Crypt of Golgotha
The fissure spat them into a narrow throat of bone-dust and despair.
No grand vault. Just tight stone, suffocating silence, and rows of plain sarcophagi leaking the faint psychic rot of willing martyrs.
Liliru's whip flickered, sluggish against the crushing aura of sacrifice.
"The guardian isn't a monster," Caelan said. "It's a mirror."
The shadows rippled.
Illusions bloomed—perfect, cruel, intimate.
Caelan found himself in Heaven's courtroom. The original Saint lay impaled at the throne's foot, ash-white hair soaked in gold blood. The first Liliru knelt beside him, crimson tears cutting channels through soot.
"You are the copy," Elian's voice thundered from the blinding throne. "Programmed to fail the same way. Your choice is an illusion. Kill her. End the cycle."
The dying Saint reached for him. "Save me, brother. Don't choose her."
Beside him, Liliru convulsed.
Her illusion was worse: a sterile white nursery. The Nephilim child rose from its crib—twelve wings, six black, six white. Eyes empty voids.
"Mother," it sang in a perfect paradox chorus. "You are obsolete."
It stepped forward. Liliru's body began dissolving into ash, chaos unmade by its own creation.
She clawed at her skin, a silent scream tearing her throat raw.
Caelan staggered under the dual assault. Cold flooded back, freezing his light solid. I am a script. I have no choice.
Then he saw her—real her—fighting invisible annihilation, golden eyes burning through terror.
A copy cannot choose to burn the script.
He forced his legs forward and seized her face in both hands.
"Look at me."
She thrashed. "It's erasing me—"
"Then erase the lie."
He crushed his mouth to hers.
Not an accident. Choice.
He bit his own lip until gold welled, forced the blood between her teeth.
She swallowed on reflex.
Light and dark detonated through the shared wound.
The illusions shattered—courtroom, nursery, dying Saint—burned away in a blinding dual flash.
Silence returned, real and absolute.
At the crypt's heart: a black stone altar. Embedded dead centre—the Nail.
Eight inches of dark iron, etched with weeping symbols. It breathed finality.
Liliru leaned on him, shaking, lips stained gold and red. "You bit yourself for me."
"We needed proof we chose this," he said. Synchronisation roared back, hotter, defiant.
She stared at the Nail. "You touch it. I don't do martyrdom."
Caelan stepped forward. The air thickened with every martyr's last breath.
He wrapped his hand around cold iron.
Memory flooded: every life he'd erased, every order obeyed without question. The weight of borrowed purpose.
He pulled.
Metal screamed free of stone.
The crypt answered.
Walls folded inward—silent, inevitable collapse.
Caelan's wings erupted, shielding her as they sprinted. Stone shattered against black feathers. They burst onto the plateau as the monastery swallowed itself.
Above the ruins hovered a Thunder Legion warship, silver hull blazing.
On the lowered ramp stood Captain Jophiel, golden armour ablaze, flaming sword Fiat Lux drawn.
His voice rolled like judgment day.
"Caelan. You have consorted with the Enemy. You have stolen the Martyrs' relic. Heaven revokes your commission. You are declared Fallen."
The sword pointed.
"Surrender the demoness and the Nail, or be unmade."
Caelan stepped forward, Liliru at his shoulder. Eden's Fang rose steadily.
Two bullets.
"Then come take them," he said, voice calm as a grave. "The Saint no longer answers to Heaven."