Ball of Nothing

Chapter 194 Halo of Heaven

Uriel was startled to feel that pull through his soul bond. Likewise, Raphael dropped his pitcher of water when he felt it. Michael froze and took a hit to his shoulder during a sparring session. Gabriel woke up from his nap and tumbled out from a cloud.

Once upon a time, there were five powerhouses in Heaven. They were very close brothers who rose up the ranks together and suffered through good and bad times. They shared a soul bond through a ritual, a bond that had been tested by the civil war. The star brothers of heaven fell when one of them stopped shining and hid in the shadows of the Abyss. With one missing, the shining light that helped guide the lost and weak vanished. It was a spectacular sight to see all four archangels with their glowing halo. For the longest time, everyone wondered why none of those four archangels had halos. The glowing lights caught the attention of many Gods in Heaven, including Gaia.

"Why now of all times...?" Uriel asked and cried, opening his eyes for the first time in a few centuries.

Gabriel forgot how to use his wings from the overwhelming sensation. His tears brought on sun showers all over Earth as he crashed into Gaia’s tree of life. "Curse you, Luci..."

Michael clutched at his heart and stabbed his sword into the ground in order to support his weight. It was as if his soul brother had never left at all. The heart he thought he buried along with their past was beating loud and clear inside of his chest, threatening to burst out from its confines. The archangel let a heart wrenching scream tear from his throat. His howls brought forth thunder upon the lands below.

Raphael’s glowing halo brought forth the gentle sunlight after the showers and storms created by his brother. He wasn’t spared from the effects of feeling their rekindled bond. Tears fell from his eyes and the archangel prayed reverently to Isis for the blessed reunion. Whatever it was, Lucifer would always be one of them. He was only so happy to accept his brother’s tug at the bond.

Everywhere on Earth, people saw a five-coloured rainbow in a full circle in the sky surrounding the sun. It was a phenomenon that would be forever recorded into history. According to the bards, that was known as the halo of Heaven and they weren’t wrong. In Half Moon village, the lab members gathered around to study it. The halo of Heaven lasted for a solid hour and Raj had an inkling Zero had something to do with it.

"Well then," Grandma Moppo smiled. "We’ll just have to ask him about the stories of his adventure, won’t we?"

Nobody objected.

***

Lucifer couldn’t believe it. His soul brothers responded quickly to his calling. He didn’t know if they would after the horrible things he did. If it were him, Lucifer wasn’t so sure that he would have been so ready to forgive himself if he were in their shoes. Michael’s appearance meant a lot to him.

"Why...?" he asked.

Uriel smiled. It was probably the first time anyone had ever heard Lucifer sounding so lost and unsure of himself.

"Isn’t it obvious? The star can only shine when all the pillars are present. We may have our grievances but that doesn’t stop us from being brothers. We heard your calling and so we answered."

Lucifer’s greying hair faded into a shimmering platinum blond. His horns cracked and fell away. In its stead, was a golden halo. His hidden bat wings unfurled and started shedding like broken pieces of leather. Uriel watched Lucifer’s transformation silently as a new pair of skeletal wings grew after the leathery wings disintegrated. The Demon Lord bit back his scream and endured the pain of new wings being grown from his bones, tearing through muscles and flesh.

The new wings ripped themselves from Lucifer’s back and manifested as ugly skeletal structures covered in black blood. Unlike his soul brothers, Lucifer’s new wings were covered in soft black feathers. Not all of Lucifer’s demonic features were removed even after the reawakening. His fingers remained claw-like and his magic type still inclined more towards the dark. His coal black eyes were now its original shade of sparkling ocean blue.

Gabriel waited until Lucifer was well enough to stand. There was a famous saying among the angels when Michael and Lucifer were still inseparable. Michael was like the sun and Lucifer was like the moon. Now that Lucifer had regained most of his former glory after reawakening, it would be easy to mistake them for twins.

"Welcome back," Michael greeted. Lucifer didn’t return the greeting. His blue eyes reflected shame, guilt and sorrow.

"I am not worthy."

Uriel was the first to place his hand on Lucifer’s shoulder. "We have long forgiven you. None of our fallen brothers put any blame for what has happened. We made that decision together and chose our sides."

Knowing that Uriel and Raphael were the more emotional brothers, Gabriel chose to get straight to the point. If Lucifer had such a strong calling, it could only mean that he was in somewhat of a dire situation.

"Brother, why have you called for us? We have all the time after this to catch up on lost time but I feel as if there is something of pressing urgency here."

Lucifer snapped out of his emotions and became tense at once. "That’s right," he said and held out his wrist.

Michael took a glance at the ominous looking ring of letters tattooed over Lucifer’s pristine skin and frowned. "It is fairly recent. Who has the audacity to use the forbidden language of fallen Gods?!"

Lucifer sighed and decided that it would be faster to share his memories with his soul brothers through their link. The flood of images through the archangels’ minds came as a shock but it wasn’t unwelcome. Through it, Gabriel understood why Lucifer has decided to call for them after all this time.

"I can understand why. Although it is slightly hurtful to know that it would take such dire circumstances for you to call on us, I will do what I can to assist. This child in your memories... Beel? He’s in trouble, isn’t he?" Raphael frowned.

