Billions of light years away, a planet hung in the void. It was a world of stark, alien beauty. Its surface was a tapestry of deep reds and crimsons, dominated by vast forests of strange trees whose leaves were not green, but a uniform, vibrant scarlet. There were no visible oceans or rivers, giving the world a dry, sculpted appearance.
Hovering in the silent blackness just beyond its atmosphere was Archangel Michael. Four vast wings of pure, coruscating light were spread behind her. Her gaze was fixed on the red planet below. She could feel it, a familiar, invasive pulse of wrongness. An Aspect was down there.
She activated her Authority. There was no dramatic build-up. One moment she was motionless in space. The next, she was plummeting downward, a spear of divine wrath aimed at the planet's surface. Her descent tore through the thin upper atmosphere, generating a continuous, deafening crack of thunder that echoed across the silent skies.
On the surface, a peaceful, insectoid humanoid civilization went about its day. Children with delicate, chitinous limbs played intricate games with polished stones. Adults tended to the strange, red-leafed trees, harvesting the leaves that were their primary sustenance. The sky was a clear, pale lavender.
Then the thunder came, a sound with no source, rolling across the entire world.
They looked up, confused. There were no clouds.
A moment later...
A violent, localized detonation struck a continent-sized plain. The impact was not fiery, but kinetic, a transfer of impossible momentum. The ground for hundreds of kilometers buckled and heaved. Entire mountain ranges were born in an instant as the crust shattered and uplifted. Subterranean aquifers, the hidden source of the planet's moisture, ruptured violently. Geysers of water taller than mountains erupted, flooding lowlands and carving new canyons in seconds. A global earthquake of unprecedented magnitude shook the world.
Panic was instantaneous and total. The insectoid people, now revealed to have vestigial wings, took to the air in a buzzing, terrified swarm as their homes crumbled into dust.
From the heart of a newly formed crater three hundred kilometers wide, Archangel Michael rose. The ground around her was not merely scorched; it was turning to molten slag from the intense, radiant heat pouring from her body. Her four wings burned like captured stars. She paid no attention to the cataclysm she had authored.
Her eyes lifted, scanning the chaotic skies now filled with the planet's inhabitants. They were gathering, a dark cloud of outrage and fear. She saw their weapons, sharp and primitive, pointed toward her. She could read their collective intent as clearly as written words: Destroy the invader.
A flicker of distaste crossed her features.
I despise insects.
Ignoring the gathering swarm, she began to walk. Each step was a tectonic event, shaking the liquefying ground for miles. She was a pilgrim of annihilation, and her destination was the pulsating signature of the Aspect.
As she walked, a single, echoing question reverberated in the vault of her mind, a ghost from a conversation with her sister.
Why did Lucifer say she 'had to' kill Samael?
She turned the question over, examining it from every angle, searching for an answer she could give that would not break Gabriel's heart or shatter her own carefully constructed narrative. But the truth was a locked box for which she had thrown away the key. There were no words that could explain it. And the fact that Lucifer still lived, still walked free after committing that most unforgivable act, was a perpetual, silent scream in Michael's soul.
She was so lost in this internal storm that she barely registered the physical one around her. Dozens, then hundreds of thick, fibrous ropes, woven from the sinews of great redwood-like trees, were cast around her limbs and torso. Thousands of the insectoid beings, both on the ground and in the air, pulled with all their collective might, trying to halt the walking cataclysm.
She did not feel it. She kept walking, an unstoppable force dragging a confused, desperate anchor of living beings behind her.
She only noticed their efforts when one of the warriors, braver or more foolish than the rest, dove from the sky. It aimed a crystalline spear at her chest with all its momentum.
The spear shattered on impact. The warrior did not. It simply ceased to exist in a wet, violet burst that painted the air and ground before her.
Michael finally paused. She frowned, looking down at herself. Her arms, her torso, even her legs were bound by countless ropes. She turned her head, looking back at the vast, straining crowd of creatures pulling against her with desperate, futile strength.
She stared at them, her expression one of pure, bewildered irritation.
I should not waste attention on these pathetic creatures.
Just as she resolved to continue, a boulder the size of a small house, launched from a massive siege engine, sailed through the air and struck her squarely in the back.
It did no damage. It simply disintegrated into gravel on contact.
But it succeeded in one thing. It pissed her off.
Her Authority activated.
It was not a directed attack. It was a statement.
The very concept of "up" within a five hundred meter radius inverted. Everything—trees, boulders, houses, and the thousands of insectoid beings pulling the ropes—was instantly flattened against the ground with crushing, infinite force. The sound was a single, wet, final crunch. When the pressure released, all that remained was a perfectly smooth, circular plain of pulverized red foliage, rock, and a spreading lake of shimmering violet blood.
The swarm outside the circle fell silent. Their cheers, their battle cries, died in their throats. They hovered or stood, trembling, staring at the abattoir that had been their kin.
That should silence the insects, Michael thought, the irritation subsiding.
She turned back toward her destination, the pull of the Aspect's presence now clearer than ever.
But something new blocked her path.
It had landed with a crash that cratered the ground. It stood taller than the others, its chitinous armor a deeper, obsidian black, etched with glowing, bioluminescent patterns. The energy radiating from it was dense, focused, and undeniably powerful. It was not like the others.
Michael stopped. She looked around. The terrified silence of the swarm had broken, replaced by a rising, buzzing chorus. It was not a language of sound she could hear with ears, but a psychic resonance she could understand perfectly as an angel.
They were cheering. Chanting. Celebrating.
This was their champion. Their protector. Their god.
It stood between the Archangel and her prey.