Earth. Secret observation post of "The Organization". The beginning of the battle in Heaven.
A spacious room, packed with modern equipment and various angelic artifacts that had appeared near the Vatican not too long ago. In the center of the room, massive monitors were broadcasting the feed from those very celestial screens.
Two agents, Linda and Harper, stood frozen at their terminals. Their faces were pale; the brother and sister stared in shock at the magical background radiation levels across the world, which were literally off the charts and threatening to fry their equipment. Usually, spikes like this meant a portal to Hell or Heaven had opened, but right now, magic was flooding the entire world.
Behind them, clutching a cup of cold tea, sat Azura—a sweet girl with soft features and cat ears, a cherub cleansed by Adam, and Seth's wife. Beside her stood two others: Seth, outwardly calm but with undisguised anxiety splashing in his eyes against his will, and Abaddon, whose dark aura was currently unstable, pulsing in time with his anger.
They were supposed to stay on Earth. That was Adam's order: hold the reserve, protect Earth in case the battle spilled over here. But what they were seeing on the screens made the brothers grind their teeth to the point of aching from sheer powerlessness.
"They're breaking through the left flank," Abaddon growled. His eyes ignited with a strange golden fire when he saw Joan's squad retreating under the onslaught of long-forgotten Goetian demons. "Father won't be able to hold the sphere if they break through. He needs help!"
"We got a direct order, Ab," Seth replied, grinding his teeth, but his fists were visibly shaking. "If we leave, Earth is left completely exposed."
A flash on the screen: waves of Darkness were pushing Abel back. Cain was mutating, entering his second stage, and the Deadly Sins were barely holding off his assault.
Abaddon spun around sharply. The space around him warped, and his clothes, which looked like completely normal sportswear, shifted into the grey suit with gold accents that he had been "born" in.
"Fuck orders!" he barked. "That's our family out there! Why the fuck is Abel taking the heat for all of us, and father risking his neck while we do nothing?! And the angels? I'm not sitting here watching those bastards cut them to pieces!"
Seth closed his eyes for a second, let out a heavy breath, and when he opened them again, the exact same golden fire was burning in them as in his brother's. He turned to Azura.
The girl already understood everything. Her eyes filled with tears; she jumped up, dropping her cup, which shattered loudly against the floor.
"No... Seth, please! You'll die out there! It's suicide! Eve will kill you!" She grabbed his shirt, desperately trying to hold him back. "Adam ordered you to stay!"
Seth gently covered her hands with his own. He pulled the girl close and kissed her tenderly on the forehead.
"Forgive me, my love," he said quietly. "But if we don't go out there, this world won't exist anymore. We'll have nothing left to protect... My brother needs me... My father needs me, and... Heaven needs me."
The angel pulled back, and his body began to wreathe in a glow as his golden armor materialized.
"We're leaving, Abaddon," Seth tossed out.
Space fractured, obeying the brothers' will, and the two Princes stepped into the open portal, leaving a sobbing Azura and the shocked agents in the empty room, only to appear dead center in burning Heaven, right in front of a stunned Emily.
Present time. Heaven. POV Adam.
Everything was happening as if in slow motion.
My senses were dialed up to the absolute limit because of the colossal amount of Light I was holding in my hands. The space around me was flooded with my power, making it so I could literally feel every single particle of energy on the battlefield.
I saw everything.
I saw the broken figures of my friends, covered in black blood and soot. I saw Lute, panting heavily, her pauldron shattered and a bleeding gash on her temple, using the last of her strength to bat away another orb of Darkness with a bent frying pan, guarding my back. I saw the Deadly Sins, the Rulers of Hell, bleeding black blood but continuing to fight against the mutated, maddened Cain. I saw Michael and Lucifer, barely able to stand and propping each other up, breathing heavily over the defeated monster.
They were giving everything they had. Burning their souls, pumping Light into their weakened bodies time and time again, breaking bones, fighting even after losing arms or legs, all just to buy me time.
And I stood there like a statue, unable to move a single millimeter. The spell's concentration had almost reached its limit. One more minute! One more pathetic minute, and this little pulsating "Sun" in my palms would cleanse Heaven of Darkness, cleanse Eve's army, and we would win.
But Eve paid no attention to the warriors trying to stop her. She wanted me.
She tore through the angels blocking her path as easily as if they weren't even there. Abel and Seth's shields and barriers shattered with a sickening, crystalline chime, not even holding her back for a fraction of a second.
I looked straight into her eyes—surprisingly sensual, so familiar, so dear, but filled with a terrifying anticipation...
