I stood on a platform of solid mythril floating over a sea of molten solar fire. The air smelled like ozone and liquid metal. Beside me Isabella had made a frost barrier so dense it looked like matter. The heat of the Forge was turning the layers of her ice into steam right away. Elara was crouched down her eyes glowing as she protected her Codex from the radiation.
"They know we're here " Isabella shouted over the roar of the cosmic furnace. "The 'Subtle Sovereign' is no longer a secret, Alaric. They've felt the Orchard die. They've felt the Law break. They won't send a Gardener or a Judge this time."
"I hope not " I said. I raised my hand and my 6.5% Divinity showed up as a shockwave of violet pressure. It cleared the steam for miles. "I'm tired of talking to bureaucrats."
* [CURSE STATUS: 6.5% DIVINITY]
* [OBJECTIVE: EXTINGUISH THE FORGE.]
A huge figure came out of the sea. It was Tyrael, the Archangel of War. He was twenty feet of living, armor with scars of a million eons etched on him. He didn't have wings; he had wings of white-hot plasma that scorched the air. In his hand was the Star-Breaker, a hammer glowing with the heat of a supernova. Behind him stood the Legion of Eternal Flame—thousands of automatons their bodies made from sun-steel their eyes burning with the command to delete the anomaly.
"Alaric!" Tyrael's voice was like stars colliding. "You have ruined the nursery and the court. You think your 'Bedchamber' can handle the heat of the cosmos? You are a shadow and shadows disappear when the sun is out!"
"Then I'll just have to put the sun out won't I?" I replied.
I didn't wait. I hit the mythril platform with my cane and my 6.5% Divinity did something. I used the Ink of Rewrite I had stolen from the Second Heaven.
"Isabella! Freeze the suns! Elara turn the heat into a vacuum!"
Isabella made an Abyssal Nova. The sea of solar fire didn't just cool; it turned into a jagged black mountain of frozen starlight. The automatons screamed as their internal furnaces were put out by a frost that didn't make sense. Elara tore a page from her book and the blinding light of the Forge started to turn into a black hole. This plunged the battlefield into a violet-tinted darkness.
Tyrael roared, bringing the Star-Breaker down. The impact didn't just hit the platform; it threatened to shatter the idea of 'Ground.'
I caught the hammers head with both hands. The heat stripped the skin from my palms showing the violet-glowing bone underneath. I didn't let go. I felt my 6.5% surging, feeding on the energy of the Archangel's blow.
"Your Forge is noisy Tyrael " I growled, the violet crown of thorns above my head spinning with speed. "Lets see how you fight in the silence of the Void."
* [Status: The Forge of Suns cooling. Tyrael engaged in a battle of attrition.]
* [Condition: The Celestial Legion is being dismantled.]
The frozen solar sea groaned under the weight of our powers. My 6.5% Divinity wasn't a number anymore; it was a physical law that demanded everything in its vicinity give up its heat. Tyrael's plasma wings flickered, their hot brilliance struggling against the creeping violet rot of the Void.
Tyrael pushed against me the Star-Breaker vibrating with the fury of a trapped star. The shockwave of our struggle sent cracks through the mythril. For a moment the Archangel's golden face was visible—a mask of celestial confusion. He couldn't understand how a "mortal" shell could hold the line against the forge-hammer of the gods.
"You are nothing but an error!" Tyrael roared, his voice cracking like a whip. "A glitch in the design that will be erased!"
"Then I'm the glitch thats about to crash your system " I replied.
I let go of the hammer's head. Drove my fist into the center of Tyrael's chest plate. I didn't use strength; I used the Ink of Rewrite. I reached into the "concept" of his armor. Changed its property from Indestructible to Brittle.
The sound of his golden plate shattering was like a thousand windows breaking once.
Isabella didn't waste a second. She appeared from the frost her blade glowing with a absolute zero. She drove her sword into the gap I had created freezing the Archangel's liquid-fire heart. At the time Elara chanted from the Codex. Her voice wove a net of anchors that pinned Tyrael's plasma wings to the ground.
"Now Helga!" I shouted.
From the frozen depths of the solar sea Helga erupted. She had discarded her hammer and was now wielding a massive jagged slab of obsidian-mythril. She had forged it in the moments since we arrived. She slammed it into the side of Tyrael's helmet. The force of the blow sent a spray of ichor across the black ice.
