His carbine tucked under one arm, he toggled to the zero-point energy field manipulator, waiting for the inevitable.
The inevitable came in the form of a muscled female angel, her wings sluicing through the wind as she dive-bombed him. Lucian managed to entrap her with his energy beam at the last moment, slamming her repeatedly into the wall until he was certain she was down.
He leaped up into the air, moving far enough away that she couldn’t see him. To aid in obscuring his dark form, Lucian conjured even more wind, snow whipping all around him.
He saw a glint of light coming toward him. His crow skidded to a halt in front of him, Lucian recognizing it as the first one he had created.
“Did you find him?”
His crow nodded.
“Take me there, and let’s try to avoid as many angels as we can.”
Lucian conjured up another wall of injurecrows, sending them into the fray.
He then equipped his grenade launcher. As he followed his lead crow, Lucian randomly fired rounds into the snowstorm he’d created, using his wind power to throw off their sound to create even more chaos.
He couldn’t see where he was going, only the back of his spherical creation.
He fired two more rounds of grenades and popped out the cylindrical magazine, another one materializing in his free hand.
He clicked the new one in and continued on, firing until they came to a door at the base of one of the tall towers.
“Please don’t be a magical door, please don’t be a magical door,” Lucian said as he reached for the door handle, finding that it was already open. Before stepping in, he conjured more injurecrows, at least a hundred of them, sending them all into the snowstorm along with another blast of wind.
Lucian slammed the door shut. Once it was clear no one was coming in after him, he followed his crow down a flight of stairs and into a basement. The space was entirely empty, the stone floors cold, absolutely no light coming in.
“Where to now?” he asked his crow, which responded by moving to an open doorway Lucian hadn’t noticed upon entering the room.
He moved into a passageway that was completely dark, a musty smell hanging in the air. He touched the wall and brought his hand to his face, noticing a thin layer of grime on it.
Dust fell from the ceiling every time an explosion rang out, but Lucian’s crow continued onward. He came to a room lit by a single light, and Lucian’s eyes fell on two human forms, their arms and legs splayed, golden chains attaching their limbs to the far corners of the room.
“Lucian?” Old Death whispered. He started coughing up blood, a terrible look on his face as he blinked his eyes again and again. “Is that really you?”
“I’ll get you down.” Lucian went for his sword and struck one of the golden chains, the clank! echoing down the hallway as his sword bounced back.
Old Death whispered to the brunette across from him. “He is the one I was telling you about… Can you hear me? Leliel, can you hear me?”
The woman took a deep breath in and looked up, her face bruised and battered. She was an angel Lucian had never seen before, with gray streaks in her dark brown hair, both of her wings torn off.
“Go,” Old Death told Lucian. “Save yourself…”
Lucian returned his focus to the golden chain suspending Old Death in the air. “How do I break through it?”
“Nothing I’ve been able to do works…” His predecessor coughed. “But I admit I am weak, and these dull swift cinder-garblers have beaten me to hell, Lucian. Perhaps that is why I’m not able to break the chain…”
“Just look away for a moment,” Lucian said as he equipped his plasma blowtorch.
He pulled back on the lever, the beam of thermal energy hitting the chain, sending sparks flying into the air.
“My word, Lucian!”
One of the links turned red and started melting away, and Old Death’s arm eventually dropped.
“It worked,” the angel named Leliel said, her hair falling in her face, a blue vein pulsing at her temple.
Lucian melted through another of Old Death’s chains, then the two other chains suspending his predecessor.
“I’ve got her,” Lucian said as he made his way over to the angel, burning through her chains as well.
Old Death scooted on the floor toward the woman.
He tried to stand and failed, cursing his legs as Lucian burned through the angel’s last chain. His predecessor caught her in the end, bringing the angel into his arms as more explosions sounded above them, more dust falling from the ceiling.
“I’m going to get you two out of here.”
“You shouldn’t have come for me.” Old Death said firmly. “Do you realize what you’ve done? This was…this was the way it had to be.”
“Are you saying…?” Lucian gasped.
“You understand now?” Old Death asked, a twinkle in his eye. “I had to give it one more shot…I had to try. And look what they did to her in response,” the old man muttered, his lip quivering. “Leliel,” he said, kissing her forehead. “I’m so sorry.”
“It was my choice,” she told him, her hand on his chest. “Thousands upon thousands of years…It was my choice…”
“They will come for me, and they will come for her, and now, my boy, now they will come for you…” Old Death coughed. “I’m too weak to teleport. You must save yourself, Lucian, go before they realize what you’ve done!”
Rather than respond, Lucian simply placed his hands on Old Death’s arm; the man’s skin was cold to the touch. He focused some of his Soul Points forward, or at least that’s what he told himself he was doing.
“What are you doing?”
As Lucian opened his eyes he saw that Old Death now recognized what was happening, the color returning to his face, his breaths getting deeper, fuller, his power returning.
Old Death slowly got to his feet. He stooped forward and lifted the angel into his arms, the woman’s eyes settling on him. “You are so beautiful,” she whispered.
“As are you, my love.” Old Death turned to Lucian. “Are you okay? Do you still have energy left?”
