The air in the Corpse orchad stank of rot and punishment.
Mile-high stakes impaled rotting demons along a horizon lit by burning rivers and twitching stars. Their bodies pulsed with infernal life—forever denied death. Here, in Asmodeus' domain, justice was not swift. It was endless.
A slender figure stepped through the orchard in silence, his boots never touching the ash-laced ground. His cloak fluttered behind him like smoke torn from creation. His face was as pale as memory, his eyes dimmed suns. He moved like a memory the world tried to forget. As though the ground yearned but abhorred him all same.
The orchard whispered.
"He comes... the Pale One..."
"Why would the Morning Star visit a graveyard of guilt?"
He ignored them. The tortured always spoke.
But then he heard something else—hushed, purposeful. Voices from behind the flayed husk of a demon nailed to a tree grown of bone.
"Asmodeus has grown weak," one whispered.
"His mind is lost in prophecy. If the Pale One returns, we move."
"We will slit the throat of Hell and wear its crown."
Lucifer's head tilted.
A thin smile touched his lips.
In a breath, he vanished.
The rebels barely had time to register the cold before the darkness split.
Twin blades of light sang into being—cold, white, and silent. Lucifer reappeared in the middle of them, wings half-unfurled, feathers of fire trembling in restraint.
"So bold," he said softly, "to plot against a prince... in his own graveyard."
One demon tried to flee. Lucifer raised a hand, fingers barely twitching.
The demon froze mid-step, then screamed as time coiled backward—his body folding in on itself, reversing to bone, then blood, then nothing.
Another charged. Lucifer stepped aside, almost bored, and drove a blade through the creature's chest.
"You reek of ambition. Such a tiresome stench."
The rest died before they screamed. Facing a fallen Angel was not what they had imagined.
Here in hell, the Angel Samael reigned supreme.
When it was done, the orchard fell quiet again, as if the rebellion had never happened.
Lucifer turned, folding his wings slowly. One feather drifted to the ground and burned silently through the stone.
From behind a crumbling arch of chained tongues, a voice emerged—Asmodeus, slow and amused.
"Must you always kill them all?"
Lucifer sheathed his blades. "They were plotting your demise. I assumed you wouldn't mind."
Asmodeus appeared from the smoke—horned, crowned in rusted iron, a long black coat flowing behind him like tar in water. His eyes glowed from beneath a burned helm, and his teeth—what was left of them—were gold and bone.
"You assume correctly," Asmodeus said, stepping over a still-smoking corpse.
"Still... you didn't leave me even one to torture."
"Next time, I'll wound them gently," Lucifer said. Then, colder:
"We need to talk."
Asmodeus stopped walking. His mouth twitched.
"This is about him, isn't it?"
Lucifer nodded. "Ramiel."
A silence followed. Even the whispering trees grew still.
"The last Djinn," Asmodeus said at last. "A myth Hell prefers buried."
Lucifer stepped closer, voice low.
"He stirs. The seals we buried him behind? They're breaking. One fell last night—in the mortal realm."
Asmodeus grunted. "So the prophecy breathes."
"Not prophecy," Lucifer replied. "Warning."
His wings trembled slightly, then receded into his back with a painful breath. Asmodeus noticed.
"You used them again."
"Not for long," Lucifer said. "They remember Heaven more than I do."
Asmodeus turned to face the orchard, his tone unreadable.
"If Ramiel returns... the realms will tremble."
"Not tremble," Lucifer whispered. "Burn."