Obil stood motionless.
Before him lay two bodies—still, cold, and silent. His wife. His daughter. The two he'd betrayed heaven, earth, and himself for.
But their skin had begun to rot in strange ways. Flesh peeled in unnatural patterns. Their features twisted, melted. Their once-human faces contorted into something else entirely—horned, scaled, misshapen.
Demons.
The illusion evaporated like morning mist under a cruel sun.
Zariel stood beside them, arms folded, expression unreadable.
His voice came low, almost gentle.
"Even I didn't know. Lucifer fooled us all. You most of all."
Obil's knees buckled. He collapsed, palms pressed against fractured stone. His breath came in short, sharp gasps.
"No..."
Zariel glanced at the corpses once more, the ghost of a smile tugging at his mouth. "He made the disguise... so perfect, even I couldn't tell. It's—remarkable, in a way."
Obil didn't respond. His eyes were wide, fixed on the fading image of what once looked like his family.
His mind crumbled in silence.
Flashes of memory flooded in:
Laughter under starlight. The warmth of a small hand in his. A promise whispered through tears—"I'll protect you both. Always."
That promise lay dead now. Alongside the pact he broke. The war he unleashed. The world he betrayed.
A scream tore out of him. Raw. Primal. A howl not just of grief—but guilt.
The earth cracked beneath his knees.
Energy surged from his chest like a sun imploding. His aura ignited, erratic and massive. A cyclone of divine fury and demonic sorrow.
Lightning fell sideways. The sky warped. Buildings miles away splintered into dust. Rain began to fall—sharp, cold. As if the heavens mourned with him.
Elsewhere.
Uriel, broken-winged and injured, was rebuilding the defensive dome while defending against Azazel.
Azazel came to attack him.
A shadow passed.
Then—
Crack.
Azazel was gone. A boot had shattered his jaw and launched him like a missile across the sky. He ripped through mountains, bridges, cities—until silence returned.
Then—
A tremor.
Obil landed. Alone. Radiant and terrifying.
His aura bent space. Divine light spiraled around him, laced with infernal darkness. His eyes were molten gold, rimmed in red—like a star collapsing in on itself.
He spoke in a voice like thunder buried beneath stone.
"Why?"
Azazel stood, dusting himself off with half a smirk. "Why what?"
"Why did you deceive me?"
Azazel tilted his head, amused. "Ah. So you finally know."
Obil's fists clenched. "You used me."
Azazel shrugged. "I've always wondered... Who's truly at fault? The deceiver—or the fool who let himself be deceived?"
He barely finished the sentence.
Obil struck.
Azazel didn't stand a chance.
Obil fought like a storm unleashed. Not to kill—but to punish.
He tore wings. Snapped bones. Burned flesh. Then let it heal—only to do it again. Every blow was methodical, deliberate, cruel. A sentence passed without mercy.
The city became a graveyard of stone and fire. Buildings collapsed. Streets drowned in demonic blood. Satellites blinked offline. Civilians had long since evacuated.
But the world watched.
Governments panicked.
Coordinates locked.
Orders given.
Missiles launched.
Obil didn't stop.
The explosions lit the horizon—shockwaves shattering what was left.
Then silence.
A shadow moved through the smoke.
Still standing.
Still bleeding.
Still breathing.
Obil.
Azazel lay broken. Blind. Screaming.
Back in the ruins of the village...
The ground was dead—scorched, cracked, bleeding sulfur. Once a cradle of life, now a graveyard of broken gods and forgotten prayers. Shattered churches leaned like drunkards against burning homes. The smell of ash hung thick in the air, choking even the wind.
Seven descended.
Mael. Kael. Vale. Elyen. Avile. Mikhael. Gabriel.
Their boots hit the dust like celestial war drums.
They moved as one.
Weapons drawn. Wings outstretched. Eyes burning with divine fury and something darker beneath—the demonic blood coiled inside them, waiting.
Zariel stood alone amid the ruin, his coat torn, hair drifting in the heat.
He didn't move. Not yet.
The seven attacked.
A flurry of strikes rained down. Coordinated. Precise. Like a machine designed to kill gods.
Mael slashed from the left—lightning embedded in his blade. Zariel parried.
Kael came from behind, spear spinning, aiming for the spine. Zariel ducked.
