The battlefield breaks.
Not with a final explosion, but with fear spreading amongst the angels and demons.
It starts subtly.
A demon cohort at the far edge of the ruined plains hesitates, claws digging into molten glass as they watch two forces that were never meant to exist laugh while tearing reality apart. One demon drops its weapon. Another turns and runs.
Then another.
Then thousands.
Panic spreads faster and faster with each fleeing soldier.
Demon banners collapse as entire legions scatter, wings beating frantically as they flee in every direction. Fissures rip open unevenly, sloppy, unstable, demons shoving each other aside to escape through them before they collapse. Some don't make it in time. They burn where they stand, caught in stray pressure waves as Mike and Abbadon crash together again overhead.
The angels fare no better.
What remains of their host retreats in fractured formations, light flickering weakly around shattered wings. Orders are screamed across divine channels, overlapping, contradictory, desperate.
"WITHDRAW—"
"REGROUP AT—"
"SEAL THE BREACH—"
"ABANDON THE FIELD—"
Portals of radiant gold snap open across the sky as angels flee back into higher realms, some limping, some half-formed, many missing limbs or wings entirely. Those too slow are erased trying flee, caught in shockwaves, dissolved by proximity alone.
Mike notices.
He laughs harder.
"Oh NO DON'T GO!" he bellows, clapping his wings and hands together, sending a thunderous compression wave rippling outward. The blast catches a retreating angel wing, crushing half the formation into drifting motes of light.
Abbadon watches the rout with open amusement.
"They break so easily," he says, almost fondly.
"Fucking pigeons kept attacking me but now run away," Mike replies, voice bright with glee.
Bahamut's thundering laughter echoed in his mind as the angels are decimated trying to retreat. "Die Feathered bats!"
They slam together again, but the energy of it is different now, a fight of enjoyment and exchanging blows. Two apex forces striking simply because they can.
Below them, Mephistopheles finally stops smiling.
A group of retreating demons, panic-blind and desperate charge past his obsidian hill. One glances up, sees him sitting comfortably in his conjured chair, and something ugly flickers behind its eyes.
Fear turns into blame.
The first spell hits Mephistopheles square in the chest.
It splashes harmlessly across his coat, but the intent behind it makes his smile vanish.
"Oh," he says softly.
Another blast follows. Then another. A panicked volley of hellfire and jagged spears of corrupted essence all thrown wildly as demons scramble past him, desperate to escape anything associated with this battlefield.
Mephistopheles rises slowly from his chair.
His eyes glow.
"Have you lost your minds?"
He flicks his wrist.
The first demon detonates into a fine red mist.
A second is crushed flat against the ground like an insect beneath a boot. A third is yanked backward mid-flight and torn apart limb by limb.
But there are too many.
And above him, the laughter of Mike and Abbadon grows louder.
The pressure increases as Mike launches firey attacks at Mephistopheles sitting comfortably in the large chair.
Mephistopheles snarls, genuine anger flashing across his refined features for the first time.
"This is becoming inconvenient."
Another shockwave tears across the hill, splitting it in half. The ground beneath Mephistopheles fractures violently, the obsidian chair shattering into fragments.
He scowls up at the sky as Mike smiles at him before colliding with Abbadon again, the impact blowing another chunk of the landscape into dust and debris.
"So be it," he mutters.
With a sharp gesture, a portal snaps open behind him, clean, precise, controlled. Mephistopheles steps backward into it, straightening his coat and adjusting his top hat even as the edges of reality tremble.
His eyes linger on Mike one last time, calculating.
"This isn't over, Michael," he says quietly. "Not even close."
The portal snaps shut.
He's gone.
On the walls of Sanctuary, silence spreads like a sickness.
The council stares out over the wasteland, over the molten earth, the collapsing portals, the fleeing remnants of two divine armies routed not by strategy or sacrifice, but by monsters embracing the joy of battle.
Nicolas lowers his sword slowly.
"They're… running," he says, disbelief heavy in his voice.
Jennifer swallows. "Both of them."
Cyra watches Mike and Abbadon tear through the sky one last time, then slow, hovering amid drifting ash. "We didn't win," she says softly. "We merely survived because they enjoyed killing angels and demons more."
Lisa grips the parapet, eyes fixed on Mike. "Is this what he's become?"
No one answers.
Above the ruined battlefield, Mike finally pulls back.
He hovers, wings beating steadily, chest rising and falling from the sheer exhilaration of the battle with Abbadon. Fire rolls lazily off his scales now, no longer explosive, but content.
Abbadon slows as well, drifting downward.
They don't attack.
They don't chase.
They simply… stop.
They land almost simultaneously in the center of the shattered chasm, feet sinking slightly into cooling magma. The world around them crackles and settles, as if relieved.
Mike bends forward, hands on his knees, laughing breathlessly.
Abbadon throws his head back and laughs with him, deep and thunderous, the sound echoing across miles of broken land.
"That," Abbadon says between laughs, "was refreshing."
Mike wipes molten blood from his jaw, grinning wide. "Seeing Mephistopheles stop smiling and the armies flee was fucking awesome."
They straighten.
Around them, the last angelic portals snap shut. The final demonic fissures collapse in on themselves. The sky slowly begins to stabilize, the violent distortions smoothing into scorched clouds and drifting embers.
The battlefield empties.
Nothing remains but two figures standing amid the ruin, laughing like old friends who just finished a shared indulgence.
Mike exhales, wings folding slowly against his back.
Abbadon mirrors the motion.
For the first time since the armies arrived, the world is quiet.
And in that quiet, the council watches, confused, shaken, unsure whether they have just witnessed the end of a war or the beginning of something far worse.