The silence in Beelzebub's sanctum was a physical presence, a void so absolute it felt heavier than any sound. Here, in a pocket of folded space, the war was not a clash of light and fury, but a series of cold, elegant equations. Beelzebub was the mathematician.
Its form—a constellation of interlocking wheels of polished obsidian and silver, spinning in a silent, perpetual dance—hovered before a vast, shimmering tactical map of the Empyrean. The map was not static; it pulsed and flowed with real-time data, a living entity to its gaze. At the center of the wheels, a single point of cold blue light focused with unnerving intensity.
A new data-stream, flagged with Cassiel's archival signature, flowed into the system. It was the after-action report from the Talon unit's mission in the Marches. The one where the Ashai-variable had projected a shield of unprecedented resilience.
ANOMALY DETECTED, Beelzebub's thought-process manifested as sharp, angular glyphs that flickered in the air. BATTLE-OUTCOME PROBABILITY: 0.00012%. ACTUAL OUTCOME: SUCCESSFUL WITHDRAWAL. DISCREPANCY: SIGNIFICANT. PRIMARY CAUSE: MALAKIM HEALER-CLASS, DESIGNATION ASHAI.
The wheels began to spin faster with a soft, grinding hum that vibrated in the bones of reality. The map zoomed in, isolating the Ashai-variable. Beelzebub began its feast.
It wasn't analyzing strategy. It was consuming him. It devoured his service record, his psychological profile, his healing logs. It cross-referenced his known personal bonds, his moments of insubordination, his private jokes logged by oblivious scribes. It was a glutton, shoveling every conceivable datum into the gaping maw of its logic, desperate to find the source of the indigestible variable it had labeled Malakim Resilience (MR).
A smaller, secondary simulation bloomed beside the main map. It re-ran the battle, but this time, it introduced a new weapon: a targeted sonic frequency designed to induce crippling paranoia, calibrated using the private fears it had mined from a soldier's record. In the simulation, the unit fractured, turning on itself.
The blue light pulsed. EFFICACY: 97.4%.
But it was not satisfied. This was a tactical solution for one unit. The MR Variable was a systemic infection. Its gluttony was not for a single victory, but for total comprehension.
It needed a larger sample. A grander experiment.
A new command resonated through the sanctum. It was not a battle plan, but a resource allocation request, so logically pristine it was instantly approved by the Illuminated command structure. The request diverted immense power to a dormant sector at the edge of the contested territory.
On the Loyalist side, Cassiel, monitoring resource flows from his spire, saw the spike. His blood ran cold. It was a pattern he'd seen before Aethelgard—the siphoning of raw cosmic power for a single, monstrous purpose.
He immediately sent a priority warning to Michael and the Talon command.
But he was too late.
On the Shifting Plains, Adara's unit was regrouping when the sky tore open. Not with weapons of light, but with a wave of nothingness. A null-field. It didn't attack their bodies; it attacked their connections. The comforting presence of the angel next to you suddenly felt distant, alien. The certainty of your own memories flickered. The deep, instinctual bond to the Heavenly Song itself grew thin and frayed.
It was Beelzebub's ultimate feast—an attempt to devour the very connections that gave them strength, to isolate each angel into a lonely, data-point island, easy to process and eliminate.
Adara fought it, her will a blade against the encroaching void. But she saw younger soldiers around her falter, their eyes wide with a terror worse than pain: the terror of being utterly alone.
Back in his sanctum, Beelzebub consumed the fresh data, the panic, the dissonance. The blue light glowed with fierce intensity. It was not a feeling of triumph, but of profound intellectual satisfaction. The variable was being broken down, digested.
The chapter ends not on a battlefield, but in the sterile silence of the sanctum, with Beelzebub preparing its next meal, having learned that to defeat an enemy, you must first consume its soul. And on the Plains, Adara and her soldiers fight the most insidious weapon yet: the weapon meant to starve their hearts.