Kaelion raised the sword slowly.
Brought the blade close to his own face.
Observed the dark surface—
marked by the void,
scored by the battles,
still intact where it mattered.
— So this sword belonged to an archangel…
His eyes were cold.
There was no rage in them.
No fear.
Only observation.
— Interesting.
The creature tilted both heads.
— And you believe that changes anything?
Kaelion did not respond immediately.
He kept looking at the blade.
As if the question deserved no urgency.
— You said that, if it were an archangel wielding this blade…
A pause.
— things might be different.
Silence.
The creature did not respond.
But something shifted in the pressure around them—
subtle,
like a held breath.
Kaelion felt it.
From the moment he had first touched the sword,
something in it had responded to him.
Not completely.
Not the way it should have.
But it responded.
As if it recognized a presence
without being able to fully identify it.
Now—
it answered.
First, a faint glow.
Almost imperceptible.
Then—
Light.
Golden.
Deep.
Like something that had slept for a very long time
and had just remembered what it was.
The layer trembled.
Not the way it trembled under blows.
Differently.
As if the void itself recoiled before it.
The creature stepped back half a step.
Both faces contracted—
not in pain,
but with something they had never felt before.
— No…
A pause.
— this isn't possible…
The light ran the full length of the sword.
It burned the void around it.
The space itself seemed to warp where it touched—
as if the surrounding darkness knew that this did not belong there
and tried to pull away.
The creature watched.
— How…
Both heads tilted at different angles.
— is this possible…?
Kaelion smiled slightly.
Cold.
Controlled.
The first smile since he had arrived in that place.
— I liked the expression you just made.
The creature's presence surged.
Not as a rational response.
As an instinctive reaction—
the instinct of something that had been caught off guard
and didn't know how to process it.
— Even so…
It advanced one step.
— this changes nothing.
Both heads tilted again.
— It is not merely a matter of emitting this light.
— You must be what forged it to use it as it was meant to be used.
The pressure around them increased.
— You are not that.
— You cannot truly harm us.
The creature moved.
The attack came without warning—
as always,
but this time with something different in its trajectory.
More direct.
As if it wanted to end things quickly.
Kaelion responded.
The golden blade cut through the creature's arm.
The limb fell.
The essence smoked where it had been separated—
the light burning the surface of the cut,
preventing for an instant
the darkness from closing over itself.
For an instant—
the arm did not return.
One second.
Two.
Three.
The creature went still.
As if something inside it were trying
to do what it had always done
and finding resistance where it had never found any before.
Then—
the black smoke began to gather again.
Slowly.
With an effort that had not existed before.
The arm regenerated.
The smile returned.
More distorted.
More forced.
— See?
The creature moved closer again.
— You can cut.
— We can regenerate.
The darkened eyes fixed on him.
— That will never change.
Kaelion observed the newly reformed arm.
Silent.
He saw what the creature had not realized it had shown.
The regeneration had taken longer.
Had cost more.
Had met resistance where none had existed before.
It had said "that will never change"—
but what had happened before both of them
was exactly a change.
He raised the sword again.
The light still burned.
His eyes grew colder still.
— What if I cut you faster?
He took a step forward.
The blade tilted.
— Will your regeneration keep up forever?
Silence.
The layer rippled slowly between the two of them.
The creature did not respond immediately.
And in that silence—
in that fraction of a second where the answer should have come
and did not—
there was an answer.
This time—
the creature did not smile.