Krezia stood at the furthest edge of the celestial realm, where the sky bent into colors that had no names in any mortal tongue, and let the quiet of it settle over her without offering her any comfort in return. Two days had passed since the ritual began. Two days, and still no sign that it had worked.
"Beloved Azer," she said finally, unable to hold the words back any longer. "It has been two full days. The hero has not yet come."
Azer turned toward her — what remained of him, at least. His form had thinned almost past recognition, more suggestion than substance now, a shimmer of fading gold where a god used to stand solid. Even reduced to this, his voice held its old steadiness.
"He will come when he comes, Krezia. And when he does, I will finally leave this place for good." He looked out over the gathered angels, all of them kneeling now, wings folded low. "Before that happens, I have one more thing to ask of you all."
The angels bowed their heads in answer, waiting.
"When the hero arrives," Azer said, "believe in him. Fully — even if his coming costs you my presence here. I won't be able to stand beside you the way I have. But I won't be gone, either. Not completely."
Krezia and Igna, closest to him of all the host, traded a look neither of them could quite hold. They had served this god for longer than either could properly remember, and the thought of losing him tore at something neither wanted to name aloud. Still, they answered together, voices steady even as their eyes weren't. "Yes, Lord Azer."
"We honor your decision," Krezia added, her voice thick, tears she refused to let fall standing bright in her eyes.
Then his light changed.
It came on fast — a brightening that swept through what was left of him, gold spilling outward until Krezia had to shield her eyes against it. "Lord Azer," she breathed, "you're —"
"Is it him?" Igna asked, already knowing the answer from the look on her own face. "Has the champion finally arrived?"
Azer's smile, when it came, held no fear in it at all — only something closer to relief. "Yes. This is the beginning of his story now, not mine. I'm sending him through, in this very moment." He looked at each of them in turn, as if trying to memorize the shape of a room he wouldn't see again. "Farewell, my dear ones."
The angels wept — not only from grief, though there was plenty of that, but from something more complicated underneath it, a reverence too large to hold quietly.
Krezia stepped forward, voice breaking. "May you find your way back to us one day, Lord Azer. We'll watch over your realm until you do, however long that takes."
His form began to come apart at last, threads of gold light drifting free of whatever shape had been holding them together, scattering upward into the sky like something being returned to where it came from. No one spoke. There was nothing left to say that wouldn't have felt too small for the moment.
Far below, in a fortress that let in no light at all, the mood was considerably less gentle.
Rostiel paced the length of his throne room, the torches along the walls throwing long red shadows that seemed to flinch every time he passed them. "So," he said, mostly to himself, "the God of Peace is gone." He stopped mid-stride. "His presence — I can't feel it anywhere anymore. What exactly did he manage, in those final moments? This silence troubles me more than his war ever did."
He turned sharply, robes snapping with the motion. "Mizawa!"
His lieutenant appeared at once, snapping to attention, though something in her posture suggested she already suspected what was coming.
"Assemble the army," Rostiel said. "All of it. We move on the mortal realm."
Mizawa hesitated — not from disobedience, but from arithmetic. "My lord, a force of that size… it would take years to properly gather."
"I don't care how long it normally takes." His eyes had gone hard, the patience he rationed so carefully already spent. "Find another way. A faster one."
"Lord Rostiel, please — even with everything at our disposal, three years would be the earliest we could—"
He didn't let her finish.
The Spear of Destruction was in his hand and at her throat before she'd even registered him moving, its crimson edge trembling a hair's width from her eye.
"Do I need to say it again?" His voice had dropped to something colder than the stone around them. "More slowly, this time?"
Mizawa went utterly still, the only motion in her the frantic beat of a heart that understood exactly how close it had just come to stopping. "No, my lord. Forgive me."
He held the spear a moment longer than he needed to before finally drawing it back, already turning away from her toward the window and the ruined world beyond it. Whatever calculations were running behind his eyes now had nothing to do with mercy.