Chapter 56: Darkness
"Lilith!" Samael gazed at the black-haired fallen angel and the demons trailing behind her; there was nothing left for him to misunderstand.
"So, this was all a conspiracy between you and the demons?!"
All that talk of being bullied by demons...
All that talk of being reduced to a wretched state because of humans...
All that talk of sincere adoration...
It was all a lie—nothing but the witch's insidious manipulation. How laughable that he had taken it all for the truth.
Lilith remained silent.
"Answer me!" Samael roared, his blood-red eyes burning with fury as he glared at her.
"You deceived me; you made me commit an irreparable error!" He clutched his forehead—now burning hot with rage—in utter anguish, nearly losing control of his physical form as his massive serpentine tail flickered in and out of existence like a phantom.
That angel, as pure and kind as starlight... that angel who had confided in him her despair and sorrow... that angel who had led him to believe he was a righteous arbiter of justice...
For what purpose, exactly, had he allowed things to spiral into this current state?
"What have I done...?"
"I never once explicitly asked you to do anything—let alone asked a noble Seraph to champion my cause," Lilith murmured in a voice barely above a whisper. To claim that Samael's hatred left her entirely unmoved would have been a lie.
Yet, to feel any *guilt* over it was simply impossible. The silver ornament upon her forehead shimmered in the flickering firelight, casting an enigmatic allure. Lilith met his gaze and, within his eyes, perceived a flicker of desperate, fragile hope.
This former Throne Angel—once so stern and unyielding—hoped against hope that none of this was real; he longed for her denial, yearning to believe that his fall had been in the service of justice—for that, at least, would have remained an honorable end in his eyes.
It was the only way left for him to salvage his teetering pride.
Lilith ruthlessly shattered that hope.
"Let us at least preserve some shred of dignity for one another."
"I was a fool." Samael offered a bitter, twisted smile. By now, he had mastered the art of smiling—it looked beautiful, even natural—yet he could no longer grasp the true meaning behind the upturn of his lips. "I thought that, just once, I would finally step ahead of Gabriel—that one day, at long last, I would prove myself smarter than her."
At the mention of Gabriel's name, Lilith's lips twitched. Yet, before she could utter another word, Samael had already cast aside every trace of weakness. From amidst the scattered remnants of his broken ranks, he retrieved a sword—one of the few that remained relatively intact—and leveled its sharpened point directly at her.
"I forbid you from taking another step closer! You traitor—your heart is more venomous than any serpent or scorpion!"
"Your Highness!" Lilith cried out—a command that instantly quelled the restless stirrings of the demons gathered behind her. She then raised her voice, continuing:
"Fairness and justice are utterly worthless here in Hell!" With a flicker of genuine sincerity in her gaze, she swept her eyes across the assembly of her former comrades—angels who, even in their current state of wretched disarray, still strove to cling to the last vestiges of their angelic dignity.
"You must realize that you are no longer the radiant angels of old."
"Clinging to those antiquated customs will serve only to inflict greater suffering upon you, upon them, and upon every angel who has fallen into this realm!"
"So, we should just follow your example, then? Sell our souls to serve the demons?" Beelzebub, who had until now remained silent while Samael and Lilith aired their grievances, could no longer hold his tongue.
"Agares is unlike the other demons," Lilith retorted. "Only under his command can I still feel even a shred of dignity!"
"Dignity? Is that what you call it? It's nothing but selling yourself out for personal gain! Do as you please, but don't drag the rest of us down with you!" Beelzebub's scathing sarcasm caused Lilith's expression to turn utterly cold.
"This is the one and only time I shall speak on the matter; the choice is now yours to make," she stated icily. "For the sake of our shared past, should you ever have a change of heart, come find me in the Sixth Circle of Hell."
Hundreds of thousands of fallen angels—that was no insignificant number; the King-class demons would certainly not stand idly by and ignore such a prize.
The opportunity to bolster one's military might—an opportunity that Agares had so clearly foreseen—would not go unnoticed by the other demons. Yet, a leader who treated his subordinates with such respect and humility—as that old demon had done—was a rarity they would likely never encounter again. "Do you have any conscience left at all?!"
