~~Two thousand years before the Arrival~~

~~Eelis~~

“Get down!”

Arioch didn’t listen. Eelis grit his teeth until they threatened to break, and punched the mikalim in the face, toppling him, before Eelis slammed his titanic shield into the stone. The rocks shattered and split apart under the shield’s base, the holy metal sinking a foot into the bowel’s of Hell as Eelis braced behind it. And behind him, the fallen Arioch’s eyes stared wide through the slits of his helmet.

Hellfire crashed against them, and Eelis roared into his shield as he pushed his weight against it. The scorching heat rolled over them, and both angels tucked deep into the shadow of the shield, wings snug to their backs. Arioch was mikalim, and his wings came with no armor, but Eelis’s wings were larger, and white and gold armor guarded the arm of each. They glowed bright against the incinerating heat of the demon’s breath.

Only when they heard the battle cry of another angel launching themselves toward the bolstara did the hellfire cease, its billowing waves fading as the demon turned to face the attacker. Without the thunderous barrage of the deathly fire, Eelis could hear the battle rage around him. Holy metal struck metal. Demons roared and angels screamed. Before him stood the False Gate, with its giant walls of black metal, spikes, and a million hanging skulls. Above them, the great vortex swirled, and the base of the eternal maelstrom licked the top of the False Gate Cathedral.

Death was everywhere. Beside Eelis lay a fellow angel, Mayme, dead, both legs removed. Beside her, lay Nadir, with one of Belor’s weapons skewering his back. A double-sided axe with a long grip, with dark metal that glowed amber at the core, power they had not been prepared for. The korgejin that wielded it, a ten-foot-tall beast with wings and hooves, lay next to the two angels, a dozen deep gashes cut through his hard, black, leathery skin deep enough to bleed him to death.

Hundreds of angels, and thousands of demons lay in the field of stone, metal spikes, and jutting coils of metal chains, hooked to more spikes that stuck up from Hell’s surface. Around them far in the distance and in shadow of sharp mountains, cathedrals of black metal, blood, and stone surrounded the False Gate. Eelis did not know who built them, but he knew it wasn’t this Belor, this warmonger. Each cathedral was a battlefield, with angels flying around them, slaughtering demons small and large alike. The imps and grems stayed far away, watching the battle with wide, scared eyes, and the volas were nowhere to be seen.

In this fight, one could find only brutality and murder.

With a moment to breathe, Eelis turned and looked to the captain.

“Arioch, are you injured?”

“Other than your punch, I’m fine.” The mikalim stood up, and Eelis could see the man’s eyes go wide inside his helmet. “Your wings...”

Eelis looked to his wings and the armor that covered their arms up to the final joint. What was once metal, gold and white and beautiful, now sagged, half melted, and the searing heat teased Eelis with threats of incredible pain to come. His wings no longer glowed gold, but were tinted black where hellfire had burned his feathers.

“I’ll be fine.” And he would be, once they were done with this madness.

With a heavy grunt, Eelis stuck out his right hand, and summoned his spear. The enormous staff burst forth from a blast of light, a nine-foot weapon topped with a mirror blade. With his arm hooked into the several grip straps of his tower shield, he yanked it out of the stone, and held the seven-foot shield at his side.

Arioch joined him, a longsword with mirror blade in one hand, a medium four-foot shield in the other. Both of them wore the colors of Heaven on their armor and shields, shining white with designs of gold, lined with dancing silver. But both of them were covered in a new color: red. The blood of demon and angel alike coated them, oozing over the elaborate indentations and ornamentations of their armor and shields. Much of it was burned to black char, and the smell turned their stomachs.

They wouldn’t, couldn’t vomit, but their reflections wanted to, nonetheless.

The bolstara that had breathed flame upon them stepped back again and again, slashing at the angel in her face with her four arms. But the mikalim attacking her was relentless, smashing aside her claws with her shield, and blocking oncoming claws with her sword, all at the same time. Wings kept her in the air, and bolstara had no wings. The angel woman slashed away at her again, and again and again, pushing her back and stopping the huge creature from using her hellfire. And with the lighter armor and shield compared to a rapholem, the mikalim woman had the mobility to flap away almost instantly, and close the distance just as quickly to force the tetrad demon back and back.

