NB: Thank you if you're still reading and following this story. Thank you for reviewing most of all. It's been awhile since the last update. I apologize beforehand, I've plenty on my plate at the moment but I won't bore you with the details of my life. FYI, this chapter is a turning point in the story. Quick recap; in Chapter 4; I introduced the sentinels; they will make an appearance soon and play a huge role in this fantasy story I'm weaving out of my consciousness. If you have questions or feel the need to leave a critique for the better, feel free to shoot. I'll answer when I can.

Chapter 14: Reincarnation Part II

Children of Darkness
Full Bloom

Heaven's angels stormed the sky in furor,
As Hell's daemons awoken with wrath unsurpassed,
Skies alight with blasphemous uproar,
Cursing, cursing, cursing, seeds of the Devil unabashed –
O Mighty Lucifer, what art thou hath done,
Angels o'er implored, shaking their fists in fury
At the Morning Star, the one they hath shunned,Into Frozen Time, Into Hell, Into Purgatory…

City of Angels,
Heaven

"O Father, we beseeched your counsel!" the archangel Michael barreled into Heaven's throne room with a face as pale as Death; and an unconscious Father Time propped against his shoulder, "The children have awoken, all of them! He found a trigger to awaken all of them!"

"What happened, Michael?!" God stood in haste, his eyes drinking in the caked blood that had dried upon Father Time's aquiline nose and elfin ears; and the even more prominent stain on Father Time's ripped robe; as though something demonic had clawed through him. Sataniel, what have you done, my son… he whispered to himself inwardly. He cursed his own inability to see beyond the universe that is Hell. He cursed the Sisters Fate even more because they were responsible for this unforeseen tip into this heinous nightmare.

"Lucifer… He attacked Time directly, Father. We barely managed to contain his soul within this vessel. We did not anticipate his plans at all; we did not think it was possible! But he did the unthinkable! He caught Father Time in the middle of weaving a spell into the webs so that his children would not be able to return to Infernus! He was meticulous and saw a split second of an opportunity to snake his claws into the spider web and sink them into Time's chest,"

Everything seemed to have frozen as Michael uttered his last words… Those cursed words sank into God's mind like a stone bent on crushing his very breath. Father Time's heart… was the true Sands of Time. The vial he carried around with him was that of his own crystallized blood that had coursed through his heart. It was the most powerful of all magical powers, and as the reality of the situation reared its ugly head with a satisfied roar, a tremor underneath his feet could be felt as though the apocalypse was about to begin…

"He has his heart… the Devil Lucifer has Father Time's heart… the key to unlocking and turning back time, everything above and beyond the curse we laid on him… He will slay us all Father, he will lay waste to all of Heaven and Earth, if we do not retrieve the true Sands of Time! We need the Light of God, we need to awaken him and his sentinels NOW!"

Pandaemonium City,
Infernus

It had taken him eighteen years to feverishly strategize against Heaven, and in those eighteen years, he had stumbled upon an ancient manuscript in his vast library of knowledge. This manuscript detailed the beginnings of Mother Earth and how God had enlisted his brethren Father Time and the Sisters Fate for help. Lucifer had thought nothing of it as he flicked through the manuscript in boredom; until he saw a small inscription at the bottom of an outlandishly engraved picture of Father Time and the Sisters Fate creating Mother Earth and how she had begun to show signs of life…

… Father Time had cut open his heart and a fountain of his crystallized blood gushed into a pot that would bear the Tree of Life. Life as it is, because of time, had begun to spin in an endless circle…

Reading the cryptic language further, his interests aroused, Lucifer thought he had finally found the answer. To create life, one must need history, one must need Time, one must have Time to live – and what better way to keep time moving than stealing the source of Time itself? The beating heart of Father Time was what he needed… where his blood had coursed through for millenniums… And it's about fucking time the bastard gets his due after all his interferences.

How to keep the heart alive was another matter, Lucifer had contemplated this question to no end. He was at his wits end, the eighteenth month was upon them but as he was tearing the flesh of his meal away angrily, a singular simple thought struck him like a beacon for the lost at heart. He groaned at his own stupidity as his claws clasped his eyes in exasperation and exhaustion. It was as though the Sisters Fate were smiling at him for once in his eternally damned life. Discarding away the half eaten human, he sought out the wisdom of Solomon. Although the spirit was forbidden from undoing Time's magic, Time should have worded his curse better. He was not forbidden, however, to dwell on magical matters involving the dark arts. From Solomon, Lucifer had learnt that in order to break Father Time's powerful curse, he needed to sacrifice something of value to him.

