Chapter 171: Into the Impossible

The first sign that Grace had reached the Origin was when her left wing stopped responding.

“What the—”

Her body dropped thirty feet before she managed to stabilize with just her right wing. The air felt so strange. Too thick in some places, nonexistent in others.

[Okay, this is definitely it.]

She hovered at the edge of what looked like a massive hurricane made of broken rainbows. The colors bent in ways that hurt her eyes. Some shades didn’t even have names, at least not that Grace knew.

A hundred years of training. A hundred years of pushing her body beyond what angels were supposed to endure. All for this moment.

[Please don’t let me die in the first five minutes. That would be SO embarrassing.]

Grace took a deep breath and plunged forward.

The wind hit her like Diana on a bad day. It yanked her sideways, twisting her wings at angles that would’ve snapped them a decade ago. But Grace had trained for this. Her body was firm now.

She tucked her left wing tight against her body and used only her right to navigate the first layer. The colors swirled around her, some trying to stick to her skin. She shook them off.

[This isn’t so ba—FUCK!]

A chunk of… something… hurtled past her face, missing her by inches. She couldn’t tell if it was rock or metal or something that didn’t exist in normal reality.

Another piece slammed into her shoulder. Pain bloomed across her back.

[Son of a BITCH!]

She ducked and rolled, narrowly avoiding a shower of the stuff. The Origin was pelting her with debris that shouldn’t exist. Some pieces vanished before hitting anything. Others multiplied when they broke apart.

Grace pushed deeper. The wind changed direction every few seconds. Up, then down, then left, then right.

Her brain struggled to process what her eyes saw. Landscapes formed and dissolved. Mountains grew like plants and wilted just as quickly. Oceans hung suspended in mid-air, fish swimming through them oblivious to the chaos.

[Focus on the breathing. Just like Seraph taught you.]

Grace regulated her inhales and exhales. Her body stabilized in the chaotic currents.

Then came the screaming.

Not voices—at least, not any voices she recognized. The wind itself wailed like it was being tortured. The sound burrowed into her ears and vibrated her bones.

[Shut up shut up SHUT UP!]

She clamped her hands over her ears, nearly losing her flight pattern. A wall of solid air slammed into her from below. Her head snapped back.

Blood filled her mouth. She’d bitten her tongue.

[That’s going to bruise.]

Grace spat red and kept going. The second layer of the Origin was worse than the first. Here, gravity had opinions. Lots of them.

She felt herself being pulled in six different directions at once. Her bones creaked. Her muscles strained against the competing forces.

“Not today,” she growled.

She extended both wings fully now, pouring divine energy into them. They glowed white-hot, cutting through the gravity fields like they were water.

Something grabbed her ankle.

Grace looked down. A hand made of what looked like liquid glass had wrapped around her leg. It pulled.

[Oh, HELL no.]

She kicked hard, shattering the hand. More rose up from below. An entire body formed—a humanoid shape made of the same flowing glass. It opened a mouth full of needle-like teeth.

Grace drew her sword. The blade, blessed by the Flame herself, ignited on contact with the air.

“I don’t have time for this!”

She slashed through the creature. It split apart, reformed, then dispersed into droplets that flew back into the chaos.

The third layer hit her without warning. One second she was fighting glass monsters, the next she was tumbling through what felt like molasses.

The air thickened until she couldn’t move her wings. Couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t—

[No. I didn’t train a century for this.]

Grace focused her power into a single point at her center. Then she released it in an explosive burst.

The thick air shattered around her. She gasped, sucking in whatever passed for oxygen here.

Her vision blurred. The colors mixed together, stretching into impossible shapes. The sky—if it even was a sky—cracked like a broken mirror.

Grace felt her sanity slipping. The Origin wasn’t just physically dangerous. It attacked the mind.

[Remember who you are. Remember why you’re here.]

She pictured her friends. Mara’s suggestive compliments. Diana’s permanent scowl. Seraph’s booming laugh. Alia and Zephyr’s playful touches. Petriel’s shy smiles. Venus’s casual flirtations.

And then, she thought about her objective. Azrael. Broken, corrupted, then purified. Too ashamed to return.