Eelis spread his wings, summoned his grace, said a silent prayer, and pushed forward. And promptly stumbled, the weight of his armor crushing him and forcing him back to the ground.

“Eelis, you damn fool.” Arioch groaned and shook his wings out as he walked up to Eelis’s side. With a heavy grunt, he helped Eelis to his feet. “Stay back until you’ve recovered enough to fight.”

“I can’t stay back, we don’t—”

“I said stay back. If necessary, wait for help from the rest of Avinoam.”

“You think more survived?”

“I trust my legion.”

Eelis winced and looked down. He did not share Arioch’s optimism.

Before Eelis could stop him, Arioch bolted past him, wings bursting into bright light as they fueled his charge. He closed in on the enormous demon, but the bolstara compensated immediately. She ducked back underneath Arioch’s dive, disgustingly nimble for such a tall creature, and she spun as she did. One of her four hands snapped out and grabbed a nearby blade that had fallen from one of her comrades, one of Belor’s gleaming black blades made of meera, with veins of hellfire somehow trapped within cracks on the blade, like veins of lava.

The demon spun, a graceful dance as she continued to back up, her long hair tendrils slashing at the air with the many blades that’d been pierced into their tips. Arioch and his companion were forced to hover outside the range of the creature, both with sword and shield raised, but unable to approach. The woman, Eelis didn’t know her name, was exhausted, panting and unsteady as she tried to maintain her hovering next to her captain.

They both dove upon the demon again.

Eelis looked around again. A dozen of the terrible four lay dead before him, and a few hundred other demons lay about as well. Ragarin, tregeera, devorjin, gorgala and riiva, and borjin. How Belor had managed to recruit breeds from other spires, Eelis didn’t know, but the sheer numbers the creature had summoned surprised the mikalim assault into paralysis. The Heavenly Islands Ravid, Avinoam, Samael answered the call, and their rapholem and gabriem came to save what they could.

Only to find disaster. They’d yet to reach the stairs of the main False Gate Cathedral, where it stood next to the spire. But they had grown closer, and closer. But for each of the terrible four they slew, for each of the dozen lesser demons they brought low, an angel died. The battlefield of stone and metal, bathed in the red of the burning sky above and blood alike, was becoming a grave of claw, horn, and feathers.

Eelis lifted his shield enough to slam its base against the ground once again, and let it hold his weight as he fought for breath. Sweat dripped down his body, mixing with blood that coated the left side of his waist. Earlier, a blade had stuck him hard enough to break through his armor at the waist hinge. If he didn’t treat the wound soon, this reflection would succumb and die, and he would die with it.

He tried to lift his shield again, but it would not rise. He tried again, and groaned as flesh twisted and fought against the weight of his own blessing. But it would not lift.

“Eelis, you fool. Enough.” A woman’s voice.

Eelis looked behind him, wincing with the motion as his flesh fought to not tear. “Seonaid.”

Mikalim angels were powerful warriors of agility and strength. Rapholem like Eelis were immovable walls of protection. And Gabriem like Seonaid were beacons of restoration. Her armor did not have the thickness needed for prolonged battle, and her helmet did not cover her face. Her soft wings glowed behind her to their fullest, and her long blond hair flowed down over the plates of her shining armor. White silk drifted out from where layers of her armor met, but white no longer, stained red in the blood of the fallen, with sheets of shining chainmail behind, also dripping crimson.

With her open helm showing her face, her dismay was clearly visible. Eelis met her opal gaze for only a moment, before looking away as pain ripped through his side. He fell, and the stone beneath him cracked as his knee slammed against it.

Wind cut across the ground around him, and Seonaid joined his side instantly. The long white and gold bow and her quiver of mirror arrows vanished from her grip as she knelt down beside him, and placed her hand against the dent in his armor. The light of her grace flowed into her fingers and palms, and soon the soothing waves of its power seeped into the wound. Pain faded, and Eelis sighed relief as the flesh of his reflection mended. The armor did not; his rune and grace would only recover with rest.

And there would be no rest, not yet.