Vale and Elyen—twins in movement—sliced through his sides simultaneously, one with fire, one with ice.
Zariel grunted. His arm bled. But his eyes weren't on them.
His thoughts were galaxies away.
Azazel was dying.
His bond—unspoken but undeniable—burned like a brand across the distance. A dying flame flickered in his soul. He felt every breath Azazel struggled to take, every fracture in his ribs, every beat of a failing heart.
They were too close.
He couldn't let him die.
Zariel leapt back, breaking formation. His boots skidded through ash. His sword hung low, humming with pressure.
The Archons surrounded him, forming a ring.
Their faces shifted—confused. Tension rising.
The void of fractured space above them trembled. Stars blinked out one by one. Time itself began to stutter.
Zariel closed his eyes.
A cold breath kissed his face.
Then—he exhaled.
And opened them.
Black.
His irises turned abyssal, a thin green slit flickering at their center. The ground split beneath him, roots of shadow spiraling outward. Light bent. Space twisted. The very laws of physics recoiled.
His sword—cracked by Uriel's earlier strike—began to glow, not with light, but with hunger. The fractures sealed. The blade pulsed like a beating heart, alive and enraged.
Below them, in the rubble, the two demonic corpses—the wife and daughter who weren't—disintegrated.
Consumed.
Sucked into the orbit of this new force now coiling around Zariel like a serpent of light, madness, and starlight.
Mikhael felt it instantly.
His pupils contracted. "Fall back!" he shouted.
Too late.
Zariel detonated.
Not with fire. Not with noise. But with pure imbalance.
A silent spiral of volatile energy burst outward, painting the world in ripples of unreality.
The Archons staggered.
Their demonic halves went haywire—ripping through their divine control like rabid beasts.
Vale dropped to a knee, vomiting blood, clutching his chest as the energy inside him cracked like molten glass.
Elyen staggered back, clutching her temple as blood streamed from her nose and ears.
Kael screamed. His wings snapped in half. The demonic energy inside him exploded out his spine in tendrils of wild fire.
The balance that defined them—between holy and hellish—was unmade.
Zariel raised his blade.
Then moved.
A blur—then six blurs.
Six strikes. Seamless. Faster than thought.
Only Gabriel and Mikhael moved fast enough to block. Their blades met his with a force that fractured the ruins beneath them.
But they were still too late.
Mael was thrown through a church wall, coughing blood, his ribs exposed.
Avile flew back with a deep slash across his chest—unhealable, bleeding shadow and light.
Kael fell to his knees, hands trembling, eyes wide in horror.
Elyen's sword shattered in her hand. She dropped it, clutching her wrist.
Zariel didn't pursue.
He stood amidst them, breathing slowly, his body a storm of black and green.
Meanwhile...
Elsewhere in the city's corpse, Obil was still at work.
His knuckles bled. His body glowed with wrath.
He had Azazel by the head.
Slam.
Into concrete.
Slam.
Through a building.
Slam.
Down a crater of steel and stone.
Over and over.
Azazel's screams were hoarse now. The ground was slick with blood.
Obil's fist pierced his right eye socket.
Then the left.
He crushed them like glass. Shards of bone and blood flew across the rubble.
Azazel gasped—blind, broken, head twisted unnaturally.
Yet still alive.
Obil raised his arm again.
Then—
Zariel arrived.
A shockwave followed. Air compressed. A windstorm ripped the landscape apart.
Obil was flung across a plaza, crashing into a half-collapsed skyscraper. The steel groaned beneath his weight.
Zariel stood over Azazel's mangled form. His voice was calm.
"You should've used your true form."
Azazel coughed. "Against a fallen archon? He's not even worthy of this war…"
Zariel stared. "You're the most intelligent of us. But even intelligence bends to pride."
"How long?" Azazel asked.
Zariel knelt beside him. "Minutes. Don't let him see you like this."
Azazel laughed—just once. A broken sound. "It kills my pride to do this."
Zariel raised a hand.
A blade appeared in the sky—long, black, ancient, whispering in forgotten tongues.
He sent it.
Azazel caught it.
Obil was already charging again, a comet of rage and light.
And Azazel—this time—met him.
Obil grabbed him by the head. Slammed it into concrete. Again. And again. Skull cracking like glass. One eye gone. Then the other. Bone splintered through his cheek.
