Chapter 46
ARAN
There is a sound the leylines make right before the fail.
It’s not audible—not truly—but I hear it anyway. A pressure shifts behind my eyes. A tightening in my chest. A low ringing. Like the moment before a storm breaks, when the air becomes too heavy to breathe. I’ve been awake for three days straight. Possibly four. Time has stopped behaving properly.
The cavern is dim, lit only by arcane glyphs glowing faintly along the stone walls. Maps are scattered around me—realms layered atop realms, glowing threads of power weaving between them. The leylines pulse, thin and strained, like veins under too much pressure.
I stabilise one. For six seconds. Then it collapses. I slam my palm down on the floor, teeth gritting as the glow fractures and dies again.
“Again,” I mutter.
Elyistria eyes Sariya warily, both of them looking just as exhausted as me. But I’m not ready to stop. Not yet. My hands shake as I pull the spell back together, sweat slicking my palms. The magic answers reluctantly, threading itself back into place.
Five seconds. Then four. Then nothing. The line snaps. The air cracks. I fall back, my vision swimming. This isn’t random. It hasn’t been for a while.
At first, it thought it was brute force. Pressure. A siege from the outside, like too much magic pushing against old systems that can no longer hold this kind of strain.
But now? I see it. The timing is way too precise. The failures come in waves. Measured and spaced perfectly. They aren’t trying to break the leylines. They’re letting us exhaust ourselves trying to hold them.
They’re testing us. Probing us towards madness. Learning how long we can endure before we inevitably surrender like prey.
My stomach twists violently as the realisation settles. “They’re allowing the failures,” I whisper.
“What?” Sariya asks.
The thought makes my skin crawl. If they wanted the leylines gone already, with the Six’s power, they’d already be ash. I know that now. What they’re doing instead is worse. They’re bleeding us dry, forcing us to react.
I drag a hand down my face, fingers catching in my unkempt hair. “They’re letting us burn ourselves out. Testing our endurance,” I mutter, dropping my head on a heavy sigh.
Sariya and Elyistria sit beside me, both breathing heavily from overexertion. I may be the one channelling the power, but it’s their power being used. I’d feel bad, but the civilians need to get out.
Civilians. The word sits heavy in my chest. Children who don’t know how to hold a blade. Elders too frail to wield magic. Entire families who have never seen war, who believe the wards still mean safety.
I’ve been trying to find a realm. Just one.
Somewhere stable. Somewhere far enough removed that could take them before fighting truly begins.
There isn’t one. Every path I trace ends the same way: compromised, vulnerable, too slow to evacuate.
If war breaks fully now, the civilians will die first. Not soldiers.
Not gods. The ones who can’t run fast enough. The ones who can’t defends themselves.
My hands curl into fists, the simmering anger bubbling into desperate rage. I can feel the crack forming inside me. The slow, inevitable fracture of a man realising there are no good choices left.
“Fuck,” I breathe.
I sink back against the stone wall, staring at all the maps strewn across the dark space.
“Y’know,” Lucifer’s voice cuts in lazily, “you’re going to pull something if you keep glaring like that.”
I don’t bother to look up. “Now is not the time.”
“It rarely is,” he replies, unbothered. I hear him shift, the faint scrape of his boots against the stone. “But since you’re currently spiralling in a very quiet, terrifying way, I figured I’d interrupt.”
I finally lift my head. Lucifer is leaning against one of the walls, arms folded loosely across his chest. He looks… casual. Annoyingly so. Dark clothes, relaxed posture, that infuriatingly unreadable expression.
“How long have you been standing there?” I ask.
“Long enough to know you’ve hit the wall. And that you’ve burned two goddesses out to the point they’ve fallen asleep.”
My head whips to Sariya and Elyistria, noticing the two goddesses resting against each other, both softly snoring. Guilt hits me. I’ve had them at this for hours on end, day in, day out. They’ve not complained once, they’ve just tried again and again, every time I’ve asked.
I exhale sharply, looking back at Lucifer. “Then you know we’re out of time.”
His brow raises. “I do,” he says. “Good news is, I might have a solution.”
I scoff. “Unless you’ve discovered a hidden, untouched realm immune to divine interference, I doubt it.”
“Gehenna has space.”
The words hit the room, and I can’t seem to bring myself to respond. Silence stretches between us, thick with tension.
I stare at him, finally able to force out a sentence. “Say that again.”
