Azazel's chest heaved as light rained down on him like dawn. It healed his wounds, soothed the raw ache in his bones. He raised his trembling hands, staring at them in disbelief. How could this be night? Every shadow was banished, the battlefield washed in brilliance.
For a fleeting moment, it felt like the demons had never come.
But the charred corpses, cracks where demons had been dragged away, and broken stones told the truth.
[Move. Quickly. While the light still holds.]
Grandfather's voice urged him, quieter now, like an echo slipping away.
Azazel stumbled forward, searching the wreckage, until his gaze found her.
Hypathia. Kneeling, blood across her cheek, clutching her blade and Juan's sabre. Around her were only the fallen—disciples who hadn't survived the clash. Her eyes widened as she saw him.
"Lucien…" she whispered. Then, after a shaky breath: "Thank you. For saving us."
Azazel froze. He wanted to answer, to comfort her, but the Codex's pulse in his chest urged him on. He gave her a single nod, then sprinted past.
[Go to Aurelius. Faster!]
He found Aurelius.
Or what was left of him. Azazel's hands trembled.
The Grandmaster lay motionless, his body torn and bloodied, but still upright somehow, held in place by the unnatural fissures he himself had opened. His blood had carved rivers into the soil, a lattice of red shimmering with residual power. The Codex hovered faintly above him, still glowing from consuming his soul.
Azazel fell to his knees.
He pulled the ironbound container from his suitcase—a vessel for ash, plain yet unbreakable. His fingers shook as he placed it before him. The weight of it felt infinite.
[This is it.] Grandfather's voice cracked, fading more with each syllable. [Pray. Not to God. Not to saints. Pray to yourself. To the world. To life itself. And I… will help you.]
Azazel bit his lip until he tasted blood. He felt it—like a hand upon his shoulder. A warmth. His grandfather's presence, near and real.
Tears blurred his vision. He remembered his grandfather's request, the strange request when he asked about the initiation. To come up with a prayer.
He inhaled.
And spoke.
"Ashes of the slain,
Light that hunts the dark,
No heaven guides, no hell can bind—
By my soul and breath,
Nemesis of Devil,
Azazel Weyer,
I'll let no demons pass!"
The ground trembled.
Aurelius's blood spilled outward in rivers, sketching the Seal of Solomon across the cracked ground. From the vessel, Johann Weyer's ashes rose in streams of white-gold, orbiting Azazel in circles of fire and dust.
All the holy light, which had been burning across the city, bent as if caught in a drain. It funneled down, down into the ashes, into the vessel, into him. The false dawn collapsed. Night returned, black and terrible, and the winds howled like wolves over a graveyard.
But above the silence of darkness, one thing still resounded:
His prayer.
The words shook through stone and flesh alike, echoing into every corner of Rome.
The Pope staggered back, eyes wide, his staff trembling. "B-blasphemer! He's possessed..!"
Maximilian's blade scraped the ground as he steadied himself. He didn't even look at the pontiff, his gaze locked on the kneeling boy surrounded by ash and bloodlight.
"Shut up," the Emperor growled.
The air split. Rome itself seemed to hold its breath.
"He's going through… the Initiation."