REQUIEM: The Angel Who Never Returned
> "Love is the most dangerous rebellion in a world ruled by gods."
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I. The Seraph in Exile
The skies above Hell did not burn—they wept in silence. No fire licked the heavens. No cries rose from the abyss. Only stillness, and the soft, mournful breath of time forgotten. In that hollow hour between dusk and damnation, Lilith moved like a hymn unsung, each step across the obsidian bridges of the Infernal Vale casting stardust ash into the endless dark. The bridges shimmered faintly with memory—echoes of constellations that once crowned the heavens, now reduced to soot under her silvered sandals.
Her wings, though folded behind her, shimmered faintly with the golden radiance of a Heaven that no longer claimed her. Light fell from them like reluctant feathers, and wherever it touched the blackened stone, the surface hissed as if scalded by the truth.
Lilith did not speak. She walked alone, the silence pressing into her ears like hands. She had come to Hell not to beg, not to spy, not even to destroy. She had come to warn.
The Court of Crimson and Flame loomed ahead—a fortress of veined garnet and volcanic glass, half grown and half forged, perched on a precipice that overlooked the Sea of Desires, which churned red with the regrets of the damned.
The gates did not open with ceremony. They groaned like the ribs of dead gods. The guards, creatures of sinew and shadow wrapped in shimmering silk that danced like mirage-fire, stepped aside. They had no mouths, but their heads turned, tracking her with expressions that were both reverent and suspicious. They bowed not to Lilith, but to what she represented—a potential weapon, a potential ruin.
And then, he appeared.
Asmodeus descended the obsidian steps like a man who had never learned to kneel. Cloaked in midnight robes that bled darkness, he moved with a feline ease that belied the weight of aeons in his gaze. Golden eyes, molten and ancient, fixed on her like twin suns orbiting a dying truth. His skin shimmered faintly, as if kissed by embers, and his hair flowed like liquid night.
The sigil of the Third Heart of Chronos pulsed faintly at his chest—a mark carved not with ink, but with destiny.
"You return," he said. His voice was flame tasting her name, a whisper that left burns on memory.
"You knew I would," she replied, her voice steady despite the inferno between them.
"Even angels are not welcome here without a leash."
"Then leash me. But listen first."
And so, he did.
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II. The Cursed Hearts of Time
They sat beneath the thrones carved from petrified sin, in a chamber where light could not enter without kneeling.
She told him everything.
The deception. The betrayal. The mission from Olympus that had cloaked her wings in false diplomacy. Zeus's grand illusion: that she had come to establish peace. In truth, she was sent to infiltrate the sovereign princes of Hell, identify the wielders of the seven shards of Chronos' shattered soul, and reclaim the power of Time for Olympus.
"He does not wish to rule Heaven alone," Lilith said, her voice bitter with the taste of old loyalty turned sour. "He wishes to make Hell his eighth kingdom."
Asmodeus did not blink. He turned away slightly, watching the dying blossoms of desire wither in his garden, as if even his flowers recoiled from Heaven's ambition.
"We suspected," he murmured. "But suspicion and truth are never lovers until the blade is drawn."
She went on.
The war against Chronos had not ended with victory. It had ended with a splintering. Chronos' heart, fractured into seven pieces, fell into Hell. Each fragment chose a bearer—not by will, but by resonance. They became cursed gifts, transforming each of the Seven Princes.
Lucifer, bearer of Pride, became the Light Unfallen, forever beautiful and unreachable.
Beelzebub, Gluttony incarnate, turned his realm into an ever-decaying feast of rot and hunger.
Asmodeus, with Lust, turned desire into an empire, where pleasure and power were indistinguishable.
Satan forged Wrath into legions—armies built of rage and blood.
Belial, with Sloth, drowned minds in eternal slumber, bending perception itself.
Mammon chained the souls of Greed to vaults of golden lies.
And Leviathan, Envy, swallowed worlds in his abyssal jealousy.
Each fragment distorted its wielder, amplifying the sin it resonated with. None of the princes were truly allies. They were seven aspects of a prophecy they refused to accept.
"Chronos's hearts were not meant to be held," Asmodeus said. "They are not gifts. They are prisons. And yet..."
He touched his chest. The sigil glowed.
"And yet I hold mine still."
