The Demon Lord Is An Angel
Chapter 386: Interlude - Heaven’s Wrath

Chapter 386: Interlude - Heaven’s Wrath

Two Days Ago

If Rainier l’Eros thought being imprisoned in Heaven would be any different than being imprisoned on Ayther, he was quickly disabused of the notion as he was ordered into a cell within the lowest levels of the Black Tower.

Auriciel Victoriam sneered as he received a syringe-like device from the warden - more like a black bottlecap with needles sticking out of it. Part of him felt that it was too little punishment, inhibiting the functions of Rainier’s godflesh. But the moment he slaped the inhibitor in place, just over the man’s heart, there was a satisfying gasp and groan as Rainier collapsed under the weight of his own body.

"Feels terrible, doesn’t it," Auriciel said, watching as the white flesh began to turn grey. "You relied too much on godflesh, and look where it got you.

Against all odds, Rainier suddenly pushed off the floor and slammed a punch into Auriciel’s face. Auriciel barely felt the blow, having reinforced his body well before using the inhibitor. With a single hand, he shoved Rainier back, onto the stone floor, and left him lying there as the door was sealed.

The entire time, Rainier had remained eerily silent, and it was only when he stepped out of the prison that Auriciel let himself exhale. He was used to being hated. Those jealous of Auric Victoriam were legion, and their jealous eyes fueled his need to be better. But that was not what he had seen in Rainier’s eyes.

No, those eyes were cold. Wrathful, but cold, as if Auriciel was nothing...

The thought haunted him all the way up the elevator. But by the time he reached his uncle at the command center, he had mastered himself enough to put on a confident near-smile. Just a hair beyond professional.

"Auric, welcome," Vinam smiled from the large, rotating chair in the middle of the room. By custom, no Elevated were allowed in this place of power. Everyone here would be addressed as a peer, if not by rank.

Even with six wings out, his uncle was still relaxed in a chair that had been designed for it, and Auric wondered if the glowing wingrests had something to do with making the chair move, or if it was a simple matter of flexing one’s mana.

"Your paramour is proving untraditionally apt at hand-to-hand combat, in a manner of speaking." He gestured at one screen, which showed Cassiel in a training yard, overwhelming two squads of Elevated with hundreds of hands made of magic, a spell series she’d named Hekatonkeries after something in an old book one of her old friends had dug up. The way she fought was brutish today, likely due to her lingering frustrations over Rain’s infidelities and insufficiencies.

"She’s looking for her own leadership position," Auric said, his tone gripesome. "I’d rather keep her close though."

"A skillset like hers is too... grandiose for pruning troublesome individuals. But I could leave her under you, perhaps for one of our peacekeeping missions on the Areth continent. Large displays will keep the Amrita elves assured of their future primacy. Come, nephew, stay and watch."

For the next two hours, most of what Auric did was stand around and watch. His uncle received summary reports of Executioner activities from all over the world and most of his orders were along the lines of "go ahead" or "keep an eye on the situation."

He was in the middle of suppressing a yawn when something different happened.

"High Seraph," a female officer reported, "We’re coming out of occlusion and we’ve got multiple requests on the Ambassadorial frequencies. All from Areth."

"How many Ambassadors?" Vinam asked.

"Just one. Tarantel."

Vinam received the tablet and scrolled through, sitting up in his seat within moments. "The Duke of Pride is right next to his city, and he hasn’t dealt with it?!"

"He suspects it’s a trap."

"Get me that mana signature on the monitor!"

Within moments a distant but bright signature showed, close to a city which glowed with tens of thousands of tinier lights. Auric gulped, wondering how strong someone’s mana had to be to be seen from space.

"It can’t be..." Vinam gripped the arms of his seat. "Another... no... the same one..."

What could he mean? Auric wondered before his Uncle rounded onto a waiting officer. "Go to the cell blocks and retrieve what we need from the new grower. We’ll meet in the firing chamber."

"It shall be done," the officer saluted and turned.

As soon as the officer disappeared, Vinam turned his attention to the rest of the officers in the room. "What’s the status of the Lance?"

"We can achieve a seventy-percent mana charge. The controls estimate a thirty-six percent total impact force accounting for distance and atmosphere," a male angel responded.

