The descent into Khar Veth took three hours and cost them two lives that weren't theirs.
They dropped through a ventilation shaft that hadn't been used since the Nephilim Wars, boots skimming rusted chains slick with centuries of blood-rain. Halfway down, a patrol of Court Revenants wingless Seraphim whose halos had been clipped for failing to catch the last rebellion spotted them. Tomas solved the problem in four seconds.
He kicked off the wall, Woundsteel flashing once. Three heads hit the shaft floor before the bodies realized they were dead. The fourth Revenant managed half a scream before Kaelen's hand clamped over its mouth and the brand poured liquid dawn down its throat. The thing melted from the inside, armor sloughing off like burnt paper.
They landed in the main artery of the Undercity: a cavernous black-market boulevard lit by caged fallen stars. Nephilim merchants, demon-blooded smugglers, and exiles wearing the scars of clipped wings stared as the Ashbinders strode through the crowd dragging molten Seraphim slag behind them like a warning. No one tried to stop them.
The Crimson Ossuary was built inside the fossilized ribcage of a dead Leviathan-class angel. Dagon Voss waited on a throne made from that angel's broken halo.
He was seven feet of scarred muscle, one eye replaced by a chunk of the original Black Apple, wings long since burned away but the stumps still smoldering. When he stood, the entire ossuary shook. "You're late," he rumbled. "And you brought gifts."
He kicked the melted Seraphim helm across the bone floor. It rolled to Kaelen's feet and hissed. Kaelen didn't flinch. "We're not here to ask permission. We're here to buy an army." Dagon laughed sound of grinding tombstones. "Everything has a price. Yours just went up." He snapped his fingers. Forty Nephilim enforcers dropped from the ribs above blades forged from Watcher bones, eyes glowing with inherited rebellion. They landed in perfect formation, weapons already hungry. Tomas grinned like a wolf. "Finally."
The fight lasted ninety seconds and rewrote the Ossuary's reputation forever.
Tomas carved a bloody corridor through the left flank, Woundsteel drinking souls so fast the blade screamed in ecstasy. Iria's chains became living serpents, crushing spines and ripping wings from stumps that had never known flight. Selene simply looked at three enforcers and spoke one word in the tongue that unmade Eden; their hearts exploded inside their chests. Kaelen walked straight down the middle.
Every Nephilim who raised a weapon against him found their own shadow turning on them black wings sprouting from the floor, dragging them down into the brand's golden fire. When the last one fell, Kaelen stood over Dagon untouched, the seed in his palm now blooming into a crown of black thorns and gold flame. Dagon looked at the carnage, at the forty bodies steaming on bone, and did the only sensible thing. He knelt.
"Welcome to the real war," he said, voice thick with awe and hunger. "The one the heavens pretended ended ten thousand years ago."
They were sealing the pact in blood and fire when the initiate broke. Brother Cael, the monk whose mouth had been stitched shut by vow suddenly ripped the threads free with his own fingers. Blood poured down his chin as he screamed a single word in celestial: "TRAITORS!" The betrayal sigil carved into his tongue flared white-hot. Every exit in the Ossuary slammed shut with walls of living scripture. Above, hidden Seraphim choirs Malcer's elite descended through murder-holes in the Leviathan's ribs, Unbinding Spears already kindled.
Dagon roared and reached for his axe, but Cael had planned well. A spear took him through the shoulder, pinning him to his own throne.
Tomas moved first always first. He threw himself between Selene and three descending Seraphim, Woundsteel deflecting spears that could unmake souls. One blade still punched through his side, lifting him off his feet. Kaelen's vision went gold.
The brand detonated. He rose into the air on wings of living Ascendant Flame no longer phantom, now real, twenty feet of molten dawn. The temperature in the Ossuary tripled. Seraphim armor began to melt mid-dive. He spoke one word, and it was Belial's word, the one that had shattered gates in the First War: "Burn."
Golden fire rolled out in a perfect sphere. Every Seraphim caught in it screamed as their feathers ignited, their halos cracked, their grace boiled away. Ten died before they hit the ground. The rest fled upward, trailing comets of their own burning wings.
Brother Cael tried to run. Kaelen caught him by the throat, lifted him one-handed. "You were supposed to be silent," Kaelen said, almost gently.
Then he crushed the monk's windpipe and let the body fall into the fire.
Silence fell, broken only by the hiss of cooling gold and the wet thump of Seraphim corpses hitting bone.
Dagon rose, spear still pinning his shoulder, blood pouring down his chest. He looked at the carnage forty of his best dead by Ashbinder hands, twenty Seraphim reduced to slag and laughed until he cried.
He tore the spear free and knelt again, this time pressing his forehead to Kaelen's boot.
"Take whatever you want," he said. "Maps. Weapons. My life. Name it."
Kaelen looked down at the growing army hundreds of Nephilim and exiles now flooding the Ossuary, drawn by the light of burning angels. "Give me the locations of every Veil anchor between here and the Hollow Thrones," he said. "And every warrior who wants to watch heaven bleed." Dagon grinned, teeth red. "Done." He rose and bellowed to the crowd: "Tonight we stop running! Tonight, we start the Second Fall, and this time we finish it!" The roar that answered shook the Leviathan's bones, so hard dust rained from the ribs like golden snow. Kaelen looked at his people Tomas bleeding but alive, Iria's chains dripping Seraphim blood, Selene's eyes glowing with the same fire that had once damned the Watchers. The brand pulsed once satisfied, eager, ravenous. Phase one was over. Now the war began for real.