I Became The Novel's Biggest Antagonist

Tonight, all of Ocryphia lay wide awake, captivated by what seemed like a battle pulled straight from the pages of ancient myth.

The night sky ignited with bursts of light as two figures clashed at impossible speeds, their forms a blur to the human eye. Flashes of white and black collided with ferocious intensity, sending shockwaves rippling through the heavens. The force of their strikes was so immense that it shattered windows and weakened the structures below, leaving buildings trembling in their wake.

One combatant was a radiant Goddess; the other, a dark Fallen Angel.

The Hunters, seasoned warriors accustomed to the extraordinary, found themselves powerless spectators alongside the awe-struck civilians. None could intervene, their gazes fixed upward, spellbound by the otherworldly duel unraveling before them.

These two beings had appeared from nowhere, launching into combat for some reason. They fought in a dimension beyond mortal comprehension, their strength so immense that even their restrained blows carried the weight of cataclysms. And yet, neither was anywhere near unleashing their full strength.

For Queen, the battle was fueled by anger. The loss of King, her beloved, had carved a chasm of sorrow within her soul, threatening to consume her entirely. Her only anchor to sanity was their daughter, Nayeli, and the lifeless body of King, which she clung to like a fragment of her shattered world.

When she drove her hand through King's chest moments earlier, it had been an act of raw fury—but also of control. She needed to ensure he would no longer challenge her. She wouldn't kill him. No, Queen's love for him remained, twisted though it was. But if she had to render him half-dead to keep him bound to her side, she would do so without hesitation.

Azrael, though, unlike Queen, he refused to succumb to extremes. He would fight her, yes, but only with enough force to defend himself. He couldn't bring himself to inflict true harm upon her—unlike King, who had been too deeply in love with the Goddess to ever raise a hand against her.

"How is Nayeli?" Azrael asked about their daughter.

Queen's eyes narrowed. "You don't care about her," she spat. "If you did, you wouldn't be here enjoying this spectacle—forgetting ME and her."

She thrust her hand forward, aiming to pierce Azrael's chest once more, but he evaded her strike with a swift beat of his wings.

"You know how much I care about her, Atla," Azrael replied.

"Then why were you playing around with another whore again?" Queen retorted, as she produced a shimmering blade that gleamed with ethereal light.

Azrael's gaze flickered to the sword, his expression momentarily faltering. The slight twitch in his eyes showed his concern. She wasn't bluffing—Queen truly seemed intent on destroying everything and locking him up.

"Because I have resurrected in the body of another with a few others—many others," Azrael replied calmly. "Their lives became mine. Their goals, their thoughts, their families, and their desires merged with me. I am them as much as I am myself."

He sidestepped swiftly as Queen swung her blade in a wide arc, the edge glowing with fierce brilliance.

-BOOOOOM!

The sword cleaved through the air, tearing the space itself. The impact unleashed an electromagnetic spatial shock, resulting in a blinding explosion that seemed to ripple through reality.

"I don't care," Queen said coldly, raising her blade high. Particles of radiant white and gold swirled around it, coalescing into a deadly aura that pulsed with terrifying power.

"Don't," Azrael asked.

He knew all too well what the release of such an attack would mean. Even the shockwave alone could obliterate everything within several miles.

"You betrayed me," Queen said, her voice now eerily devoid of emotion. "You betrayed our wedding oath. I warned you, my King."

Azrael stepped forward, and in an instant, he vanished.

Before Queen could strike, he reappeared in front of her, his hand closing around her wrist to halt her motion. With his other arm, he wrapped her slender waist, pulling her closer.

Then, his enormous black wings unfurled, wrapping around the two of them in a protective, intimate embrace.

-Whoosh!

In a heartbeat, Azrael launched them into the sky, a black-and-white streak cutting through the heavens at an incomprehensible speed. The radiant glow of their clash illuminated the night sky as they trailed through the air, leaving Ocryphia far behind. Experience new stories on empire

After soaring across dozens of miles, they finally reached a desolate field bathed in the soft glow of moonlight. The only sound was the quiet chirping of nocturnal birds.

Azrael descended slowly, his wings folding back as he landed gently.

For a moment, Queen said nothing. Her gaze locked onto his. But before she could speak, her vision was obscured by a veil of his ash-gray hair as he leaned forward and kissed her.

It wasn't just any kiss—it was a tender, familiar one, exactly like King's.

Queen froze, her mind spinning. This was the kiss she had longed for, craved with an ache that felt endless. It was as if she'd been starved of it for an eternity.

In that moment, she felt the overwhelming torrent of love and obsession that had been reignited within him. King—no, Ivan, the amalgamation of King and the other Antagonists he had merged with—had a love for her that seemed to have multiplied a hundredfold. This wasn't just King's love; it was the passion of every soul he'd became, concentrated and intensified into a singular force.

"...!" Queen gasped as an overwhelming tide of emotions surged through her.

For so long, her love for King had burned with a passion a hundredfold greater than his for her. Yet now, the intensity of Ivan's love rivaled—no, surpassed—even hers. That realization was both exhilarating and terrifying.

