Why the angels had brought Yosepha, Mia could not understand. But then, why had they played music and sung as a choir? What madness had driven them to make such a grandiose and pointless display? Maybe they’d thought to prove to Galon the weight of their intentions? Maybe they’d thought a show of strength would convince Mia to simply surrender? Or maybe the angels were simply archaic, and could only operate in methods as ridiculous as a choir announcing their approach, while literally carting around a display of their faith to their god.
Wherever God had gone to, they weren’t here. No one saved the angels as more of them were swept up in the hellfire. No one cared about the demons incinerated by the flames.
Mia cared, but the song could not be denied. The silent music drowned her, and her emotions, her desires, were but tiny fish in the waves.
The angels were quick to adapt. They risked the gale wings and flew higher and higher until their wings brushed the flames of the burning sky. Yosepha had told Mia they could withstand those flames, but not easily. Maybe they were retreating?
No, they weren’t. Gabriem took to the skies and trumpeted their horns, but other angels continued to navigate the maze of fire and death. Rapholem defended each other from the horde, and giant walls of gold fought against the winds and the shards of molten rock they carried. Mikalim dashed about, agile, and unleashed gold beams of light upon the masses, even as several came for Mia yet again.
She prepared to summon another wall. If she did, she would not be able to see Romakus and Julisa, and would not be able to guide the geyser of hellfire. But the angels did not know that, and they came down to her, swords pointed forward as if they themselves had been thrown at her like spears. Melee combat it was.
Vinicius stepped in front of her and slashed with his claws. The first angel went down, and while the child of Belial did not penetrate his armor, the angel hit the ground hard enough something inside the shell of silver and gold broke. They took to the sky again, one arm bending the wrong way at the elbow.
Three other mikalim changed targets from Mia to Vin, and all three set their swords alight with a golden glow. Mia could not watch, eyes locked on the field of flame and the two tetrads running to her, lest she kill them and Yosepha by accident. But the sound of battle raged beside her, and roars of pure bloodlust resonated in her skull as her bodyguard unleashed his new, healed body on the three angels.
“More!” Livian’s voice. Shadows and feathers announced the arrival of more angels, but Mia dared not risk looking. Not much longer. Romakus and Julisa were maybe thirty seconds away.
More battle erupted behind her as Livian joined the fight, as well as the rest of the Damall. Maybe the angels hadn’t expected a couple dozen demons to be hiding in the tunnel, but Livian and the others threw themselves into the fray, and the angels that came for Mia’s back found themselves in a new battle. Even lost to the call of the horde, the weaker demons knew to attack the angels and not her.
Another angel descended on them, a flicker of movement above Mia she couldn’t risk looking to. Another ten seconds. Just another ten seconds.
Ten seconds too long. The angel reached her, sword glowing, and swung it down.
The angel missed. Her sword unleashed a golden arc, an extension of her sword that shot forward, and it crashed against the ground beside Mia. Something… Someone collided with the angel midair, and again Mia could not dare risking a glance as she whipped the hellfire geyser around the field below. The newcomer roared.
She recognized that roar.
Julisa rushed forward, shrieking with fury as she unleashed her four swords upon the angels. Romakus held Yosepha to his chest with one arm, while his other swung his colossal sword about. Even with her eyes locked onto the destruction she summoned onto the field, Mia could see in the corner of her eyes how their assault forced the angels to back off.
No more angels came to join them. Mia released her grip upon her summoned weapon of destruction. The geyser of hellfire roamed free, and the twisting vortex grew fat on the death it wrought, spreading wide until the winds ripped angels from the sky and sent them in all directions. The fire tornadoes merged with the geyser, and the fire sky reached down to meet the ground, a maelstrom of flame and hellfire mixing and rendering the mountainside an inferno.
As Hell raged, no longer guided by Mia’s song, Mia also ceased the horde call. Had any demons survived? Movement in the Armageddon unfurling before was all a blur, shades of red and black lost in the flame. Many angels took to the sky, retreating, but far less than there had been before. And as the storm raged, content to sustain itself, more demons and holy warriors disappeared in the flames, screaming and roaring as it swallowed them.
It wasn’t stopping. Why wasn’t it stopping?
Mia spun around and pointed to the tunnel with her staff.
“Inside!” Was that her voice? It sounded more and more distant. “Julisa, grab Galon!”
No one argued. The angels took the moment to break free of the battle, including slicing at Vinicius to force him to drop an angel he was about to rip in two, but they retreated as well. A break in the battle, long enough for the demons to react, and they took to the tunnel.
The horde call was gone, Mia no longer plucking the strings to beckon the demons to attack her enemies, and the entity with her, deep in the ocean of vibrations, did not summon more demons. But it didn’t stop playing the song of the land, of the burning sky, the tornado of hellfire, of the apocalypse. And it sounded wonderful.
The Damall ran into the tunnel, Romakus with Yosepha in arm, Julisa with Galon, and Livian pushed back the rest of the Damall. The horde call may have been over, but many of the demons had unleashed their sin auras and were lost to the bloodlust. A powerful aura, nearly two dozen demons desperate to join the fight, and only the tetrads and the child of Belial were strong enough to resist that many auras.
And the sarkarin who’d saved Mia seconds ago.
The angel with the crooked wing swooped down again, and three angels followed her, ignoring the retreat of the rest of their army. A rapholem landed directly in front of Mia, blocking her from reaching the tunnel and the Damall and Vin, and before Vinicius could rip them in half, a giant wall of gold light exploded outward. Two other rapholem landed with them, and brought up two more walls of gold, all in Vinicius’s face, sealing him and the other demons in the tunnel, with Mia on the outside.
Vinicius threw himself against the walls, and they cracked, but did not break. Enough time for the angel with the crooked wing to dive upon Mia, and too close for Mia to summon a wall in time.