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III. Crimson Blossoms in the Garden of Lust
That night, the walls of Hell did not echo with screams. Instead, laughter floated through the gardens where crimson trees dripped with glowing sap. Lilith sat beside Asmodeus beneath a canopy of thorns and stars. The air was perfumed with sweet wine and distant sorrow.
He poured her a goblet of memory wine—a drink made from the stolen memories of those who had died in regret. Its color shifted constantly, cycling through every shade of grief.
"I do not drink from the past," she said at first.
But then she did. And when she swallowed, the taste was sharp—like first love and last betrayal.
"Why do you remain here?" she asked, brushing a petal from her robe.
"Because Heaven fears what I know," Asmodeus replied. "And Hell..." he gestured to the garden, "...lets me speak."
"What do you know?"
His eyes, normally amused and piercing, dimmed with gravity.
"That the gods are afraid. Not of one another. But of what comes next."
"Next?"
"The child born of both light and darkness. The one who ends their reign. The heir of ruin."
Lilith's breath caught in her throat. The prophecy.
She had heard it whispered from Chronos' dying lips.
> "When the child of sky and abyss awakens, the heavens will burn, and the divine shall fall before the mortal made god."
Now it made sense.
She had not been sent to gather the fragments.
She had been sent to prevent their union.
To prevent this.
And yet, she remained.
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IV. Love Is a Wound That Never Heals
Weeks passed. Then months. No angels came. No scrolls from Olympus arrived. Heaven's silence was louder than its proclamations ever were.
Lilith wandered through the halls of Lust like a flame kept in a glass lantern. The servants learned not to bow. The monsters learned to offer her space. The flowers leaned toward her. And Asmodeus—he watched.
They did not speak often of love. But every silence between them was its own language.
He taught her how to read the hidden texts—books bound in whispers, tomes inked in forgotten names. She taught him to speak her old tongue again—the language of the first angels, long forbidden.
And then, one night, beneath a storm of falling stars, their fingers touched.
And they did not let go.
Their love was not gentle. It was rebellion. It was hunger and peace and desperation. He, who had touched countless hearts but never given his own. She, who had vowed never to fall again.
But fall, she did.
She conceived.
Asmodeus, the lord of desire, stood frozen as she whispered the names.
> "Ernos. And Seriel."
Twins. One boy, one girl.
One heir. One cost.
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V. The Arrival of Heaven's Wrath
The day the sky tore, the garden wilted.
The trumpets of Olympus sounded not in song, but in judgment. Poseidon descended like a tidal wave wrapped in armor of gold and sapphire. Behind him came Hades, cloaked in shadows older than light.
They did not come as rescuers. They came as executioners.
Lilith stood between them and the cradle of her children.
"You have betrayed Olympus," Poseidon thundered.
"Listen to me. The child—they are—"
"What have you done, Lilith? What have you done?"
In his grief and fury, Poseidon raised his weapon.
Lilith moved to shield the cradle.
And too late, he saw the child.
The girl.
Seriel.
His strike hit before his heart did.
The cradle shattered.
Lilith screamed.
Poseidon froze. His hands trembled.
"No... what..."
Asmodeus appeared like the end of days.
He did not shout.
He simply moved.
And the earth bled.
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VI. The Shattering of Crowns
What followed was not war.
It was grief made manifest.
Asmodeus unleashed the full wrath of the Third Heart. His body became flame and shadow. The palace of Lust split in half. The Sea of Desires boiled dry.
Poseidon, sobbing, dropped his trident.
"I didn't know," he whispered. "I didn't mean to—"
Lilith cradled the girl's lifeless body, her wings burning away one feather at a time.
The boy—Ernos—cried once. Then fell silent.
She kissed his forehead.
> "You will remember none of this. But your soul will carry it. When the time comes... burn it all."
Asmodeus reached her.
Chains descended from the stars. Forged by divine law.
They bound him.
He did not scream.
He wept.
Lilith's body turned to crystal.
The child vanished.
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VII. The Child of Flame and Time
Ernos grew in silence, hidden from all who knew his name.
He dreamed of wings. Of fire. Of a woman's lullaby and a man's rage.
He remembered nothing.
But his soul remembered everything.
And one day, when the stars fall again...
He will.
And the gods will burn.
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END OF Chapter 3