The night pulsed with the rhythm of their battle.
Selene lashed out again and again—claws gleaming like obsidian daggers, eyes burning with crimson fury, mouth open in silent sobs as tears of blood streamed down her face.
Every strike came with desperation, every spell with torment.
Black magic crackled at her fingertips, dark sigils forming mid-air only to be shattered by Azrael's effortless evasions.
But he did not strike.
Not yet.
Azrael's greatsword moved like a wall, meeting claw, magic, and shadow with precision, never wasting motion.
His steps were measured, sliding across the ashen earth like a wraith.
Sparks danced where blade met claw, but his eyes never left hers.
Because he saw.
He saw her—the soul trapped behind those crimson eyes. A prisoner. A weapon aimed by another's hand.
For an instant, he almost felt pity for a vampire.
Selene's body moved with monstrous speed, but her heart wasn't in it.
With every blow, every shriek, it became clearer.
She didn't want to fight.
She wanted to flee.
But the chains of Maria's will bound her tighter with every moment.
Her fate was already decided:
Death by the hand of a human, or dying from the hand of her mother.
During their fight, the hunter spoke.
He wanted to speak with his arch-enemy.
Azrael's voice, calm as the grave, cut through the storm of battle.
"What is your purpose, Queen of Night?"
His words echoed like a tolling bell.
Selene howled in pain, staggering as if the sound of his voice tore at her very soul.
Her claws faltered for a heartbeat—but only for a heartbeat—before the dark power inside her pushed her forward again.
Even hearing his voice was painful to her.
Another wild strike.
Another blast of dark fire.
"PLEASE, DIE! DIE ALREADY! PLEASE!" Selene screamed, almost breaking her voice.
Azrael could hear the pain but he remained unmoved.
Selene kept trying to hit him desperately , but her strikes were too predictable.
She wasn't thinking with logic.
She was only being a beast guided by its primal instincts to survive.
Selene had always been a perfect assassin in battle, but now it was completely different.
Azrael weaved between her strikes, untouchable, as if the night itself bent to let him pass.
His movements were so perfect that it seemed like he was dancing.
Selene sobbed, her voice breaking as the agony inside her grew.
"Answer me, Maria." Azrael said, with a totally calm tone of voice.
Every word Azrael spoke was a blade driven deeper into her heart, because Maria saw through her eyes.
And through those eyes… Maria saw him.
Not Azrael the hunter.
But Mark.
The ghost that Maria's cursed heart could never let go of.
Azrael ducked beneath a claw, sliding back a pace.
"What do you want, Maria?" He asked again.
His voice was quiet, but it carried.
"What do you hope to gain from this farce?"
Selene screamed, a raw, broken sound that rattled the dead branches of the trees.
A pulse of black magic erupted from her body in a wave of shadow, but Azrael leapt clear, boots skimming the cracked earth, his eyes still steady, still watching.
His mind pieced it together.
This wasn't Selene.
Not truly.
He wasn't fighting the vampire before him.
He was fighting Maria — or a fragment of her, channeled through this cursed daughter.
And that changed everything.
He wouldn't have gotten any kind of information from her.
The only thing he could do as a small act of mercy was giving her a merciful death.
Selene lunged again, claws flashing.
Azrael stepped back, sword raised, deflecting the blow.
He kept retreating, each movement as fluid as water, reading her pattern, waiting for the opening he knew would come.
And then—
In a single, blinding motion, he dashed backward—twenty meters or more, vanishing into the smoke and the night.
Selene froze for a fraction of a second, confusion flickering in her bloodshot eyes.
Then Azrael charged.
His feet made the ground crack from the pression.
Then, after a big charge, his greatsword left his hand like a meteor, spinning end over end toward her with the force of a cannon shot.
The blade howled through the air, gleaming with the light of distant fires.
Selene raised her arms to block, driven by instinct, by fear, by the last shred of self that still wanted to live.
But that was what Azrael had counted on.
He moved.
Faster than sight. Faster than the mind could follow.
He was already there—already closing the distance, boots striking the hilt of his own sword mid-air, using it as a springboard.
His body launched upward, higher, faster, weightless like the night wind.
And from above, he descended—
A ghost, a reaper, death given form.
Selene couldn't react at all.
The only thing she did was blocking his sword and putting it on the ground.
An instant of distraction.
The only thing he was waiting.
His heel crashed down on Selene's chest, the force of it like a hammer blow.
She crumpled beneath him, driven into the earth, a crater blooming where she fell, dust and ash exploding outward in a ring.
Azrael landed in a crouch, one hand on the hilt of his embedded sword, eyes locked on his fallen foe.
Selene lay still for a heartbeat, gasping, tears of blood staining the dirt beneath her face.
But the night was not done with them yet.
And neither was Maria.
The moment had finally arrived.
He only had to finish her.