In the aftermath of the silent cataclysm, the rings of Saturn were a scarred ruin. Where graceful bands of ice and dust had drifted, now a vast, ragged gash smoldered. Nearby moons that had faced the blast were instantly resurfaced, their frozen landscapes melted into glassy plains by the impossible heat.
Gabriel and Raphael observed from a safe, astronomical distance. The spectacle was undeniably beautiful in its pure, destructive grandeur. But their focus was clinical. They watched the fading embers of the miniature supernova, waiting to see what remained of the target.
Raziel and Dumah watched from a closer vantage. The residual heat had been intense enough to soften the edges of their divine armor. They exchanged a look, a silent debate. Was the Fallen One dead? Should they withdraw to report, or confirm the kill? Dumah gave a slight nod. He reached out and touched Raziel's shoulder.
Together, they flew toward the epicenter, now a swirling, incandescent sphere of cooling plasma and vaporized rock.
To clear their view, Raziel spoke a single, clear word into the void. "Begone."
The command rippled through the chaotic energy. The plasma clouds shuddered and dissipated, blown aside by celestial will.
What was revealed in the heart of the devastation made both Commandments freeze.
Lucifer stood there.
She was not a charred skeleton or a dissipating spirit. She stood whole, her six obsidian wings spread wide like a raptor's. Steam rose in ghostly tendrils from her entire form, the last of the supernova's energy bleeding off her skin. Above her head, it was the dark halo that now glowed with a baleful, inner light, while the white one seemed dormant.
She was glaring directly at them, her golden eyes blazing with cold fury.
How did she endure that unscathed? The thought echoed in Gabriel's mind as she watched, her fascination now edged with a blade of sharp, professional interest.
Back at the epicenter, Raziel and Dumah did not hesitate. Their training took over. The threat was still active. Dumah's hand shot out to make contact with Raziel, the first step in their synchronized tactical retreat or their next combined assault.
Thwip.
The contact never happened.
Dumah felt a strange absence. He looked down. His arm, from the shoulder down, was simply gone. Dark, shimmering angelic blood began to fountain from the cleanly severed joint, the viscous fluid forming strange, globular patterns in the zero gravity.
Thwip.
Another sound, this one followed by a visceral impact.
Both angels' eyes widened in unison. An unseen attack had already struck. A diagonal, slicing force sheared through Dumah's torso from his right shoulder down to his left hip. The two halves of his body separated, drifting apart in a grotesque ballet. The light in his eyes flickered and died. Dumah was dead.
"Dumah!" Raziel's cry was a silent scream in the vacuum, a pulse of anguish and rage.
He whirled toward Lucifer. She was no longer a distant figure. She was right in front of him, her hand extending to clamp around his head.
But Raziel was a Commandment. His will was his weapon. Even in shock, he was faster.
"Stop." His voice imposed absolute immobility.
"Blast off." He commanded the very concept of her momentum to reverse.
"Slow down." He dictated that her speed be reduced to a crawl.
An invisible, concussive force, born of pure authority, slammed into Lucifer. It was not an explosion, but an unraveling of her kinetic energy. It hurled her backwards with devastating force. She became a projectile, tearing a kilometers-wide path of destruction through the already damaged rings of Saturn, a dark bullet shot toward the gas giant itself.
Raziel did not watch her flight. He turned, grief and duty warring in his eyes. He reached out and touched the two drifting halves of Dumah's body.
"Heal," he uttered, the word infused with profound power.
Divine light, thick as liquid gold, enveloped the severed halves. They were drawn together. Flesh knitted, bone fused, armor re-formed. The horrific wound began to seal, the divine energy working to restart the extinguished spark within.
Raziel sensed it then—a pressure, a presence moving with impossible speed even through his deceleration field. Lucifer. She was coming back, a vengeful comet, still moving at a tenth of lightspeed despite his commands.
