The air was thick with the charred stench of sin.

  Vivian shrank into the Guardian’s shadow. That broad back was her only altar in the void, the sole barrier between her and the "False God" who had descended from the sky.

  That thing was not human. Nor was it an angel. Though it possessed a beauty that shamed the Seraphim, it radiated a profanity that chilled her marrow.

  He stood before them in absolute, terrifying nudity. His skin was like polished pearl, gleaming with an iridescent, oily sheen under the harsh sunlight. He possessed no shame; his groin was a smooth, sexless wasteland.

  It was not merely grotesque; it was an open mockery of the Creator’s design.

  "Heretic!"

  Twelve streaks of silver light charged—the Silver Guards.

  Vivian squeezed her eyes shut, unable to watch the beautiful pearl-man shatter.

  A sound of disintegration followed—wet and crunchy, like dry bones crushed in a mortar.

  She opened her eyes. The pearl-man stood unscathed. It was the Guards, forged of hardened steel, who had been reduced to shrapnel. Their blood—the crimson dew of life—splattered into the vacuum, exploding into poignant mists of red before freezing instantly into crystalline rubies.

  A frozen sacrifice to a False God.

  It was too quiet. Too terrifying. This was the threshold of Hell.

  Miranda and Isabella cowered behind Lord Leo.

  Only Lord Leo stood his ground. Yet, Vivian saw his shoulders trembling.

  Ah... such mercy!

  Vivian’s eyes welled with tears. Even in the face of such abyssal evil, Lord Leo trembles with grief for the lost lives.

  He faces the darkness alone, so the fawns behind him need not gaze into the pit.

  "Long time no see, Leo." The False God’s voice drilled directly into Vivian’s skull, sliding like a snake’s tongue over her auditory nerve.

  Lord Leo spoke. "Brother Dante... must it be this way?"

  Vivian’s heart clenched.

  Brother? They know each other? This silver idol once walked with the Guardian?

  Yes. This must be the 'Fallen Angel' of the Gospels. The Morning Star, brightest of all, now degenerated into this inhuman abomination.

  They began to speak of the past. This False God, Dante, had served Lord Morrison. He claimed to have cared for the Guardian, called him brother. But he was exiled, and now he returned to claim the title of True God.

  "Do you know, Leo," the pearl-man’s face shifted, mimicking human empathy, though his eyes remained two voids of absolute nothingness. "To patch the bug called 'Pain,' I learned to deconstruct this world, just like you. But you only deconstruct appearances and logic. I deconstruct the very nature of existence. Even the Self."

  Vivian could not parse these spell-like sentences, but she knew this was the Great Debate. Every syllable was the clash of blades.

  Then, a scene of blasphemy unfolded that nearly drove her mad.

  With a wet click, the pearl-man plunged his hand into his own chest.

  Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  Bioluminescent blue ichor misted into the vacuum. He forcibly ripped out his heart—a spinning, glowing mechanical core.

  He tossed the demon heart contemptuously at his feet, as if discarding a withered pit.

  He tramples upon his own temple!

  Vivian felt dizzy, her stomach churning in revolt.

  "This is the lung," the False God intoned, removing ribs and plating like a butcher stripping a carcass. "This is the stomach." He dredged out mutated iron organs and cast them aside like trash.

  Finally, only a ghastly, skeletal chassis remained.

  This is his true face. A hollow shell piled high with dead things. An empty tomb with no Holy Fire.

  "Not finished yet, Junior Brother." The False God raised his hands and gripped his own jaw.

  Under Vivian’s horrified gaze, he slowly pulled his own head off, like uncorking a bottle of vintage wine.

  At the severed neck, a gorgon’s knot of cables danced wildly.

  He held his head high, presenting it to Lord Leo in a ritual of ultimate darkness.

  The head laughed, issuing a terrible curse upon all life: "Look, Leo... I am still thinking. I am still speaking. I have achieved true Mechanical Ascension! I am the first Post-Human in the solar system!"

