Prologue: 1. Of angels, demons and a little bit of treachery

Void Star Zeta

Lightning cleaved the sky while a monstrous thunderclap blew away the last wisps of smoke, rising from a bloody battlefield. The light of three different void-moons could finally penetrate the atmosphere, shining onto the flailing bodies of combatants, locked in an unending dance until that last forceful strike blew them apart, like leaves in the wind. Afterwards an eerie silence claimed the remnants of two mighty armies. They faced each other over a destroyed plane littered with bodies, limbs and deep crystallised craters, proof of otherworldly magics that had reigned there, up until a moment ago.

In the no manˋs land, smack down in the middle of this butchered battlefield, one remained standing. One remained upright, albeit without his second eye and missing his right arm. Raven-black hair covered an unworldly beautiful face with high cheekbones and one remaining eye that shone like the moon. Deep gashes split his cheeks, his large canines poking through the wounds around his mouth. Most remarkable were the threads of energy, spilling from his back. 20 metre long torrents of bluish silver energy slithered through the air, cutting wind, sound and light while they passed through. Slight distortions could be seen around the edges of each energy-band. Silver blood spilled out of his stump and from the myriad of wounds he had sustained. But still a faint smile tugged on the corners of his mouth and the force emanating from his eye never faded. Clothed in the tattered remains of a sublime, white robe he remained standing through sheer willpower and the help of his trusted spear, which he now used as a crutch.

To his right, all of the remaining 326 demons, that still retained a corporal form, were still and unmoving like a cliff of black obsidian in the night, even the light of the void wouldn't touch them. To his left the angelic army looked like an island of order and light in the middle of a chaotic, storm-plagued sea. Two opposites that'd tear reality apart, if they came too close. Small sparks started to appear between the two fronts, getting bigger and more numerous as time dragged on.

The silence was broken by heavy footsteps. Two figures emerged from the depth of the demon army, their counterparts gliding to the fore of the heavenly host. Four pairs of eyes roamed across the destruction, finally settling on the wounded figure in the middle.

"Mephisto, Lilith" a majestic figure of at least 3 meters, clad in white plate-amor with a white cloak covering its face, acknowledged the two beings that stood only a few steps away by now in a deep baritone. On his side a gorgeous female, with curves to die for, a face that had driven monks to insanity and red wavy hair with azure eyes gave a tiny nod. Behind her back four wings of fire, a larger pair right above a smaller one, burned the air, a metallic smell slowly setting over the scene. She wore a skin-tight mail-shirt and skirt, each ring fashioned from a pure, heavenly ruby.

"My lady Aurora, my lord Michael, have you come to end this farce, so unbecoming of higher bein…" a massive warrior of 2.5 meters, wearing black chainmail and a crown of horns upon his head, armed with a 3 metre long black trident with ruby tips, tried to say but his speech was cut short by a wheezing laughter:

"Higher beings?…cough… More like needle-dicked butt fu.." The wounded soldier in the middle interrupted but a moving shadow, that engulfed his face and torso briefly, cut him off. On his side another beauty stepped from the shadows, carefully remaining out of reach of his energy-wings. She was the stark contrast to lady Aurora. She was petite with a deathly pallor, contrasted by her black hair and obsidian eyes. Her black attire made it hard for the eye to follow her form, which seemed to slip in and out of the shadows that clung to her body and to the horns on her head. The only speck of colour came from the silver blood splashed all over her right arm, dropping down to earth from the raptured larynx she slowly squeezed to a pulp. Before the first drop could reach the soil, she murmured:

"You have talked quite enough Lucifer. Yours is only to listen and await judgement." And with that, Lucifer finally toppled over, his remaining hand clutched the hole in his neck. All that could be heard from him was the wheezing sound when his lungs tried to press vital gases through the mutilated windpipe.

"That is quite correct. And you wonˋt be needing this, anymore." Michael replied and grabbed the silver spear Lucifer had dropped. With an nearly imperceptible movement Michael threw the spear into the air and unfolded his steel-grey wings. With a quick spin, he tried to cut the spear into three pieces, but his lightning-quick movement was brought to a halt by a silver-blue torrent of energy that snaked around his wings and clamped them shut. Where the energy touched the metal of Michaelˋs wings, a low hissing sound erupted and within moments the steely feathers started to glow and deform around the edges.