Vinam made a scoffing noise. "Still more than what we hit the Wrathians with..." he mumbled, before standing up and turning to leave the room. Without further instructions, Auric decided to follow his Uncle into the elevator. "Stay by me and don’t say a word about what you see," Vinam said as he opened a panel underneath the buttons and fed mana into a plate. The elevator proceeded down fast and smooth, until Auric couldn’t venture to guess how deep beneath the Black Tower they had gone.

The chamber he entered was heavy with mana. So much so that he felt grateful for all the acclimation his training and hunting on Ayther had provided.

In vast tubes, mana stones that seemed to be the pinnacle of what a soulstone could become suspended. But what drew his eyes was the console at the center of the room, where a head rested, connected to the bottom of a jar, its face marred and wrapped in strands of godflesh, covering one of its eyes, its nose, but not its ears or mouth. Golden hair floated in the drift of whatever substance was cycling from one tube to another.

"High Seraph, is he authorized-" a guard angel started to ask when Vinam cut him off.

"I’m giving him authorization," he glanced at Auric. "Today you’ll see true power."

A minute later, the officer Vinam had sent off arrived bearing a grey right hand with golden threads running through it. The black eye he sported made a suspicion enter Auric’s mind...

"The prisoner put up a fight," the officer reported when Vinam’s eyes went to the injury.

"Reinforce yourself next time," Vinam scolded, taking the hand and pressing it into a panel to the right of the head. It lit up, and the head came to a terrible sort of life, its eyes unseeing and yet focused on Vinam.

"Defense Cannon Operational," the head reported, its voice translated out from a circular device at the front of the jar. "Mana input received. Targeting data received. Override required for non-spatial deployment."

"Speak the override," Vinam hissed at the head, pumping so much mana into the compulsion and the hand that the latter was starting to disintegrate.

"Helios Delta Blue Zero. I am become Death, destroyer of worlds," the head intoned.

All at once, the room glowed and hummed to life. The angels monitoring the mana stones in their tubes all stepped back, furiously recording what the ancient-looking computers in the room were showing them.

Auric felt the mana gathering. A spinning sensation filled his thoughts as it spooled into a long, hollow string that began filling with light. The string of light rose out of the tower, angling at the very edge towards its target.

Had he been outside, Auric would have seen everyone within sight of the Black Tower stopping to stare as the Lance flew towards its goal. He might even have noticed it curving around the moon of Hell, guided with more precision than Heaven used for its portals.

As soon as the Lance finished firing, Vinam dropped the decaying godflesh hand and walked back towards the elevator, telling the blacken-eyed officer to "Congratulate Councilor Eros on his breeding program. And take measures to get another one of those," he gestured towards the hand.

"By your command, High Seraph," the officer acknowledged.

This time in the elevator, Vinam pressed the button for the control room floor.

What they arrived at was chaos. Screens filled with static, officers shouting across the room.

It all stopped the moment Vinam came to stand in front of his seat.

"What is going on?" the Son of Heaven asked. "I want to see what the Lance has wrought."

The officers looked at each other with uncertainty. Then one stepped forward.

"H-High Seraph, we can’t get a visual."

"Put another satellite on it," Vinam scowled.

"Son of Heaven, there are no more satellites," the angel continued, visible sweating as the pressure from Vinam’s mana began to grow.

"What do you mean?" Auric had never been more scared of his Uncle than today.

"Someone appears to have attacked the satellites while we were firing the lance."

"The target?" Vinam spat.

"Not from the target. The attacks... The attacks appeared near-simultaneously," the much beleaguered angel gulped.

Suddenly another officer, a female angel, yelped "I have footage from one of the satellites!" Moments later it was on the main screen.

In front of the satellite’s camera, a hole appeared in space, through which was a golden, grassy field and a dark grey sky.

A woman, her body wrapped in no more than cloth and her face hidden by hood and mask stepped out into the void, a field of some sort hazing behind her as she went through it. But more than what she wore, Auric’s eyes were drawn to the single red wing behind her left shoulder.

She began to scribe her hands in the air, a message forming in mana light before the scene was replaced by the static of the satellite’s destruction.

Goodbye, Brother.