it looked like they had erased her.

Then the attacks slowed.

Something inside the blast laughed.

The energy folded inward, crushed by an unseen force, and then burst outward again, harmlessly, and like sparks striking an anvil.

Lilith drifted forward, untouched.

"Watch carefully," she said, her voice carrying effortlessly across the sky, layered with authority that dug straight into the soul.

Her eyes burned faintly red.

"Regnare. Xander. Elaine. Sixtie."

Her gaze flicked briefly toward the distance, where they could all feel her calling, not as a command, but as an invitation.

"This," Lilith continued, wings flexing, "is how sins are used properly."

She vanished again.

Nyxirra barely reacted in time. Lilith reappeared inches from her face, one finger gently tapping the void-cat’s forehead.

Pride.

The world tilted.

Nyxirra’s confidence exploded outward, magnified beyond control. Her movements became grand, overextended. Every strike was heavier, flashier, and slower. She had to prove superiority now. The sin bloomed inside her like poison honey.

Lilith drifted away, already bored.

Kassiel roared and descended in a spiral of chained wings, blades screaming.

Lilith raised one hand.

Wrath.

Not hers, but his.

Kassiel’s fury was seized, inverted, and fed back into him tenfold. His attacks lost precision, becoming reckless and self-destructive. Every missed strike tore at his own essence. He screamed, not in pain, but frustration, rage cannibalizing itself.

Lilith sighed.

"Too loud."

She flickered again, appearing behind Kassiel, fingers brushing his back.

Sloth.

The universe itself seemed to yawn.

Kassiel’s wings slowed. His chains dragged like they weighed eternity. His thoughts dulled mid-action, reactions lagging just enough to matter. He fell, drifting, trapped in unbearable inertia.

Lilith glanced sideways, as if speaking to someone lounging somewhere unseen.

"Elaine," she said calmly, "that one’s yours to appreciate."

Nyxirra shrieked and pounced again, void ripping through the sky.

Lilith turned, eyes half-lidded.

Greed.

Nyxirra’s hunger spiked uncontrollably for Lilith herself. Her attacks warped, reaching instead of striking, trying to take, claim, and possess.

That was her mistake.

Lilith let her get close.

Then...

Lust.

Desire twisted into fixation. Fixation into paralysis. Nyxirra froze mid-lunge, her body betraying her, and her instincts screaming conflicting commands. Pleasure, fear, longing, revulsion, all tangled together.

Lilith leaned close, whispering softly.

"Xander," she murmured, "take notes."

Her fingers snapped.

Envy.

Nyxirra’s gaze locked onto Lilith, not as an enemy, but as an impossibility. Power she could never have. Authority she could never reach. Origin, she could never touch.

Her will cracked.

She collapsed, screaming, her void-marked fur tearing itself apart as her own essence rejected her.

Only Kassiel remained, dragging himself upward, hatred burning through the sloth like wildfire.

Lilith floated down to his level, eyes finally cold.

"And finally," she said, wings spreading fully.

Gluttony.

The sky darkened.

Lilith opened herself, not to give, but to consume. Kassiel’s remaining power was ripped from him, devoured, stripped clean down to the memory of strength.

He fell.

Broken.

Lilith hovered alone above the empire, wings folding slowly as silence reclaimed the sky. The portals began collapsing, and dismissed, their existence denied relevance.

She turned slightly, glancing back toward Ethan and the others.

"That," she said lightly, "was restraint."

The sky obeyed her.

And hope died, everywhere it had dared to oppose her.

...

The throne began to convulse.

At first, it was subtle, bones grinding, fused ribs flexing where ribs should never flex. Then the souls embedded within the throne began to scream again, not softly this time, but in ragged, overlapping howls as pressure mounted beyond what even damnation had prepared them for.

The red eyes widened.

Not in shock.

In offense.

"...Defeated," the being whispered, and the word curdled reality.

The air thickened until distance ceased to function properly. Sound bent inward. Time hesitated, unsure whether it was still allowed to proceed.

"Twelve," he said, each syllable peeling a layer off existence. "I sent twelve vectors of calibrated ruin. Champions refined through centuries of attrition. Failures repurposed into inevitability."

The throne lurched.

A dragon skull fused into its armrest shattered, fragments screaming as they were pulled back into place by sheer authority.

"And they were played with."

The red eyes burned brighter, casting long, diseased shadows across the hall, shadows that did not correspond to anything real.

"They did not fracture a city," he continued, voice tightening. "They did not breach a ley core. They did not even force escalation."

A pause.

Longer this time.

"...They didn’t take Anbord."

The name detonated.

Entire sections of the dominion imploded, collapsing inward like rotting lungs finally giving out. Structures that had stood since before ordered heavens crumpled into nonexistence, erased rather than destroyed.

"ANBORD," he repeated, louder.

The throne screamed again as souls were crushed tighter, their agony transmuted into raw stabilizing force just to keep the domain intact.

"A threshold world. A pressure valve. A place designed to fail loudly when stressed." The red eyes flickered, calculations racing now, no longer calm. "And yet... he held it."

A tremor rippled outward through space. Somewhere, futures rewrote themselves in panic.

"He recalled his constructs," the being growled.

The concept tasted foul.

Trust was inefficient. Trust was fragile. Trust was something systems exploited, not relied upon.

And yet.

"He left a single agent," the being hissed, realization finally snapping into something sharp. "One. Not a god. Not an axis. Not even a full Saint."

The throne cracked lengthwise.

"And she dominated them."

Memory replayed itself unwillingly, sin inverted into a weapon, inevitability dismantled with elegance, hope methodically dismantled. Kassiel broken. Nyxirra undone.

Not slain.

Dismissed.

His fingers, if they could be called that, dug into the arm of the throne. Divine spines snapped under the pressure.

"No counter-move," he muttered. "No desperate gambit. No revelation."

Another pause.

"...No fear."

The red eyes narrowed until they were thin, searing lines cut into the void.

"He is no longer measuring himself against me," the being said quietly. "He is measuring the world."

That realization landed heavier than any defeat.

Because systems could be predicted.

But choosers?

Choosers rewrote games.

The dominion groaned as he leaned forward, shadows warping, the membrane-sky above pulsing erratically now, as if sensing its master’s instability.

"I gave him enemies," the being snarled. "He gave them lessons."

The throne twisted, bodies fusing tighter, screams silenced mid-syllable as they were compressed into raw conceptual fuel.

"Fine," he said at last.

The word carried finality.

"If Anbord will not fall... then I will not test his walls."

The red eyes burned with something colder than rage now.

"I will test his attachments."

Somewhere, deep beneath layers of sealed reality, ancient things stirred, not because they were commanded, but because permission had been withdrawn.

"You want to play architect?" the being murmured, voice once again smoothing into something patient and lethal. "Then I will introduce you to demolition."

He leaned back upon the screaming throne.

"Enjoy your victory, Ethan," he said softly. "Enjoy how easy it was."

The membrane-sky split with a wet, thunderous tear.

"Easy things," he added, almost fondly, "never stay that way."