"I fed it things from humans and Hell. When you forged it, you only fed it things from Heaven. It was hungry and ate anything. I gave it something it had never eaten before, so it remembered that taste."
He took a step forward. "It's no longer merely Heaven's blade. It has eaten things from Heaven, the human world, and Hell. You hold it in your hand, but you're nothing more than its feeding bowl."
Metatron's lips trembled. "Impossible... I forged it... It obeys me..."
Wu Heng held out his hand. "Come."
The blade shuddered.
The light on its body flickered as though hesitating. Then it moved, flying out of Metatron's hand and toward Wu Heng.
The light that had burrowed into Metatron's body also pulled free from his skin and followed the blade away.
Metatron collapsed onto the ground, covered in blood. When those lights were pulled from his body, they had taken a great deal of blood with them.
He lay sprawled on the ground like a pile of mush.
The blade landed in Wu Heng's hand.
He lowered his head to inspect it. The blade was dark gold, with several hairline cracks running across it. The root-like light around the hilt still moved like a living thing, wrapping around his fingers and trying to continue devouring him. Yet it could not pierce him, restrained by the other two traits it had absorbed.
"A divine weapon," Wu Heng said. "What the hell did you forge? The first thing it ate was you."
The blade trembled in his hand, seemingly displeased. It did not like being called a "thing."
It tried to resist, to break free from Wu Heng's hand, to find another feeding bowl. The light on its body brightened once more, and root-like tendrils extended from the