The void pool expanded with a speed that defied physics, swallowing the landscape. It became a vast, inky sea covering a third of the Martian hemisphere. From its impossible depths, a single, gargantuan maw erupted, a construct of pure, ravenous nothingness. It was a geographical event, a hole in reality as large as a continent. With an earth-shattering slurp that had no sound in the vacuum, the maw engulfed the Aspect, Gabriel, and the entire swath of the planet beneath them. Then it snapped shut, retracting back into the void sea, which then collapsed in on itself, shrinking down to a single, perfect point of darkness and vanishing.
Inside that singularity, there was nothing.
Gabriel, freed from the force that had locked her, found herself in an absolute nullity. Not darkness, but the absence of light. Not silence, but the absence of sound. Not emptiness, but the absence of space itself. Her eyes glowed, casting no illumination because there was nothing to illuminate. She attempted to activate her Authority, to shift her location.
Nothing happened.
That is strange, she thought, the words loud in the internal silence of her mind. There is no space here.
She tried to sense the portion of Mars that had been consumed with her. She felt nothing. Not a single atom, not a whisper of matter. It had been utterly unmade.
It is confident. It is not attacking. Does it believe I will panic? That I will waste my energy thrashing against nothing?
A slow, dangerous grin spread across her face. She was being looked down upon. The insult was more invigorating than any threat.
Her entire body began to glow, a brilliant violet star in the absolute black. Then it began to pulse. A deep, resonant, heartbeat-like thrum emanated from her core. In a realm without air, the sound should have been impossible, yet it propagated not as sound waves but as ripples in the very fabric of the nullity, spreading outward in perfect, concentric spheres. It was not echolocation, but reality-location, mapping the impossible contours of the prison by how her energy echoed against its non-existent walls.
In a sudden, violent lunge, the Aspect attacked. It materialized from the nothingness, its central maw yawning wide. It snapped shut around her, shearing through her torso, severing limbs and wings in a single bite. It began to chew, but the taste was wrong. There was no divine substance, no burst of power. It was like chewing on light and air.
Then, from behind it, came the sound of a single, mocking clap.
The Aspect turned, the half-consumed Gabriel still in its maw.
The real Gabriel hovered a short distance away, her expression one of pure amusement. The form in the Aspect's jaws began to distort, shimmer, and dissolve, revealing itself to be nothing more than a complex, projected afterimage.
"Impossible," the Aspect gurgled, its voice a violation of the void.
"Life is full of surprises, or so they say," Gabriel mocked. Her eyes and her six magnificent wings blazed with unified light.
Around them, countless copies of Gabriel began to manifest. To the Aspect, its Phenomenal Singularity was still an absolute void. But to Gabriel's perception, the entire interior of the colossal maw was now traced with the shimmering, three-dimensional web of her pulsating energy waves. Using that map as a canvas, she painted it with countless projections of herself, a legion of violet stars encircling the confused horror.
"It would be dishonorable to defeat you without employing my full capacity," all the Gabriels said in a chilling, echoing unison. "But I find myself pressed for time."
"Behold," the true Gabriel grinned. She brought her hands together, fingers interlacing in a specific, ancient handsign. Her energy spiked, a nova contained within a form.
The Aspect roared in fury and desperation. A forest of tendrils, thousands of them, erupted from its body in every direction at hypersonic speeds. They pierced and shredded every single one of her projections, a desperate, all-encompassing attack aimed solely at preventing her from speaking the next words.
But the tendrils passed harmlessly through the space where the real Gabriel stood.
Her lips parted.
"Phenomenal Singularity: All Encompassing Reaches of Heaven."
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The scene shifted violently back to Earth, to the cool night air of a penthouse balcony high above the city. Archangel Raphael stood, meticulously smoothing the wrinkles from his suit jacket. The air around him still crackled with the fading energy of divine light. He had just finished eradicating the last of the Malignant swarm that had breached Earth's veil. The cost had been 189 human lives across the globe, a quiet, unnoticed tragedy.
A fraction of a second later, the space on the balcony warped.
Gabriel arrived. She descended slowly, her form a mess. Her beautiful coat was shredded and stained with ichor and her own golden blood. Crisscrossing wounds marred her skin, some glowing with a corrosive, void-born energy that stubbornly resisted her healing. In one hand, she held the severed, still-grinning head of the Aspect. In the other, she clutched a strange, perfectly smooth sphere of absolute black, a contained fragment of the void.
Her feet touched the balcony tiles. Without ceremony, she dropped the grotesque head. It rolled to a stop at Raphael's feet. Then she tossed the void sphere to him underhand.
Raphael's composure shattered. He rushed forward, his face etched with worry at the sight of her injuries. "My lady, your wounds. Please, allow me to assist in your healing."
Gabriel shook her head, a gesture of profound weariness. "No," she said, her voice hoarse. "Just destroy the sphere for me. I am tired. I am going to bathe."
She turned her back on him and walked toward the sliding glass door, leaving smudges of golden blood on the handle. Raphael watched her go, a profound sense of helplessness knotting in his chest. He looked down at the perfect black sphere in his hand, a remnant of a battle he could scarcely imagine.
He tossed it lightly into the air. As it reached the apex of its arc, twin swords of pure divine light flashed into his hands. When the sphere fell back to eye level, his blades became a blur of impossible precision. He did not simply cut it. He dissected it into countless, shimmering fragments, each one winking out of existence before they could hit the ground.
He stared at the closed door. Every instinct in his being screamed to follow her, to offer his strength, his service, anything to ease the burden she carried alone. She fought the Aspects. She managed the celestial bureaucracy. And now, she was tasked with hunting Lucifer, the one who had slain her own sister. The weight was immeasurable.
But he knew the right answer. He knew her. He lowered his swords, letting them dissolve, and stood still in the quiet night.
Inside the penthouse, Gabriel let out a long, weary sigh. She began to unbutton her ruined coat, letting the heavy, bloodied fabric fall to the polished floor with a soft thud. She walked barefoot across the expansive living area towards a set of ornate wooden doors that led to her private hot spring.
At the doorstep, she discarded the rest of her clothes. Her polo, her trousers, her socks and sandals, all dropped into a pile. She stood for a moment in only her underwear, her body a map of glowing wounds and fading divine light. The void's influence still clung to them, negating her natural regeneration. The pain was a distant, persistent hum.
She entered the humid, mineral-scented air of the spring room. With a few final steps, she removed her underwear and walked slowly down the stone steps into the steaming, clear water. She sank onto a submerged seat, the heat enveloping her, and leaned her head back against the smooth rock.
She closed her eyes.
I will try to consider your words, Cain, she thought, the human's earnest, moralizing face appearing in her mind before the exhaustion pulled her into a deep, dreamless sleep right there in the water.