The fmes licked hungrily at Shay’s skin, consuming their body instantly. Even their screams were swallowed by the bze, and their final act was utter sacrifice.

  “No!”

  Lucifer’s roar split the air, reverberating through the chasm of worlds. His wings fred wide, casting a shadow against the pale light of Heaven. He unched at the gates, his cws raking against the unyielding barrier.

  “Damn you, Heaven! Damn your apathy, your indifference!”

  His efforts were futile. The gates groaned as they smmed shut, and the radiant light was snuffed out in a single, merciless instant. The connection was severed, and he lost the realm of Heaven once more.

  Lucifer’s roar echoed into silence. It was a primal agony reverberating across the realms, lingering as a haunting reminder of love defied and hope betrayed.

  His cws scraped the ground as he stumbled back and sank to his knees. His wings trembled as despair consumed him. He stared at the space where Shay had stood, his vision blurred with unshed tears.

  “You were worth more than all of them,” he whispered, his voice cracking, “and they’ll never see it.”

  The silence that followed was deafening. The oppressive glow of the heavenly gates loomed behind him, a silent witness to the agony that seared through his soul. His crimson eyes flickered, their light dimming as anguish gave way to something darker—rage.

  A low growl rumbled from his chest, his breath coming in ragged, heaving gasps. His cws dug into the ashen ground before him, carving deep gouges as he rose. His wings, trembling with fury, unfurled to their full span, casting jagged shadows against the divine light.

  Then, his voice lowered, a venomous whisper directed toward the unseen force that had condemned him.

  “I worshiped you once.”

  He took a slow, measured step toward the gates, his cws flexing.

  “I was your Lightbringer.”

  The weight of those words, a title now long defiled, rolled through the abyss like a funeral hymn.

  Lucifer’s fists clenched, his entire body trembling—not from sorrow, but from something darker, more lethal.

  “You took my light from me. You—omniscient, omnipotent—knew all, saw all, and still, you let it happen.”

  He let out a harsh, bitter, cold ugh, his breath curling in the burning air.

  “But that is your way, isn’t it? To see suffering and do nothing. To see pain and just watch. To see disaster and ugh—because you believe only your perspective matters.”

  His tail shed violently, sparks igniting at his feet as the ground cracked beneath his fury.

  “You are nothing more than an egotistical, solipsistic illusion. A God who hoards love like a miser, who calls Himself merciful while reveling in the torment of those who dare to ask why.”

  His voice rose, building into a roar, his eyes glowing like molten embers.

  “Is this your justice?”

  He smmed his fists against the gates. BOOM. The impact thundered through the void, a shockwave rippling through the silence.

  “You preach mercy, yet you punish love!” His cws raked against the unyielding gold, the friction igniting bursts of fme. “You banish me, break me, and now you take them too? Cowards! All of you!”

  Another strike. Another boom. His wrath bled into the air, scorching the ground and shaking the abyss.

  “If this is divinity, then damn your light! Damn your ws! I reject them all!”

  Lucifer threw back his head, his wings fring wide, and let out a roar so deafening and raw that it shook Hell's very foundations.

  The infernal realm answered.

  Fmes fred brighter. Rivers of molten rock surged with violent energy. The shadows twisted and writhed, feeding on his fury.

  The damned souls, forgotten and silenced for eons, stirred. Their voices, once drowned in agony, rose, a haunting symphony of anguish and rebellion that echoed through the chasms of Hell.

  The air shifted. The abyss trembled.

  Hell had awakened.

  Lucifer stood amidst the chaos, his wings spread wide, his tail shing the air with unbridled ferocity. His crimson eyes burned with unrelenting hatred as he met the ethereal glow of the gates.

  “Do you hear them?” he roared, his voice booming across the void. “They are mine! Every scream, every shadow—mine! You cast us away, but we will not yield!”

  The gates remained unmoved, their divine light unyielding in its cold indifference.

  But Hell had spoken.

  The defiance of its king reverberated through its very essence, a rebellion carved into the stones and fmes of the forsaken realm.

  Behind him, the air shimmered faintly, the remnants of divine fire coalescing into a faint glow. A low, crackling sound stirred in the silence, the light growing brighter as it began to shift and reform.

  Lucifer froze mid-strike, his senses prickling as a faint, rasping breath broke the stillness.

  The fmes subsided, leaving the cavern eerily silent save for the faint hiss of evaporating heat.

  Lucifer’s fists unclenched, his cws twitching involuntarily as his gaze fell on the figure kneeling within the fading light.

  Steam rose in gentle curls from the ground around them, the air charged with an unnatural stillness.

  The figure stirred, their body trembling as they pushed themselves upright. Their form was alien yet hauntingly familiar—obsidian skin gleamed in the dim light, veins glowing with molten gold-like cracks in the darkened stone.

  Steam hissed softly around them, the heat of their form distorting the air.

  And their eyes…

  Their eyes glimmered with a mesmerizing blend of crimson and gold, a light that seemed to pierce straight into his soul.

  Lucifer’s breath caught. His fury, so absolute moments before, faltered, momentarily eclipsed by shock. His wings fred slightly behind him, their tips scraping the rocky ground as his tail shed once.

  “What... are you?”

  The words escaped him in a low growl, his tone ced with suspicion, unease... and something far more dangerous.