Chapter 182: Kaevian is alive?

Seraphel

I remembered this scene from the book. I had skipped so many Chapters carelessly back when I first read it, but this particular battle stuck with me, with one glaring difference. Seraphel was never part of it in the original story.

He was never meant to fight here. What I did remember was that the deities eventually allied with Pazuzu and the seven brothers against Draca, standing together against something none of them could face alone.

The moment I realized, back when it was still just words on a page to me, that this Chapter was a fight scene, I had skipped straight past it without a second thought. I never cared much for battles. Now I regretted that more than I expected to, because I had no idea how any of this actually ended.

Watching everyone fall into formation around me made the helplessness sink in deeper. If I had finished reading instead of skimming past the parts that bored me, I might have known how to actually help, instead of standing here, hidden away like something too fragile to touch.

"I will put a protective shield around you, so stay where you cannot be seen," Azriel said, pulling me into a corner of the cave. "You need to stay out of this. It is the only way I know how to keep you safe."

"I can fight," I said. "I cannot just stand here and do nothing."

Azriel pulled me into his arms instead of answering right away, holding me gently. "If I could, I would send you back to Katula this instant, but I have no idea what the Demon King intends, and keeping you close is the only way I can be certain you are all right. Please. Stay hidden. Do not come out, no matter what happens." He pulled back slowly. "Do not move from this spot. Taizel will strengthen the area around you, so stay there."

I wanted to argue, to tell him I could fight too, that I was the one Draca actually wanted, but instead I only nodded, folding my arms as I stood in the corner he had chosen for me.

"I love you," Azriel murmured, kissing my forehead. "Malachi will do everything in his power to protect you."

"I love you too," I answered.

He held onto my hand a second longer than he needed to, like letting go was the hardest part of any of this, and then he was gone, crossing back to where the others stood waiting.

A red barrier bloomed into existence around me, glowing softly at its edges.

Taizel added another layer over it a moment later, dark and heavy, thick enough that the air inside felt different, warmer, almost suffocating.

I pressed my palm flat against the barrier’s inner wall and felt it hum faintly under my touch, alive in a way that made my stomach turn.

Then everyone turned toward the sky, where Solmira and Elios had already gathered a wall of blinding golden light. That light rose to meet the frozen explosion still hanging above the kingdom.

"Now, Pazuzu," Lumiel shouted, springing onto his sword and rising into the air alongside Taizel to help contain the blast.

Pazuzu let out a slow breath, resting one hand on Luceriel’s shoulder. He raised his other hand toward the sky, and time began to move again.

The meteor dropped the instant it broke free of Luceriel’s hold, fire and lightning tearing loose all at once.

Solmira and Elios’s golden light slammed into it head-on, and the whole sky lit up white for a heartbeat before the meteor shattered apart.

Pieces of it rained down, burning fragments the size of boulders, and Lumiel’s barrier caught them one by one, deflecting them off into the clouds.

What slipped past him, Taizel simply swallowed whole, his mouth opening wider than should have been possible, until nothing remained but empty, clear sky.

"Something is not right," Azriel said, staring hard upward. "I expected the Demon King to show himself. This was clearly his doing. Why has he not appeared?"

He turned toward Pazuzu. "Can you not feel his energy? He should carry something distinct, something you of all people would recognize the instant he arrived. So why are you not reacting to any of it?"

Pazuzu tipped his head back, violet eyes narrowing into a frown. "My father always keeps something hidden up his sleeve. Look." He pointed toward the sky again, and his shoulders dropped. "This was the plan all along."

Dark lightning split the sky open once more, except this time it did not come alone.

More bolts followed, one after another, and behind them came fireballs, dozens of them, then hundreds, raining down toward Verolona like something out of a nightmare.

My eyes went wide watching them fall toward the kingdom.

"What the hell is happening?" I demanded.

"He is here," Pazuzu answered. "This is simply how the Demon King chooses to announce himself."

Before I could ask anything else, Luceriel pulled free of Pazuzu’s grip and shot straight up into the sky.

"Luceriel!" Pazuzu shouted after him, dark wings snapping open from his back as he chased him up. "You are still weak. Where do you think you are going?"

"This is my kingdom," Luceriel called back, not slowing for a second. "My people. If I do nothing, they will all burn."

He raised both hands at the center of the sky, and Pazuzu caught up beside him a moment later, adding his own strength to whatever Luceriel was building.

Everyone moved at once after that. Uriel drowned the falling fireballs in waves of water that hissed and steamed on contact, the sound of it rolling across the battlefield like a hundred kettles boiling over at once.

Taizel devoured them whole, one after another, his throat glowing faintly each time, his jaw stretching wider than anything with a human shape should ever be able to manage.

Raizel scattered them apart with sharp gusts of wind before they could fully form, his robes snapping wildly around him with every motion.

Sariel split them clean in half with a single motion of his palm, so precise it barely looked like effort.

Luceriel and Pazuzu worked together to build a wide, shimmering shield above the kingdom, their two auras bleeding into one another at the seams, green threading through violet and back again.

Lumiel circled the outer edge of Verolona, sword trailing red light behind him like a wound cut straight through the air.

Slowly, the sky above the kingdom filled with color, streaks of red, green, and violet weaving together into something that almost looked beautiful, if it had not meant to save our lives.

But the fireballs kept coming, faster now, closer together, until the sky looked less like a battle and more like the whole world was simply falling apart above us.

Thamiel and Tobias moved between the others, lending strength to whoever’s power began to falter.

Anomas, Azriel, and Malachi stayed close to the cave the entire time, none of them willing to leave me unguarded.

And still, the demons themselves never showed. Not one of them. It gnawed at me the longer it went on. They had to be somewhere, waiting.

More fireballs came. More lightning.

Then a roar tore through the sky loud enough that I felt it in my teeth, and the clouds themselves split open, a jagged tear stretching wide overhead.

Power rolled out of that tear like a wave, and it hit everyone at once.

My knees buckled before I even understood why, the barrier around me doing nothing to soften it. My chest throbbed with it, my ears rang loud enough to drown out every other sound, and my heart slammed against my ribs so hard it hurt to breathe.

Across the battlefield, I watched the brothers who had been standing firm only seconds earlier drop to their knees, one after another, their concentration shattering under the weight of it.

Lumiel’s sword dipped toward the ground. Sariel pressed both palms flat against his own ears.

Only Pazuzu remained standing, untouched by whatever the rest of us were feeling, his gaze fixed steady on the tear above.

The barrier around Verolona cracked, then broke.

A handful of fireballs slipped through and struck the kingdom below, explosions rolling out one after another, the sound of it reaching us even from where I stood.

Then the figures came.

They stepped out of the tear in the sky as though it were solid ground beneath their feet, seven of them, their faces still too far away to make out clearly.

A massive serpent followed them through, its body dark as ink, two heads weaving slowly through the air around a single figure at its center.

That figure finally stepped free of the serpent’s coils, and his eyes met mine.

Dark. Obsidian. Familiar in a way that made my whole body go cold before my mind even caught up to why.

For one long second, I told myself I was wrong. That fear was playing tricks on me, that exhaustion had finally cracked something loose in my head.

I had seen him die. I had seen his body.

I gasped, and it was not his power that stole the breath from my lungs. It was his face.

Kaevian was alive.