The forest didn't just burn; it confessed. As Father Malachi opened the Great Vulgate, the air turned into a choir of screaming frequencies.
"Silas of the Triple Blood!" Malachi roared, his voice amplified by the "Grace of Gabriel." "You are the Beast of the Sea, the Beast of the Earth, and the Dragon of the Pit. Today, the Word becomes your cage!"
He turned to the Book of Revelation.
"And I stood upon the sand of the sea, and saw a beast rise up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns!" (Revelation 13:1)
As he shouted the verse, the shadows beneath the burning trees didn't just move they solidified into a Throne-Construct. A massive, multi-headed entity made of translucent holy glass and golden gears erupted from the dirt. It wasn't a biological monster; it was a "Biblical Engine" designed to hunt Gods.
"They want a beast?" Elara stepped forward, her violet hair whipping in the gale-force winds of the spell. "I'll show them the nightmare that the Vatican tried to forget."
She didn't use a spell. She used her Bloodline-Manifestation. As a daughter of the Asmodeus line, her soul was linked to the Lust of Power. She slammed her hands together, and her violet aura turned into a deep, bruising indigo.
"Lords of the Second Circle," she whispered, "lend me your hunger."
Her shadow detached from her feet, growing thirty feet tall. It sprouted curved horns and wings made of obsidian smoke. While Silas took the front, Elara became a blur of violet destruction. She met the Ten-Horned Beast mid-air. With a scream of pure demonic will, she reached into the construct's "Holy Core" and crushed it with her bare hands, the golden gears spraying like shrapnel across the battlefield.
"Impressive," Silas grunted, his one blue eye tracking her movement. "But they're just warming up."
Father Malachi saw his first construct fall and didn't flinch. He signaled to the College of Cardinals standing on the ridge. They began a rhythmic, deep-bass chant from the Book of Daniel.
"The first was like a lion, and had eagle's wings... and behold another beast, a second, like to a bear, and it raised up itself on one side, and it had three ribs in the mouth of it!" (Daniel 7:4-5)
From the smoke of the white phosphorus, the Lion-Eagle and the Three-Ribbed Bear materialized. These were "Concept-Killers." The Bear didn't bite flesh; it bit the soul.
Silas lunged at the Bear. He used his Hera-Strength, but as his fist connected, the Bear recited a silent verse of Lamentations. Silas felt his strength drain into the earth. The Bear's claws, made of "Guilt-Iron," sank into Silas's shoulder, dragging him toward the "Pit of Judgement" opening in the soil.
"Silas!" Elara shouted. She dove toward him, her hands glowing with Void-Fire. She intercepted the Lion-Eagle, her wings clashing against its golden feathers with the sound of a thousand swords breaking.
The battle intensified as the Vatican reached for the origin of all things.
"In the beginning... let there be light!" (Genesis 1:1-3)
This wasn't a flashlight. It was the Light of the First Day—a raw, uncurated energy that existed before the sun. It began to dissolve Silas's very atoms. His Aether-skin began to flake off like ash.
"You cannot exist in the First Light, Abomination!" Malachi screamed. "You are a creature of the 'After,' a mistake in the sequence!"
Silas felt his right eye the charcoal-black Void eye begin to weep black ink. The Void within him was terrified of the First Light. It wanted to hide.
"No," Silas whispered, his teeth cracking under the pressure. "The Void was there before the Light. The Dark was the canvas!"
He reached into the Jade Heart and forced his Void-Taint to merge with the fragment. He didn't fight the Light; he swallowed it. He became a "Black Hole" of Mythic energy, his silhouette standing out against the First Light like a thumbprint on the face of God.
The Paladins realized their individual verses weren't enough. They formed a "Cross-Formation," their voices merging into the Gospel of Matthew.
"For as the lightning cometh out of the east, and shineth even unto the west; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be." (Matthew 24:27)
A bolt of "True Lightning" pure, white, and carrying the weight of Divine Judgement—descended from the clouds. It was aimed directly at Elara, who was currently occupied with the Four Beasts of Daniel.
"ELARA!" Silas screamed.
He didn't have time to move. He used his Zeus-Static to leap, putting his own body between the Divine Lightning and the woman he loved.
The bolt hit him with the force of a collapsing galaxy.
His armor vanished. His skin charred. His one good eye clouded with blood. He fell like a stone, the Jade Heart clattering into the mud beside him.
As the Paladins moved in for the "Coup de Grace," reciting the Requiem for the Fallen, the atmosphere of the entire Japanese archipelago changed.
The "Scripture-Air" of the Vatican was suddenly pushed aside by a smell of Old Mead, Wet Fur, and Ozone.
BOOM.
A hammer made of star-metal crashed into the ground between Silas and the Paladins, creating a crater a hundred yards wide. The "Divine Light" of the Vatican flickered and died, replaced by a jagged, blue-gold electricity that didn't come from the Bible—it came from the World Tree.
"That's quite enough poetry for one night," a voice boomed from the clouds.
Standing over Silas's broken body was a giant of a man with red hair and eyes like a winter storm. He gripped the handle of the hammer, his knuckles white. Beside him, a lean man in green silk played with a golden dagger, his eyes full of a dangerous, clever light.
Thor and Loki.
"The Word is strong," Thor said, looking at Father Malachi. "But the Hammer is heavier."
Loki looked at Elara, who was still standing, her violet aura defiant even in the face of the Norse Gods. "And the girl... she has the fire of the Old Abyss. I think we'll keep them both."