**Chapter 4: The Ancient Prophecy**
The apocalypse had teeth. It gnawed at the edges of reality, leaving the world a festering wound where demons slithered through cracks in the veil. Cities lay gutted, their skylines jagged as broken teeth, while angels lurked in the static between stars—watchers who had long since stopped weeping. But buried in the marrow of Marverick's bones was a truth older than ruin: his bloodline was a fuse, lit centuries ago, burning toward an inevitable detonation.
Rachel revealed it in the choking dark of a storm cellar, her voice a brittle thing. She unspooled a genealogy of martyrs—a lineage of scholars, warriors, and fools who'd carried a secret etched into their DNA like a curse. Marverick's great-grandfather hadn't just studied the prophecy; he'd *bled* for it, scribing his findings in a journal bound in human skin. Its pages whispered of the **Elysium Stone**, a relic forged in the cosmic crucible before time congealed. Not a tool, but a *judgment*. Capable of sealing the rift between realms… or tearing it wider.
"Demons don't want to rule this trash heap," Ava muttered, sharpening her dagger with a file scavenged from a corpse. "They want to unmake it. Start fresh with us as mortar." Her eyes flickered, pupils dilating as if something primal stirred behind them. Azazel's leash, tightening.
The survivors' camp was a hive of paranoia. They came at dusk—a ragged convoy led by a woman whose beauty had been honed into a weapon. Arianna wore her hair in braids threaded with shrapnel, her face a mask of ash and iron resolve. "The Stone lies in **Vespertine Temple**," she said, thrusting a map stained with old blood onto the table. "Built over a hellmouth. Demons guard it like a crown. Angels, too, if you believe the rabid."
Marverick's fingers brushed the map. The parchment *shuddered*, symbols writhing into new configurations. Arianna's gaze sharpened. "Ah. The bloodline *does* sing in you."
They entered Vespertine at moonless midnight. The temple loomed—a cathedral of black basalt, its spires coiled like serpents. The air tasted of burnt hair, and the ground *breathed* beneath their boots. Arianna chanted as they walked, her voice weaving through ancient wards meant to repel hellspawn. It worked. Until it didn't.
Gabriel descended in a blaze of fractured light, wings not feather nor flame but *swords*, their edges singing a discordant hymn. He wore the face of a wrathful saint, eyes twin voids. "The Stone is not for mortal hands," he intoned, though his gaze lingered on Marverick with a hunger that turned marrow to ice.
Then the horde came.
Demons erupted from the temple's maw, their forms a blasphemy of flesh and shadow. Ava moved like vengeance incarnate, her blades painting the air crimson, but each kill cost her. Black veins spiderwebbed from her wrists, Azazel's mark spreading. "*Keep moving!*" she screamed, even as her left eye flooded with obsidian.
Marverick fought toward the inner sanctum, Arianna's chants now a guttural roar. The walls here pulsed, carved with reliefs of angels feasting on stars. At the chamber's heart hovered the Elysium Stone—a shard of crystallized void, drinking the light.
Gabriel materialized, blocking their path. "You misunderstand," he said, sword humming. "Heaven's throne is *mine* to claim. The Stone will purge the weak." Behind him, Elijah stepped from the shadows, his once-human face now a mosaic of scales and starlight. "Dad sends his regards," he sneered.
The betrayal hit like a scythe. Elijah's blade pierced Rachel's shoulder before Marverick could react. She fell, clutching the wound, her blood sizzling where it met the stone floor. Ava lunged, but Gabriel backhanded her into a pillar.
"*Enough.*" Marverick's voice was not his own. It echoed with the weight of dead prophets. The Stone *reacted*, lashing tendrils of anti-light. Elijah staggered, his hybrid flesh blistering.
Ava rose, her body a marionette jerking on Azazel's strings. "Kill… me…" she choked, one green eye pleading, the other pure night. "Before I…*enjoy it*."
Marverick reached her as the bond *snapped*. Their hands met—skin to corrupted skin—and the universe tore.
Ava's scream was a chorus. Marverick's veins lit with liquid starlight. The Stone's power ripped through them, a fusion of salvation and damnation. Walls crumbled. Gabriel roared. Elijah dissolved into ash, his final smirk etched in smoke.
When the dust settled, Marverick cradled Ava's limp form. Her veins pulsed with both their blood now, gold and black entwined. The Stone lay dormant in his palm, its verdict unspoken.
Somewhere, Azazel laughed.
And the angels began to hunt.