He grunted acknowledgment, nodded to the gabriem, and stood. Flesh struggled and screamed in pain, but did not tear. Good enough.

“Thank you, Seonaid.”

“Eelis, this battle has—”

“It is not lost!” Body no longer threatening to tear apart under his own power, he slipped his arm back into the grips of his shield, and lifted. A great weight, the great burden of all rapholem, and a weight he would bear. “The other islands will have heard of this assault. They must be on the way.”

“It will take days for them to arrive! The True Gate is too important, and—”

“Then we will make sure the demons are delayed until then.” Guardian shield at his left, spear at his right, he took a step toward the False Gate Cathedral. Never did any of them predict the demons would attempt this. Never did they think Belor would be this arrogant.

They should have, and now angels were dying because of their folly. Damn the council.

He took five more steps before Seonaid stepped in front of him, hand pointed toward him, eyes glaring.

“Eelis, your grace is drained.”

“The battle continues.”

“It does, and if you continue, you will die needlessly.”

“The battle continues, Seonaid. Step aside.” He took a step toward her.

Her face broke, a cross between rage, and sadness. “Must you, fool? Your death will mean nothing!”

“It will mean something to me!”

“You will be dead, Eelis! Returned to the Great Tower, and I will have lost my friend!”

He frowned at his old companion. His helmet hid his face, he knew that, and he knew Seonaid could guess his expression easily nonetheless. But her face softened as he gently pushed her aside with an armored wing.

“Go, Seonaid. Other angels need your help.”

“You damn fool.” The curse cut deep, and it hurt her to say it. “You damn fool.”

“I’m not planning to die here today, old friend. Go. I will enter the cathedral and save those I can.”

She glared at him, unbelieving, but he pushed her with his damaged wing a little harder, and she relented. Glare unending, she took to the air, and flew over the battlefield. Doubtless she would find more angels to save, others on the precipice of death. Angels were difficult to kill. But they could die, and they had not died in this number in thousands of years.

Eelis walked forward in the path of Arioch and the carnage the mikalim had wrought, and he looked about him at the increasing death. The bolstara who had breathed her flame upon him lay dying, long tendrils from her head scattered about and covered in blood, defeated. She glared up at him as he past by her, and she reached up to grab his ankle with one of her four hands. He did not avoid her clawed grip.

“Damn ... you...” The ten-foot-tall demon, even with her elongated skull, smooth, noseless face, and horns and claws, was a strangely beautiful creature, alluring in an exotic way. But one of her arms lay beside her, severed, and several gashes cut across the beautiful black and bronze armor of the False Gate forge, exposing burn marks where the mikalim had smote her. She was dying.

He glared down at the creature, and pointed his spear toward her, its mirror blade reflecting fire and blood.

“Tell me how Belor amassed so many demons from so many spires, bolstara, and I will grant you a swift death.”

The deadly creature coughed, red pooling over her lustrous red lips. But she managed to glare at him through the pain, her dark eyes staring with the passion only one of the ancient four could muster.

“High on your perch, you stand and watch. But Heaven does not belong to you.”

“Belong to us? We never said it did, filth. We guard Heaven and the souls within to preserve the balance of the Great Tower. You know this.”

To speak with a demon was a rarity, and if he could gleam some information, all the better. But this bolstara spoke nonsense, and he frowned down at her as frustration boiled in his blood. All this, with angels and greater demons dying in droves, for some foolhardy notion the demons held that wasn’t true?

“Could have fooled me.” She coughed up another splatter of blood, and it fell into the cracks of her broken armor. “Lucifer will take back what is theirs. And your precious tower will crumble, the way it should have.”

“Lucifer...” Eelis cast his gaze to the center of Hell. In the distance all he could see was spiked mountains, lava, enormous statues of demons long dead, and colossal walls of jagged metal that blocked the horizon, but all knew where to look, when someone dared mention that name.

The Forgotten Place.

“Lucifer will rise again, angel. And Heaven will—”

He stabbed the head of his spear down into the huge creature’s large skull. Enough of this. They’d heard this garbage before. Eight thousand years ago, he’d heard this garbage before! Almost thirty thousand years ago, he’d heard this insane, worthless garbage before!