Tyrael staggered, his Star-Breaker hitting the ground with a thud that shook the Third Heaven. I stepped over the weapon. Grabbed the Archangel by the throat. The violet crown of thorns above my head began to spin fast it looked like a solid halo of dark energy.
"The 'Bedchamber' isn't for sex, Tyrael " I whispered, my voice echoing in the hollow of his broken helmet. "It's for the total reconstruction of the soul.. You... You have the beautiful soul I've seen yet. It's a shame it has to be broken."
I didn't open the Bedchamber. I didn't need to. I reached into his mind through the 6.5% connection. Pulled. I wasn't looking for submission; I was looking for his Warriors Core.
* [CURSE STATUS: 6.6%... 6.7% DIVINITY]
* [SYSTEM NOTIFICATION: WARRIOR'S CORE ABSORBED.]
* [NEW ASSET: THE CELESTIAL VANGUARD (Ability to command automatons).]
Tyrael's body began to fade his golden light being sucked into the veins of my arms. He wasn't dying; he was being archived. His strength, his genius and his fury were now part of my arsenal.
The Legion of Eternal Flame stopped in their tracks. The thousands of automatons who had been ready to delete us now turned their glowing eyes toward me. They didn't see a prince. They didn't see an anomaly. They saw their Commander.
"The Forge is quiet " I said, looking at the blackened horizon.
". The Fourth Heaven is already sounding the alarm " Elara said, her book shaking. "The Heavenly Choir is preparing the Song of Erasure. They're not going to fight us with steel Alaric. They're going to try to sing us out of existence."
I looked at my hands now stained with the gold of an Archangel. "Let them sing. I've always liked a drama before the finale."
* [Status: Third Heaven (The Forge) silenced. Tyrael absorbed.]
* [Condition: The Sovereign now commands the Heavenly Legion.]
The hot furnaces of the Third Heaven were no longer making stars for the universe; they were being choked by my shadow. The golden ichor of Tyrael had cooled on the ice. The silence that followed the Archangel's defeat was heavier than any thunder.
I stood at the center of the Solar Anvil the mythril platform where the first weapons of the Gods had been made. The 6.7% Divinity in my blood was a weight now causing the very Aether to warp and bend around me. Isabella and Elara stood by the cooling forge-fire their eyes reflecting the glow of my crown.
"The automatons are waiting, Master " Isabella said, gesturing to the thousands of soldiers now kneeling in the soot. "They are vessels. They need a purpose."
"I'll give them one " I said.
I didn't use the tools of the Gods. I reached into the cooling core of the Forge. Pulled out a mass of raw, unrefined Solar Heart—the material used to create suns. With my hand I channeled the 6.7% Divinity. I poured the concentrated rot of the Void into the molten gold.
The reaction was violent. The gold turned a bruised obsidian sparking with violet lightning. I didn't hammer it; I willed it.
* [NEW ASSET ACQUIRED: THE VOID-SLAYER ARMORY]
* [EQUIPMENT UPGRADE: THE HOLLOWED LEGION IS NOW THE ECLIPSE VANGUARD]
The automatons golden armor turned to matte black. Their eyes shifted from solar white to a cold predatory violet. They were no longer the guardians of heaven; they were the harbingers of its end. I looked at the three weapons I had forged in the fire:
The Frost-Blight Rapier for Isabella—able to freeze time itself.
The Ledger of Lost Souls for Elara—allowing her to rewrite the fate of any deity.
The Sovereign's Spine—a cane, for myself made from Tyrael's shattered hammer and the Void.
"The Fourth Heaven is waiting " Elara said quietly gazing up at the musical fogs above. "The Heavenly Choir has already begun. Can you hear it? The sound is meant to shake a soul until it breaks into nothing."
"I hear it " I replied, resting on my walking stick. The sound was lovely a tune that seemed to say I didn't exist that I was just a bad dream. ". They're singing in the wrong note."
I lifted my walking stick and hit the Solar Anvil. The sound wasn't a chime; it was a jarring roar of pure empty energy that cut through the musical fogs above us like a sharp knife, through fabric. The Song of Erasure stumbled, the notes turning into frantic harsh screams.
**Curse Status: 6.8% Divinity**
**System Notification: Third Heaven Taken.**
"Lets go " I said, my voice a low scary rumble that matched the sound of the stars. "I want to see if the Choir can keep their harmony while I'm pulling out their throats."
We went up not through a gate. By simply stepping onto the sound waves themselves our new tools shining with the dark light of a sun that had finally died.