The sky had already been split once.
Now it watched.
The blue gate still hung open above the world that no longer resembled itself, its light untouched by the gold below. From that fracture, the being had descended. It had stood before Adam without hesitation, without doubt, as if this moment had been written long before Adam ever touched gold.
From afar, it could pass for human.
Up close, it failed.
Its arms, chest, and legs carried the proportions of a man, balanced and deliberate. But behind its back, six pairs of wings stretched upward, layered over each other, reaching toward its neck like a structure rather than something meant for flight. They did not move with air. They held position, rigid, as if bound by something heavier than gravity.
Its face carried the outline of a human skull.
But there was no mouth.
No nose.
No skin.
Only eyes.
White, unblinking, packed across its entire face, each one fixed and open, each one seeing.
When it looked at Adam, it did not hesitate.
An ethereal voice followed, not from its body but from everywhere at once, as if the sky itself had chosen to speak.
"You wretched thing from the old world dare destroy."
The tone did not rise, but something within it pressed down with force. Not anger alone. Something closer to grief twisted into judgment.
"You shall be punished for your sins, Midas."
Adam looked up.
There was no reaction in his face. No shift in stance. The gold and diamond beneath his skin held steady, reflecting the blue above in fractured pieces.
"Adam," he said, voice quiet. "That was the name my mother gave me."
A pause.
"I'm not that anymore."
The being moved.
No warning. No buildup. Its arm cut forward in a clean arc, space itself seeming to part along the path of the strike.
It never reached him.
Adam was already in motion.
His body shifted just enough. Not a step. Not a full dodge. Just absence from where the strike landed.
His fist followed.
It connected.
The impact did not echo. It erased.
The being left the sky in a straight line, driven upward with force that ignored resistance. Atmosphere tore around it, burning away as it broke through, leaving a trail that vanished as quickly as it formed.
Seconds later, it struck the surface of the Moon.
The sound did not travel back.
Only the result did.
A fracture spread across the surface, thin at first, then widening as if something beneath had been forced outward.
Adam was already there.
He stood on the broken ground, unmoving, as dust settled in slow arcs around him.
The being rose from the impact.
Unharmed.
"You wretched thing," the voice returned, quieter now, stretched thinner across the empty space. "Trying to buy time."
Adam tilted his head slightly.
"I don't need to run," he said.
A step forward.
"You should."
For a moment, nothing moved.
Then the being laughed.
It did not sound like laughter. It cracked halfway through, folding into something closer to a cry that refused to finish.
"I am the Angel of Peace," it said. "I will end your destruction."
Adam didn't respond.
He walked.
That was enough.
The Angel moved first this time.
Faster.
Its arm swung again, but now the motion carried light with it, a curved edge forming along the path, bright and thin like a blade drawn directly through space.
It cut cleanly.
Through Adam.
Or where he had been.
The image shattered.
An afterimage.
The real strike landed behind him.
The blade didn't stop.
It carved into the surface of the Moon, continuing without resistance, splitting through layers that had held for billions of years.
The fracture widened.
Then it broke.
The Moon separated along that line, two halves drifting apart, their edges still glowing faintly where the cut had passed.
Adam turned.
The Angel was already in front of him.
The punch came without light this time. Just force.
It connected.
Space around the impact bent inward, collapsing for a fraction of a second before snapping back. The pressure alone sent Adam backward, his body cutting through the vacuum, fragments of lunar stone scattering in his wake.
He didn't resist it.
He stopped it.
His feet met nothing, yet his motion ended.
The Angel was already there again.
Another strike.
Then another.
Each one heavier than the last, each one pushing more than just mass, distorting the space between them with every impact. What remained of the Moon fractured further, pieces breaking away, drifting into open space.
Adam's expression didn't change.
He watched.
Measured.
The next strike came with the same arc of light.
He moved under it.
Not fast. Not sudden. Just precise.
His body lowered, the blade passing over him by a margin that barely existed.
His fist rose.
It connected with the Angel's face.
For the first time, something gave.
The Angel's body bent around the impact, then disappeared into distance, thrown far beyond the debris of the Moon.
It didn't stop.
Not until it reached the upper layers of Jupiter.
It stood there, suspended within the dense clouds, its wings still rigid behind it.
Then it moved.
Forward.
The force of that movement did not just carry it through the atmosphere. It displaced it. The gas parted violently, pushed aside in expanding waves, revealing something beneath that no human eye had ever seen directly.
Darkness.
The core.
The surrounding mass scattered outward, smeared across space in streaks that slowly began to dissolve.
Adam was already waiting when the Angel returned.
It came like a projectile.
He stepped aside.
The Angel stopped behind him, turning instantly, its fist already moving.
This time, Adam didn't dodge.
He raised his arm.
Blocked.
The impact held for a second longer than any before it.
"Who do you think I am," Adam said.
He drove his other hand forward.
The strike landed in the Angel's core.
Its body folded inward, then was thrown back again, the force finally breaking something that had held until now.
Purple bled.
Not from a wound.
From its eyes.
The liquid flowed downward, slow at first, then faster, drifting away in droplets that did not disperse.
"Protecting the Earth you destroyed," the Angel said.
Adam glanced past it.
Earth.
What remained of it.
A sphere of gold, smooth and reflective, its surface lined with unmoving figures. Billions of them. Silent. Waiting.
Watching.
"A king protects his throne," Adam said.
He looked back.
The Angel's form shifted.
Something in it faltered.
Its posture broke for the first time, not physically, but in presence. The voice that followed carried strain now, stretched thin across whatever held it together.
"You wretched… you think you are a god."
The words cracked.
Its head lowered.
The eyes across its face widened, then began to bleed more heavily. Purple streamed down, not falling away this time.
It spread.
The liquid moved outward, ignoring direction, covering the space around them like a slow expansion. It didn't dissipate. It remained, forming something closer to a boundary than a spill.
A domain.
Adam watched.
Still calm.
Still unmoved.
The Angel changed.
Its body opened further, the surface shifting as more eyes formed across it, covering every visible part. Each one bled, the purple liquid thickening, darkening the space it touched.
When it spoke again, the voice was different.
Quieter.
Closer.
"Gods are dead."
A pause.
Then, softer.
"You, from that world… should have died with them."
The space between them held.
For the first time since the fight began, neither moved.
Not because they couldn't.
Because something had shifted.
And whatever came next would not resemble what had come before.