With a heavy growl, he pulled his bloodied spear free of the demon’s skull. Her blood flowed freely over the hard stone of False Gate, wasted blood to join thousands of her kin.

“Damned creatures.” He swiped his spear, cutting through the air hard enough to draw a line along the stone with the bolstara’s blood. Was that truly what this was? Not since the Third Age had he seen such chaos and carnage, and then too it had been a pointless war because another spire ruler thought they could somehow free Lucifer.

Fools. Damned fools.

He marched forward toward the great cathedral, and the sound of battle raged on. A glance left showed several mikalim encircling and rending a gorujin asunder. A glance right showed a dozen lesser demons swarming a fellow rapholem, and dying to her spear as their claws bounced useless against her shield. Slowly but surely, over the corpses of their enemies and friends alike, the angels were gaining ground, but not fast enough. If the battle did not end soon, if reinforcements from the other islands did not arrive soon, demons from the other spires would soon arrive. And Eelis, and everyone too foolish to flee and fly, would die.

What could Belor be thinking? Was he not content to rule his spire? Damned monster.

Eelis marched forward and flared his wings. The melted metal struggled to bend, but with a heavy grunt, he forced his wings to full extension, bending the metal regardless. Rapholem wings could wear armor for a reason. He growled louder as he looked between the two wings and tested them, flexing each massive appendage out to full length, despite how the metal sleeve of each wing’s arm protested. Flying would be difficult. Perhaps it was better to walk.

It was not a walk he looked forward to.

A glance above showed three mikalim circling a korgejin that had the audacity to fly in their presence. No demon could fly for long, tetrad demon or otherwise. Its great horns were soaked in blood, and it roared at the angels, hellfire spewing from its flat snout. One of them attempted to block the thick wave of fire, its density so great it was almost liquid. But the mikalim’s shield was not meant for such an assault, and the angel screamed as she was enveloped.

Eelis forced himself to look away as she fell. Her burning corpse and charred wings landed next to him on the black stone, and he walked past her.

To the left, two shakarin’s circled a rapholem. Large creatures, nine feet tall and thick with muscle, they prowled on two legs but could easily walk on four. Their heads were flat and connected into sharp snouts full of death, and their horns spread sideways before pointing forward. With many spikes on their bodies, along with a long tail, they were well equipped for battle, but they did not have the power of the tetrad. Eelis did not know this rapholem, likely from the island Samael, but she fought off both demons without issue, blocking one of the huge beasts with her great shield, as she stabbed forward with her spear. The sudden thrust caught the shakarin off guard, and he went down in a roaring mess of blood and slashing claws as the great angel spear skewered his guts.

Eelis ignored her as well, and marched forward. There was a path before him now, cleared by Arioch, and he had to follow it while it was still available.

The dark stone ran red with blood, but not only blood. As he grew closer to the grand False Gate Cathedral, the glowing red grew more intense, coloring the stone around it. Lava. Molten meera and other minerals of Hell flowed through tiny streams, deep cracks in the stone. Many of the cracks grew thicker as they winded through the landscape, cutting through the stone hills, and running between the other cathedrals of black metal that lined the horizon of False Gate. But the largest and deepest cracks snaked their way toward the False Gate Grand Cathedral in the center of the land, next to its spire.

The spire. He spit upon the stone the moment he looked its way. As he grew closer, he gazed up at the colossal tower, and grit his teeth. Its shape curved in and out as it went upward, like a tall vase, thicker at the bottom. The base was as wide as the False Gate Grand Cathedral, the structure easily able to house thousands, perhaps tens of thousands of demons with its thickness and height. The black metal of the spire stabbed into the ground with enormous spikes not unlike claws, and more spikes jutted out from its sides in spiraling patterns moving upward. The spire matched its environment. Blood flowed down from the top of the tower where a host of spikes waited, a landing platform of sorts, and the red splashed endlessly against the stones beneath the tower’s base. Thousands of chains dangled, many decorated with the bones of demons and humans. And now, more than a few fresh angel corpses joined the spire, hung up by blasphemous demons seeking to increase their status.

He ignored the spire. It was already under Belor’s control, it had been since the Third Age, and freeing it from Belor would accomplish little when another demon would simply take his place. No, they hadn’t come here for the spire. They’d come for Belor, and the creature would be waiting in the grand cathedral.