If Queen was willing to destroy entire worlds to keep him by her side, Ivan would go even further—beyond comprehension—to ensure she remained his forever.

Her turbulent emotions began to settle, giving way to a profound and consuming love. Though her face remained as expressionless as ever, the tension in her features softened, and the radiant sword she had wielded moments ago faded into nothingness.

Gently, she reached out, her delicate fingers brushing against Azrael's cheeks. Without a word, she leaned in and kissed him back, her lips meeting his tenderly.

Under the pale glow of the moonlight, the Goddess and the Fallen Angel became lost in their shared moment. Their kiss lasted seconds, then stretched into minutes. Time seemed to stand still as they clung to each other, unwilling to part. It wasn't until three minutes later that Azrael reluctantly pulled away, knowing full well Queen's kiss could have lasted an hour if it were up to her.

Her usually flawless, porcelain-white cheeks were faintly flushed, a rare display of vulnerability. She parted her lips, still wet from the kiss, but as she looked around, her expression shifted.

She realized they were no longer in the serene field. Encasing them was a dark, suffocating space—a prison forged from Ivan's Stigma.

"My King," Queen turned her white gaze to Azrael slowly.

"I just don't want you to escape again," Azrael replied softly.

He could sense that Queen's burning desire to annihilate Sherilyn hadn't waned in the slightest. If anything, it had grown more fierce after that kiss. She was ready—eager—to obliterate Ocryphia entirely to ensure that nothing of Sherilyn remained.

So he had to take some precautions.

The thought of her discovering Ludmila and the others wasn't comforting at all. If she found out, Azrael wasn't sure how he would prevent the ensuing apocalypse.

Ludmila didn't stand a chance against Queen. None of his wives/ girlfriends did except maybe Laramiel. But Queen was definitely the strongest of all his wives, and if she unleashed her wrath, the battle wouldn't just end in bloodshed—it would shatter the world itself.

"How did you appear in this world?" Azrael asked.

Queen's gaze locked onto his. "I used my Divinity to resurrect you. Instead a crack appeared. I felt your presence there, so I took it."

"Your divinity—hm."

Before Azrael could respond, she kissed him again.

When their lips finally parted once more, Azrael exhaled a question that had been weighing on him. "What about Nayeli?"

Queen's expression softened at the mention of their daughter. "She's in 'my' world. Safe."

Her hand cupped his cheek. "Come with me. Let's see her together. Let's form our family again."

"Atla."

"I told you, my King, to kill all these humans and keep the world for ourselves. One word from you, and I would have delivered the entire world at your feet. Yet…" Queen's nails raked across Azrael's cheek, sharp enough to draw blood. Crimson droplets marred his flawless skin before the wound closed, regenerating as if it had never been.

Azrael looked at her calmly, though he understood her deep anguish. She had been the first to warn him about the Protagonist and his party. Over and over, she had urged him to eliminate them. But he had been indifferent, even dismissive, her words falling on deaf ears. Perhaps his reluctance stemmed from the Protagonist's connection to Nightingale, his first crush.

"Does it matter now?" Azrael asked. "You're here, with me."

"No," Queen replied coldly. "I will kill them all—every human—until the last wretched child draws their final breath."

"If you do that," Azrael shook his head, his golden eyes narrowing slightly, "your family might track you down in this world."

Atla Ceres Queen—was no ordinary being. She was a true Goddess, a scion of the exalted Ceres Cluster. More than that, she was the Crown Princess and the rightful Heiress of their dominion.

She had fled her celestial world millennia ago. It was here, in King's world, that she had found the man she called her everything—her world, her reason for existence.

But King had always feared the day her family would come for her. To face one God of Queen's caliber was daunting enough. To stand against an entire pantheon? Impossible. Not even his boundless strength could shield her alone.

Thankfully, right now, he was also Ivan, Azrael, and Rufus Quintus Flamma. These three were powerful enough to beat and even slay beings of divine strength. But an army of them? Even the mightiest among them would falter to protect Queen.

Queen, however, showed no hint of hesitation. "I'll just to have kill them all then."

"If they come for you…" Azrael's hand reached up to gently cup her cheek, his thumb brushing against her skin. "Then I will slaughter their entire tribe. Every last one of them. But let's not invite such trouble just yet, my Queen."

For a moment, she said nothing, her gaze fixed on him. Those golden, slit-pupiled eyes of his radiated a disturbing calm. Beneath the surface, however, lurked something far darker—an abyss of malice so potent that even the most twisted of antagonists, Ivan couldn't rival it.

If Ivan was the most dangerous Antagonist due to his complete lack of morals and his willingness to do absolutely anything to achieve his goals, then Azrael was the most twisted. Despite possessing sound judgment and the ability to make rational decisions, Azrael embraced a twisted and disturbing path.

The man who slew Lucifer did so not for divine glory or heavenly pride, but driven by a twisted, personal ambition.

Because that was the being Azrael was.

The Archangel of Death leading the Angels of Death.