"Enough!" Aurora's quiet whisper was accompanied by a slicing sound as her katana seemingly materialised in her hand and bore down on Lucifer's back, piercing him right between his wing bases and nailing him to the ground. On a mental command the katana burst into bright-red flames that cauterised the wound but stopped every form of regeneration. Finally Luciferˋs wings dropped to the ground, crackling on the burned soil. The smell of sulphur and burned earth became overwhelming.

"Thank you, milady. The bastard is…was too strong" Michael, still composed but somewhat shaken from the current of energy that had raced through his wings, folded them back under his cloak and broke the spear over his knee. An explosion like a nuclear bomb followed directly after, showering everyone in debris. The closest four were pushed back several meters despite their powers. Of the spear nothing remained but ash and a silver emblem, cracked down the middle. It depicted a winged, humanoid creature, bowing down in front of a tree. On each branch of the tree a cultured life form could be seen while abstract animal faces made up the trunk and the fruits consisted of small planets. With a little imagination one might have been earth.

Hurt as he was, Lucifer couldn't protect himself and took the brunt of the explosion. Of his back not much remained, except a burning hole with a katana stuck through and the small parts of skin and muscle, protected beneath his wings. White lumps of bone rose from the red mass that was left of sculpted muscles and porcelain skin. The rest was flayed away by the broken shards of his spear. Defiantly he struggled to at least lift his head off the ground and look those fuckers in the eye, but…there was nothing left but pain and exhaustion. Maybe it was time to finally get some rest? Let some other bimbo try to fix this broken multiverse. He had tried. And he had failed…obviously. Otherwise he wouldn't be spilling his last blood on some god-forsaken hunk of rock in the middle of nowhere. Literally, as the void was the definition of nowhere. Still, he wasn't very keen on finding out how those four intended to end an eternal existence. If he had had anything left to bet he would've put it all on pain. Probably a lot of it. That was something he definitely didn't want to experience. Desperately he reached into the depth of his core, his inner reservoir of energy and purpose, to trigger one last transformation, but alas the seals drawn with his own blood held fast, they quivered but remained in place. Having spent his last strength on this final act of defiance, his one good eye rolled up into his head and he finally lost consciousness.

"Did he just try to transform? In the void space?!" The dark knight Mephisto shouted as he climbed back up on his feet.

"There is not enough external energy, he would have exploded, his core eroded to nothingness! By the seven eyes, we would have been blown to smithereens!"

"Calm down, he can support his form here, but he would probably have incinerated quite a lot of us and burned OUR cores to ashes, if he had managed to transform. He is not called the eater of immortals for nothing. Thank the heavenly throne that our seals held for as long as they did." Aurora replied, calm and collected. Even that last explosion in direct proximity hadn't dishevelled her.

"We can worry about ifs and whens as soon as this …abomination is gone. I'm so done with this whole forsaken campaign" Michael spat. "First he pushes the transcendent forces into an open war neither side wants and than he fucking tries to seal us in the void!" He blushed slightly, embarrassed by his verbal tirade. Unfolding and folding his wings to calm himself down, he continued: "It's time to put an end to all of this. We, or rather lady Minerva, found a way to kill him off for good. And it will only cost one planet full of mortals."

"Hmm, I do admit that I would love to tie him to a rack and dig into him until I understood all the little parts that make this one tick. But a swift cut is much more advisable, considering the last 200 years. Can we service you in any way, oh mighty lord of angels?" Lilith purred with her sultry voice, gliding over to Michael. She caressed his chest-plate with her long fingers and looked up to him with a light colour showing on her cheeks for the first time. Aurora immediately hissed and Michael threw Lilith off, barking in rage: "How dare you touch me, filthy succubus! To sully me with your hands and gaze! This armistice doesn't make us friends and should we meet again after today, rest assured, your head will roll!"

Lilith kept her balance with a graceful step and sneered: "I would like to see you try, bigot!" Shadows condensed in her hands until she held two daggers, black as the night.

But before the situation could escalate even further, Mephisto took a step forward: "Stay your fiery tempers and sheath your weapons. We hate one another but we have a common enemy right now. So I repeat the question: Lord Michael, do you need any help to dispose of this beast?"

With a stiff bow Michael relented: "My apologies. The seal on the void is broken, his core is suppressed and his consciousness fled. You held up your end and lost the seven knights of hell while we only lost Gabriel, Metathron and the fallen one." He spat at the unconscious Lucifer. "Now it's time we hold up ours. Go back to hell and rest assured for the next 77 years no heavenly angel will interfere with hell's plans. Enough time to feed seven mortals with the knights' cores." He pointed at seven dark halos visible in Mephisto's aura. "Now go and leave the rest to us." And with that, Michael shouldered the unconscious Lucifer and turned his back on the two demons. Aurora exchanged one last glance with Lilith before she too turned around. Neither of them saw Mephisto pick up the charred and cracked emblem.