The spire had many doorways, hundreds, lining from top to bottom, making it an easily assailed structure by those that could fly, if desired. The center cathedral of False Gate, on the other hand, was thick, tall walls of black metal, also adorned with spikes and chains, but no doors except the front door. A huge building with towers and steeples, though like the base of the cathedral, the towers had no windows. Instead, gigantic statues adorned their faces, statues of enormous skulls of many shapes and sizes, and made of the same black metal that gleamed in the light of the lava rivers.

The heat was intense. His reflection sweated within his armor, fighting off the heat as best it could, but this close to the False Gate Cathedral, it mattered little. In the end, only his grace kept the heat from breaking him as he approached the titanic black doors.

They were open, and battle echoed within.

He chanced a glance up to Hell’s sky, and winced. The vortex continued to spin, the tornado of fire, ice, and lightning. A wound in the Great Tower that would never heal. The bottom of the vortex licked the top of the cathedral, forever marking the center of False Gate, and Belor’s home. It was not a safe area for a building, and lightning struck the stones of Hell from the vortex every so often. Perhaps that was why Belor had taken the cathedral for his home, as a statement of his power? Or he deemed it worth the risk, to harness its forge. He’d certainly put it to use.

Whatever the case, the demon had overstepped himself. The conclusion was inevitable.

With each step up the stairs, the noise grew louder, and the heat grew yet more intense. Within, he knew Belor and his great forge awaited, the source of the heat, where the demon crafted the hellfire-imbued weapons that had killed so many of his brethren today. The creature would pay for this insult.

The doorway of the False Gate Cathedral was not as impressive as the True Gate, but that didn’t mean Eelis didn’t stand in awe of them. Open as they were, he stood before and between them, and risked another moment to stare up at each colossal, black slab of metal. Each was adorned with carvings of demons and humans, twisted and trapped in a permanent maelstrom of sex and violence. Upon the center of the doorway was an enormous statue of a demon skull, where the two doors shared each half in the middle.

Within the structure, Eelis found exactly what he expected: metal, blood, and death. Enormous rooms a hundred feet high, separated by walls and columns covered in the same spikes he found everywhere, with twenty-foot doorways at the walls’ base. Braziers hung from many spikes, illuminating the otherwise dark building with almost blood red flame. Archways decorated the gigantic walls, spikes lining them, decorated with chains and metal skulls. From the ceiling hung cages on chains, each filled with one, two, or sometimes three humans cramped to the point of agony. They cried misery and begged for mercy. Eelis ignored the damned souls, and moved on.

The main room of the cathedral could fit thousands, and nearly that many demons and angels fought within. This close to the throne, fighting was pandemonium. Belor kept many of his most powerful within, more the terrible four, the tetrad. Gorujin and korgejin, and bolstara and fujara, titans all, ten feet in height and adorned in horns, claws and fangs, and all wore armor. Not the typical armor many demons created for themselves, lumps of bent metal strapped to body parts, held together by leather straps from local creatures, and mixed with the thick bones or horns of other demons. No, Belor had recruited many of the tetrad to his cause, and had crafted them armor of sleek, thick metal, not unlike what the angels wore save for the color. Black, and a bronze so stained it almost looked red.

And their weapons burned with veins of hellfire dancing along the shining black of their blades.

“Arioch!” Eelis shouted.

“Eelis! Guard the right wing!”

Eelis was no angel of Ravid, but he was no fool. Arioch led this charge, and he knew what he was doing. The mikalim soared high, and his blade glowed with the power of his grace as he drove it down through the right horn, and into the skull of a korgejin. The flying, hoofed beast came crashing down, knocking aside dangling cages and earning cries of pain and panic from the trapped souls within. The huge creature slammed into a host of lesser demons, and for a single moment, there was a clear line of sight between Eelis, and the throne.

A giant throne of black metal, like the rest of the cathedral, its outside lined with spikes and adorned with metal skulls. Before it stood Belor, and fear crashed through Eelis in a wave of paralyzing coldness.

A demon of the Second Age. An abdarin. A child of Abaddon.

