While the other busy Zaradorn moved alone, his heavy footsteps muffled by the wet earth. The storm raged on, but he paid it no mind.
Behind him, his army stood motionless and just awaiting for his return. He had given strict orders that no one moves until he return and they need to keep their eyes on the events that happening.
The Demon general strode toward the largest tent in their encampnt, its blackened fabric rippling in the wind. As he stepped inside the air changed. It feels thick with the scent of blood, decay, and sothing wrong.
He passed through the main chamber, pushing aside a heavy curtain that concealed the back of the tent. Beyond it, a grotesque scene unfolded.
Belial stood over the massive, dissected corpse of a black dragon.
Its innards glistened under the dim, flickering lanterns, and its dark blood pooled across the floor.
The Demon Lord’s gauntleted hands were slick with gore, his armor splattered with torn flesh. He had been working for hours, peeling back layers of scale and sinew, searching for sothing within the beast’s remains.
Zaradorn didn’t flinch. He had seen worse. Instead, he took a breath and spoke.
"Your Majesty," he called. "Sothing big is happening. You need to see this."
Belial didn’t look up. He drove his serrated blade deeper into the dragon’s ribcage, prying it open with a sickening crack.
"I’m busy, Zaradorn," he said flatly. "Not now."
Zaradorn held his ground. "Your Majesty... the Archangel’s scouts have returned. They brought sothing from beyond the Black Wall."
That made Belial pause.
Zaradorn continued. "It’s unlike anything we’ve seen. It doesn’t feel from the realm of the Celestials and doesn’t feel Infernal. It just feels different."
For a mont, there was only silence.
Then, with slow, deliberate movents, Belial straightened.
He set his bloodied blade aside, exhaling a long breath before stepping out from behind the curtain.
He wiped his hand against his chestplate, saring the gore further. Then, finally, he turned to Zaradorn.
He exhaled slowly, rolling his shoulders before speaking.
"Sothing from the Black Wall?" He said. "Strange and different, you say?"
Zaradorn nodded. "Yes, your majesty. Gabriel and Uriel had it in their hands. It was fragnts filled with runes that ulsing with energy and shifting so we can’t read it."
Belial’s expression darkened. He turned slightly, wiping his blade against a bloodied cloth.
Then, with slow, deliberate steps, he moved past Zaradorn and out of the tent.
The mont they stepped outside, the storm’s cold wind lashed against them.
The Demon army remained still, awaiting orders, their glowing eyes flickering under the stormy sky.
Belial raised his gaze toward the battlefield toward the Celestials who now held the fragnts. His lips curled slightly, not in amusent, but in calculation.
"Take to them and say that I want to see that too," he said.
Zaradorn bowed. "As you command."
With a sweep of his cloak, Belial strode forward back to where his troops located.
Whatever the Archangels had found, he also intended to see it for himself. He didn’t even finish with the dragon’s autopsy but he didn’t find anything useful from that dragon’s body until this point. So he thinks its better to just see this fragnts first.
Athena, Anubis, and the other gods and goddesses present were the only ones who dared to touch them.
Their soldiers stood at a careful distance, their expressions was curious but knows that they don’t have rights to know more, their hands twitching near their weapons.
Each Celestial laid their hands upon the fragnts in turn. Their brows furrowed, their eyes darkened with sothing between curiosity and unease.
Gabriel and Uriel had already seen the visions of the ruins with impossibly massive walls and pillars, and a land of black ash stretching endlessly beneath a darkened sky. Now, one by one, the others witness to the sa in their mind.
When the last of the Celestials released the fragnts, the air still thrumd with an unseen force around him as if the relics themselves refused to settle.
Then, with deliberate steps, Zaradorn approached.
He carried with him a tal box, its edges lined with intricate demonic sigils ant to contain powerful energies. Without hesitation, he set it down and looked directly at Gabriel.
"Place it inside,Your Majesty," Zaradorn said.
Gabriel t his gaze for a long mont. Then, without a word, he placed it into the box. The instant the tal lid shut, the unnatural hum in the air stopped.
Zaradorn lifted the box with ease and turned away, making his way back to Belial.
Belial had not moved from where he stood. He remained apart from the gathering.
His re presence was an unspoken arrogance that none dared to say anything to him.
None of the Celestials said a word about it.
As Zaradorn arrived, he knelt briefly before handing over the box.
Belial took it without ceremony, flipping open the lid and plucking the fragnt from within.
It was the size of his palm, its surface dark and uneven, yet etched with ever-shifting runes that pulsed with a rhythm just out of sync with reality.
That symbols refusing to stay in one form long enough to be deciphered.
Belial’s expression darkened as he studied it. A deep frown creased his face.
Then, without hesitation, he channeled his magic into the fragnt.
The mont his energy touched it, his vision was torn from the present.
He saw a ruined land.
Blackened walls that stretched higher than mountains, scarred and shattered by an ancient force.
Endless fields of ashen earth, where no life stirred and no wind howled.
Belial’s breath was slow and asured as he absorbed the vision, his mind sorting through the details, committing them to mory.
The others had seen this, too. Gabriel. Uriel. And even the gods present. But what did it an? What lay beyond those walls?
Slowly, he blinked, returning to the present.
The fragnt still pulsed in his palm, whispering sothing ancient and unspoken.
Belial closed his fingers around it, his red eyes narrowing.
Belial exhaled slowly, his mind already working through the possibilities.
Sothing existed beyond the Black Wall. Sothing neither Heaven nor Hell had claid.
It must be a great hidden power. He intended to find it for himself.
Belial put the fragnt back inside the box and walk back inside his tent to continue his autopsy.
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