"And I saw an angel coming down out of heaven, having the key to the Abyss and holding in his hand a great chain. He seized the dragon, that ancient serpent, who is the devil, or Satan, and bound him for a thousand years."
— Revelation 20:1-2Chapter 16 The Angelic Ruins
The Sky Tomb descended further during the night. By dawn, it no longer hid behind the storm clouds above Veyr.Now the colossal celestial structure floated openly over the ruined megacity like a dead kingdom suspended between heaven and apocalypse. Its silver towers pierced the black clouds while gigantic bridges drifted disconnected through the sky around it.
Ancient bells echoed faintly from somewhere inside the floating ruins. Not mechanical. Not human. The sound resembled mourning. Below the heavens, the wasteland had become silent. Even the monstrous creatures surrounding Veyr avoided looking upward now.
The convoy moved eastward slowly through frozen plains buried beneath ash and snow while distant blue light from the Warden continued illuminating the horizon behind them.
No one slept after witnessing Tenji’s halo. The survivors whispered constantly now.
Angel. Ghost. God.
Some Iron Reign soldiers knelt whenever the Fairy passed nearby. Others refused to look at him entirely. Tenji ignored all of them.
The Fairy remained alone atop ruined transport vehicles or drifting silently above the convoy while black crows occasionally appeared around him like fragments of living shadow.
But now silver light sometimes flickered beneath his skin. And Einar noticed.
The Frost King walked beside Dr. Selene Cross near the front of the convoy while she studied ancient readings pulled from surviving Veyr satellites.
The scanners had begun detecting impossible structures hidden high within the atmosphere around the Sky Tomb.
Entire floating cities. Ruins. Dead celestial fortresses orbiting silently beyond the clouds.
Selene looked disturbed.
“These things have been above Earth this entire time.”
Einar answered quietly:
“Yes.”
She turned sharply toward him.
“You knew?”
The Frost King’s glowing blue eyes remained fixed on the sky.
“Ancient kings feared them.”
The convoy halted suddenly.
Ahead, the frozen landscape dropped into a gigantic canyon carved directly through the wasteland.
But this was no natural formation.
Massive silver ruins stretched along the canyon walls, half buried beneath centuries of snow and black sand. Towering statues of winged humanoids stood broken among collapsed bridges and enormous circular gates covered in ancient symbols.
The architecture matched the Sky Tomb exactly.
The survivors stared silently.
Even Kael looked shaken.
“How old is this place…?”
Tenji finally descended from the sky.
The Fairy landed softly near the canyon edge while silver eyes scanned the ruins below.
For the first time since Veyr—
he looked genuinely sorrowful.
Mordecai remained farther behind.
The Death Reaper refused to approach the canyon itself.
The shadows around him writhed violently like trapped animals.
Einar noticed immediately.
“You know this place too.”
Mordecai said nothing.
But his crimson eyes remained fixed on the ancient ruins beneath the snow.
Then the storm overhead shifted.
A beam of pale silver light descended from the Sky Tomb far above and illuminated the canyon below.
Ancient mechanisms awakened instantly.
The buried ruins began glowing softly beneath the snow.
Massive symbols lit across the canyon walls.
And deep below gigantic doors slowly opened.
The survivors hesitated. Tenji walked forward first. The others followed.
The descent into the canyon felt like entering a grave older than humanity itself.
The ruins stretched endlessly beneath the surface, entire celestial temples buried beneath frozen rock and ancient dust. Silver corridors twisted downward through massive halls lined with shattered statues and enormous murals carved into the walls.
Murals depicting war. Not human war. Celestial war.
The survivors stopped before one gigantic carving stretching across an entire chamber wall.
It depicted the Sky People descending from floating cities above the Earth. Heavenly creatures, Beautiful beings surrounded by halos and silver light. Below them human civilizations flourished. Ancient kingdoms. Oceans. Forests. The first age of Earth.
But the mural changed further along the wall. Darkness emerged beneath the world. Gigantic black entities rising from oceans and deep underground chasms while reality itself warped around them.
The Warden. And countless others. The creatures beneath Earth. Ancient cosmic horrors older than civilization.
Selene stared at the carvings in horror.
“These things existed before humanity…”
Einar nodded once.
“They existed before history.”
The mural continued.
The Sky People fought the entities. Gigantic celestial beings descended from floating kingdoms wielding silver light against impossible black gods erupting from beneath the planet.
Entire continents burned. The oceans turned black. The sky cracked open.
And then humanity appeared between them. Tiny. Fragile. Caught in the middle of a war between heaven and the abyss.
Tenji stopped before the final section of the mural. The Fairy’s silver eyes darkened. This part had been deliberately damaged long ago. But fragments remained visible. The Sky People abandoning Earth.
Floating cities ascending back into the heavens while gigantic seals imprisoned the black entities beneath the planet.
And at the center one figure remained behind. A silver being surrounded by black crows.
Tenji. Or someone very much like him.
Kael stared toward the damaged mural.
“You fought against your own people?”
Tenji remained silent.
Then the chamber trembled.
THOOM.
Dust fell from the ceiling.
The ancient ruins groaned softly beneath the canyon.
Far away the Warden had moved again.
But something else moved too.
Deeper beneath the ruins.
The silver lights across the walls flickered violently.
Then every mural eye in the chamber slowly opened.
The survivors froze. The carved celestial figures embedded in the walls were no longer stone. Blue light glowed faintly within their eyes.
Watching.
Selene stepped backward shakily.
“That’s impossible…”
Then the voices began.
Soft whispers echoing through the buried ruins in a language older than humanity.
The same celestial singing Tenji heard above the clouds.
Only now something else whispered beneath it. A deeper voice. Ancient. Hungry. And somewhere far below the angelic ruins something imprisoned beneath the canyon began waking up too.
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