Angel or Devil 2
In the center of the city square, covered in ash and ruin,
The angel descended quietly.
No fire this time.
No flash.
Just… a silent descent, over the wreckage of a civilization that had burned.
Before it…
Only three remained alive.
Vadim, Sergei, and Ivan.
But they were no longer as they once were.
Vadim could barely stand, half his body charred.
Ivan leaned on a broken spear, his breaths ragged,
and Sergei desperately tried to repair his shield, cracked under the heavenly flames.
...
Elsewhere,
Lena was still inside Vadim's memories,
watching the scene silently, her hand pressed to her chest.
But when she saw the angel,
her heart trembled.
"This aura…"
She whispered to herself.
"It's… like Jonathan's.
No… it's the same."
...
The angel slowly spread its wings,
and in a voice so deep it seemed the whole world was listening, it spoke:
— "Ah… I didn't expect anyone to survive."
Its words were cold as steel.
Devoid of any remorse.
...
Vadim dragged himself forward, his voice filled with anguish:
— "Why…?
Why did you do this?
Even… your own soldiers, your followers… you sacrificed them!"
...
Sergei looked up at the sky.
The flying ships were still there, hovering over the city…
yet they were unharmed.
The flames had never touched them.
He whispered:
— "Their ships… didn't burn.
They were safe… from the beginning."
...
The angel let out a short, lifeless laugh.
— "Them?
They were weak.
They couldn't even defeat weak humans…
Why should I keep them?"
...
Tears fell from Vadim's eyes.
Not from pain, but from helplessness.
Hot tears mixed with the ash on his scorched face.
— "You…
killed them all…
our city… my family… my little girl…"
...
But the angel did not respond.
It simply folded its wings slowly…
The sky was still overcast…
Ash drifted down lightly, like black snow burying what remained of the forgotten city.
Amid this ruin,
the angel stood before the three men, its wings folded behind its back.
Its face was unseen, but its voice… was clearer than ever.
— "I will reward you for standing against me…
I will let you live."
It paused, then continued in an even colder tone:
— "But only… if you kneel before me.
I am the heir of light."
...
Vadim's heart burned.
As if the words were arrows piercing his pride.
Sergei, despite his many wounds, gently gripped Vadim's shoulder.
He whispered to him:
— "There's no point in dying now…
We've lost… at least let us survive."
Then, slowly,
Sergei knelt.
His knee touched the ground. His head lowered.
Ivan, barely holding his body together,
also, with great difficulty…
bowed.
...
Only Vadim remained standing.
His trembling body, his bloodshot eyes, his memories… all fought within him.
Old moments flashed in his mind:
His little daughter's laughter…
His wife's voice calling him at dusk…
The garden… the birds… the life they once had.
A tear fell onto the charred earth.
...
He closed his eyes.
Then… slowly…
he knelt.
But it was not a bow of obedience.
It was the bow of a man broken… but not dead.
...
The angel smiled, though its face remained hidden.
— "This is how things should be…"
Then it turned and began to walk away…
gradually disappearing into the smoke and fire, leaving behind three men… and a dead city.
Two years after the catastrophe,
everything had changed…
The sky above the green forest was no longer clear as it once was,
and the trees, despite their lushness,
hid stories in their shadows that no one wanted to remember.
Three men, in worn clothes and weary souls,
reached the edge of the forest.
Vadim, the man with the burned scars on his face,
Sergei, with his broad chest and boar mask hanging around his neck,
and Ivan, moving with light steps, slipped deeper into the forest.
The other two sat on the ground near a fallen tree trunk,
as if the trunk itself was tired of bearing the years, just like them.
...
Sergei sighed bitterly:
— "I can't believe… the Empire of the Bear,
which stood for over five hundred years,
fell in just ten days… ten!"
Vadim didn't look at him.
He was staring at the tall grass ahead,
as if seeing the ashes of his old city in it.
He replied in a hoarse voice:
— "It started with them…
with our city, where there was warmth and good people…
Then… one city after another.
Not to conquer, but only to destroy."
...
Silence.
Then he continued in a low voice, filled with indescribable pain:
— "As if… it enjoyed it.
The suffering of the innocent."
...
The wind gently lifted autumn leaves around them,
but neither of them felt its beauty.
After hours of silent wandering through the dense trees and endless green paths,
Ivan returned to where Vadim and Sergei sat, beneath a massive tree with yellow leaves hanging like unhealed autumn tears.
Ivan raised his head and said quietly:
— "You need to see this… I found something deep in the forest."
Both turned to him, exchanged a brief glance, then stood.
...
The journey deeper was not easy.
The light dwindled bit by bit, as if the trees themselves were swallowing the sun,
until they finally reached a place that seemed outside of time…
A palace.
An ordinary-looking palace on the outside, white stone covered in creeping vines, its windows broken,
but the scent inside… was strangely warm.
They moved through it in silence, their footsteps echoing through the halls as if the palace was whispering something it didn't want them to hear.
...
Ivan pushed open a rusted door leading downward.
A dark stone cellar, the smell of dampness and ancient wood unmistakable.
And there…
a coffin.
A large wooden box, its surface carved with faded engravings barely legible.
Sergei approached first, staring at it before saying slowly:
— "This isn't ordinary… something is sealed inside. I can feel it."
...
Vadim replied, his hand gripping his sword hilt cautiously:
— "We shouldn't touch it.
We don't know what this thing is."
But Ivan had already read the inscription:
— "Guardian of the Palace?"
He raised an eyebrow but added nothing.
They left the cellar behind and headed to the main hall.
...
The hall was vast, its ceiling high,
its floor covered in tattered carpets that spoke of a long-lost grandeur.
Vadim examined the place and said:
— "It doesn't seem like anyone lives here."
Then he looked at his companions, his eyes glinting with a plan:
— "We'll make this our home.
Until we grow strong enough to return and kill that angel."
...
Ivan was silent for a moment, then asked:
— "How? He's far stronger than us. His mere presence destroyed an entire city…"
But Vadim glanced at Sergei, a faint smile on his face:
— "You've learned some of the ancient magic arts, haven't you?"
Sergei nodded heavily:
— "Not much… but enough to begin."
...
In the heart of the forest,
amid shadows and memories…
a small flame of vengeance began to burn anew.