"No, there is one more child in bigger trouble. Someone has to stop Baal first. Also, who is this unknown child with no soul? He’s... he’s going to devour the entire abyss if nobody stops him!" Uriel gasped from shock at the vision he saw.

"What child?" Lucifer asked anxiously. Was there really no way to save the abyss from falling apart?

"The child with brown hair and hazel eyes. He will suck everything into himself and become the destroyer of this plane if nobody stops him..."

Lucifer felt his blood freeze. "That’s Zero... you’re not serious, right?"

Uriel didn’t say anything and Michael decided that now would be a good time to take charge.

"Gab, see if you can rewrite that curse with your gift. Raph, you’re coming with me to find this Zero kid. Ur, keep us informed about your visions. We don’t’ know what will change. Luc, while Gab works on your wrist could you reach out to all your allies? It doesn’t matter who they are or what kind of truce we agreed on. It’s an emergency now, we will need all the help we can gather."

Nobody had time to refute or protest when Michael led. They fell into a comfortable rhythm and did as told, knowing exactly what they were in charge of. Lucifer hated to admit it but he missed this feeling of being able to trust his brothers and fighting alongside them instead of against them.

"Seraph, gather up and send down a fleet of Pegasus riders to the abyss now. Ignore the truce and call it off if you need to. The Abyss’ existence is at stake. Get Cherub to bring the Wizard God over, we need someone good with ancient magic. If possible, get the goddess of time and magic to send their avatars. Someone has to help stabilise the plane, we are going to stop this kid from devouring it."

From the headquarters in Heaven, Seraph blinked. "Kid?"

"No time for answers, just gather up the forces I need."

"Tell them it concerns Zero, Isis and Freya will come down personally if they knew the kid is Zero," Lucifer added and grimaced in pain as Gabriel worked on his curse.

Michael blinked at the strange statement but passed the message on regardless.

***

Baal certainly wasn’t ready for this. When Lucifer forcefully enlisted his services as a spy, he didn’t mean a spy in battle. The Demon Lord cursed. Whatever this crazy cult planned, was more troublesome than anything the dean had anticipated.

The Demon Lord certainly wasn’t planning on stumbling into the creepiest dungeon hidden beneath the academy. He was only shapeshifting into a mole to dig through the ground quicker seeing as Zero was somewhere underground in that direction. His encounter with this monstrosity wasn’t planned.

"Dang it!" he cursed as another wave of magical projectiles were aimed at him. Baal morphed quickly into a hummingbird to avoid them.

The Demon Lord chose to turn into a spider on the ceiling and suppressed his magical powers. That enormous portal or melted flesh, bones and blood groaned once more, searching for the intruder. Baal had never seen such an intricate setup before. He’d only heard of demonic rituals done by humans to open gateways for certain demons. He’d never heard of rituals to open a gateway from the abyss to a different plane for two main reasons.

Firstly, an offering from a higher plane can be made to a lower plane and not vice versa due to the law of Magic Tiers. Secondly, an equivalent value of life must be exchanged for the requested power. While many races have faced genocide in order to summon powerful demons from the abyss onto the material plane, it was unheard of for demons to be sacrificed for a more powerful being. Demons and Angels were on different sides of the same coin. Their existences were second only to Gods and Gods were not existences that could possibly be summoned.

Baal took his time to study the intricate magic circle drawn using the blood of various demons. He could see some of the remains of offered demon carcasses and felt ill. Some of those looked like failed attempts and to make matters worse, some of them felt recently alive.

"...lp... help..." an inhuman voice groaned and Baal swallowed. The Demon Lord did not dare to look in the direction of that plea.

"Help..." the voice came louder this time and Baal managed to avoid an attack in time.

"Help..." the voice came louder this time and Baal had to empty his stomach this time at the sight of the creature.

The creature didn’t have a body capable of moving. It was fused with the mirror and acted like a frame to it. The Demon Lord knew that he was looking at the guardian to this ritual gate. The guardian was nothing more than a melded pile of rotting meat slapped on with some severely mismatched organs ripped out from various demon species.

There was no doubt about it. Rhinestone had created a chimera capable of intelligence. If there was one thing for sure, Rhinestone outdid himself. The research about creating false souls have been going on without much conclusion in the Academy for centuries. The runes in the room pointed to something darker and forbidden even in the abyss. This wasn’t merely dark magic. Baal was certain about it. This was law magic that tied to the fate of a plane. It must have taken Rhinestone many centuries to figure out how to tie the lost magic to most of the ordinary races of the demon species as a mass sacrifice to power this gate.

"I need to report to Lucifer," Baal thought and dodged another attack. He barely missed this one and the Demon Lord thought he felt some sort of chill there. The guardian wasn’t attacking using ordinary elemental magic. Baal knew he was a bad match against soul magic. Time and void weren’t part of his domain.

At that moment, Zero’s magical aura spiked. Distracted, Baal lost his focus and was taken by surprise. The chimera grinned as it dug its ghostly talons into Baal’s chest, dragging his spirit out of his body. The Demon Lord fought hard but couldn’t resist the powerful lull of sleep. His struggles ceased completely when the guardian entrapped his spirit into the mirror.

As Baal’s vessel fell lifelessly onto the ground, the magic circle and ancient runes came to life. The guardian trembled and roared as power flooded its system.

From the dean’s office, Uriel cried in fear. "The end is here!"

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