"What could be more valuable than the power of Sight, my unholy King?" Solomon had rasped in his decaying form. He smiled a toothless smile at the annoyed demon.

"Then so be it, Solomon. What must I do?" Lucifer implored, and Solomon only smiled wider, the knowledge of the centuries casted physically in front of him. Taking the Demon Lord by the curve of his elbow, Solomon walked him through his vast memories of the arcane arts.

While Father Time continued to strengthen his curse as the eighteenth moon was at its height, Lucifer had prepared himself in the Chambers of the High Priestess. With Solomon's instructions, he assembled the resources he would need to appease the ancient magic pulsating in the circular dome-like chamber. Surrounded by his imperial ministers, he walked the long winding pathway that made its way to the mouth of the Chambers. In both his hands, was a black candle, burning with a bright blue flame, tinged with red at its tips as it absorbed the power of the Beast. Adorning a robe nearly similar to those his children had worn before, he chanted the hymn of the Fallen Angel, lacing the song with power as every syllable left his lips. Three beautiful Succubae carried the trail of his long robe as they made their way to the chambers.

Standing tall in the middle of the Chamber, Lucifer was slowly, seductively disrobed by the Succubae who touched him passionately and with reverence. To them, he was their own unholy God and in the Demon World, to be skin to skin with the Devil himself was the highest of privileges. Wearing nothing underneath his robe, his skin set ablaze with lust as he was touched and kissed by the demoness, he bared his naked human form to the powers vibrating within the walls and floors of the enchanted Chamber. His ministers took their place around the marble pedestal in the middle and their voices rose in volume as Lucifer began to absorb the ancient dark powers from the Chamber. He had held this offering of his life for so long that he had forgotten how incredibly lustful, seductive and powerful raw magic – neither black nor white – was.

Chanting the Fallen Hymn as the powers began to awaken in his soul, he made love to the demoness closest to him, impaling her with his manhood roughly as the other two Succubae cried for their share of his unadulterated passion. He began to make love to all of them, taking them by turn as each reached orgasmic relief of colossal proportions. As this passion coursed through him, burning his blood with fire and reaching his own orgasmic release, his body began to take the form of the imperial Beast feared by every breathing denizen of Hell. His eyes burned charcoal red, his teeth lengthened into fangs, his claws began to curve and his feet had taken the shape of the heathen hooves.

The Succubae began to realize this change in their Lord's form and wavered in their pursuit of the Devil's passion. It was however, too late, that in his unadulterated, unfiltered passion, the Devil had not only consummated the ancient powers into his soul but it had also awakened a hunger so intense in his gnawing belly. Reaching his orgasm, Lucifer sank his fangs into the Succubus who had offered her body for his pleasure. He drank as he pounded into her, his blasphemous seed trickling down her thighs in tiny little rivers, finally sealing the ancient powers within.

The same fate befell the other two Succubae, held entranced by the charcoal reds of the Devils eyes. Their deaths came swiftly but painfully as their necks were broken and their bodies drunk dry. His belly filled with the warm viscous liquid of blood and lingering lives of the shameless Succubae, Lucifer threw his head back and roared in all his grand bestiality, the veins in his neck popping, his claws clenched into vengeful fists as ancient powers coursed through his being, burning his blood, sharpening his senses, intensifying his hunger for the death of all his nemesis.

Pulling his head back sharply, baring his fangs as red hot fire burned in the depths of his eyes, he stomped the ground beneath him with a heathen hoof, crushing one of the remains of the three Succubae, splattering her blood and remains across the expanse of the marble floor. The Chamber, if it was possible, absorbed the spilled blood of the dead Succubus as though it was alive. As the floors began to vibrate like a gleefully hungry child who had awaken from a blissful sleep by the tempting promise of candy, the voices of the imperial ministers began flowing into a crescendo, its melodious chanting fueling the ancient powers.

Channeling his focus, tunneling the line of his eyesight towards the marble pedestal in front of him, Lucifer invoked the ancient circle; pulling the elements of the incantations from thin air, drawing them into the spider web of Father Time's curse in lightning speed. Bloody sweat droplets dotted his eyebrows as they furrowed in concentration. Solomon said he only needed one chance – it might be the only chance he would ever get – to break through the space continuum. Slamming the palms of his fists together, Lucifer closed his eyes, and sank into the calmness in the center of his core. The chanting had ceased and the silence was deafening. Lucifer took a deep breath, and called upon the ancient powers from the pits of his fiery soul. He unleashed a spell so potent that it shook the walls of the Chambers; and it broke opened a minuscule portal that broke the barriers of space.