Obil raised his arm—
—to end it.
And then—
Impact.
Zariel appeared in a flash of black and emerald. Obil was flung across the skyline like a discarded doll.
Zariel crouched by Azazel, his voice low.
"You should've used your true form."
Azazel spat blood. "Against a fallen archon? Please. He's not even meant to be part of this war."
Zariel's eyes narrowed. "You're the smartest of us, Azazel. But even the brilliant bleed."
"How long?" Azazel asked.
"Minutes," Zariel replied. "Don't let him see you like this."
Azazel rose—barely. "This hurts my pride."
Zariel conjured a blade. Black as night, humming like a whisper of death. He tossed it through the void.
Azazel caught it.
Obil charged again.
And this time—Azazel met him.
Everything stopped.
They clashed.
Time distorted. Each blow mirrored the other with unnatural symmetry. Every punch sang with thunder. Each dodge shattered the air. Their fists cracked the bones of the world.
Obil saw it then.
Azazel's eyes—black, with glowing white pupils.
Six wings unfurled—ragged and massive, laced with fading silver.
Boom.
The shockwave razed everything.
Zariel turned back.
New arrivals. Angels. Archons. Armed. Alert.
He raised his blade.
"None of you interfere."
They charged anyway.
Zariel met them.
He fought like a void given shape.
Blades crashed against his. He flowed through them—silent, surgical. One wide sweep—and every sword shattered.
Pieces of steel floated, glinting like dying stars.
Zariel looked at them all. Calm. Disappointed.
"You carry all this power. And still... you fight like children."
Then the light came.
Golden.
Gabriel and Mikhael descended.
They didn't speak. They didn't blink.
Armor of old gods. Hair like woven silk. Wings that refracted light like a prism.
Zariel's gaze sharpened.
Gabriel struck first—a vertical slash, heavier than gravity.
Zariel dodged.
Mikhael flanked, slicing upward. A cut that sang with divine wrath.
Zariel blocked. His arms trembled. Their rhythm—perfect. Their will—singular.
Each strike drove him backward.
He retaliated—his blade cleaving through the stars.
Gabriel's chestplate cracked. Mikhael was hurled away.
But they returned. Unfazed. Untiring.
Like gravity pulled toward one truth:
Zariel must fall.
And elsewhere—
Obil still fought.
Still screamed.
Still punished.
And Azazel, now fully unchained, fought him back with the last fragments of pride.
The battlefield cracked beneath their fury.
Zariel stood bloodied, arm limp, breath ragged—but eyes locked and unwavering.
Before him, the Archons circled.
Mael hovered high, eyes like thunderclouds, blade crackling with stormlight.
Kael, unblinking, whirled his twin spears in silence, his expression unreadable.
Vale stepped forward, fire crawling up his back like serpents.
Elyen, the lone woman, floated like a comet—her long white blade humming with purity.
Avile stood silent, watching Zariel with something unreadable in his eyes. Not hate. Not fear. Something older.
Above them, the Archangels descended.
Mikhael. Gabriel.
Now fully transformed—true Archangel forms.
Wings no longer feathered, but woven from pure will and ancient symbols. Armor forged from starlight, edged in kinetic flame. Their presence stilled the storm, silenced the wind.
They landed beside the Archons.
Seven against one.
Zariel rolled his neck. "Come, then."
The world exploded.
They struck together.
Gabriel was the first to land a blow. His hammer slammed into the ground where Zariel had just stood, creating a crater miles wide.
Zariel retaliated—his blade arcing in a crescent of black light that nearly took Vale's arm. But Kael intercepted, twin spears locking the strike mid-air. Sparks screamed.
Mikhael came in next—his strike a blur. Zariel parried—but Elyen followed, sword sliding under the defense, grazing his ribs. Blood splashed across the air.
He staggered. Mael dropped from above.
Lightning bolt to chest.
Zariel hit the earth like a meteor, stone splintering beneath him.
He vanished before Gabriel's second strike could land. Reappeared behind Avile.
He didn't swing.
He paused.
And in that moment—Avile hesitated too.
Zariel's eyes flicked to him.
"You're not like them."
Avile didn't answer. He swung. Zariel dodged.
