The heart of Pandemonium was beating its last. Black towers, standing since the first sin, groaned as their cores fractured. Zeus's storm wasn't just breaking them; it was silencing a heartbeat.
Baal was a flickering wound of shadow and rage. Asmodeus paced, his usual lazy grace gone, replaced by a caged predator's tension. Mephisto just watched, his stillness more unnerving than any outburst.
Then, the air died.
It didn't move. It didn't stir. It just… went cold. The kind of cold that lives between stars.
He was just there. In the center of the chamber. As if he'd been waiting for them to notice.
Lucifer.
"They are at our door," he said. His voice was quiet. It made the distant sounds of dying demons seem loud.
Mephisto was the first to find his voice. "You brought the old ones."
