IMMORTAL SLAYER

The battlefield was still.

No screams.

No fire.

Only the wind, whispering through shattered stone and scorched feathers.

Gabriel sat alone beneath the twisted tree where the Mirror of Ruin first appeared. His blade rested in the dirt. His hands were stained—not with blood, but with stardust. The remnants of a god's intervention.

He hadn't spoken since the old man left.

Merlin approached quietly, his staff now a cane more than a weapon. His age showed—more than usual. His eyes carried the weight of too many lifetimes.

"He didn't just save us," Merlin said. "He marked you."

Gabriel didn't look up. "Marked me for what?"

"To choose," Merlin replied, sitting beside him. "The universe doesn't fear Lucifer. It fears potential."

Gabriel ran a hand through his hair, sweat and ash clinging to his fingers.

"I saw myself," he murmured. "Not twisted. Not corrupted. Just… right."

Merlin turned to him.

"Right?"

Gabriel nodded slowly. "I wasn't evil. I just… stopped trying to be good for others. I ruled. I burned only what stood in my way. And I was worshipped."

A long silence passed.

Then Nyra appeared, bruised but alive, dropping beside them. She handed Gabriel a flask. "You scared the hell out of me, you know."

Gabriel smirked faintly. "Wasn't exactly a day at the beach for me either."

Aziel joined, limping but grinning. "Well, we didn't die. Always a good day when the godlike cosmic elder vaporizes the problem."

They laughed.

It was dry. Broken. But it was real.

For the first time in a while, it felt human.

Then Nyra's tone softened. "What did he mean… about the god you might become?"

Gabriel didn't answer right away. He looked at the tatum again—silent now, dull. But in its reflection, he saw not a boy, not a warrior.

He saw choice.

Finally, he said:

"I think he meant I'm not just fighting the Fallen…"

"I'm fighting the future."

Elsewhere.

Deep beneath the world.

Lucifer stood at the center of a spiraling chamber, flames licking the walls like living serpents.

Medussa knelt before him, her body trembling—not in fear, but rage.

"You let him touch your soul," Lucifer said, voice sharp.

She gritted her teeth. "He offered mercy."

Lucifer leaned close.

"And mercy," he whispered, "is the seed of betrayal."

He turned to a vast obsidian mirror, cracked at its heart.

"Then it's time," he said.

"Unseal him."

A shadow stepped forward from the dark. Not angel. Not god.

Something worse.

Lucifer grinned.

"The world fears the Starforger. But what comes next… will make him look like a bedtime story."