In the Beginning, there was Light, and from that Light were born sentient beings called Angels. They dwelt in the Light, and made it their home, the Realm of Gaia. Then the world began to change, and it was feared that the Light could go out entirely. The wise Angels whom were called the Archalai debated for six days and nights, and it was decreed that the essence of the Light, the very life force of the Angels, would be encased in an Orb and entrusted to the care of the Seraphim for safekeeping...

It was a mistake.

*          *          *

And on the seventh day, war besieged Elysium in a halo of black wings. Azaziel ascended skyward, lance in left hand to meet the onslaught of Guardian Angels. A spinning arc sent his bladed edge in a bloody spiral, piercing angelic flesh with a powerful wing-strafe. Their helmed leader dove in for a killing blow, but Azaziel’s aura pulsed neon, fraying beams of spectral straylight into the Archangel like electric spears. The corpse disintegrated mid-air as the Guardians fled into the smoke. 

 

A phenomenal beat of his dark wings took Azaziel aloft over a flaming crystal skyline, where azureglass towers stood wreathed in fusel flames. He rendezvoused with the Archons at the Coliseum—young rebel Angels whose sole mission was to overthrow the Archalai. A squad flew for the Cliffs, while Azaziel took a team to attack the Gates. They stood a harrowing likeness of two metallic Archangels sounding bannered heralding horns. The Archons flung tar-filled bladder-bags at the gear towers while Azaziel unleashed an aerial slash of straylight that incinerated the support beams. The Gates screamed in chrome, throwing splinter-spikes like hot javelins and precious metal mayhem.

 

Azaziel flew on through red smoke stacks that stung his piercing blue eyes. The Cliffs loomed in the distance unscathed and on their precipice stood the glittering Enclave of the Seraphim, watching unscathed as arcane fires raged below. Azaziel touched down on the Enclave’s landing steps, where Guardian corpses who had tried to defend it lay kicked aside. The Archons were already there, impaling straggling survivors on bronze statues of warriors holding spears.

 

They rushed through the pillars where rows of columns held up an open-domed ceiling covered in life-like depictions of Angels, while the six-winged Seraph priests screamed and ran for their lives.

 

At the far end of the Enclave, the Archons found what they’d come for. The Head Order of the Seraphim knelt before an elaborate altar while his acolytes screamed and died all around him. The profane slaughter did not disturb his meditative trance. They yanked his head back by his long silver hair to taste the edge of a knife.

 

“No! Alive!” an Archon called. So they dragged him by his hair to the pillared entrance, where young Seraph blood flowed down the steps in a red waterfall. The Head Order, an old, beautiful Seraph in flowing opalescent robes, gaped horrified at what beheld him.

 

His beloved City was burning, the Colonnades were falling, the Hanging Gardens were flaring, the Palladium had crumbled, the Gates had toppled, the Coliseum had collapsed, the Library and all its knowledge were lost forever, and the streets were littered with bloody feathers and fallen swords. The tired mongering of a long-forlorn war had finally come to pass, demolishing the illustrious beauty of the High-City and burning the everglass towers to searing ruins. The Palace still stood the Realm’s crown jewel, piercing the ash-choked sky like a sword-battalion of tall white crystals glittering in the center of the City. Now it smoldered black in the panegyric flames that consumed Elysium. Red smoke columns rose high over the Palace blotting out the stars. This night would never end for the Angels.  

 

The Head Order hung his head low, but when he saw what climbed the steps to meet him, his heart sank and all hope left his defeated eyes.

 

A dark Angel with two flowing black wings ascended to the Enclave, carrying a Blood Lance in his left hand. His hair flowed around his hips in waves of jet black tendrils, framing an angular face and alabaster skin that glowed pale in the fiery twilight. His vantablack armor had been stolen off a dead Archangel, but no Archangel’s Crest adorned his breast. He stood a cursed prophet, a dark prince with no crown.

 

Azaziel stood on the blood soaked steps, looking down on the Head Order with eyes like ghost crystals. The Head Order returned his gaze with the eyes of a broken old sage.

 

“We were kind to you!” he cried. “We loved you very much.”

 

The Dark Angel gave no reply, but a silent glance at the Archons who raised their war scythes above the old Seraph’s wings.

 

Azaziel flowed in malefic strides through the Enclave to the Altar. Upon the pontiff, a solid black Orb sat gripped in a chromium claw, glowing faintly in a ferrous luster. He snatched the Orb and flew out of the Enclave with a vengeance.

 

Beating his wings with furious strength, he ascended above the raging war below. Flying through red smoke to clear the clouds, a thousand galaxies danced before him in ultracosmic flareons of color and neon. With all his might, he cast the Orb as high as he could into the void. It shattered against the sky with a blinding flash that blasted across the Realm in a cataclysmic hypernova.

 

The epic explosion that ripped across the land was biblical.