It seemed Eve realized I was almost done. She raised her hand; the space around her palm warped, vibrated, and a long, lethal spear of the purest Darkness formed in the air. But this weapon also reeked of the concept of Death, causing even me to falter for a second, unsure if I'd survive a direct hit.
Meanwhile, Eve smoothly, almost lazily, hurled it at me. The projectile ripped through the air with a repulsive howl, leaving a ragged black wound in the very fabric of reality behind it.
I couldn't defend myself; I couldn't dodge, or all their sacrifices would be for nothing. As much as I wanted to, I couldn't stop right here and now—I just had to survive this attack, as long as it didn't hit the sphere...
Everything inside me went cold.
And then, a golden flash burst into my peripheral vision.
"NO!" a desperate scream cut through the noise of the battle.
Abel.
My son, ignoring the pain, his exhaustion, and all common sense, lunged right into the path of the attack hurtling toward me. He didn't bother throwing up magical barriers, knowing better than anyone that Eve's attack would punch right through them. Instead, the angel drained as much Light from my "Little Sun" as his body could handle to reinforce his armor to the absolute limit, and simply planted himself between me and the spear, throwing his arms wide.
CRACK!
That sound... That sickening, wet sound of pierced flesh, the crunch of shattering armor and bones, permanently burned itself into my brain.
The Spear of Darkness effortlessly punched through Abel's golden chestplate. The monstrous kinetic force of the impact tore him off the ground and launched him backward.
He crashed right at my feet, slamming hard against the cracked white tiles of the plaza, leaving a horrifying, wide streak of shimmering golden blood in his wake.
But even so, he achieved his goal—the spear dissolved in his flesh, never reaching me or the sphere.
Time seemed to stop.
The noise of the battle, the screams of the wounded, the explosions of spells—it all vanished, as if someone had simply muted the volume or paused the world.
I looked down.
Abel lay at my feet. His golden armor was shattered; a massive, practically see-through wound gaped in his chest, oozing black smoke. A thin trickle of blood ran from the corner of his mouth, but the most terrifying part... he was looking at me, smiling weakly, somewhat guiltily.
Smiling that exact same sad smile I remembered from back when he was just a little boy in Eden.
"Forgive me... father... I..." he whispered, his lips barely moving, and the light in his eyes began to rapidly fade.
His chest gave one violent, convulsive jerk and then went perfectly still.
My son lay dead at my feet.
Again.
Because of my weakness.
Because of my inability to protect what I care about.
The smile on Eve's face vanished instantly, replaced by something vaguely resembling confusion, and then... fear?
But I didn't give a shit about Eve anymore. I didn't give a shit about God and Roo, didn't give a shit about the universe, and didn't give a shit about the safety of Heaven or the lives of the Darkness-corrupted cherubs.
Inside me—right where I had once killed that God-killing monster with my own two hands—something snapped with a deafening crack.
My entire being, every cell in my body, filled with something painfully familiar. Dark.
For a split second, the Light in my palms faltered. It flickered, as if transforming into something alien and terrifying for a moment... but almost immediately, as if in relief, it became pure Light once more.
I was in pain.
Not the kind of pain you feel when a blade pierces your flesh or a crushing blow breaks your bones.
No.
This was absolute emptiness.
My feelings vanished.
Dissolved without a trace, leaving only a ringing, dead silence inside, and only a phantom pain somewhere near my heart kept me on my feet, forcing me to continue feeding the Sun in my palms.
It stopped growing. It froze, and then began to slowly shrink.
From the outside, it might have looked like I was just canceling the spell, drawing the Light back into myself, but in reality, it was completely different.
When it collapsed into a single point... The cleansing would begin.
I slowly raised an absolutely dead, empty gaze to Eve.
The Light continued to compress, growing denser, heavier, until it reached its physical limit.
A dot.
For a fraction of a second, it disappeared.
And in the very next moment, it fulfilled its purpose.
Heaven shuddered.
The Human World and Hell shuddered right along with it.
And it was in that exact moment that I screamed.
It wasn't a scream of rage, not a coherent word—just a primal sound tearing out from the very depths of my soul, a sound blending unbearable agony, despair, and the total denial of reality.
The world shuddered again.
But I, still trapped in this terrifying trance, continued to silently pour my emotions out into the surrounding space, not even noticing the scalding tears streaming down my cheeks.
Golden tears.
Just like angelic blood...
The In-Between World.
"And once again, we arrived at nothing..." the man in the snow-white suit drawled, staring into the void with four massive eyes hovering in the air. "Once again, Light and Darkness will destroy each other, the domain will begin to collapse, and once again, the cycle will repeat... Will you admit that Light is more important than Darkness?" he asked his companion, a note of doom in his voice.