"My liege, you realise that the demons do profit immensely from this outcome? While they could collect the cores of the fallen knights and have the time to nurture them, Lucifer destroyed Gabriel's and Metathron's cores completely, crippled Ariel and Zuzuma permanently and we lost our strongest member on top of it all. Or do you think you can scrap Lucifer's core clean and make a good little soldier out of him?" Aurora couldn't banish the sarcasm from her words.

"You forget yourself. Be glad there is no one around, otherwise there could be only one answer to your insolence. We are still at war, girl." Michael replied collectedly. With his adversary over his shoulder, whose blood formed a warm and velvety river down his back, he was looking forward to Lucifer's imminent demise. A pity he wasn't conscious, but maybe an angelic healer could rectify that. The destruction of the core was supposed to be excruciatingly painful and it wouldn't do for him to miss it. All in all Michael was in a great mood, probably the best in several millennia. A little haughty lieutenant couldn't sour his spirits.

"But to answer your questions: I'll scrap Ariel and Zuzuma and reincarnate them anew. While we were talking to those cretins, Azrael burned his core to curse the knights. Good luck keeping those abominations from killing every demon in sight, once they awaken. And with only Lucifer, Azrael, Metathron and Gabriel lost, we still come out ahead, even if you assume that Lucifer was the strongest of us all." Michael couldn't prevent a small smile from forming while he spoke.

Aurora's gaze on the other hand became icier with every word she heard: You intent to scrap Ariel and Zuzi and you killed Azrael off for good?! Az would never have willingly sacrificed his life to curse anyone. Maybe to lift a curse but never cast it. May the eternal wyrm eat your core! Who knew about that?! Is that what we became? Is that what I fought for, what I bled for? What I killed for?! While her thoughts raced, her eyes travelled to the half-dead angel on Michael's back. Maybe you didn't lie to me after all?

Above the burning void chasm

327 angels hovered above a burning scar in the all encompassing void while one hung like a lifeless doll on the shoulders of another. This place was one of a kind, where the energies of the living multiverse poured into the abyssal night of the infinite void. Energies crashed through reality with burning desire and purpose, only to bleed into the void and run dry, for nothing could fill its eternal darkness. Here, the whole of existence could be felt, stuck in an eternal cycle of light and darkness. Like an Ouroboros, the darkness slowly swallowed the fires coming out of the chasm while pure energies clashed into the darkness to fill the nothingness and devour the deepest shadows. It was the centre of the multiverse where every ounce of energy, every gran of purpose, ended.

And yet life originated from here as well. Where energy and purpose met, refined by the fringes of eternity, a new soul was borne. Like an unending stream of the most beautiful crystals, they floated out of the unending darkness and back into the light of existence. It was the most fulfilling sight in the whole multiverse. It was also the place the angels had picked to kill off one of their own.

The heavenly host remained above the chasm and started singing. Spherical sounds added to the transcendent sight and a choir of 325 voices started to form and guide the flows of energy, sealing every newborn soul in a transparent veil of power. Only Michael didn't join in. He flew ever closer to the chasm, Lucifer, still unconscious, as no healer could overcome his immunity to magic, slung over his shoulder. If Michael hadn't been so full of glee, he might have heard another register missing from the sublime music.

"Well, well little brother, and here we are. You on my back, bleeding like a pig and me, lugging your useless ass all over existence. But this is the last time, trust me on that" He chuckled. "Nearly there… just a little closer…No clue if you can hear me, but this seriously is a sight to behold. If it just wasn't so egregiously dangerous…But you will find out all about that in a moment. You know, I'm gonna kill your body and throw you into the chasm. Your energy will be pulled out by the void forces and sucked into existence through the gap. But without a soul, the weight of the whole multiverse, rushing through that barrier, will crush your core and because of our seals you won't be able to cling to a newborn. At least until you can break them, but as you are unconscious, that seems rather unlikely. All that remains is the great finale, when your shredded and compressed energy materialises on some unfortunate world. I hope you suffer just as much as Gabriel when you burned him with those forsaken wings of yours. Enjoy your last trip, eater of immortals!"

With those words Michael cast off his burden and Lucifer tumbled downwards, pulled towards the chasm. With one last outburst of energy, Michael sped after him and beheaded his brother with the flick of a wing. A happy smile spread across his face as he turned around to watch the heavenly choir protect the newborn souls from any possible interference. Now the only obstacle to his plans was finally gone. Now he could begin. The multiverse would change and it would be by his design.

