Chapter Two: The Queen's Pawn
Aetherium, the city of the angels, was a city of impossible light and perfect geometry. It did not stand on solid ground, but on a foundation of woven starlight, its ethereal spires and crystalline streets a testament to divine craftsmanship. The air here was not air at all, but a luminous, breathable energy that hummed with a sacred tranquility. From this floating metropolis, a thousand meters above the doomed world, the Archangels governed, their purpose to maintain order in the cosmos. In the central sanctum, a vast, circular chamber carved from a single, pulsating crystal, twelve figures knelt. Their forms were radiant, bodies of pure golden light, and their faces, though serene, held the weight of untold eons. These were the Archangels, the protectors of Aetherium and the masters of the Tower of Beginning.
A thousand years of silence shattered with a single, jarring sound. It was an alarm they had never heard before, a discordant chime that vibrated not just in their ears but in their very essence. The sound was a frantic, desperate scream from the heart of the Tower itself, a distress call that cut through the sanctum's tranquil hum like a blade. The Archangels stirred, their perfect forms flickering with profound shock.
"The Tower... it is silent," the Archangel Sariel, her voice a chorus of harmonies, stated, her luminous eyes wide with disbelief. The massive, swirling portal at the chamber's center—their link to the Tower and the world below—had gone dark, its connection severed.
"And the Angelic Guardian on the hundredth floor," another spoke, a deep, rumbling voice like distant thunder. "Its life force... it is gone. Snuffed out as if it never was."
A third Archangel, Uriel, whose presence burned with the fierce light of judgment, rose to his feet. His light intensified, a white-hot flame of fury and righteous indignation. "The Demon Lord has been unsealed," he declared, his voice a hammer blow of chilling certainty. "I can feel it. A corruption so old it predates our own ascension. The Ancient One."
The name hung in the air, a whisper of a forgotten nightmare. The Archangels fell into a stunned silence. They had always spoken of her as a legend, a contained threat, a footnote in their history. The Tower, after all, was meant to prevent this very outcome.
"But... how?" a fourth Archangel, a young male named Raphael, asked, his innocent face twisted with a dawning horror. His eyes, which held the wisdom of eons, were filled with a raw, visceral fear. "The Lord sealed her away. Only the last scion's death could weaken the seal, but even then, a trillion protections were in place! It was an unbreakable web of divine law and cosmic order!"
Uriel turned his burning gaze toward the dark, unresponsive portal. "The corruption... it has found a vessel. It has seized the scion's body. I can feel its presence growing stronger, usurping the champion's essence as we speak."
A silent panic spread through them all. The plan had been perfect, centuries in the making. The Tower was meant to prepare a champion, a scion with a pure bloodline, to ascend and become the new guardian, a replacement for the Lord's hand. But now, that champion was not a savior, but a new prison—a meat puppet for the very evil they had sought to contain.
"We have to act," Uriel commanded, his hands glowing with white-hot energy, his voice now a roar. "We will send an army. A legion of our finest warriors. We must re-seal the Ancient One before her power solidifies. We must tear her from that stolen vessel before it's too late!"
"No," Raphael interjected, his voice firmer now, cutting through Uriel's command. "It is a trap. That is what she wants. She will use the scion's body as a beacon, a lure. She knows we will come, and she is waiting. The last time, she fought a hundred of us. This time, with a vessel of her own… we would only play into her hands."
"What of the guardian?" another Archangel, a towering figure whose light shifted like an ancient forest, demanded, his voice laced with confusion. "I thought she was his right hand man, or did he die?"
The sanctum fell silent again. The question was a venomous barb, striking at the very foundation of their existence. The Angelic Guardian had been the Lord's final, perfect creation, a being of flawless order meant to enforce his will. For her to be defeated meant something terrible had happened, something beyond their comprehension. It implied the Lord himself had been either slain or was no longer present to protect his creation.
"He... he is... silent," Uriel admitted, his voice a low, gravelly whisper. "I can't feel his presence. The connection is severed, just as with the Tower."
The horror of the situation was palpable. Not only had the Demon Lord been unsealed, but their own creator and master might be gone. Their entire cosmic order was unraveling. A grim determination settled over them. They had to come to an agreement.
"Then what do we do?" Uriel asked, his burning light dimming slightly with frustration. "Do we stand here and wait for her to come for us?"
Raphael looked toward the portal, his gaze thoughtful, the millennia of his existence shining in his young eyes. "You are thinking too small, Uriel. We do not need a scion. The bloodline is extinct. She has seen to that. We need something else. Something… broken. A soul without a name, without a past. Something that the Ancient One would never notice."
He turned back to the others, a terrible, grim smile on his face. "She expects an army. She expects us to come in a blaze of glory, just as the other 'lords' did when they first sealed her away. But this time, we will send in a nameless one. We will plant the seed of a new champion, right under her nose. We will give this nameless one a fraction of our power, a whisper of a promise, and let the chaos begin."
Uriel's initial rage was replaced by a cold, tactical contemplation. The plan was audacious, a gamble of catastrophic proportions. It went against every instinct, every rule of their divine warcraft. But Raphael was right. They had no other choice. A direct assault would be suicide.
"And how will this... nameless one, defeat her?" Uriel asked, the skepticism heavy in his tone. "The last scion, armed with the ancestral sword, was obliterated."
"We will not ask them to defeat her," Raphael replied, his eyes now glinting with cunning. "We will ask them to survive. We will give them the tools to fight, to grow, to become a hero in a world that has no heroes left. We will let them fight a new kind of war, a guerrilla war against a cosmic evil who thinks she has already won."
The other Archangels were silent, contemplating the terrible risk. To send a nobody into the heart of the enemy, to play a long, desperate game of chess against a cosmic evil… it was madness. But with the world below weeping black tears and the Tower silent, it was the only madness they had left.
With a collective nod, they agreed. Raphael's plan would be put into motion. The fate of the world would not be decided by a grand battle, but by a silent, desperate prayer sent to a soul without a name. The Archangels prepared themselves, channeling their vast power not for a legion, but for a single, tiny spark of hope in a world already claimed by shadow.