"Conscience is the cheapest commodity here." Lilith cast one final glance back at them; the demonic legions would soon be on the march.
Fueled by the animosity of a millennium-long holy war, they would show no mercy to the Fallen Angels.
Refusal to submit meant enslavement.
It was the worst-case scenario.
As the lithe witch departed, Beelzebub clapped a hand onto the shoulder of the despondent Samael.
"It's not your fault," he said, a flicker of worry crossing his eyes. "The demons will likely launch their assault before long; we need to pull ourselves together and prepare to face them."
Samael nodded. Seeing the look of a man desperate to atone etched upon his face, Beelzebub let out a soft sigh. "How fickle are the ways of the world! You were once the angel I found most tedious, yet now—now you are the comrade I would most trust to watch my back."
Having said this—and without a care for whether such behavior was considered polite—he sheathed his sword and, dragging his feet, shuffled toward a corner of the room.
Neither he nor Asmodeus had emerged unscathed from their brawl.
The long, arduous fall and the all-out battle that followed had left his body utterly exhausted—yet none of that truly mattered.
Gazing at Beelzebub's listless, retreating figure, Samael knew that his comrade's heart remained heavy with worry over the whereabouts of the vanished Lucifer; he could not help but lower his head.
*'Where have you gone?'*
Lucifer had gone nowhere—yet he was no longer truly *there*.
His brows were tightly furrowed, his eyes squeezed shut, and his face was etched with profound agony.
Even in his current state—little more than a walking corpse—he could still perceive every sound and movement around him.
The angels' accusations against him, the heated clash between Asmodeus and Beelzebub—he had heard it all with crystal clarity.
He had no regrets.
From the very beginning, he had prepared himself for the worst possible outcome.
But what of the angels who had followed him?
They could have remained in the Heavens, continuing to bask in eternal bliss; yet, for his sake, hundreds of thousands of angels had forfeited that happiness.
Ten million years of light and majesty had gone into the making of a Seraph Archangel; selfishness and evasion were not in his nature. The pain from which one cannot break free—that is true suffering; it is the very suffering that Darkness loves most.
The agony of his descent plunged him deeper than any other fallen angel, into an abyss even more profound than Hell itself. It wove forth its tendrils, enveloping the being that had so delighted its heart.
Wisps of Darkness writhed and coiled, devouring his radiance—inch by inch, soundlessly, and so subtly that even he remained unaware—until his form vanished from the myriad gazes fixed upon him, drawn inexorably into Darkness's own domain.
Here, there was no day, only eternal night; it was a realm of chaotic void, abandoned by the Creator—a far shore that Light would never reach.
Strands of blackness intertwined with golden hair; Lucifer was bound fast, unable to move, his body left merely to drift and bob within the dead silence.
That voice called out Lucifer's name with relentless persistence.
Whispers, cold and mournful as a sigh; outbursts of fury, bitter and violent as a sudden storm; hoarse cries brimming with despair—voice after voice, until at last, Lucifer opened his eyes.
"Who are you?"
"I am the Beginning of All Things." Having received a response, the voice introduced itself with evident delight: "The Dark Aspect of Chaos."
"Chaos," Lucifer repeated. He knew this word; the Creator had once spoken it to him—that in the beginning, there was nothing, and from the Chaos, God had brought the world into existence.
"Chaos is our Mother. She gave birth to Light; yet that arrogant Light sought to contend with its Mother—the Night—for the ancient hierarchy of precedence, to erase her very existence, and to exalt itself high above in the heavens."
"What are you trying to say?" Lucifer hovered in mid-air, his eyes unblinking, gazing vacantly into the void as he communicated with the voice through the power of his will.
"Light cast out Darkness—just as *he* cast out *you*."
"Are you implying...?"
"Precisely!" It reveled in the wavering resolve of the Son of Light. "Do you know why you failed?" '
'For your power stems entirely from the gifts bestowed by the Light, rather than from any strength inherent to your own being.'
'Given such a nature, no matter how formidable your abilities may be, he could effortlessly strike you down.'
Lucifer remained silent, appearing to ponder its words.
'If you wish to rise above the Creator, only *here* can you find the means to do so.'
'Defy him; destroy the world of Light that he created.'
