As Kael opened his eyes he saw that the ruined courtyard, the screams, the smoke were all gone. Reality had been fractured. Light twisted into shards. Air thickened, viscous. Stones melted into black obsidian, forming jagged spires clawing at an impossible sky.
He had crossed the threshold. Diablo's Torment had claimed him. The mortal plane fell away, replaced by the palace of the King of Hell.
The palace was alive not with warmth or comfort, but with shadow and fire. Corridors stretched into impossible distances. Whispers filled the air: promises, threats, lies, truths twisted into nightmares.
On a throne carved from the bones of forgotten worlds, the King of Hell waited. Shadows clung like living tendrils. Eyes of molten gold burned from a faceless, shifting visage. A voice like grinding iron and flowing lava filled Kael's chest.
"So," it rumbled, "you are the one who summoned me. The discarded beast, the stray dog of Veyrin. Tell me… why should I acknowledge your existence?"
Kael forced himself upright, chest heaving, pain wracking his body, defiance blazing. "I am not a dog. I am Kael Veyrin. I may have been discarded, underestimated but I still stand. I still live."
The King laughed. "Bold… interesting."
The palace shifted as he spoke. Shadows writhed, flames twisted into clawed hands, testing Kael's resolve.
"I seek power," Kael said, voice carrying over the oppressive atmosphere. "To reclaim what was taken from me." My home, my family's legacy… my life. I will pay any price."
The King's molten eyes glimmered with amusement." Three gifts I offer you. Each with chains, each with a price. You will serve in my great war, yes but rise in power beyond mortal comprehension."
Pain, suffering, despair he remembered it all now he had a chance to get revenge .the intoxicating thrill of possibility surged through Kael. "I accept. I will endure, I will see, I will fight. I will not fail."
'Power without submission is chaos, "the King warned. "You will serve me"
Shadows bound the gifts into his being. Pain lanced sharper than any blade. Blood, sweat, and ash mingled. Yet Kael's defiance did not falter.
I will survive. I will endure. I will rise. .
Diablo sat on his throne, vast and terrible, laughter still echoing through the abyss. But then the light came.
It was not flame. It was not shadow. It was purity, searing, merciless. A spear of celestial brilliance tore through the roof of the palace, cleaving towers in half, shattering the bones of kings that lined the gates. Kael staggered beneath it, flesh blistering, vision seared white.
The throne room of obsidian trembled. Shadows writhed like serpents across the pillars, fire pulsing in the cracks of the blackened stone. Kael still knelt where the gifts had been bound into his soul — chest heaving, veins burning with new power.
Diablo sat on his throne, vast and terrible, laughter still echoing through the abyss. But then the light came.
the Throne of Hell trembled.
Kael staggered, clutching his chest where Diablo's gifts still burned in his veins.
suddenlyThe obsidian pillars around him quivered as though they feared what was coming. A crack split the sky — not of stone, but of reality itself.
Light poured through. Not fire. Not shadow. Light so pure it seared the eye, carved into flesh, scoured the marrow of bone. Kael shielded his face, but the brilliance cut through fingers and flesh alike, as though it judged him unworthy simply for existing.
The ceiling of the throne hall shattered. Chunks of black stone plummeted into the abyss, swallowed whole before they struck the floor. Through the wound in the sky descended shapes of impossible majesty: a choir of spears singing with one voice, blades woven into wings, and faces carved in radiance where no faces should ever be.
Angels.
Not the kind of tales whispered in the mortal churches, no gentle guardians with feathered wings. These were weapons given form, decrees of light sculpted into living flesh. Kael's body buckled beneath their presence. Every word they sang reverberated inside his skull until blood ran from his nose.
"USURPER," they thundered as one. "YOUR REIGN ENDS."
Atop his throne of scorched iron and bone, Diablo rose. Vast wings of fire unfurled, each feather a sword aflame. His shadow stretched across the entire hall, blotting out the trembling nobles who shrank into corners of the chamber.
"You dare," Diablo growled, voice rumbling like mountains breaking. "You dare profane my court with your false light?"
The angels did not answer in words. Their song rose higher, sharper and one spear of brilliance hurtled downward, faster than thought. It ripped through the throne hall, carving molten channels in the obsidian floor. Diablo raised a hand the size of a fortress wall and caught the spear in his palm. For a heartbeat, the hall held.
Then the spear drove through his chest.
Kael felt the impact as though the weapon had pierced him instead. His heart lurched, his lungs seized. Infernal blood molten black and red sprayed across the throne steps, sizzling as it hit the stone. Diablo did not fall, but his roar shook the palace, rattling its very foundations.
"Do you see, Kael Veyrin?" His voice thundered, carrying across the collapsing hall. ". Even the heavens fear what we could become."
demons surged to his defense. From the shadows leapt beasts crowned with horns of steel, armored titans whose armor shrieked like anvils as they moved. A tide of flame burst from the pits below, hurling itself skyward to scorch the descending choir.
But the angels answered with their song. Where the flames touched, they were unmade not doused, not extinguished, but erased, as if fire itself had never existed. One demon lord charged, a beast of thirty arms wreathed in chain and axe. The light struck him once. There was no body left to fall. Only silence where he had been.
Kael staggered back as the throne hall dissolved into chaos. Shadows screamed past him, lords and generals hurling themselves upward in futile defiance. He could feel the scale of their war as vibration in his very bones the clash of absolutes, of law and chaos. Mortal steel, mortal magic, meant nothing here.
Diablo ripped the spear from his chest with a howl and hurled it back into the sky. It streaked upward, splitting three angels apart in a shower of white embers. He spread his wings wide, fire storming across the ceiling. "COME, THEN!" he bellowed, a king unbowed even as ichor streamed down his chest. "COME AND BLEED WITH ME!"
The angels descended in earnest.