[I’m coming for you, you dramatic bitch.]

The fourth layer was silence. Complete, absolute silence. The kind that made you think you’d gone deaf.

Grace couldn’t even hear her own heartbeat. The absence of sound was so profound it felt like a physical pressure against her eardrums.

She opened her mouth to yell, but nothing came out. Or maybe it did, and she just couldn’t hear it.

A flock of birds flew past her. Except they weren’t birds. They had too many wings, too many eyes. Their bodies twisted in on themselves, existing in more dimensions than should be possible.

One flew straight through her chest, leaving no wound but sending ice through her veins.

[Keep moving. Don’t stop.]

The silence gave way to a wall of pure sound. A single note so loud it would have liquefied the organs of anyone who hadn’t spent decades preparing.

Grace’s ears rang. Blood trickled from her nose. She wiped it away and pressed on.

The fifth layer was the worst. Reality itself became unreliable. Grace’s body kept changing. One moment her left arm was twice as long as her right. The next, her feet were on backward.

She looked down and saw her torso twist like a corkscrew, her internal organs visible through suddenly transparent skin.

[It’s not real. None of it is real.]

But it felt real. The pain was real. The disorientation was real.

She’d been warned about this. The Earth-Tenders called it the “Unmaking.” The place where Eternia’s first attempts at creation still echoed, trying to reshape anything that entered.

Grace recited her own name. Her mission. The names of everyone she cared about. Anything to anchor herself to reality.

[Getting closer. Have to be.]

The chaos grew more intense. Lightning that moved in slow motion. Rain that fell upward. The smell of colors and the taste of sounds.

Just when Grace thought she couldn’t take any more, everything… stopped.

The winds died. The colors faded. The screaming silenced.

Grace tumbled forward, her momentum carrying her into a bubble of perfect calm. She tucked her wings and rolled, coming up in a defensive stance, sword ready.

Nothing attacked.

She stood in what appeared to be a simple clearing. Green grass. Blue sky. A small stream bubbling nearby. Normal trees swayed in a normal breeze.

[This has to be a trick.]

But as she waited, nothing changed. The bubble of normality held firm, a perfect sphere of peace in the heart of chaos.

The eye of the storm.

Grace’s muscles trembled from exertion. She’d made it through the Origin’s defenses. Done what no angel had managed in a century.

She resheathed her sword and took stock of her condition. Bruises everywhere. Cuts on her arms and face. One wing bent at an uncomfortable angle.

But alive. Intact. Sane.

[Not bad for a former turnip farmer.]

She scanned the clearing. It was maybe a hundred yards across. At its center stood a simple stone cottage with a thatched roof. Smoke curled from the chimney.

Grace started walking. Her legs felt strange on solid ground after so much aerial combat.

As she approached the cottage, she rehearsed what she’d say. A hundred years had given her plenty of time to plan this conversation, but now all her clever openings seemed inadequate.

Twenty yards from the door, she felt it. A presence so powerful it made the air vibrate.

The cottage door opened.

Azrael stepped out.

A century of self-imposed exile hadn’t diminished her. If anything, she looked stronger. Her silver hair hung loose down her back, contrasting with skin that had regained its healthy glow after purification. Her wings—massive even by archangel standards—arched behind her, no longer corrupted by Sin energy.

She wore simple clothes: a white tunic and loose pants. No shoes. No weapons. No armor.

She didn’t need any of that. Her power radiated outward like heat from a fire.

Grace stopped, suddenly unsure. All her rehearsed speeches evaporated.

Azrael’s eyes widened slightly—the only indication she was surprised. Then that icy blue gaze locked onto Grace’s face.

For a long moment, neither spoke. The only sound was the stream gurgling nearby and the faint howl of chaos beyond their protected bubble.

Then Azrael’s lips parted.

“You.”

One word. Filled with recognition, confusion, and something else Grace couldn’t identify.

Grace nodded, suddenly finding her voice.

Their eyes met across the clearing—gold and ice blue. The former right hand of Eternia and her replacement. Two beings who had more in common than either would admit.

“Me.”

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