'Make him regret his decision.'
'Make him regret casting you aside—!' It let out a piercing shriek, only to fall abruptly silent as Lucifer posed yet another question.
"Who are you?" the golden-haired angel asked softly, his tone laced with scrutiny. Yet, without waiting for a reply, he answered his own question: "You are no one."
Though it might cloak itself in a semblance of substance, in this world, there is but one true God.
"You are Darkness," Lucifer murmured. "And the one speaking right now... is *me*."
"—a part of me that is Darkness."
Lucifer had seen through it; its very essence was seduction—and Darkness.
It was a force teeming with negativity and incitement—a being banished by God to the deepest reaches of Hell. It possessed no independent intellect of its own, knowing only to ceaselessly beguile every creature that wandered into its domain.
Nor did it possess any intellectual depth; its only measure of profundity was the shallowness of the wretched souls it had ensnared.
To beguile them; to conjure a powerful, yet illusory, phantom; and to compel them to fight and die in its stead.
Each victim believed itself to be the object of its favor, yet not a single one had ever truly conquered it.
A shadow stepped forth from the gloom. Lucifer narrowed his eyes, gazing upon a face identical to his own; the figure reached out a hand toward him, as if to rescue him from this abyss of damnation.
It was him—and it was Darkness.
The more intense the negative emotions, the more powerful it became.
In this pitch-black purgatory, such emotions abounded—some innate, others accumulated over time.
The emotions of demons, of angels—born from every conceivable source.
Here, it reigned supreme.
Though utterly vile and defiled, it nonetheless presented its truest, most wretched self with absolute honesty.
Do you find it repulsive? Seeing Lucifer shake his head, the shadowy apparition slowly broke into a smile; sharing a telepathic bond with him, it knew every thought harbored within his heart.
There was no humiliation greater than believing oneself mighty, only to be struck down in a single blow by the Creator.
"The Abyss shall deliver you from your suffering," *He* said, gazing down at the immobilized Lucifer. "Therefore, bow down beneath the Darkness."
"No," Lucifer declared. He turned his head slightly, his fingers twitching; seizing the precise moment to break free, he conjured a blade of light and, without a moment's hesitation, slashed it through his own hair.
"It is the Darkness that shall bow beneath *my* feet."
Golden strands of hair rained down from the heavens; the former Arch-Seraph had severed his own flawless, radiant tresses—a symbolic act to cast off the shackles that the past and the Darkness had placed upon him.
High above, the Angel gazed down into the Abyss; a biting wind ruffled his now-unruly short hair, and a flicker of disdain flashed within Lucifer's emerald eyes.
What right did the Darkness—reduced to a state of exile by the Creator—have to stand above *him*?
As if sensing a sudden tremor, God opened His eyes within the Grand Cathedral. He looked toward Hell, where the forces of Darkness surged and roiled—a darkness now stirred to an unprecedented frenzy.
His sweeping gaze took in the entire scene within Hell: the Sons of Light had gradually succumbed to the fall, leaving behind only a single, solitary figure of radiance.
His body and soul remained steadfastly turned toward the Light.
Was it due to his piety toward the Creator?
No; it was because his sense of self was so unshakeably firm that he remained unmoved by the seductive whispers of the Darkness.
Lucifer's arrogance... For the first time in an eternity, a flicker of complex emotion appeared in God's eyes.
Arrogant though he was, Lucifer's true character had indeed exceeded His expectations.
He had conquered himself.
"You still favor him," Belial's words resurfaced in His mind—words spoken by a black-haired angel whose eyes held a subconscious blend of accusation and envy.
"If You truly intended to punish him, You could simply have erased his existence; why, then, did You banish him to Hell?"
"Did You wish for him to master the Darkness?" '
But little did they know that creation could not control darkness; that obsessive power was beyond even the gods' control, so they simply left it to its own devices.
Lucy couldn't do the same either; from the moment darkness came knocking, he was destined to be powerless.
'When you thought you were light, I controlled your will.'
'Then in this land of darkness, you shall decide for yourself.'
God closed his eyes again, shutting down his direct perception of this world once more.
You provided the [Hebrew Mythology] by the great author Danmu'ai with the arduous history of a world's creation.