Deep within the palace lay a colossal pool of magma, surrounded by congealed lava, red-hot chains, and blood-spattered torture implements.
This was where Bel had once imprisoned Zariel, but it now served as her bedchamber, and the fallen angel sat at its very center.
Her eyes were closed and her wings folded close as she sat upon an iron throne forged of blades and fiendish bones. Wrapped in hellfire, she radiated the dreadful majesty of Avernus.
Zariel had already projected most of her power into the Material Plane; leaving her true form in Avernus served only to maintain the tether between the two realms.
At this moment, the clash of wills between Avernus and the Material Plane raged fiercely, having reached a fever pitch. All of Avernus shuddered continuously as the earth split open and volcanoes erupted, claiming the lives of countless lemures in the cataclysm.
And as the signatory of this "Fall to Hell" pact, Zariel had to bear the crushing weight upon her body, mind, and very soul alone—to say nothing of her avatar locked in combat against Cassius.
"Scorched earth cleaves rivers, iron cities cradle flame; bones pile into mountains, blood gathers into a sea; eternal night without rest..."
An infernal hymn resonated. Had an ordinary devil dared trespass, they would have been seized by the power of Avernus before they could even draw near, their soul branded to become Zariel's eternal thrall.
Yet Bel was, after all, a mighty pit fiend, a former Lord of Avernus endowed with an indomitable will.
"The Throne of Avernus..."
Bel gazed toward the throne strewn with bones and swords. His eyes, like globes of molten rock, betrayed no fear, gleaming instead with boundless greed, as though picturing himself seated upon it once more.
Green venom dripped from the corners of his mouth, sizzling as it ate pits into the stone floor.
Nearly a thousand years ago, Bel had been the highest-ranking warlord under Zariel. Plotting in secret with Mephisto and Baalzebul, he had staged a coup without hesitation, betraying his mistress to become the new ruler of Avernus.
Several centuries ago, due to failures in the Blood War, Asmodeus, Lord of the Nine Hells, stripped him of his rank and reinstated Zariel, reducing Bel to a stray dog cast out into the wastes.
What Bel regretted most was not his betrayal, but that he had failed to find a way to kill Zariel after it, having only imprisoned her.
And now, Bel had finally returned, beholding once more the seat that had haunted his dreams.
"The Throne of Avernus..."
Bel glared fixedly at the fallen angel nearby, laughing maniacally as he muttered to himself, "Hahaha, Zariel! That seat belongs to me after all—"
His voice grew more impassioned, swelling into a thunderous roar. "And forever will be!"
Before his words had even settled, Bel beat his massive, bat-like wings and hoisted his flaming greatsword, lunging straight for Zariel.
Clang—!
In an instant, the infernal forbidden wards Zariel had laid across the chamber were activated. Countless infernal chains burst from the magma like giant vipers, lashing toward Bel.
Yet Bel was fully prepared. With a sweeping slash of his blade, the infernal chains were severed cleanly in unison.
Right behind them, crimson thunder crashed down with a roar, and raging torrents of fire surged forward as boundless infernal power condensed into lethal, poisonous fumes, threatening to engulf the pit fiend.
This was a devastating infernal forbidden spell, powerful enough to reduce any intruder to dust and ash.
Yet Bel had waited centuries for this very moment, thoroughly prepared for every defense.
The twelve angelic heads adorning his belt opened their mouths wide. Filled with bitter hatred, they unleashed piercing shrieks, releasing eerie ripples of force that dispersed the surrounding lightning and flames entirely.
Bel snapped his wings, shooting forward like an arrow released from a bowstring. Space twisted under the collision of energies; unable to wait another second, the pit fiend shattered over a dozen blood-red barriers in an instant, arriving directly before Zariel.
"Hahaha! Zariel, at last! At long last, I can—"
With a ripple in space, Bel drew a longsword from the void.
Forged of celestial steel, the blade shone brilliant silver, etched with intricate engravings. It emitted a faint radiance and a crisp hum, radiating a holy energy starkly at odds with the depths of Hell.
This was the Sword of Zariel—the weapon she had wielded when she was still an angel. After her fall, the sacred blade had changed hands many times before finally falling into Bel's grasp.
Merely grasping the hilt made Bel's palm sizzle, searing blackened wounds into his flesh.
Yet Bel smiled with grim exhilaration, roaring at the top of his lungs, "—kill you with my own two hands!"
The runes inscribed upon the Sword of Zariel flared to life, casting a light potent enough to make any devil shudder.
