The ghouls charged first.
Their screeches filled the chamber like razors slicing metal. Dozens of bodies—bent, deformed, fused with scraps of bone and old flesh—launched forward as one. Fangs glistened. Claws scraped the floor with sparks. Their hunger wasn't wild—it was focused. Directed. Controlled.
Lucifer didn't blink.
His coat fluttered as his eyes glowed red—faintly at first, then brighter, deeper, like blood boiling behind glass. He didn't move until the first ghoul came within a foot of him.
Then he vanished.
A blur. A whisper of air displacement.
The ghoul's head snapped sideways—ripped clean off in a blur of motion before the rest of its body even hit the ground.
Lucifer reappeared five meters back, standing between two more ghouls. His right arm dripped black-red blood that wasn't his. His fingers opened and closed once—loose, relaxed, like warming up before a real fight.
The two ghouls lunged.
Lucifer twisted.