Lucifer straightens. Not in a defensive or amused way. He’s serious.
“Not the pits,” he says immediately. “Not the public sectors. Deep beneath Hell, I have old vaults. Pre-war structures. They’re shielded and mostly forgotten. They’ve not been using in millennia.”
My mind races. Gehenna. The last place anyone would think to look for refugees.
“It’s ugly,” he continues evenly. “It’s dark. There’s no sunlight. But it’s fortified. Buried beneath layers of stone and warding even the Divine Six would have to work to crack.”
I stand slowly, every muscle tight.
“You’re offering protection,” I say carefully.
“Yes.”
This isn’t any form of leverage. I can see it in his face. There’s no angle, no trick, no hidden cost. He’s offering genuine protection.
Understanding dawns, and with it, something dangerously close to relief.
“Maelkar’s turning you soft,” I mutter.
A corner of his mouth twitches. “Don’t tell him,” Lucifer replies dryly. “I’ve spent eons cultivating a reputation.”
I huff out a breath that’s half-laugh, half-exhaustion. “You know this makes you a target.”
He shrugs. “I’ve always been one.”
I look back at the map. At the now dead lines.
“I’ve started clearing it out,” Lucifer continues. “We’ll speak to Daisy and have her staff help my lower demons in creating a space that can feel as… homely as possible. Vailith is going to bring the children and help with schooling.”
He pauses for a moment, almost looking self-conscious. “It won’t be perfect. But I will do my best to make sure our civilians feel safe and at peace.”
I know he feels uncomfortable showing vulnerability. Lucifer is notoriously known for being the most ruthless bastard in this realm, aside from Korithax. I mean, he tortures people for a living. So I decide to give him reprieve from his head.
“Begin evacuations,” I say quietly. “Children first. Then non-combatants. Quietly, without panic. We can continue to build it into something akin to home once they’re inside.”
Lucifer inclines his head. “I’ll start straight away.”
As he turns to leave, I let myself breathe properly for the first time in what feels like centuries. Gehenna has bought us time. Not permanent safety, because when the wards fall, nowhere will be safe forever.
I don’t go to my chambers to rest.
Instead, I follow the sound of steel on steel.
The training grounds are impossible to miss.
The air itself seems to vibrate as I approach.
Shouts, hellfire, the crack of lightning, the low thunder of thousands of boots striking earth in unison.
When I step through the final archway, the sheer scale of it all hits me like a physical force.
There are so many of them. Thousands upon thousands of soldiers fill the expanded grounds, spilling far beyond where the original walls once stood.
The space has been reshaped—widened, reinforced, carved open by Vor’Khar’s brute power—but even that almost isn’t enough to contain what’s gathered here.
Something eases in my chest as the sight. They’re training together. Not in neat, segregates lines by realm, but interwoven. Mixed. Learning each other’s rhythms, strengths, weaknesses. Learning how to survive side by side.
From Fjellheim Heights, storm-wielders move like living tempests.
Lightning arcs between raised palms, controlled bursts cracking against reinforced shields as wind whips around their feet, lifting sand and sweat-damp hair alike.
Frost clings to the edges of their armour, the air around them humming with restrained power.
Solaran soldiers blaze nearby, sunlight spilling from their hands in focused strikes.
Sunfire blooms and retracts with disciplined precision.
White-gold flames scorching targets without spreading, heat rippling visibly through the air.
Their armour gleams, reflecting the light back into the ring like miniature suns.
Stormravan’s warriors are something else entirely.
Earth rises at their command—stone walls erupting from the ground only to be shattered moments later by crushing blows.
Vines and roots snake up from beneath the sand, ensnaring opponents before dissolving back into dust. Their magic is heavy and ancient. It feels alive.
And then there’s Aurora’s Veil. Duskwalkers slip in and out of visibility, darkness clinging to them like a second skin.
Shadows stretch unnaturally long, swallowing bodies whole before releasing them again.
Illusions flicker at the edge of perception—false openings, phantom enemies, shifting terrain meant to disorient and exhaust.
And between them all—the soldiers without magic wielding abilities hold their ground just as fiercely.
Blades forged from Hell’s steel flash beside Fjellheim-crafted spears.
Stormravan war-hammers ram into shields etched with runes from Luminaria.
Weapons hum with enchantments layered so carefully, they don’t interfere with one another.
All proof of long nights spent forging cooperation, not just arms.