Chapter 65: Ch-65:Gabriel’s Concern & Uriel’s Smackdown
(A big Shoutout to @Kylar_Warp_Shinkai & @Cyclops_Tempest for their support!!)
– – –
Gabriel felt it before the garden finished breathing again.
The darkness had gone with Lucifer. The pressure had lifted. The sourceless warmth returned to its quiet, steady presence, settling over the grass and blossoms like something resuming a conversation that had only briefly paused.
The amber flowers opened first, petals loosening in delicate increments. Then the wildflowers followed, colour returning across the meadow in gentle spreads.
The grass deepened into its richest green, blades lifting where the weight had pressed them flat.
Above, the ceiling bore the new wounds.
Two apertures cut through the garden’s sky beside the original shaft, each one admitting the desert’s hard sunlight in pale, vertical columns.
The sourceless glow of the garden met that sunlight without conflict. Neither yielded.
They occupied the same air quietly, as though light had decided argument was unnecessary.
Gabriel stood among it, feeling the warmth return across her shoulders.
Then the silver compressed.
It arrived not as sound or sight, but as pressure across the frequency she knew too well.
The sensation moved through her like distant weather, something felt before it formed, the shift in atmosphere that preceded a storm.
Vothanael’s silver was different. Not the gentle silver that had moved among the butterflies. Not the warm contact that had touched the grass.
This was the other silver.
The Primordial culling Silver. The moment light had bled from cracked knuckles. The density that had turned the leviathan as father told them, into nothingness.
That silver, compressed further now, drawn inward past the threshold where light still behaved like light.
Gabriel inhaled softly.
It tightened, compressed again. Now past recognition.
She felt the punch land.
Forty-three metres below. Thirty-eight kilometres away. The sensation reached her not as distance but as certainty.
The impact travelled through the same quiet channel the silver occupied, a ripple through something older than space.
Her gaze lifted to the ceiling.
The new shafts of sunlight fell across the garden floor, pale and quiet. Dust drifted lazily in their beams. Beyond them, the desert sky remained distant and still.
Around her, the crew had regained their footing.
Yosef stood with his jaw set, shoulders squared as though bracing against something that had already passed.
Rania had retrieved her notebook from the grass, fingers tightening briefly around its edges before she tucked it against her chest.
Amara was already studying the ceiling apertures, her attention moving across the fractures with the reflexive precision of someone who catalogued instability before deciding whether instability mattered.
Khalil stood near the shaft, looking upward into the desert light, his posture still but alert.
Shai held the spectral analyser close, watching the needle as it hovered somewhere outside its intended vocabulary.
Kinvara remained still.
The scroll rested in both her hands, unopened. Her gaze lingered on the new openings above, expression unreadable, as though listening to something that had not spoken.
Gabriel felt the silver settle into its new density.
Her chest tightened faintly.
Not fear. Not exactly. But concern, quiet and persistent, the way worry arrived when something gentle stood too close to something capable of being otherwise.
She knew Vothanael.
Not completely, not even close. But she knew the warmth he carried. She knew the careful patience in the way he moved among the grass and blossoms, the quiet attention he gave to fragile things.
She had seen the butterflies land on his fingers.
And she had just felt that same gentleness compress into something harder.
Her gaze softened.
She did not like that.
She did not like what it meant when something gentle shifted into necessity.
"Uriel."
Her voice carried warmth as it always did, but there was a steadiness beneath it now, a practical softness that arrived when care required action.
She did not raise her voice. She did not need to. The name moved through the garden with quiet clarity.
Uriel was already looking at her.
Gold flickered faintly across his presence, the subtle shimmer of first fire resting beneath composure.
He had felt it too. She could see it in the stillness of his posture, the way his attention had sharpened without tension.
Gabriel met his gaze.
"Go up," she said gently. "Stop this if you can."
The words were simple. They carried no urgency beyond their meaning, no command beyond trust.
Uriel paused.
One breath. The calculation unfolding behind his eyes. He had felt the compression.
He understood the scale of what had just shifted beneath the desert. He measured the distance, the density, unknown.
