Castiel froze in place, maintaining the stabbing motion.
The sensation transmitted through the dagger, the rapid draining of warm life, and Jane's final look... burned into his soul like a brand.
It was not as though he had never killed before, but this time was different. Like a novice, his stomach churned, and he nearly vomited.
Metatron swiftly stepped forward.
One hand maintained his restraint on Jane while the other quickly pressed down on the dagger's hilt. In a low voice, he recited an extremely ancient, tongue-twisting incantation.
The dim patterns on the dagger faintly lit up.
Then something horrifying happened.
The fabric over Jane's heart silently melted away, leaving behind a neat circular hole that exposed the pale skin beneath.
Her skin immediately split open as though cut by an invisible scalpel, yet no blood flowed.
A fist-sized object, faintly pulsing and giving off an unusual interwoven glow of pale gold and flesh pink, was slowly lifted out of the wound by an invisible force.
This was a Nephilim's heart.
It was neither entirely shaped like a human heart nor an angelic energy core, but an unnatural object of half flesh and half energy, formed by forcibly fusing the two together.
It emitted weak yet pure energy fluctuations, along with the lingering sorrow of a life violently cut short.
Using a lead box prepared in advance and engraved with sealing runes, Metatron caught the still faintly pulsing heart.
The lid snapped shut, cutting off all traces of its aura and light.
Almost the instant the box closed, Jane's corpse lost its last vestige of vitality and went limp.
She looked like an ordinary girl who had suddenly fallen asleep from exhaustion, aside from the tiny wound on her neck, nearly bloodless, and the strange hollow in her chest.
Without