"Just grant me a few more seconds," he whispered, not to anyone, but to the universe itself.
He raised both hands. "A thousand divine chains."
Space around Lucifer's incoming trajectory rippled. A thousand tiny portals irised open, forming a sphere around her. From each portal, a chain of solidified holy light erupted, moving at the speed of light itself. They were not mere bindings; they were leeches. They wrapped around her limbs, her wings, her torso, each link draining her divine energy, sapping her strength. The more she struggled, the tighter they constricted, the more they fed. Her furious momentum bled away, arrested completely. She hung trapped in the center of a glowing, constricting cage of holy light.
As the last stitch closed on Dumah's torso and a faint, returning glow lit behind his eyelids, Raziel finally turned his full attention back to his captive. He hovered before the entangled Lucifer, looking into her furious, defiant eyes.
"You nearly had us with that first move, Fallen One," he conceded, his voice cold. "I do not comprehend how you survived the star's death. But of this I am certain." He began to weave his hands through the empty space before him. A massive, intricate portal, miles across, began to materialize, its edges crackling with primordial energy. "Your fall is now."
"Divine Spear."
From the heart of the vast portal, a weapon emerged. It was a spear, but it was a concept given form. The Divine Spear. It glowed with the concentrated wrath of Heaven, a point of absolute finality aimed directly at Lucifer's heart.
The perspective shifted briefly to the distant observers.
"The chains are not working as intended," Raphael stated, his analytical mind wrestling with the evidence. "They should be weakening her exponentially. Yet she holds form. How?"
Gabriel's gaze was fixed on the trapped Lucifer. "Perhaps her energy management is simply that superior. Or perhaps it is the benefit of her gift. The Eye of the Morningstar."
She explained, her tone that of a lecturer recalling ancient history. "They say, In the First Great War, Lucifer was physically the weakest among the Seven. To compensate, she was bestowed with an ocular blessing. It allows for drastically efficient energy expenditure, turning a trickle into a torrent." A faint, appreciative smile touched her lips. "Seeing her now, perhaps 'weakest' was always a profound misjudgment. To be holding her own like this, even fallen, with half her grace supposedly stripped… she is guaranteed to win this fight."
Back in the immediate reality of the fight, Raziel completed his summoning. The Divine Spear hummed with ready violence.
Every angel who had ever lived knew the truth of the Divine Spear. It was not meant to be dodged. Its speed was the speed of divine judgment. In all of history, only two beings had ever deflected it: the Archangel Samael, and the Archangel Michael.
Now Lucifer faced it. Chained, drained, with only microseconds to react.
What could she do?
VVVVMMMMM.
A deep, resonant hum emanated from Lucifer, a sound of fundamental reality being questioned.
"Divine Divide."
Thwip.
The Spear, at the very instant of its launch, was perfectly, cleanly bifurcated along its length. Not shattered, not destroyed, but divided. The two halves, robbed of their unified purpose, veered off their perfect course. Instead of piercing Lucifer, they screamed past her, their unimaginable speed and kinetic energy transferred to the glowing chains binding her.
The holy links shattered like glass under the impact.
The cage exploded into a shower of dying light.
Before Raziel, or Gabriel, or anyone could process the impossible deflection, Lucifer was moving. Still slowed by his earlier commands, but now unchained, she was a blur of dark intent aimed straight for him.
Raziel's mind worked at the speed of thought. He had a window, however small. He opened his mouth to utter another command, to freeze her again, to blast her away, to do something.
Thwip.
But no sound came out.
Instead, he convulsed, a spray of dark blood erupting from his lips into the void. His eyes bulged with shock and sudden, searing pain. His vocal cords had been severed. Not from the outside. From within. There was no wound on his neck.
Healing instinct took over. Divine energy rushed to repair the damage, to rebuild the conduit for his authority.
But it was a split second too long.
Lucifer's hand, fingers curled like talons, was already an inch from his face.
Would his healing finish in time?