Days slipped through Eden like suspended breaths in a perpetual light. Time seemed to flow differently here than in the ruined lands below—neither slow nor fast, simply immutable. Each artificial dawn bathed the hanging gardens in a sterile brilliance, and each twilight draped the ether lakes in a heavy, crushing veil of gold. The angels called this perfect cycle the Breath of the Sky. Seven, for his part, saw it only as a gilded cage.
He had relentlessly driven himself through the punitive routine of his training. The sacred fields of Gabriel vibrated beneath his assaults. Under the watchful eye of the gray Archangel, Seven attempted to rebuild his combat style, deprived of the backing of the deceased souls.
An onyx chain whipped forward with a sharp hiss, but before it could reach its target, Gabriel raised a soothing hand. The Archangel's ether wrapped gently around Seven's weapon, halting the strike without the slightest violence.
Gabriel stepped closer, his face marked by sincere solicitude and palpable worry. He placed a warm hand on the young man's trembling shoulder.
— Seven, stop, Gabriel requested in a soft, almost paternal voice. You're hurting yourself for nothing. Your meridians are beginning to micro-fracture. I won't watch you destroy your own body out of sheer stubbornness.
Seven spat a clot of blood onto the marble and averted his gaze, breathing heavily.
— I have to compensate for the loss of my souls, he grated out. If I don't push, I'll never move forward.
The Archangel sighed, allowing a fine healing aura to diffuse from his palm to soothe the boy's bruised muscles.
— Ether doesn't bend to pain, Seven. It's not an enemy you have to beat to death. Rest. You need time.
Frustrated, Seven punched the ground, releasing a gray shockwave that swept across the edges of the garden. The breath of energy spiraled upward, passing through the immense zero-gravity waterfalls, before dying out kilometers higher, transforming into a simple breeze heavy with ozone.
That same wind brushed against the wind chimes suspended from the immense crystal pillars of a higher promontory. The air there was saturated with incense, dominating the clouds of Eden. This was the sanctuary of Uriel, the Archangel of Justice.
The crystalline tinkling of the chimes mingled with Liah's ragged breathing. Kneeling at the center of a training circle, she kept her hands stretched forward. Around her, the air vibrated erratically. Her affinity with sound made her ether particularly unstable: every heartbeat, every doubt echoed through space in the form of destructive frequencies that made the stone tremble.
Before her, traced in empty space by a golden light, floated complex symbols. Glyphs.
Uriel watched her, arms crossed, gaze pragmatic and direct.
— No, Liah, you're going about it all wrong, the Archangel intervened in a frank, measured tone. You're trying to smother the sound. That's stupid. It's your natural affinity; you can't muzzle it without breaking yourself from the inside.
Liah let her arms drop, exhausted, the chaotic frequencies slowly fading.
— It's too loud, she let out. The moment I try to channel a glyph, my own sound short-circuits the pattern.
Uriel squatted down beside her, pointing a finger at the luminous symbols.
— Glyphs are the programming language of ether. It's an exact science. If you draw the right rune, you bend reality to your will. You can multiply your physical speed, invoke fire or water arcanes even when you don't have those affinities, or even seal an enemy's attack. But a glyph requires clarity.
The Archangel gently tapped Liah's forehead.
— Stop viewing sound as an enemy. Use it like a conductor. Make the frequency resonate *through* the glyph to stabilize it, instead of trying to build a wall between the two. Come on, start over. Breathe.
Liah closed her eyes. She adjusted her posture. Instead of tensing her muscles, she relaxed. She let the deep hum of her ether rise, then, with a fluid flick of her wrist, traced a reinforcement glyph in the air. The rune lit up, perfectly stable, vibrating in harmony with the young girl's sound frequency.
From the top of an arch overlooking the promontory, a male silhouette let out an admiring whistle. Flashes of azure lightning raced across his skin. Barachiel.
— Not bad at all, muttered the Primordial of Lightning. She catches on fast.
Before he could add a word, a deep, cavernous sound tore through Eden's atmosphere, short-circuiting Barachiel's lightning and making Liah's glyph tremble. The bells of the Grand Sanctuary had just rung out. It was an absolute summons.
Moments later, on the vast pearly square located at the crossroads of the angelic domains, Seven was the first to arrive. His body still ached viciously. A second later, Liah landed a few meters away from him.
Seven turned his head toward her, and his blood ran cold.
He needed only a single glance. Around Liah, the air appeared subtly distorted by perfectly controlled sound waves, acting as a natural shield. Beneath the sleeve of her jacket, he caught the dormant gleam of a velocity glyph. Her ether was no longer that uncontrollable, terrified torrent; it was a sharpened, dense weapon, ready to strike.
The obvious truth hit him with the brutality of a punch. She had evolved at a terrifying speed. It was glaringly obvious: if they had to fight in a one-on-one right at that exact moment, she would blow him away without the slightest difficulty.
This thought deeply humiliated the necromancer. His ego burned. Seven lowered his gaze to the pearly ground, biting his lower lip hard enough to draw blood, his fists clenching so tightly his nails dug into his palms.
The space before them distorted. Michel appeared in a halo of pure gold, the pressure of his mere presence nearly forcing the two humans to their knees.
— Your primary initiation is complete, declared the leader of the heavenly armies in a grave voice. The Eryndor Anomaly is spreading faster than our forecasts. The squad of Archanges we left behind as a rear guard there is currently being cornered. They are losing ground every hour to the corruption. Time is running out.
Seven raised his head, tension tightening his jaw. Liah narrowed her eyes, instantly measuring the gravity of the situation.
— Seven, Michel resumed, plunging his molten gold pupils into the boy's. From now on, you will answer to my direct tutelage. Gabriel taught you the basics of survival because he cared about your integrity. I don't care. You are going to learn to generate your own ether, to forge new physical laws. If you want to survive what awaits us, you must build your own destructive foundation.
Before Seven could reply, the air behind Liah exploded in a thunderous crash. The scent of ozone saturated space. Barachiel had just materialized. Liah's sound waves crackled instinctively to protect her from the surrounding electrical charge.
— Uriel taught you theory and precision, Barachiel tossed to Liah with a bright, predatory smile. Me, I'm going to teach you how to bind your sound frequencies to the speed of lightning to break enemy lines.
The sky of Eden suddenly seemed to split in two. On one side, Michel's golden, gravitational pressure began to crush the space around Seven. On the other, Barachiel unleashed a torrent of pure electricity, forcing Liah to invoke her glyphs to avoid being electrocuted.
Their energies rose in a spiral from the pearly square. Under the relentless gaze of their new mentors, the two heirs of the Eryndor tragedy began the final phase of their mutation. They would have to prove they could become the absolute weapons of paradise, before Eryndor collapsed entirely.