“It feels like I do,” Lucian said, his stats materializing before him.
He shook his head, a grin stretching across his face. “Definitely.”
A golden crow with seraphim wings burst into the underground space.
It spotted Lucian and made a beeline toward him, cutting right through his body and sending him to the ground.
Another golden crow appeared, followed by a female angel with a blue stripe across her face. “This is the end, Lucian,” she said, aiming her golden energy weapon at him. “You knew this was coming.”
Chapter Thirty: Imminent
A pillar of purple energy tore into the basement dungeon, causing Danira’s blast to go wide, bringing down more of the bricks.
Everything was now backlit, the light pouring out of the ceiling made muddy by debris.
Lucian equipped his carbine. He pointed it at Danira just as she was getting to her feet.
One of her golden crows speared into Lucian’s stomach, tearing out the small of his back.
And in response, Old Death, who still held Leliel in his arms, cast his hand at Danira, sweeping her feet out from beneath her.
Old Death’s blade took shape and he tossed it into the air, his sword seemingly having a mind of its own as it sailed straight through the angel’s body, pinning her to the ground.
“We have to go,” he told Lucian, fear racing across his dark eyes. “This is going to be worse than I could have possibly envisioned.”
Lucian’s own crows entered the basement, chasing after Danira’s golden replicas as the wound in his chest healed up.
The ceiling shook, rocks plunging to the ground as another purple blast started to cut into the basement dungeon, this one starting on the far side of the space and work its way toward Danira.
With little time to think, Lucian yanked Old’s Death’s sword out of Danira�
��s body, rolling her out of the way just in time to avoid the blast. He used his back to shield her, screaming as the energy burned through his clothing, sizzling his flesh.
Danira blinked her eyes open. “Lucian?”
“I shouldn’t have saved you…” he said, nearly collapsing onto her. He caught himself just in time, wincing as his flesh continued to burn, as he felt his energy dissipating.
Their faces were inches away from each other now, tears forming in Lucian’s eyes as he bottled the pain.
“He’s here…” Danira whispered.
“Azazyel?”
She nodded.
“Then maybe…Yoshimi is still alive,” Lucian said, sucking in a deep breath. “I have to go.”
“I have to stop you.”
He heard a buzzing noise as Danira lifted her energy weapon, bringing it to the right of his chin.
“Is that…really what you want to do?” Lucian asked her, his vision slowly stabilizing.
“No, but it’s what I was put here to do.”
They stared each other down for a moment, Lucian waiting for her to squeeze the trigger.
Instead, she angled the muzzle to the right and blew off his arm, the blast momentarily blinding Lucian as he was tossed to the side. She rolled on top of him, straddling him, her golden rifle aimed at his face.
“This is it…”
Lucian smiled at her. “If you say so.”
His cape struck Danira from behind.
It wrapped around her body and tossed her aside, her blast firing out of one of the new holes in the ceiling.
Lucian got to his feet as his cape started to increase in size, forming a thick cocoon around Danira as the two continued to struggle. He began reforming his arm, watching his muscles stitch back together, the bone clicking back into place, his flesh hardening over it.
Lucian’s stats appeared before him.
“Let me out of here!” Danira cried, a golden energy repeatedly trying to tear through Lucian’s cape.
But every time she fired his cape just reformed, thicker and tighter each time.
“We must go, my boy!” Old Death called over to him. He stood near the exit of the basement, motioning for Lucian to follow him.
But rather than go with his predecessor, Lucian looked up at the hole in the ceiling, detritus hanging in the air, blotting the light.
“I have to help Yoshimi,” he finally said. “You go. I will join you soon.”
Lucian’s cape went berserk, slamming Danira into the ground until she stopped moving.
Once it was sure she was out, his cape cautiously retreated from her form, rejoining Lucian and leaving the angel behind.
Lucian erupted out of the hole in the ceiling.
Explosions blared all around him as his injurecrows continued to fend off angels. Snow swirled in the air in what was once a courtyard between the towers, and what was now a battleground.
Lucian dodged left, narrowly missing a male angel heading right toward him.
He equipped his MX-11 and threw it to his cape, who immediately started firing it as the angel whipped through the air.
Lucian could barely make out the structures around him any longer, the snow too heavy, but he could see the pillar of purple energy that was cutting another hole into the ground, Azazyel at the top of it, his black wings flapping.
The fallen angel was relentlessly blasted the ground, a bored look on his face as he laid waste to his surroundings, Yoshimi and a couple of angels still trying to stop him.
The male angel that had already tried to attack Lucian came in for another strike, but his cape snagged the man from the side while Lucian struck him from the front with a combination of fire and electric daggers.
The angel twisted toward the ground below, Lucian conjuring up another wall of red and black injurecrows. He sent half of them into the fight with the goal of wreaking havoc. The other half he sent toward Azazyel, the Watcher so busy engaging other opponents that he was unable to stop the injurecrows from reaching him.
The explosion threw Azazyel off balance.
Yoshimi’s black robes spiraled behind her as she cut into the fallen angel with both her katanas. She spun and hit him again, the man blocking her attack with his glowing goblets.