But…there was a flicker of energy, speeding past him and he heard a telepathic whisper: "I never said anything about not meddling in heavenly affairs. You little fool, if you think you can manipulate us so easily, you will be proven wrong. Remember your promise, this is hell's affair and YOU WILL NOT INTERFERE!" The heavenly shield cracked.

A dark comet rushed past Michael, flew through the energies that poured out of Lucifer's body and collected them in a cage, powered by four dark spheres, four of the cores of the knights. All that remained in space was a drifting, dried up head and a mutilated husk of a torso.

Mephisto's break-neck flight continued, for it was him in an ethereal form who crashed the heavenly execution. Without much decorum, he burned the remaining three cores, as well as his own, to encapsulate the cage in transcendent energies and fire it at the stream of souls. The result was breath-taking, even by the standards of immortals. If the only demon with a backbone had to go out, he would make sure it would happen with a Big Bang. The stream of souls exploded in colours of the entire spectrum, shooting energy beams with the strength of several super novas into the void. Directly afterwards a shockwave, consisting of pure energy, travelled outwards, pushing back even the outpour from the chasm.

The heavenly host was blown away and scattered through the void. All that remained was a broken cage and a nearly empty patch in the river of souls. Only one speck remained in the middle, shining brightly, like the moon, and encircled in bluish silver threads of energy. Slowly it drifted towards the chasm and passed, unwitnessed, into the realm of existence.

60 minutes earlier Void Star Zeta

Aurora sealed her feelings behind a composed mask. That was something she had become really good at during the last 200 years. Ever since the war against the demons had begun and even more so after they had uncovered the truth and started hunting for Lucifer.

Right now her insides were even more in turmoil than usual. Michael had carelessly admitted to planning on erasing two unique and amazing personalities, solely for the sake of regaining soldiers in fighting trim. Worse, the way he simply had stated a fact made it obvious that a larger part of the angels even supported him. He didn't expect any resistance and would do as he pleased, no matter the desires of the wounded angels. Aurora knew them, they would never have wanted to lose themselves for the sake of power or combat prowess.

Furthermore she was pretty confident that he had forced Azrael into some kind of self sacrifice, but she couldn't be sure there. And before she dared to act, she had to be.

So Aurora had hid her emotions for the time being and didn't insist on accompanying Michael when he went to scrap Ariel and Zuzuma clean to reincarnate them with a new soul.

Each angel and demon consisted of two parts: a soul, that contained emotions and their personality, and a core, that held the angels transcendent energy, purpose and true form. It also contained memories on a superficial level, but they could be scrapped clean. If a clean core was bound to a newborn soul, all injuries, even ones to the core itself, could be reset. They healed with the development of the new soul. If memories were retained, the core remained in a fixed state and couldn't recover any mutilations, even with a new soul. The core was said to be indestructible, except if the angel itself decide to blow it up for energy, but as the cases of Gabriel and Metathron had clearly shown, it wasn't. Only really close to it. Consequentially, a body and the soul bound to it could die, but the essence remained, practically forever.

Aurora was sure she couldn't stop Michael from scrapping the wounded angels, as he openly told the heavenly host about his intentions. Some seemed uneasy and anxious but the majority accepted the importance of keeping the fighting numbers up. There were only 330 angels left after all. Well, 329, soon enough.

So she stood aside and allowed Michael and his closest adviser, Ezekiel, to cross over to the two wounded angels, undisturbed. Ariel and Zuzuma were clearly in pain but the burns on their core would keep them unconscious until they scarred over. It would never happen, though. Those two personalities would never wake up again. Michael would make sure of it.

But instead of flying away on her fiery wings as fast as possible, Aurora stayed close and hid herself behind a cliff of void-glass. After conjuring a dome of transcendent energy, to conceal herself from everything in creation, she used the path of Ariel's and Zuzuma's cores to the river of souls to plunge her astral projection deep into the current. She was looking for the last remnants of Azrael's existence, which should be decomposing close to the river's source, on the fringes of the void. After a moment, which felt like an eternity, while raw cosmic energies tormented her spirit, she finally caught the scent of a personality she knew. She had found the last parts of Azrael and with it some of his memories….

30 seconds later Aurora used most of her power to force a telepathic link onto Mephisto: "I have a story to tell. Well, actually, it's the story of a dead angel and one that might die soon. And if that happens, we'll be lost. So you better listen really carefully….."