To see the creature now, it was clear how the demon had managed to survive through the Third Age. A mythical beast of violence and power. How many thousands of years had this beast bided his time, building his forces? How many millennia had this colossal creature spent mastering the forge in the shadow of Lucifer’s strike against Heaven?

Belor was at least twelve feet tall, with leathery black and red wings wide enough to bury them all in his shadow. Four great black horns raised high from his face, and two tusks of black jutted forward from the sides of his jaw. Black spikes decorated his elbows, knees, and back, and his claws were thick. A hoofed creature, Belor had two arms and two legs, and looked similar to gorujin, but far more ancient. Demons after the Third Age had faces often a cross of human and their ancient kin, but Belor showed his heritage on his face, its demonic shape a cross between a dragon snout and a skull. And his eyes glowed with the power of hellfire.

The sword in his hands was almost as long as he was tall, a black blade with hellfire glowing along its edges, and wielded by his two colossal hands. A demonic skull decorated the bronze guard, and its eyes glowed with the same hellfire as Belor’s.

As the chaos raged around them all, Belor swung the sword to the side, and cleaved through everyone. Demon, angel, all fell before his sword, metal melting and flesh burning with the fury of hellfire. None of the tetrad let themselves get too close to Belor, they knew what would happen, but dozens of the smaller demons fell before the blade as the ancient creature swung for the angels. And the angels went down just as easily.

“No!” Eelis dashed forward into the fray. Arioch wanted him to guard the right flank where a couple fujara were fighting half a dozen angels, and he would, but only so he could close the distance to Belor. He would not let another angel die to this creature tonight.

With a heavy grunt, Eelis charged down the right flank, and smashed his shield into the surprised face of a treegera. The demon woman, eight feet tall when they bothered to stand on their hind legs, rolled over closer to the center of the huge room, clutching her shattered face. Eelis pushed past. A devorjin rushed him, a nine-foot-tall brute with no tail, spikes, or much in the way of defining features except that their skin was thick, and their faces bore a closer resemblance to a skull than most. Eelis braced himself against the charge, and the room echoed with the sound of impact as the demon forced Eelis to slide back along the black metal floor. Before the momentum could come to a stop, Eelis let the huge creature’s weight push the shield in, and he spun around with spear stretched out, turning his back to the creature long enough to bring the weapon behind it and slam the mirror blade into the devorjin’s back. Its plate-like skin prevented it from being cut in half, but did not stop Eelis from slicing through its spine with the spear’s sharp sides.

Panting until his lungs burned, Eelis pushed forward. He was a First Shield of the Avinoam rapholem. He would not be felled by some lesser demon!

Sure enough, the moment the thought past through his mind, one of the fujara before him broke free of the six angels he’d been rushing toward, and came at him. The titan glared down at him with her four eyes, and swiped at him with one of her swords. She had four of them, one for each hand.

Fujara looked similar to their tetrad sister bolstara, four-armed titans with no wings. Fujara looked closer to demonic dragons than bolstara though, with raptorial feet, three long fingers with claws per hand, a long spiked tail, and a host of spikes on their back. Even with all the spikes on her body, Belor had forged meera metal armor to fit her limbs and torso, with reddened bronze dancing along its edges and seals.

Eelis must have looked like an easy target, bleeding, wings damaged, and almost limping. He was not.

As the fujara bore down on him, Eelis raised his shield, and poured his grace into it. It glowed gold, lighting the death and blood around him, and when the demon’s four hellfire-imbued blades crashed down on the great wall, sparks as hot as lava splattered over the black floor. They sizzled as many fell into pooling streams of blood. And the colossal creature did not stop. Again and again, with each one of her four arms, she slammed one of her four blades into his shield, each impact hard enough to knock him back along the floor an inch. It would not be long before she pushed him far enough he fell over a corpse.

A glance past her revealed his kin were quickly surrounding the other fujara demon, but two broke away to come to his aid. Two mikalim, weapons held high and glowing bright, brought their swords down on the fujara. One sword bounced off the armor, but the other managed to break through the black metal of the forge, and the fujara screamed in fury and pain as she turned to face the two angels once again, gushing blood from a shoulder.