Gripping the longsword in both hands, heedless of his burning flesh, Bel thrust it toward Zariel's chest like an executioner, without the slightest hesitation.
Her breastplate of infernal iron shattered instantly. The blade plunged through flesh, piercing Zariel's heart.
The Hell Lord's eyes snapped open, a breathtaking brilliance flashing within her golden pupils.
"Bel! You—how dare you collude with outsiders—!" Zariel's roar shattered the brimstone rocks for a hundred feet around. Crimson lightning struck down from above as torrents of hellfire surged in from every direction.
"You defy the grand will of the Lord of the Nine Hells! You will pay the price!"
Such was Zariel's wrath; such was the fury of the Lord of Avernus!
Yet Bel had long made up his mind, and nothing could sway him.
Facing the suffocating, cataclysmic onslaught, the pit fiend gritted his teeth in a savage grin and bellowed, "Farewell, Zariel! That red dragon will tear your soul to pieces!"
Veins bulged along Bel's arms. With a ferocious burst of strength, he drove the holy sword all the way into her heart.
Splrt—!
The edge tore through her flesh.
As though sensing the fall of its master, mournful wails echoed across the entire sky.
The earth shook violently, and the blood-red canopy trembled as though a monstrous leviathan were descending. Across the plane, nearly every devil raised their head, gazing uneasily into the heavens.
They knew that in Avernus, the skies were shifting once again.
...
The Material Plane.
Auguste, Kingdom of Thrace.
In the sky, a bloodshot eye opened upon the black sun. Blood-red rifts crisscrossed the heavens, spewing devils like an endless tide.
Beneath the crimson glow, the red dragon's massive form rose and fell like a scarlet mountain with every breath. Beneath him yawned a crater a hundred meters across.
Cassius pinned Zariel firmly into the earth with his talons, continuously increasing the pressure until the bedrock cracked and groaned beneath them.
Zariel coughed up a mouthful of dark red blood, her voice raspy. "Red dragon, I am the commander of the Blood War... Kill me... and you will shatter the balance of the cosmos. The consequences will be unthinkable...
"And... the Lord of the Nine Hells will never spare you..." Her words came in labored, ragged gasps.
"Do you truly believe you are irreplaceable?"
Cassius shook his head with a sinister sneer. "When it comes down to it, you're merely a blade that Asmodeus finds convenient to wield. The moment someone can do a better job, he won't hesitate to discard you."
"No... impossible! None of you understand the nature of the Blood War!" Zariel's voice strained with emotion.
Yet moments later, she froze as if struck by lightning. Her wings drooped limp and powerless, the strength within her ebbing at terrifying speed.
"How can this be..."
Zariel's expression locked in disbelief. She looked down to see an ethereal, silvery blade protruding from her chest—it was the Sword of Zariel, the weapon from her days as a solar.
What had befallen her true body in Hell had now manifested upon the Material Plane. Zariel struggled desperately, grasping for one final chance at survival, but Cassius would grant her no such reprieve.
"Looks like my ally couldn't wait any longer," Cassius grinned, keeping Zariel pinned firmly to the ground before extending the claw fitted with the vorpal sword.
"Zariel, do you know what your greatest mistake was?"
Schwing—!
Without waiting for an answer, Cassius drove his talons downward. From them erupted the silvery-white Flame of Order and the sacred radiance of the heavens.
The vorpal sword at his claw-tip thrust deep into Zariel's chest, her blood instantly vaporizing into dark red steam amidst the holy light.
"Your greatest mistake was standing before me—standing in the way of the Cinder Empire's advance..." Cassius said indifferently.
Boom—!
Thunder boomed across the sky in a deafening crescendo. The moment the sword tip touched her heart, the angelic essence once suppressed by the Lord of the Nine Hells erupted forth.
The soot-blackened holy script on Zariel's breastplate blazed with light like ten thousand rays of dawn piercing dark clouds, and the chains bound around her sky-burning, tattered wings shattered one by one.
Her pupils shed their sulfurous taint, briefly revealing the azure clarity of a solar.
"This is..."
Amidst the searing agony, countless visions flashed before Zariel's eyes:
She saw herself shining radiantly atop Mount Celestia; she saw her grief and outrage at the slaughter of innocent lives in the Blood War; she saw her resolute determination as she plummeted into Hell.
Back then, she had sworn to end that eternal torment and bring a brighter future to the cosmos, fearless even if it meant descending into Hell...
