The wastewater tunnel was a claustrophobic ribbon of darkness, punctuated only by the drip of stagnant water and the sound of their ragged breathing. The Saint moved ahead of Lyra, Sanctus held low, the blade's crimson light barely cutting through the gloom.
The sword was a perfect extension of his will, but the process of reforging it had cost him dearly. The collapse of the Foundry Block, the battle with the Flight of Vultures, the confrontation with the Black Cardinal, and most acutely, the forced expenditure of his grace his divine core felt less like an engine and more like shrapnel encased in his chest. Every move was a fresh spike of agony.
He was the Executioner, stumbling.
"Left here," Lyra's voice was steady behind him, cutting through the pain. "There's a utility ladder up ahead. It bypasses the lower processing grid."
He trusted her. She was a native to this dark maze, navigating by instinct and the embedded knowledge of the city's underbelly. He was eternal, but she was sharp, resourceful and terrifyingly alive.
They reached the ladder. The Saint pulled himself up onto the narrow catwalk. As he reached the top, the agony in his shoulder where the Aegis Hand's energy pulse had grazed him flared. He didn't flinch, but a low, involuntary hiss escaped his lips.
Lyra reached the catwalk and immediately noticed the wound. "You're bleeding. It's internal, not skin deep."
"It's nothing," he dismissed, turning away. Mortal wounds were beneath his notice. It was the damage to his essence that mattered.
"It's not nothing. That's Seraphiel's sanctified pulse. It's dissolving your residual tissue."
She stepped forward, ignoring his warning posture. Before he could stop her, she reached out and pressed a palm, not against the wound itself, but the surrounding muscle. Her hand was small, warm, and utterly mortal.
The effect was instantaneous and devastating.
A cold, fierce fire the agony of their Forbidden Love exploded from his skin. Every nerve ending screamed. He felt the familiar, terrible widening of the fissure in his core the ultimate sacrifice of his sanctity.
He clenched his teeth, ready to shove her away, to retreat from the destructive intimacy.
But beneath the searing, familiar pain, something else occurred. Something unprecedented.
The furious, frantic thrumming of his shattered core began to stabilise. The pain was still there, but the cracking stopped. Lyra's touch wasn't just burning his soul; it was somehow, paradoxically, knitting the fragments of his grace back together.
The Fragment. Her soul carried the last piece of Eden's Flame, a force capable of healing angels or destroying them. He was experiencing both at once. Her love was his damnation, but her power was his temporary salvation.
He looked down at her, silver eyes wide with confusion and a terrifying comprehension.
Lyra, oblivious to the metaphysical war her touch was waging on his soul, held the pressure. "The heat is fading," she murmured, observing his skin with a detached focus. "I think the sanctified pulse is reacting to something in my system: Elemental disruption."
She was wrong. It wasn't elemental disruption. It was Eden.
The Saint pulled back sharply, more from terror than pain, the withdrawal snapping their terrifying connection. The stabilisation ceased, but the core did not immediately regress. He was stronger, but the cost was the realisation that he needed her.
Resistance. He had to keep her safe. Now, he had to keep her safe and keep her close. It was a fatal paradox.
"You understand the Cathedra's systems too well," the Saint said, the subject change abrupt, his voice strained. He needed facts to anchor him, not the terrifying truth of their shared spirit. "How did you blind the Cherubim Assault Drone?"
Lyra leaned against the damp wall. "I grew up near the Foundry Block. The entire region is running on decades-old corporate code. Cathedra just pasted a divine veneer over a rotten system. They use commercial drones, repackaged. The frequency jam is public domain."
She looked at him, her gaze direct and challenging. "I'm not cargo, Azael. I'm an asset. You need my knowledge; I need your blade."
He swallowed the forbidden name again, feeling the sharp, familiar protest in his chest. She was right. He couldn't leave her, not now. Not when her proximity was the only thing preventing his absolute collapse, and not when her knowledge of the city was their only advantage against Seraphiel's relentless pursuit.
"The Fragment," he said, pushing the subject. "The Aegis Hand said you carry 'The Fragment.' What do you know of your soul?"
Lyra leaned against the damp wall. "My soul? Nothing... The Fragment… I think it's why they want me. It's not just ancient power, is it? It's something that can change the game."
"It is a primal spark of creation," the Saint confirmed, the words heavy with forgotten liturgy. "It can rebuild an angel's power... or annihilate it entirely. Seraphiel wants to harness it. The Black Cardinal wants to give it to Lucifera, the Mother of Rebellion. Either way, you are the trigger to the new Apocalypse."
"Then we keep the trigger hidden," Lyra said simply. "Where are we going?"
The Saint moved to the end of the tunnel, pushing aside a rusted grate. A rush of cold, night air hit them, carrying the scent of oil and desperation.
They emerged into the skeletal remains of an abandoned metro station, a vast, echoing chamber known in the underground as The Serpent's Mouth. It was a nexus of tunnels, populated by the city's disenfranchised, the low-level criminal elements, and those who wished to vanish from the grid. It was hostile, but untraceable.
He looked back at Lyra, illuminated by the distant, sickly orange glow of the city's low-voltage emergency lighting. She was the paradox of his existence the source of his greatest pain, and the reason his fractured soul held together.
"We go silent," the Saint said, resting the hilt of Sanctus on the grimy floor. The blade's red light pulsed, casting a desperate halo around them both. "We find a safe space to rest, and we figure out why Heaven and Hell are racing to claim your power. Until then, you stay with me, Lyra. No matter the cost."
He accepted the fatal choice: damnation by proximity, or annihilation by distance. He chose her.