CHAPTER 1357: THE TESTERS ARRIVE

"Enough!"

Father Black’s voice cracked through the uproar like thunder. The weight of it carried more than authority—it carried finality. Crusher, who had half-risen with his hammer clenched white-knuckled, froze mid-motion. Slowly, he lowered himself back into his place, his jaw tight but silent.

A hush fell over the chamber. Even the air seemed to still. All eyes turned to the Regent of the Lenny family.

"This is not the time for us to tear at one another," Father Black said, his voice even, yet ringing with steel. "Our enemy is not in this room. Our enemy... is Lucifer. Remember that before we waste strength fighting amongst ourselves."

The silence held for a long moment, broken only when Kanada’s voice rippled through the hall. Smooth, deliberate.

"He is right." The Prophet’s tone was calm, but there was a strange edge to it, a thread of something no one could quite place. "And if we cannot agree... then let us settle this with a competition. A trial to prove who is most worthy to lead."

Her words caught the room off guard. Even Athena tilted her head, flames dancing on her gown as her blind, glowing eyes narrowed.

"And what exactly are you suggesting?" Athena’s voice was measured, but sharp.

Even Perseus leaned forward slightly, arms uncrossing, his gaze hard upon Kanada, waiting.

The Prophet chuckled low in her throat, a sound strange and unsettling given her faceless visage.

"The premise is simple," she said. "The one who kills the most fallen angels in the coming battle will hold command. No tricks, no votes, no titles. Just the strength to do what must be done. But—" her voice lowered, almost a hiss "—you will do it without the aid of your armies. Only your own power will count."

The words struck the room like cold iron. Faces stiffened. Eyes narrowed. Even Crusher blinked, as if unsure he had heard correctly.

"What do you mean—’the coming battle’?" Odin’s one eye glimmered with suspicion.

Perseus’s gaze hardened further. Athena’s fire gown rippled uneasily.

And then—

A ripple of force struck the chamber. Heavy. Suffocating. The pressure of presences not yet seen but impossibly close. It pressed against their skins, against their very souls.

Everyone felt it. Everyone knew it.

The Fallen Angels were here.

Shock twisted their features, disbelief curdling into horror.

Crusher erupted to his feet, his hammer slamming down with a thunderous crack that shook the chamber. "Are you in league with them, Prophet!?" His roar echoed, spittle flying as his aura burst in outrage.

Kanada did not flinch.

Her smooth, unreadable face tilted slightly. "Do not be foolish. Had I allied with them, you would already be dead. No... this was inevitable. They would have come regardless." She let the silence stretch before adding, almost casually, "And besides—there is nothing more any of us can do now... except accept the challenge."

The gravitational pull of Kanada’s black-hole artifact throbbed beneath them, but no one cared anymore. Every gaze had been drawn upward, outward—beyond the walls of the chamber—where the cosmos itself trembled.

A shudder ran through the hall. A ripple of cosmic resistance, like a barrier groaning under the weight of something far too great for it to hold.

It was the cosmic resistance every plane had to prevent high powered beings from entering a primary world without the permission of its royal family.

Then they all felt it.

The Fallen Angels had come.

Through the crystalline dome of the sanctuary, the heavens warped. Fireless light streaked across the void as massive shadows pressed against the natural barrier that wrapped Earth. This barrier was no creation of gods or mortals—it was the law of the cosmos itself, the unseen veil that barred intruders of unbearable power from simply stepping into planes they did not belong to.

But these beings were not waiting for permission. They were forcing themselves through.

"Impossible..." Morgana’s whisper bled with both awe and disgust.

The chamber broke into chaos. Perseus cursed under his breath as he and Father Black shot upward in streams of light, exiting the hall in unison. The others followed, none daring to remain seated as the very fabric of their reality strained.

Beyond, Tomato’s wristwatch comm flared alive with blaring crimson alerts. The sigil of the Lenny family pulsed across the screen before her planet-sized warship relayed its warning:

⚠ Intrusion detected. Primary Fallen Host descending.

She snarled under her breath, her devilish grin twitching at the corners. "Those bastards already chewed through the guard detail..."

Indeed—Father Black and Perseus’s painstaking defense array, fleets of autonomous war drones, and even lesser gods stationed at the fringes of space, had already been annihilated. Their shattered remains drifted silently, lit only by the sickly glow of the intruders.

And then the invaders revealed themselves.

Six figures, each burning with its own dreadful essence, tore at the barrier like claws dragging down a sheet of steel. Their wings, vast and jagged, blackened the stars behind them.

One was liquid shadow that slithered in the shape of a man, smoke spilling endlessly from its edges.

Another was a faceless titan, every step a quake, its body an armor of obsidian flesh.

A third bore twelve wings aflame, but no head—its mouth opening from its chest, spilling hymns of corruption.

The others were no less terrible, each a perverse inversion of what Heaven had once crafted.

And then—

the seventh appeared.

Not a body. Not a man.

But a colossal eye, the size of the moon itself, its iris an ocean of shifting, molten gold. Vast wings sprouted from its sides, thousands of feathers dripping oily light that corroded the space around it. The monstrous pupil dilated as if focusing, and the cosmos shuddered with the sense that it could see everything—every man, every god, every soul.

It hovered, silent, patient. Waiting for the order.

Waiting to burn the world below.

On Earth, alarms blared across every continent. From military bases to celestial temples, the signal was the same. DEFCON APOCALYPSE. Mortals and immortals alike scrambled into formation. Soldiers clutched rifles that felt like toys against gods. Priests screamed warnings as their relics cracked under the pressure of what approached.

Demigods lit the skies, streaking upward like meteors of defiance. Pantheons rallied. The oceans churned, cities trembled, and the air grew heavy with the taste of fear.

From the sanctuaries, avatars of gods hovered high, pouring power into Earth’s ley lines in desperation to stabilize the seas and skies. Even their combined might felt like a child holding back a flood.

Father Black hovered at the front of them all, robes whipping wildly in the solar winds of unnatural descent.

He changed his cigar. His eyes remained focused.Perseus floated beside him, face grim, power rippling silently in his clenched fists.

And yet, the dread was undeniable.

The Fallen Angels were not just descending.

They were claiming.

The heavens blazed as the first cracks split through the cosmic barrier.