Yet soon, Zariel also saw cities burning beneath her iron tread, tens of thousands of mortals weeping under her atrocities, and innocent souls howling in agony under her scourge...
She saw countless wretched sights, many no less horrific than the Blood War itself.
The lingering celestial spirit stirred the last embers of her conscience as an angel.
"So... this is my... atonement..." Zariel gave a miserable laugh, clasping the blade piercing her chest and letting the holy light sear her palms.
Shhk—!
With a sudden burst of strength, Zariel drove the blade completely through her own heart.
Hellfire and sacred flame clashed, resisted, and annihilated each other, spawning a vortex of fire a hundred meters wide. Beneath the turbulence of energy, her body gradually crystallized, large portions dissolving into the air.
"Tell Bel..." In her final moments, the dying Zariel sneered at the red dragon before her. "In Hell... there are no victors."
At last, the fallen angel's body turned completely to ash, scattering on the wind and leaving behind only a single crimson crystal—the Infernal Core, a bizarre substance formed from the condensed soul of a Hell Lord.
Cassius picked up the crystal with his claw and swallowed it into the extradimensional space within his stomach. Then, beating his wings, he kicked up a scorching gale and soared into the sky.
With Zariel dead, the link between Avernus and the Material Plane could no longer be maintained. The black sun in the sky wept tears of blood and slowly shut its eye.
As space warped, the black sun blurred, twisted, and vanished into thin air.
The entire Material Plane seemed to rejoice.
The dark clouds blanketing the heavens suddenly dispersed, the spatial rifts slowly sealed shut, and the crimson glow faded, replaced by the boundless radiance of the sacred sun.
The devils locked in battle sensed the change at once.
"No—this is bad! Lady Zariel has been slain!"
"By the Lord of the Nine!"
The bodies of lesser devils—lemures and imps—fractured like brittle pottery. Screaming, they fled toward the hellish rifts, dissolving into ethereal phantoms.
"Th-this is impossible! How could Lady Zariel die?! How could she fall?!" Pit fiends struggled frantically and bellowed in rage, but it was all in vain.
The Gates of Hell slowly parted, and countless chains reached out from the void, dragging their forms back into the Nine Hells.
Compared to the lesser devils, these mighty pit fiends were even more terrified and rattled, their expressions warped with despair.
For they knew that if Bel reclaimed the throne, Avernus would undergo a top-to-bottom purge. Their status, power, and even their very lives would likely vanish in the bloodbath.
What was more, many among Zariel's inner circle were the very "heroes" who had taken part in overthrowing Bel.
Within the city of Auguste, the Holy Guard—now deprived of their master—began to burn, gradually collapsing into charred humanoid remains while even their wings crumbled to ash and drifted on the breeze.
Thus, in a matter of minutes, all the devils near Auguste vanished from the Material Plane, leaving behind only scorched earth and utter ruin.
The radiance of the sacred sun poured across the land, illuminating the scarred and battered earth. Congealed lava lay everywhere around the city of Auguste.
The Imperials and Thracians, catching their breath after the brutal slaughter against the devil legion, raised their heads in unison to look toward the sky.
"Amaunator be praised..."
"That's... it's His Majesty Cassius!"
"He slew the devil! He ended the catastrophe and brought us light!"
"Long live the great red dragon! His Majesty Cassius is the true Sun King!"
High above, the red dragon seemed to cradle the blazing sun in his jaws as he beat his wings. His red-gold scales gleamed brilliantly in the sunlight, the shimmering halo tracing his silhouette and imbuing him with an aura of supreme divinity.
Cassius roared to the heavens, "So long as I endure, Auguste shall forever bask in the radiance of the sun!"
"Long live the Empire!"
"Long live His Majesty Cassius!"
Instantly, bathed in the sunlight, almost everyone present—man and woman, young and old, of every race—erupted into euphoric cheers. Many wept tears of joy, overwhelmed with emotion.
After enduring the despair of the black sun eclipsing the heavens, they felt boundless reverence for this Emperor who had delivered Auguste from the clutches of Hell.
The shouts rose and fell, swelling wave after wave, echoing ceaselessly across the land.
Cassius looked down upon the earth with his pale golden pupils, feeling a surging torrent of faith power rise and pour into his body.
Fresh lines of text materialized on his character panel:
Pactbreaker
"You tear asunder Hell's most ancient parchment pacts and pass judgment upon infernal authority with a mortal form; every crack upon the Hellish Crown is an inscription of your glorious deeds."
Chapter 715