"No," the girl in the red coat cut him off, frowning. She had golden pupils and red sclera. "I wouldn't want it all to end... like this again."
"Which iteration is this? How many changes have we already introduced to our battle? But every single time, it ends like this. Even when our pieces decide to rebel against us..." God shook his head.
"So maybe you'll admit that Darkness is superior to Light?"
"No," God answered just as firmly as his companion, but suddenly cut himself off. "What is happening?"
Something completely incomprehensible, even to the creators, was taking place on the battlefield. After the space was flooded with overwhelming Light, and their child was filled with Darkness that began mixing with his Light, the exact thing Adam had been striving for happened. Cleansed cherubs and strangely altered Goetian demons—stripped of their corruption but not killed, demons Eve had spent centuries recruiting or simply kidnapping and mind-controlling—began to softly fall from the sky onto the ruins of the Golden City.
Suddenly, a portal opened in the sky, and flying straight out of it, right into a shock-frozen Eve who had decided to ignore the unknown attack, came... a blue soccer ball.
After which, she... vanished from the Demiurges' perception. The ball ricocheted and slammed into Adam, who identically vanished from their radar along with the ball itself.
"What the..." Roo squeezed out, immediately beginning to scan the domain they had created, but finding neither Eve nor Adam.
They hadn't been transported to the In-Between World; they hadn't gone to the world Adam created and materialized, nor to the Dark World created by Eve. If they had, they would have remained within reach and been easily detected by her and God. And if they had tried to escape beyond the domain, into the In-Between World with them, they would have inevitably run into the guardian, who had stopped and unmade their rebellious pieces hundreds of times before...
What the hell is going on?
POV Adam
Having accomplished my plan, I was mentally cursing myself.
The next step of the plan was to begin negotiations with Eve. Having asserted my dominance and backed her into a corner, I wanted to strike a deal with her and figure out together what to do to save our shared universe, but...
I just had no strength left.
When Sar opened the portal and launched his invention—Blue Lock—at Eve, I understood exactly what it was. I knew I needed to snap out of it right now, get my emotions under control, and prepare for grueling negotiations, but...
I just kept standing there, staring blankly at my son. At dead Abel, who gave his life for me.
It shouldn't be like this.
I forced myself through sheer willpower to think about literally anything, otherwise I was just going to stand there and stare into the void, completely mindless.
A father shouldn't have to see his dead son.
He shouldn't have to bury him and live through his death.
Abel was supposed to survive.
Why did he do it?
No, I know why he did it.
I admit there was no other way out, and he... did everything... right.
But...
A parent shouldn't bury their child.
It's... wrong.
"Adam..." a familiar voice echoed, a voice now palpably laced with fear, disbelief, and... something else. Regret? It's hard to read emotions in this state, even for me with my supernatural ability to catch them in a voice. "What... Abel... He can be brought back, right? If... if we defeat them, if we force them to leave us alone, they can bring him back, right?"
More and more panic bled into Eve's voice, panic she was trying to hide with all her might, clinging to an illusory hope.
Unfortunately, her words only made my heart hurt even more.
Abel...
How could this happen...
Grinding my teeth until they squeaked, I simply fell to my knees and burst into tears.
The upbringing of my past life still had a massive hold on me: this kind of emotional display, this kind of weakness... I considered it unworthy behavior for a man. No, I never said that out loud to anyone, but I always tried to save face, to hide my tears, to bury my emotions behind an armor of arrogance and mockery...
But right now, I just couldn't do anything else. I cried, remembering the moments I spent with him. Remembering playing hide-and-seek with him and Cain. How he, just a little kid, brought me a puppy in his arms and named it. How, as a young man, Abel looked at me with love and genuine respect as I sat on the throne giving orders. How the exhausted hero of the war with Hell, having lost all his comrades in a horrific slaughter but clutching victory from the jaws of defeat, literally came back to life before my eyes at my words of support. How a caring father showed me his newborn granddaughter for the first time, his hands trembling. How a confident general and brilliant strategist dictated the battle plan to me that I was supposed to follow today...
And the final moment of his life. His last, guilty smile, and the words he whispered before fading away: "Forgive me... father... I... will go first..."
Words cannot describe the agony of losing someone you love.
I had lost my beloved, more than once. I had lost loyal friends, even more often. I had even lost my little sister. But a child... I was losing my own son for the first time.
How... how could this happen, Abel?
What am I supposed to do now, son?