The light didn't fade this time.
It stayed. Burned. Blinded.
A pillar of energy tore through the heavens, straight where Lucifer had vanished. The rift buckled like torn cloth, screaming in colors that didn't belong to any sane spectrum.
Nezha shielded his eyes, his grip tightening on the spear. "Damn idiot," he muttered, teeth clenched. "Didn't even give a signal."
But deep down, he knew—that was the signal.
Up there, past the cracked sky, past the bleeding void, Lucifer stepped into their world.
And it hurt.
Not pain like flesh.
Worse.
It felt like being unraveled.
His body blurred at the edges, breaking into equations and thoughts and myth. But he didn't stop. Didn't flinch.
Lucifer walked forward, boots echoing on nothing.
Around him, their domain stretched forever—an endless, black ocean of impossible shapes, of floating monoliths and reversed gravity. A place where light screamed and shadows watched.
Then—they came.
Not with footsteps.
They arrived.
