A loud, ringing guitar riff echoed through the center of the village as the horned demon finally collapsed in defeat. The winged man immediately dropped to his knees, panting heavily.
"Ah, fuck! That was closer than I'd like it to be!" he exclaimed. With a sharp flash of black lightning that vanished just as quickly as it appeared, the guitar in his hands seamlessly dissolved into the metal bracelets on his wrists.
"I-is it over?" a shaky voice called out. A guard, clad in heavily bloodied armor, carefully stepped out from behind a pile of stone rubble he had been using as cover.
"Yeah, it's over. All of them are as dead as my motivation at this point, holy shit," the man replied. His teal eyes swept across the ruined village square, taking in the scattered corpses of demons intermixed with the handful of villagers who had died before he could intervene.
"If only I got here sooner," he muttered, dragging a frustrated hand through his messy black hair.
"Y-you already saved many people, divine angel," the guard offered, trying to be reassuring.
Maverick let out a heavy sigh. "Yeah, well, many isn't all, now is it?" he remarked with a slow shake of his head. He turned to face the guard. "Alright, I'm heading out. I have to find the portal nearby and shut it down, then I have to track and kill the stray demons, and then fly to another place. By Michael, this shit never ends," he complained, casually counting off the grueling tasks on his fingers.
The guard stared blankly at the foul-mouthed angel for a few seconds before standing a little taller. "Do you need help, divine angel?" he asked, placing a fist firmly over his chest. "Many of us are still alive due to your arrival. We can still fight!"
Maverick shot him down instantly. "Nah, you guys won't be of help. I'll handle it."
With those blunt words, he unfurled his large, white-feathered wings and launched himself into the air. He ascended quickly, the bright sunlight high above only serving to highlight the deep, dark circles under his exhausted teal eyes. He was bone-tired. For the past month, ever since the demon invasion began, he had been flying all over the damn world. It was exhausting. His entire life for the last thirty-one days could be summed up in a single, repeating loop: fly, find, kill, stop the portal, repeat.
"By Michael, I wish I had some damn help," he muttered to the open wind. "Where is that other angel that came down here before me? Shouldn't he be dealing with this as well?"
He flew around the surrounding area, searching for the portal from above. Fortunately, it did not take him long to find it. The village was mostly surrounded by open plains used for farming, leaving very little to obstruct his view. As he passed over the fields, he noticed one particular spot that looked oddly empty. There was nothing visibly wrong with it, but the unnatural emptiness immediately gave it away. Maverick knew the portal was there, hidden beneath a basic illusion.
"Ugh, I can't even be bothered to fight," he muttered. He clicked the bracelets around his wrists, and with a flash of black lightning, an angelic-looking heavy crossbow appeared in his hands. Maverick angled himself in the air and aimed the weapon directly at the seemingly empty patch of land before pulling the trigger. Bright orbs of radiant bolts streaked downward toward the spot, only to disappear the instant they came close to the illusion, exactly as he expected. He fired again and again, sending at least ten bolts into the hidden area. Each radiant projectile vanished as it reached the portal, but that did not stop their effects from tearing through everything surrounding it.
Once he was finished, Maverick dismissed the crossbow and flew down toward the ground. He passed through the illusion and finally saw what his barrage had done. The area around the portal had been completely decimated, with demons scattered across the ruined ground, their bodies charred and motionless.
"Okay, let's get this over with," he sighed. He clapped his hands together. Drops of divine blood seeped from his white wings, floating upward to form a sharp blood halo directly above his head. "Heavenly Paradise: Rule Breaker."
He seamlessly pulled the demonic portal into his Heavenly Paradise. Standing within the familiar confines of his speakeasy, he used his power to break the established rules, quickly fashioning a Molotov cocktail out of a whiskey bottle. He lit the rag and hurled it directly at the portal, letting the flames burn the gateway to ash.
Once the portal was gone, Maverick dropped his Heavenly Paradise. The blood halo above his head dissolved, flowing back into his wings until there was nothing left of it. He rolled his shoulders slightly, though the movement did little to relieve the exhaustion weighing on him.
"At least I learned to better control that because of this. Have to look on the bright side of life," he said to himself. His shoulders sagged heavily with pure exhaustion. He wanted to rest. He really did. But he forced his wings to unfurl and took flight once more. An angel's work was never finished, no matter how long it took or how incredibly hard it was. This was the life he had wanted, and it was exactly what he got.
Which was exactly why he could still say, "Still prefer this over ever being in Heaven."