Azrael lifted the creature off the ground with one hand. It thrashed, club falling from nerveless fingers, claws scraping uselessly at his arm. The fabric of the jumpsuit didn't even tear.
He looked into its eyes – small, red, filled with mindless hunger – and felt the familiar contempt rise.
"You're the same as them, you know," he said conversationally to the choking demon. "Humans and demons both. You consume and destroy and pretend it means something. The only difference is demons are honest about their nature."
The hobgoblin's struggles weakened.
"At least killing you serves a purpose."
He squeezed.
The hobgoblin's neck snapped with a wet crack. Azrael dropped the corpse and turned to Min-Jun, who sat in a puddle of his own piss, staring with eyes so wide they showed white all around.
"You..." Min-Jun's voice cracked. "How did you... that was C-Rank..."
Azrael crouched beside the corpse and extracted its mana stone – a beautiful thing, clear as diamond, worth at least 300,000 won. He pocketed it, then collected Min-Jun's dropped sword and handed it back.
"Your weapon," he said.
Min-Jun took it with shaking hands.
"The dungeon is collapsing in approximately 90 minutes," Azrael continued in the same pleasant tone. "I suggest you leave. Your companions have already abandoned you. Running now might let you catch up."
"Who... what are you?"
A fallen angel with 0.8% of his former power, wondering why he bothered to save cattle that would've left him to die.
"F-Rank waste management," Azrael said. "Nothing more."
He walked away, leaving Min-Jun sitting in the demon blood and his own terror.
Behind him, the System chimed:
[DEMON SLAIN: C-Rank Hobgoblin]
[+0.2% DIVINE ESSENCE]
[CURRENT TOTAL: 1.0%]
[ANALYSIS: You saved a human who attempted to rob you. Interesting choice.]
[QUERY: Why?]
Azrael considered the question as he moved deeper into the dungeon, collecting stones from corpses.
Why had he saved Min-Jun? The boy had tried to steal from him. His companions had abandoned him. He would likely learn nothing from this experience and continue being exactly what he was – a spoiled child playing at heroism.
So why?
"Because I could. And letting him die would've meant listening to his screams. His death would've been inconvenient."
The System didn't respond, but Azrael felt its skepticism like a weight in his mind.
He spent the next hour methodically clearing the dungeon. Collected forty-seven mana stones of varying grades. Killed three more stragglers – goblins, mostly, with one hell hound that had been feeding on corpses.
Each kill added fractional percentages to his divine essence. It was pathetically slow. At this rate, he'd need to kill thousands of low-grade demons to make meaningful progress.
Or I could find higher-ranked rifts. S-Rank demons, SS-Rank, SSS-Rank. Each worth exponentially more.
But that would require caring enough to seek them out.
He emerged from the collapsing dungeon ninety seconds before it sealed. The C-Rank guard was gone, probably on break. Azrael walked back to the Guild Association alone, his collection bag heavy with stones.
The processing clerk – a different one, younger, male – barely looked up as Azrael deposited his collection.
"Forty-seven stones, mixed grade. From a D-Rank dungeon that was supposedly cleared." The clerk's fingers flew across his keyboard. "Where'd you find a C-Rank hobgoblin stone?"
"The clearing team missed one."
"And you killed it?" The clerk laughed. "Right. And I'm secretly an S-Rank. Nice try, buddy. You probably found it near a corpse and got lucky."
"If you say so."
"Payment's 580,000 won. Transferred to your account." The clerk waved him away. "Next!"
Azrael stepped aside, checking his phone – another item the Association had provided. The money appeared in his account. Enough for a week in a cheap motel. Food. Basic necessities.
Survival secured through cleaning up after stronger humans killed what he could eliminate with one hand.
This is my life now. This is what redemption looks like.
He walked out into the Seoul night. Neon signs blazed overhead, advertising everything from fried chicken to luxury raid equipment. Humans swarmed the streets, laughing, arguing, living their brief, pointless lives.
Somewhere, a rift alarm sounded. More demons. More death. More opportunities for the blessed and the strong to prove themselves.
Azrael felt nothing.
His phone buzzed. A message from Guild Association HR:
Good work today. Assignment tomorrow: E-Rank dungeon cleanup, Gangnam District. 6 AM start. Don't be late.
He pocketed the phone and kept walking, no destination in mind.
Behind a bar, he heard laughter – female voices, drunk and happy. Through the window, he saw them: young women in tight dresses, celebrating something. A birthday, perhaps. Or a promotion. Or just the fact of being alive.
One of them noticed him through the glass. Her eyes widened. She whispered to her friends. They all turned to look.
Like children staring at something shiny.
He wasn't proud of it, but in the years he had watched humans – their debauchery was the one thing that he did find amusing.
He could go in there. Buy them drinks. Say the right words in the right order. Take one or two or all of them back to whatever motel room he'd rent. Lose himself in physical sensation for a few hours.
Maybe he'd feel something. Probably he wouldn't.
Azrael kept walking.
The System chimed again:
[OBSERVATION: You have had multiple opportunities for "vice" as you used to call it. You haven't taken any of them.]
[QUERY: Losing interest in debauchery already?]
I'm tired, he thought back. Even vice requires energy I don't care to spend.
[ANALYSIS: You are not tired. You are empty. ]
[RECOMMENDATION: Find something that makes you feel. Anything. Before the numbness becomes permanent.]
The numbness IS permanent. That's the point.
[We shall see.]
At this point Azrael has concluded this system was simply a manifestation of one of the Seraphs, forcing him to see humans as more than the worthless specs they were.
Azrael found a motel – cheap, anonymous, the kind of place that didn't ask questions. Paid for a week in advance. The room smelled like cigarettes and hookers, but it had a bed and running water.
He lay down, staring at the water-stained ceiling, and listened to the city breathe around him. Millions of lives, each one convinced of its own importance. Each one moving toward the same inevitable conclusion.
Ash.
All of it, ash.
[Daily Report: Divine Essence: 1.0%]
[Demons Slain: 4]
[Humans Saved: 1 (Reluctantly)]
[Emotional Connections: 0]
[Progress Toward Redemption: Negligible]
Azrael closed his eyes.
He didn't dream. Angels didn't dream.
They just existed, forever and always, until they didn't.
And for the first time in three thousand years, he wondered if mortality might actually be a gift.
The alternative was this: eternity without purpose, consciousness without meaning, existence without end.
Maybe the cattle have it right, he thought as sleep – strange, mortal sleep – finally claimed him. Maybe it's better to burn bright and brief than to freeze forever in the dark.
Then consciousness faded, and even that thought disappeared into nothing.