Gabriel watched him, concern quiet in her expression.
She did not doubt him.
But she worried anyway.
Uriel was one of the named. He carried the spear of holy light and flame, the first fire, every shade of gold moving within it. He had crossed layers of reality without effort. He had skewered threats that did not agree to be skewered.
And yet Gabriel knew that power did not erase uncertainty. It simply gave you the ability to walk into it.
She stepped slightly closer to him, the warmth in her presence steady.
"Just... see," she added softly.
Uriel inclined his head.
"Yes," he said.
The answer came without bravado, without reassurance beyond the promise itself. He turned toward the shaft immediately, motion fluid and purposeful, golden light gathering faintly around him as he moved.
Gabriel watched him go.
The sunlight from above caught the gold briefly as he reached the opening, turning the air around him warm and bright.
Then he rose, ascending into the desert light with the quiet certainty that defined him.
Gabriel remained where she stood.
Her gaze lingered on the shaft long after he vanished from sight.
The garden breathed around her, blossoms swaying gently, warmth settling back into its usual calm.
But beneath that calm, she still felt the compressed silver resting far beyond the desert, dense and quiet.
Her hands folded loosely before her.
She hoped it would ease.
She hoped Vothanael would return to the softer silver, the one that carried warmth instead of weight.
The worry remained nonetheless, gentle but persistent, like the feeling of watching clouds gather on an otherwise clear horizon.
Gabriel looked up at the light again, her expression soft.
"Please," she murmured quietly, not quite to anyone, and not quite to herself.
The garden held its warmth.
But she kept watching.
. . .
Uriel rose through the shaft in a column of displaced air and falling dust, clearing the broken rim of stone with the quiet inevitability of something that did not require momentum to travel upward.
The gold of first fire lingered faintly behind him before settling into stillness, the glow folding back into containment as his boots touched the desert surface.
The desert took his measure.
It did not welcome him, nor resist him. It simply existed around him with the patient indifference of something older than any name he carried.
Sand stretched outward in pale sheets. The morning heat had begun its slow ascent, the air thin and dry against his skin.
The horizon lay unbroken, a long, quiet line that had seen arrivals like this before and declined to comment on them.
Uriel stood in it for a breath, letting the stillness speak.
Then he turned north.
The basin lay ahead, carved into the desert with clean intent, its geometry at odds with the natural sprawl around it.
Silver rested at its centre, condensed into a density that seemed to pull attention toward it without radiating outward.
The figure within it stood unmoving, posture composed, fists still angled at forty-five degrees toward the north -- toward the mountains that had recently been turned into rubble.
Uriel watched him.
The assessment formed in him without effort, a habit carved into his being long before language had settled around the idea of habit.
Open terrain, One figure.
No secondary movement... The silver compressed but contained, engagement paused, not concluded.
He began to walk.
The desert accepted his passage the way it accepted wind, the way it accepted heat, the way it accepted time.
Sand shifted softly beneath his boots, leaving faint impressions that would fade soon enough.
The silence stretched outward in every direction, unbroken except for the quiet sound of his steps.
He reached the basin’s edge and looked down.
Vothanael stood at the centre, silver gathered around him like quiet gravity. The spine chilling void coated fists remained compressed, angled northward, his posture still holding the echo of the motion that had sent Lucifer through a mountain range.
His expression carried the calm of someone who had completed a necessary task and was now letting the world settle around it.
Uriel descended.
Stone and sand shifted beneath him as he moved downward, the air subtly thickening as he entered the silver’s quiet density.
It did not resist him. It did not acknowledge him. It simply existed, calm and compressed, a presence that did not require motion to be felt.
He stopped a short distance away.
The spear formed in his hand.
Gold unfolded along its length, flame and light layered together with the quiet authority of first fire.
Every shade of gold rested within it, moving faintly beneath the surface like something alive but contained.
The spear settled into his grip with familiar weight, the balance perfect, the presence unmistakable.
Uriel lifted it slightly.
Not a threat, A declaration.