As quick as lightning, his eyes snapped open – as black as midnight; as cold as ice – and he slammed his fist into the portal; an echo of a scream ringing in his ears as the portal closed in a split of a second. Lucifer smiled in satisfaction. He had succeeded. He could already taste the blood of the angels on the tip of his tongue.

Demonic laughter – guttural, harsh, bitter and sweet at the same time – bellowed through Infernus; triggering a cacophony of response from the demons dwelling in Hell. A long forked tongue flicked out of bloodied lips, licking the red skin clean of the crimson blood that had streaked his cheeks and lips at the pain the forbidden magic had cost him. Across from him, disintegrating into nothingness was a black orb; and what was once a royal eye. His right eye socket was now empty of its occupant bearing witness to the dark powers of the magic he had never used to its full extend. He had broken the barriers of strong magic, casted by Father Time, a visceral sacrifice, and an eye for the beating heart of Time.

Across the barren crimson land – with its deep valleys and canyons carved by millenniums of naturally flowing lava – a royal procession made its way solemnly towards Hell's burning heart, deep within the belly of the red mountains. Set within these mountains was a rock formation in the shape of a crystallized circular spiked ring that forever burned with bright blue flames fed by Lucifer's infinite hatred. This was the strongest, the most unholy and ultimately, the most sacred of all the magickal rings that can be found in Infernus – it was Lucifer's point of impact when he fell towards Hell, disgraced by Heaven.

Eight glass coffins, in each bearing the embalmed bodies of Hell's Shadow Warriors as well as Lucifer's children, tailed the procession moving towards the unholy grounds. Hymns of the Fallen Angel, sung in such sorrowful tunes by priests and servants cladded in dark blue robes, flowed melodiously from their heathen lips. It detailed the war in Heaven and how Lucifer had fallen from his superior pedestal in the sky. It detailed the darkness that had consumed Lucifer and how he embraced the blinding hatred that fueled his powers and created this realm. It detailed lastly the betrayal of the Heavens and the depth of hypocrisy that ran deep in the chasms of the sky.

In his hands, bloodied but pulsating with power, was the sturdy heart of Father Time. It was kept in an intricately designed crystal jar; enchanted by the darkest of magical powers that enabled the heart to continue beating despite being detached from the main body of its vessel. The bastard had finally paid for his interference in the demise of God's beloved humans. With this heart, Lucifer smiled grimly, he will bring back his children who will be more powerful than anything he could have ever conceived in ten thousand lifetimes. The memory of his sharpened claws sinking into Father Time's chest – lightning quick, tearing through sinew and muscle and viciously pulling it out of the chest cavity with a resounding sucking pop – and the unforgettable look the old bastard had on his face as Lucifer bested him, inflated the demon's ego to massive proportions. He was confident that this time Heaven would once and for all bow to Hell and ultimately, to him.

He would crush the Heavens under his hooves and slaughter every last angel that had betrayed him.

The imperial denizens of Hell came to the mouth of the forsaken gates of Ignem Aeternum, the Eternal Flames of Hell. Lucifer drank in the view of the arc that marked the entrance to Hell's lava source. Standing nearly twenty feet tall, twenty feet apart, with a diameter of about three meters where the arc meets the ground; the arc was built with the skeletons of the damned, forever trapped in the vines of poisonous ivy and twine, and of sharp thorned roses. The mandibles of a skeletal serpentuous dragon, wide opened, baring down on intruders with its razor-sharp teeth and luminous fiery eyes; crowned the arc majestically. A fair warning to those who crossed this path that they would not return unharmed.

Lucifer turned his singular seeing eye to Beelzebub, his second in command, red fire glinting in the depths of his midnight orbs, "Awaken the sentinels, it is time their powers be put to full use. They have done well enough shielding the children from the prying eyes of Heaven. They need to be reincarnated to protect my children on their reincarnation,"

Beelzebub smiled to this order, "As you wish, my King," and they entered the mouth of Ignem Aeternum, jaws set, eyes determined, incantations swelling in volume and suppressed power crackling in the air.