But wounds inflicted on angels, even when fallen, are no sooner made than healed, so those who sink down disabled are soon back in the thick of the night as strong as ever.

The moment comes, however, when Michael's sword inflicts so deep a wound in Satan's side that, for the first time, he experiences pain.

Seeing him fall, his adherents bear him away from the field of battle, where he is immediately healed, "for spirits, that live throughout vital in every part,...

cannot but by annihilation die." Thus temporarily deprived of his greatest opponent, Michael attacks Moloch, while Uriel, Raphael and Abdiel vanquish other potent angels who have dared to rebel against God.
After describing the battle-field, strewn with shattered armor and broken chariots, the poet pictures the dismay in the ranks of the rebel angels, and describes how Satan drew away his troops so they might rest and be ready to renew the fray on the morrow.

In the silence of that night, he also consults with his adherents how to fight to better advantage on the morrow, insisting that they now know they can never be permanently wounded.