Chapter 9: No Darkness Can Overcome
Darkness pressed close as a tomb around Ethan Cole, yet clearer shone the flame of Christ within, guiding his unerring steps. Sensing confrontation's climax ahead, nerves sang yet spirit soared transcendent on wings of faith, for there could be no victory greater than defending God's children against the shadows' grip.
Emerging at last into a vast sanctum, he paused momentarily in stunned awe, hovering black crystals pulsed with eldritch energies lighting obsidian spires whose pinnacles pierced the vaults above to unknown heights. And amid the gloom, broad staircases ascended toward two silhouettes locked in epic combat on a raised coronation dais.
General Ernesh lunged and parried with serrated talons, muscles rippling transhuman under hell-forged sinew. Yet his foe stood undaunted, blocking each savage strike with flawless technique—none but Captain Anderson himself, standing alone against this abyss incarnate.
Ethan leapt into the fray, flanking Marcos from shadows unseen. In unison, soldier and captain fought as brethren forged through trials uncounted, coordinated assaults harrying the hulking tyrant at every turn. Though outmatched individually, together, under God's light, they turned the tide.
Ernesh howled with malice incarnate, talons shearing Anderson's armored chestplate to spill crimson upon black onyx. But in that window, a precise shot felled the demon, toppling his colossal form thunderously across the sanctum's heights.
Ethan rushed to the captain, applying emergency dressings amid choking dust as Ernesh writhed, dying yet railing nonsensically, curses dissolving into choked gurgles as shadows overtook malignant flesh, quickening into inhuman decay. Victory had been achieved, though at grievous cost.
Just then the throne room quaked as from fathoms deep arose an unholy chorus of wails slowly resolving into distinct voices—the doomed masses fused into that blasphemous organism, calling out mutely for salvation—or oblivion, anything but enduring unnatural torment a second more. Their cries rent Ethan's spirit to the core of being.
Anderson gripped his arm weakly. Finish what has begun, soldier. You, alone, can end this nightmare. Godspeed. With that final whisper, his head lolled silently, and his faithful heart stilled after battles beyond count. Ethan bowed his head in solemn prayer over the fallen hero and for strength to see the mission through as charged, no matter the cost.
He descended twisting staircases, sensing some eldritch resonance, guiding an unswerving course toward confrontation's end. Emerging at last upon a balcony overlooking the cavernous chamber, Ethan beheld the pulsating monstrosity filling its boundless depths and shivered despite himself at the sheer sacrilege of its vileness.
Yet steadily burned the light within, steeling Ethan's resolve. Retrieving ordnance from Anderson's fallen form, he began systematically targeting crypt-like structures throughout the chamber housing blasphemous sigils generating resonance binding the abomination. Each explosion shook the citadel to its demonic foundations, cracking runes and maintaining unholy cohesion.
As the mass unraveled into its constituent screaming souls, Ethan descended the final staircases into the writhing charnel bowels, picking off cultists desperately defending their unholy opus. At last, the chamber fell deathly still, shadows receding beyond perception's edge to reveal a brilliant radiance dawning over crumpled victors and vanquished alike.
Ethan turned slowly to see a resplendent archangel warrior's descending from riven heavens, their wings spanning creation in glory unto death. Awestruck, he watched as the beings outstretched their hands, calling forth divine fire that consumed demons slain and bound, cleansing all traces of their wretched presence for eternity. The angel's sang saying "Hosanna blessed is he who come's in the name of the Lord!" Ethan knew that Christ had come to establish his eternal kingdom upon the earth as foretold in the Scriptures.
When the Light at last withdrew, only the saved remained amid ruins now as peaceful as Eden. Through falling tears and rising joy, Ethan Cole knew the war was won at long last—though deeper shadows yet lingered, God's children would walk unafraid into dawn and whatever trials lay beyond. For Jesus Christ had come for his own!