It was a war of movement. Blades clashed like tectonic plates. Spear met sword. Hammer met silence. Every strike echoed across time. Cities trembled. The sky turned red, then purple, then black.
But slowly—Zariel began to lose ground.
For every parry, he took two hits.
For every strike he landed, three followed from behind.
He was fast, but not fast enough. Smart, but not unbreakable.
And they were divine in full form now.
He bled from the mouth. His left eye clouded. His aura flickered.
Still, he stood.
Elsewhere.
In the wreckage of broken cathedrals and bones, Obil and Azazel tore into each other.
No longer warriors. Beasts.
Obil's arms were torn, muscles exposed. Ribs broken.
Azazel's wings were nearly gone, body leaking corrupted ichor.
Their fists cracked through buildings. Their screams shattered glass.
Azazel headbutted Obil, then elbowed him across the jaw, dislocating it.
Obil punched Azazel in the throat, crushed his windpipe.
Both healed.
Both bled.
Obil tried to swing again—Azazel caught his wrist and twisted.
A snap.
Obil roared in pain, fell to his knees.
Azazel loomed over him.
Obil's vision blurred.
And then—
A memory.
Gas.
A sealed chamber.
A woman choking on her last breath—her hands clawing the glass, her voice—
"Protect my daughter."
Her eyes met his through the fog. Terrified. Begging.
Then darkness.
Obil blinked.
Emotion snapped.
Sanity cracked.
And what remained was one thing.
Fury.
He screamed—and the world screamed with him.
He grabbed Azazel's ankle and flung him upward. Then vanished—reappearing mid-air—kicking him back to the earth.
Azazel hit the ground so hard the earth split in four directions.
Obil followed.
One punch. Two. Ten. Fifty. A hundred.
He didn't stop.
Azazel's face broke, healed, broke again.
Obil was gone.
Only rage remained.
And then—
The skies tore open.
The sun blinked out.
Stars twisted.
A hush fell.
The battlefield stopped.
The Archons lowered their weapons.
A figure descended.
Lucifer.
He didn't fall. He arrived.
Draped in black that shimmered like the night sky. His face ageless. His smile knowing.
His eyes were supernovas contained in bone.
He landed without a sound.
The ground still cracked.
Reality bent around him.
Birds dropped from the sky. Water turned black. Light avoided his skin.
Everyone turned.
Zariel stepped back.
Gabriel's grip on his sword tightened.
Mikhael's wings trembled.
Azazel looked at him with awe.
Lucifer looked at Avile
His voice smooth. Amused.
"Remember the favor?"
Avile froze.
Lucifer smiled wider. "Time to return it."
Avile's eyes darkened.
Lucifer came close to him and whispered
"Stop Obil."
Then stepped past him.
His presence was a burden on the world. The air groaned, unable to carry him. The earth itself strained beneath his weight.
Avile stepped forward.
He didn't want to.
But he had to.
Even if Lucifer didn't give Avile demonic power, he did help him break his demonic seal. He completed his part of the deal.
Now it was Avile's turn to do the same.
The angels and the other archons couldn't do anything as Lucifer stood in front of them.
The archons froze and the angles looked st him with disgust.
Avile flew to where Obil and Azazel were fighting.
Obil consumed by fury attacked mindlessly at Azazel. He didn't notice Avile.
Until Avile's emerald blade came down.
They clashed.
The force sent buildings flying. Obil screamed, eyes wild. Avile tried to reason explained him the dilemma he was in and said "I am sorry i have no choice but to stop you" but Obil was gone. Only wrath remained.
They fought "again".
Meanwhile—
Lucifer turned to Gabriel and Mikhael.
"It's been a while," he said, almost fondly. "Friends."
Neither replied.
Their wings raised.
Lucifer chuckled. "Still angry?"
A slash—white-hot—came flying at him.
Lucifer raised a single hand—caught the blade mid-air.
Uriel appeared—wings battered, eyes burning.
Lucifer kicked him.
A sickening crunch. Blood sprayed.
Uriel flew backward, crashing through towers, limbs limp.
Gabriel and Mikhael roared—charged.
The Archons followed.
The battlefield became chaos.
A god in the middle.
Two armies at war.
Two titans—Obil and Azazel—locked in death's dance.
And high above, in the black void, the balance of all realms teetered.