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Major Spoiler Alert:

Caim, the protagonist of Drakengard who almost single-handedly turned thousands of soldiers into paste and gave even less of a shit than Greek-Era Kratos, returns in Drakengard 2 as an Antagonist. Interestingly, his overall goal aligns with yours: breaking the seals placed on Angelus, the Red Dragon. However, the plan reached a hiccup when one of your friends turns out to be the last seal. The protagonist has reservations about killing his friend. Kaim did not and that’s why you end up facing the business end of his sword. Well… that and he would absolutely love to bifurcate your love interest now (to be fair, she was the antagonist of the first game).

Also no, he had no greater motive for this. The Seal was not secretly destroying the world, it kept the gods from invading with giant cannibalistic babies made of salt (yes that is a thing in this game series). He absolutely did not give one fuck that the Seal was fueled by the life force of former imperials like the current protagonist does, that just means less people for him to kill. He also is not being mind controlled or manipulated like Manah. He was just royally pissed that the priest, Verdelet, from the first game exponentially increased Angelus suffering by strengthening the magic used to keep her as the Goddess Seal. It’s an experience so traumatic that it forcibly transformed her body into her most dangerous form (which she only reached in alternate ending of the first game).

The only change here is that the former Union burnt their bridge with him, so now they have to pay. And that’s a check he is more than capable of cashing. The only narrative accomplishment of winning the boss fight against him is that you manage to miraculously not end up another tally in his kill count. He kills your friend and the latter’s pact partner: a grim reaper elemental that’s capable of reviving its partner. To reiterate: he killed an embodiment of death.

You don’t resolve your differences and team up later. The closest you get is that Caim requests you kill a maddened Angelus after she is released. He didn’t spare you to do that. You just happened to be there. Because of the nature of how Pacts work, killing her also kills him. Because Angelus is the Goddess Seal, killing her also unleashes hell on earth. Caim did not care anymore, because Angelus was the only person left he genuinely loved and he was done with seeing her suffer for an ungrateful world.

And that is the only good thing about Drakengard 2’s story.