He drew breath, preparing to speak.
The situation did not require escalation. The silver was contained. The figure was still.
Dialogue, measured and precise, felt appropriate.
"Stand down!"
Vothanael turned.
The motion came in the narrow space between syllables, the forty-five degrees shifting from north to Uriel in one continuous sweep.
The suffocating weight followed the movement without delay, the full quality of attention landing on him in its entirety, as though something that did not believe in partial focus had chosen him and nothing else.
Uriel continued.
"Gabriel as--"
Vothanael’s left hand moved.
The motion was almost casual, and he was backhanded before he could finish his words...
A flat dismissal of something assessed and resolved with minimum effort. The hand crossed the distance before Uriel could react.
SMACK!!
Uriel flew back the way he came and descended just near the apperture from where he came up.
The ground beneath him fractured as he passed through it, stone parting in rapid succession.
The forty-three metres of Negev rock yielded layer by layer, the descent compressed into a moment too brief for resistance.
Above, the basin settled.
Below, the garden opened.
Uriel broke through the ceiling in a scatter of stone and dust, sunlight spilling after him in pale strands.
He struck the garden floor in a compact impact, grass flattening beneath him with a soft, living compression.
Then the garden breathed.
The grass rose slowly around him, blades lifting with patient resilience. Amber blossoms swayed nearby, petals trembling as the air settled.
Wildflowers leaned slightly, adjusting themselves before returning to their quiet stillness.
The sourceless light found him where he lay.
It settled across his shoulders with gentle warmth, the same steady presence that filled the garden at all times.
Dust drifted through the new opening in thin, slow spirals, catching the light as it fell. The air remained calm, warm, faintly fragrant with blossoms and living things.
Uriel blinked once.
Above him, the new hole framed a circle of desert sky, pale and distant.
Dust floated lazily downward, unhurried, as though gravity had agreed to take its time.
The grass beneath him pressed softly against his shoulders, alive and insistent.
Nearby, a butterfly drifted past, wings catching the light in soft flashes. It crossed above him without hesitation, continuing on its gentle path through the blossoms.
Uriel exhaled.
The grass finished rising along his outline, blades reclaiming their place with quiet determination.
One leaned briefly across his sleeve, then straightened again, as though politely correcting itself.
Gabriel was already moving toward him.
Warmth came with her, soft and steady, concern resting gently beneath it.
The others had turned toward the impact, their reactions forming in quiet variations.
Yosef’s jaw tightened as he absorbed the new development. Rania held her notebook halfway lifted, pen hovering uncertainly.
Amara’s gaze moved quickly between the new aperture and Uriel, already cataloguing the shift.
Khalil glanced upward toward the shaft. Shai looked from the analyser to Uriel, then back again, uncertain which had more to say.
Kinvara remained still, scroll resting in both hands.
Uriel pushed himself upright.
The grass flattened briefly beneath his hands, then rose again once he shifted. A blossom near his knee leaned aside, petals brushing lightly against his sleeve before settling.
Gabriel reached him, her expression gentle.
"Uriel?" she asked softly.
He brushed a blade of grass from his sleeve.
"I attempted to speak," he said.
Gabriel’s lips curved faintly, sympathy softening her expression.
Above them, dust continued to drift through the new opening. The garden remained warm, alive, quietly persistent, as though his arrival had been anticipated in some distant, patient way.
Uriel rose to his feet.
The grass pressed upward around his boots, reclaiming its place with quiet determination. The blossoms swayed faintly. The sourceless light settled across him again, warm and even.
The garden welcomed him back without comment.
And, faintly, almost gently, seemed amused at his grandstanding only to witness him being smacked down back to its domain.
To Be Continued...
[Please give me your support whosoever can in the following ways dearest Readers. Your help will make my book come to notice to more and more readers. Any support at all is appreciated even if it’s not mandatory
10 powerstones/100 coins will make me give a unique reference to the sender in my Chapters.
20 powerstones/1000 coins will have me giving a shoutout to the sender in the top of the Chapter of the next 3 Chapters as patrons]