  The severed head looked down, scanning her and the two Fire Keepers with a gaze that froze the soul. "Little girls. You could die at any moment. If you cannot discard that fragile, clumsy meat-brain, if you cannot walk out of the solar system and embrace the infinite universe... then what is the difference between your life and your death?"

  Vivian bit her lip until it bled.

  Little girl? Is he speaking of me?

  Before this immortal steel monster, my body of flesh and blood is indeed dust. But I have something you lack. I have pain. I have love. I have the resolve to burn to ash for Lord Leo!

  "This is not Ascension, Dante!" Lord Leo erupted. It was the Horn of Judgment.

  Vivian watched his back, entranced.

  Lord Leo pointed at the pile of discarded organs. His voice cracked with emotion, but to Vivian, it was the thunder of Truth.

  "Ascension? Dante, look at you. You excised dopamine. You excised fear. You excised every variable that makes you 'fluctuate.' You think you became a God? No. You turned yourself into an infinite loop. A stone is also eternal. A stone is also painless. You... this is Dissociative Escapism!"

  The Guardian recited the spell. But... the False God did not bleed.

  The words passed through him as if through a ghost.

  The head maintained its mask of pity. It felt no anger. Dead things do not know anger.

  It only laughed. "Escapism? Have you ever seen escapism that dares to completely deconstruct itself? You are the one escaping, Leo. Look at you. Playing theological Battle Royale with three little girls in costumes? Is this how you cope with the Void?"

  Click.

  The head snapped back onto the neck. In seconds, the pearl-man reassembled. Reborn.

  Lord Leo froze.

  Vivian could feel the taut string inside him scream.

  He has failed. Because the Demon has no soul left to save.

  The False God rose into the air, opening his arms to the sun.

  Snap. Snap. The void around him ripped open, revealing countless holographic phantoms—the shocked faces of the believers. They were watching.

  The False God began a Black Mass for the congregation.

  "Flesh is fragile... Join us... Join the Prometheus Society. Ascend with Prometheus! No pain! Only Bliss!"

  Shut up! Shut up! Vivian screamed internally.

  Who wants a Paradise without pain? Without pain, how can I feel Lord Leo’s existence? Without pain, how can I prove my devotion? Your Paradise is a silent graveyard. My Paradise—even if it is a sea of fire—is wherever Lord Leo stands!

  Finally, the False God dissolved into a stream of data and vanished.

  The phantoms annihilated. Silence reclaimed the ridge.

  Lord Leo stood motionless for a long time. His back looked so lonely, so fragile, as if the confrontation had drained his divinity.

  "...He is... no longer human."

  Lord Leo’s voice trembled.

  His hand, hanging by his side, twitched violently.

  Is that fear? Is that terror?

  No. That is the Guardian weeping for the death of a brother’s soul.

  Suddenly, Lord Leo turned and grabbed her arm.

  His grip was crushing. He nearly fractured her bone. She trembled—not from pain, but because in this moment, among billions of living beings, he reached for her. She was his anchor. His flesh and blood.

  Crush me, My Lord. If it makes you feel real.

  Lord Leo did not crush her. He stared dead into her eyes, a flame bordering on madness burning in his pupils.

  He was no longer the gentle, composed doctor. He was a trapped beast driven to despair. A beauty of extreme brokenness.

  "Go." His voice was hoarse, rough, as if he wanted to knead her into his very soul.

  "We must win. We must show them the miracle that belongs to Man."

  He gripped tighter.

  "Because if that is the future... then this universe is too fucking cold."

  Vivian looked into his eyes, melting into that fire.

  Yes, My Lord. Even if the universe freezes into absolute zero, I will ignite my flesh to be the torch in your hand.

  She tasted the pain in her arm—a divine scratch, a Stigmata.

  "Yes, My Lord. Take me with you. Anywhere. Even to the end of Hell."

  She glanced at the silent Isabella, and at Miranda who was still staring longingly after the False God, then turned to follow the Guardian’s steps.

  Absolutely resolute.