IMMORTAL SLAYER

A week passed.

Gabriel and the others traveled eastward toward the Cradle of Echoes—an ancient sanctuary said to reveal truths through sound alone. It was there Merlin believed the Starforger's final words could be interpreted.

But none of them could sleep.

Because something old was moving beneath the world. Something restless. Something… awake.

Meanwhile.

Lucifer stood at the center of the Infernal Crucible—a forge built before time, where matter obeyed will and reality cracked under ambition.

Chains made of souls hung from the ceiling.

A single name was etched in blood on the anvil of eternity.

Zareth.

Aziel had once whispered of it in a forgotten prayer. A being not born from light or shadow—but from absence. The only thing the gods feared more than each other.

Zareth had no form, no history.

Just hunger.

Lucifer raised his blade and whispered a ritual that tore the air apart. "From beyond the first silence… I call you."

The air shattered like glass.

And then—

It stepped through.

No body. Just presence. A figure so wrong the world around it wilted. Flowers turned to ash. Metal rusted. Reality bent.

Even Lucifer dropped to one knee, smiling like a madman. "You see now," he whispered. "Even the Starforger can't stop this."

The creature said nothing.

But the mirror at Lucifer's back cracked again.

And in Gabriel's dreams that night…

He saw it.

Standing at the edge of the sky.

Watching.

Waiting.

Back in the waking world—

They reached the Cradle.

A place of eternal resonance. Wind whistled through stone columns, forming whispers in dead languages. It was said only those who had touched the divine could hear what the Cradle truly said.

Gabriel stepped forward.

And the wind stopped.

Then—voices.

Hundreds. No, millions.

They didn't speak to him.

They screamed through him.

Visions assaulted his mind—worlds burning, gods falling, timelines collapsing under the weight of a name.

Zareth.

He fell to his knees, bleeding from his eyes.

Nyra caught him. "Gabriel!"

But his voice was not his own.

"He is coming…"

"The gods chained him in silence…"

"The Starforger failed…"

Gabriel's eyes burned gold, and for a moment, a third wing burst from his back—black, coiled with starlight and shadow.

Then it vanished.

And he collapsed.

Later.

He awoke beside the fire, Nyra holding his hand.

"You were gone," she whispered. "Not physically. But… something pulled you away."

Gabriel stared into the flames. "Zareth. That's the name. The one Lucifer unsealed."

Merlin paled. "That's impossible. That name—should not exist."

Gabriel turned toward him slowly.

"Then why," he said quietly, "is it echoing inside me?

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."