[Suzerain of Sheol]

Invisible flesh now spattered with crimson, like some incarnate mark of his damnation, Cain pays little heed to the demonic essence latching upon him -- perhaps he has gone so long without the grace of life that pain and sentiment have been forgotten. Instead, the fell spirit faces his immediate adversaries, radiating scorn at the two ancient powers.

The time has passed for words. Their eldering feud will not be settled with petty insults.

The creature -- the hyrbid -- is an abomination, a corruption of the fundamental order of God. What madness has found Metatron in the wake of his LORD's destruction, to bring such a wretched thing into the world? To lay a fellow sovereign spirit so low? But for all that he despises this vile mockery of Uriel's legacy, there is power there yet. She is mighty, and seeming without mercy. She... may enough.

And if that is justice, so be it.

But before the axe descends, before the hour of Cain's perfidy draws to its final close, he can... do one more service for the God who gave him life.

Yes... the world need not suffer Ashmodai any longer.

He sees the demon rearing, preparing a charge with its Hellish lance. It will have the opportunity. Cain hurls his spear once more, the sound like thunder in a vacuum. It streaks, throbbing with the energies of his psykosis, flying unerring.

Ashmodai's arm explodes from its shoulder, dissolving into trails of black as necromancy melts demonic flesh. Arterial blood pulses from the wound, dissolving the earth below in miasmas of noxious steam.

The demon howls, four voices of anguish. Abaddon's power seethes, denies regeneration, spreads frozen fire into bursting veins.

Cain's spear is in his hands once more. He watches the fiend in its slow, certain death to the exclusion of all else, paying no heed to the spreading stains of red...