The border between Heaven and Hell shimmered like a wound stitched in light, neither still nor steady. To the east stretched Heaven’s vast meadows, rolling waves of grass bathed in endless gold. Rivers of radiance curled through orchards heavy with fruit, their surfaces alive with reflected sky. Mansions crowned distant hills like marble constellations, glowing softly beneath the eternal day. Every detail exhaled harmony: lilies bending toward the sun, pathways humming faintly beneath the steps of angels, the air itself fragrant with sweetness.

To the west sprawled the restless city of Hell, burning beneath an eternal night alive with neon. Steel towers speared upward, coated in signs that flashed and pulsed like fevered heartbeats. Molten rivers cut through the streets, their glow casting fire across the smoke-filled alleys and market stalls bursting with sound. Music throbbed from unseen clubs, engines screamed down crowded roads, and flames licked the edges of glass penthouses perched high above the chaos. The city was never still; it breathed, it consumed, it dazzled.

And in between—the veil. It trembled at the faintest touch, thin as mist, sharp as a blade, where Heaven’s calm pressed against Hell’s chaos in uneasy truce. Few crossed here willingly. Fewer still returned unchanged.

Michael stood at the threshold, the borderlight catching on the sweep of his wings. Vast and radiant, each feather gleamed with molten edges, their golden fire bending the air with quiet authority. His tall frame carried the weight of command effortlessly, shoulders broad beneath a pale tunic threaded with light. The long coat he wore shifted faintly in the breeze, its embroidered sigils faintly glowing as though alive. At his hip, the sheath of his blade pulsed softly, ready, as though sensing what lay beyond the veil.

His face was carved in calm resolve, jaw steady, eyes alight with molten gold. In that gaze was the authority of an archangel—unyielding, radiant—but threaded beneath was something quieter, a storm unspoken. The perfection of Heaven lived in him, yet here at the edge of eternity, where order trembled before chaos, his stillness felt more like restraint than peace.

He had not come to the border for idle patrol. His mission was heavier, older, whispered only in Heaven’s highest halls: Cratos. A place long abandoned, buried where Heaven and Hell once brushed too close. Once, it had been an experiment in harmony, a fragile mingling of angel and devil, a city of shared streets and uneasy peace. Now it lay deserted, a ruin scarred by failure, its silence carrying the weight of secrets neither side spoke of. Heaven demanded answers. So did Hell.

That was why Michael had been sent—God’s right hand, a blade of light honed for duty. To walk the haunted streets of Cratos, to sift through its ashes for the truth of why peace had crumbled, and whether it could rise again.

But Heaven had not trusted him alone. For the mission demanded balance, demanded perspective from both sides of the veil. And so, Michael would not walk those ruins by himself. He would walk them beside one from Hell.

The thought curled in him like fire against gold—unnerving, unwanted, and necessary. His wings flexed against the border’s hum, his gaze steady as the veil shimmered, and somewhere beyond the light, the devil who would join him drew near. The veil trembled softly where Heaven’s glow met Hell’s fire, and Michael stood at its edge like a statue of living light. His wings were folded tight, each feather pressed in perfect order, but the faintest twitch at their tips betrayed his restlessness. He shifted his weight once, boots grinding against the polished stone of the border path, then stilled again as if anchoring himself in place.