of pure mana, their defeat only meant that their physical forms were shattered, their dark essence living on. Eventually the black mana would coalesce in another dark corner of the plane, and another demon would appear. Avacyn soon noted that no matter how many times a demon was defeated, there would always be another one to take its place. All that its destruction would buy was temporary peace to the afflicted towns and villages. Thus, she took an oath, saying "What cannot be destroyed, must be bound". This oath is reflected in the symbol of the archangel herself, the Collar of Avacyn, shaped to bind any evil that would not be destroyed. With this new goal in mind, Avacyn used her divine magics to trap demons, one-by-one in the Helvault. She was so successful at doing this that after a time, only the plane's elder demons remained free of the Helvault's magical prison. It was then that the great demon Griselbrand decided to challenge Avacyn to single combat, boldly landing on the top of the Helvault itself. For many days the battle raged on between archangel and archdemon, watched only by the church's highest officials (such as Mikaeus, the lunarch) and Avacyn's most powerful angelic compatriots (Gisela, leader of the angelic Flight of Goldnight, was the only one explicitly mentioned to have been a spectator). Seeing as she could not defeat Griselbrand, Avacyn used all her remaining power to cast a final binding spell to drive the archdemon into the Helvault and seal him away forever. However, at that moment, the demon revealed his endgame, to trap the archangel herself in her own prison. Using his spear, Griselbrand thrust the weapon through her, dealing her a mortal blow just as the binding spell was completed. The spell backfired, drawing in both angel and demon to the Helvault, with the ongoing spectators watching in horror as their beloved archangel was impaled, then imprisoned within the magical chunk of moonsilver. Because of fears that reporting Avacyn's disappearance would incite mass hysteria and panic among the human denizens of the plane, Mikaeus and the other church officials decided to cover up any reports concerning the reason behind archangel's disappearance. Nevertheless, the archmages and clergy of the Church soon began to feel the aftereffects of the archangel's vanishing. Spells, wards and enchantments began to fail all over Innistrad. Prayers to the archangel went unanswered.