Uriel let out a piercing shriek and stumbled backward across the marble. Golden ichor sprayed everywhere from his severed stump. He frantically scrambled across the floorboards and snatched his fallen hand from the dust.

"How could a filthy mortal cut my beautiful hand!" Uriel screamed, pressing the severed flesh directly against his wrist. Brilliant holy light stitched his veins and skin back together in a fraction of a second. The angel flexed his restored fingers and admired his pristine skin. "My existence is absolute perfection, and you deserve to be burned to ash."

He snapped his golden eyes upward just as Solomon landed on his boots and gulped the gemstone down. Uriel opened his mouth and unleashed a furious roar.

"That divine essence is mine!" The angel charged across the ruined cathedral with his wings flared. "How dare you eat that! I will carve you open and rip it directly from your stomach!"

Uriel summoned a barrage of blazing lances and hurled them across the hall. He kept his distance entirely, staying out of the executioner’s sword’s sweeping range.

Solomon planted his boots and swung Eden’s Penance with his remaining left arm. The divine blade shattered the incoming magic into harmless sparks. 𝑓𝘳𝑒𝑒𝓌𝘦𝘣𝘯ℴ𝑣𝘦𝑙.𝘤𝑜𝑚

Vlad leaned against a shattered pew near the altar. He clutched his bruised ribs and gasped for breath while watching the chaotic clash unfold from a distance.

Solomon grit his teeth and deflected another blast of golden fire. ’I swallowed the actual gemstone, so where is the power?’ he thought, his chest heaving violently. ’I should be experiencing some kind of awakening right now. Absolutely nothing is happening inside my core.’

He wiped sweat from his eyes and adjusted his grip on the massive hilt.

He had already spent his entire aura reserves carving through thousands of undead monsters outside the palace walls. And Executing the Imperial Sword Arts to break the vault seals had completely drained his remaining stamina.

Now he was desperately fighting a divine entity with his non-dominant hand while actively bleeding out.

Uriel conjured an enormous sphere of light and blasted it toward the boy. Solomon threw his body sideways to avoid the explosion.

’This bastard is clearly holding back compared to how he was fighting in the paladin’s memories,’ Solomon realized, scrambling to his feet. ’If my talent refuses to activate right now, I am completely finished.’

Vlad pushed himself off the ruined floorboards and retrieved his silver blade from the rubble. He coughed violently while forcing a bright golden aura into the metal.

"Solomon!" Vlad called out across the cathedral. "Your body requires time to actively process that gemstone! You must stop moving and cultivate to boost the absorption rate. Your failing muscles will face a massive backlash if you continue fighting in your exhausted state!"

Solomon narrowed his eyes at the royal swordsman. He genuinely wondered how the prince possessed such specific knowledge about consuming divine artifacts. He quickly attributed it to extensive royal education and shoved the thought aside.

"I have zero choices right now." Solomon sidestepped a stray spark of holy fire. "I have to keep fighting or we both die."

Vlad flooded his boots with golden light and launched himself directly into the sky. "I will keep the angel busy!"

Vlad intercepted a barrage of blazing lances with swift slashes of his glowing weapon. Uriel snapped his golden eyes toward Vlad and completely lost his composure.

The angel flared his remaining wings and unleashed a furious volley of magical blasts.

"You filthy mortals constantly defile my divine presence!" Uriel shrieked while blindly hurling spears of light across the hall. "I will slaughter every single one of you and burn this entire realm down!"

Solomon stepped back from the active combat zone and looked down at the bleeding stump of his right wrist. A sharp pulse of agony shot through his nervous system. He ground his teeth together and forced his gaze away from the gruesome wound.

He drove the point of Eden’s Penance deeply into the marble tiles, but kept his left hand clamped tightly around the thick hilt to anchor his injured body.

Solomon closed his eyes and focused his entire consciousness inward, tuning out the crashing explosions to actively search for the presence of the consumed gemstone inside his core.

Vlad swung his aura-drenched sword to deflect a blazing lance of light. He planted his boots against the marble tiles and angled the silver blade to redirect another magical strike away from his chest.

The sheer impact of the holy magic forced his muscles to scream under the strain. He kept his footwork completely defensive while entirely failing to find a single opening in the angel’s furious assault.

Uriel possessed the absolute physical might of a divine entity that far exceeded mortals.

However, Vlad carried the Royal bloodline inherited directly from those exact same angels. And the Royal bloodline was just a hierarchy below the divine bloodline the angels possessed.

The golden aura flaring around the prince bridged the gap slightly to keep him alive. But a mortal vessel ultimately crumbled against a pristine immortal without wielding a capable relic alongside peerless combat skills.

Uriel tilted his golden head and scoffed at the struggling boy. "You royals claim divinity in your veins, yet you bleed like pigs in the dirt." A blinding flash erupted from the angel’s empty palm.

Suddenly, a massive halberd forged entirely of blazing white fire suddenly materialized directly into his grip.

Vlad widened his eyes at the sudden manifestation. He dropped his left hand toward the sheathed dagger resting on his hip to draw a secondary weapon. His fingers merely brushed the leather hilt before Uriel closed the distance completely.

The angel swung the blazing halberd upward in a brutal arc. The shaft slammed directly into Vlad’s ribs with devastating force.

The impact launched the royal knight completely off the floorboards.

Vlad shot upward through the cathedral shadows and crashed violently into the massive crystal chandelier suspended from the ceiling. Shattered, multicolored glass exploded outward in every direction while his body tangled within the ruined brass frame.

Uriel flared his three pristine wings and launched himself into the sky. The angel reached the ruined fixture in a fraction of a second. He grabbed Vlad by his golden hair and hurled him straight back down.

The prince plummeted through the empty space and slammed into the marble tiles with a sickening crunch of breaking bones. Before Vlad could even gasp for breath, Uriel dropped from the ceiling and landed with both feet planting directly onto his chest.

The brutal stomp caved his ribcage inward completely, forcing a violent geyser of blood from Vlad’s mouth across the marble floor.