A sphere of energy formed around him, thrusting Yoshimi backward, and Azazyel turned his attention to Lucian.
“Fuck…” Lucian went for his plasma blowtorch, unleashing a beam of crippling thermal energy at the fallen angel.
Azazyel absorbed most of the attack, his head lowering as he changed his trajectory, now aimed right at Lucian.
He appeared in front of him before Lucian could get a weapon up, his hand coming to Lucian’s throat.
“I warned you,” Azazyel growled, a powerful force radiating from his eyes, his hair whipping in the wind behind him.
Lucian’s semi-autonomous energy cannon rose from his shoulder, blasting the fallen angel in the face, burning away his armored mask.
His shoulder cannon charged up; Azazyel swatted it away at the last second, the blast going wide.
The distraction was the moment Lucian needed to deliver his next attack, his protracted claws tearing out of the knuckles on his right hand, his carbine appearing in his left.
He pulled his fist up, puncturing the underside of Azazyel’s chin. Lucian triggered his weapon at point-blank range and blasted holes in his armor as bits of black feathers scattered in the air behind him.
Much to Lucian’s dismay, Azazyel held strong, a dark energy charging around his hand as he let Lucian finish his magazine.
Lucian felt his power starting to drain from him. Danira appeared just as everything started to fade away, her gun morphing into a sword.
That wasn’t all.
Yoshimi was there as well, spinning with both katanas, Azazyel forced to drop Lucian so he could defend himself against the two.
Lucian cracked the small of his back against a lump of stone from one of the towers, crying out in pain as he rolled onto his side.
He could still feel the fallen angel’s hand on his neck, the metallic clank of swords above him meeting his ears.
Lucian scrambled to heal himself.
An angel touched down in front of Lucian, a spear appearing in his hands. It only took Lucian a moment to recognize the angel known as Hashul, the man who had tried to take him down on the rooftop of the casino in New Hampshire.
“You really don’t give up, do you?” Lucian said as his cape lowered behind the angel.
“You have brought Azazyel here, hellspawn! Do you have any idea what you have done!?”
Lucian’s fingers bulged as his claws grew from them, as he watched his cape quietly move closer to the angel.
Hashul charged at Lucian with his spear, but he only made it two steps before his cape leveled the angel, the concentrated energy blast tearing a hole out of the left side of his chest, ripping off a portion of his shoulder.
The angel stumbled forward, his arm broken, held by strips of meat and burning flesh as Lucian’s cape blasted him again, this time in the other arm.
Hashul fell face first before Lucian, gritting his teeth as his flesh started to heal back up.
Once he was on his feet again, Lucian’s shotgun materialized in his hand.
He pressed the muzzle of the weapon against the back of Hashul’s skull and squeezed the trigger, the blast practically disintegrating Hashul’s skull, bits of blood, bone and brain matter staining the snow.
Lucian could tell the angel was still alive by the way his fingers were trembling, his flesh already starting to heal.
Lucian looked back up at the sky, at Danira and Yoshimi, both still fighting Azazyel. He equipped the gun that fired the electric tripwire, yelling for them to get out of the way as he flew toward the three, his finger on the trigger.
The tripwire wrapped around Azazyel’s body, sending electricity coursing through him.
Yoshimi came in with an attack that looked like it was going to tak
e his head off; the fallen angel pivoted just in time, the ends of his wing sharpening and cutting Yoshimi in half.
Her body sailed to the ground, the two pieces landing twenty feet apart from one another. Azazyel broke free from Lucian’s binding. He threw the flickering tripwire at Danira, ensnaring her wings.
The fallen angel hit her with a purple blast that sent her flying backward, straight into the side of one of the towers.
As Lucian conjured more injurecrows, Danira spun toward Azazyel, firing on him, her seraphim crows twisting around her.
Lucian bolted toward Yoshimi’s legs. He retrieved them and brought them to her, the woman breathing hard as her eyes settled on him.
“You need to leave,” she said.
“We are all leaving. You, me and her,” Lucian said, nodding up at Danira.
“The angel?”
“We have a bit of an understanding,” he finally said. “Come on…” Lucian lifted the top of her torso.
“I hate getting separated like this,” she said, bowing her head an inch. “It’s so humiliating.”
“Tell me about it,” Lucian said, his cape coming down over his shoulders.
He noticed the numbness in his body that he hadn’t felt before, his vision fuzzy.
Lucian’s stats flashed before him; he really was running low on power.
He didn’t feel like he had conjured enough to utilize that many Soul Points. Some of it clearly had to do with the way Azazyel had attacked him earlier.
And before he could pull Yoshimi out of the way, a purple pillar of energy struck the earth, tearing through both of their bodies.
All that remained of Yoshimi after the blast was her head, her neck and a portion of her shoulder.
The rest of her body was entirely disintegrated.
Lucian was bad off too, missing most of his torso and an arm.
“I’ve got you,” he told her, pulling his good arm around what was left of her body. Yoshimi gritted her teeth. “I’ve got you…”
“I can heal from this, Lucian…. It will only take me a minute.”
“This is a fight we can’t win,” he told her, everything clear to him as he watched Azazyel continue to pummel Danira. “I know it; you know it.”
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