The moment Grommash burst into flames, Lucifer felt the restrictions of the laws of hospitality lessen. It was an unusual feeling, quite unlike anything she had felt before. It was as if the universe itself had acknowledged that she had kept up her part of the bargain, and was no longer keeping watch.

Simultaneously previously invisible strands of karma that had bound her unraveled and faded into the ether. Now that Lucifer was aware of them, she chose to burn them before they wove themselves back into the greater tapestry. Invisible flames covered her body for an instant, before flickering out again. The strings snapped and shriveled up, before fading out of her perception.

The momentary use of flames had alerted Aindaeth, causing the dragon to shoot a quizzical look at Lucifer, who only mouthed the words “later”.

Lucifer turned her gaze back towards the still standing Grommash, whose right side started to show an underlying orange glow. The flames covering his body grew in size and intensity with every shout of the word “betrayal”.

Lucifer siphoned off the heat grommash gave off, in hopes of saving her tent from burning to ash, though the carpeted ground already showed a set of charred footprints.

As the heat left Grommash’s body, the intensity of his shouts fell, until with a final utterance of the word “Betrayal” he fell unconscious. The young man immediately went lax and tumbled to the ground, his head barely spared the fate of smashing onto the floor by a quick intervention of Daranturn.

A strange silence was all that was left in the tent after Grommash’s outburst, only broken when Asha asked what was on all of their minds.

“What was that?”

She looked questioningly at Lucifer, who only shook her head. Daranturn was unable to answer the girl's question as well, so her gaze naturally turned to the last occupant of the tent.

Aindaeth, noticing the questioning gaze of the others, sighed.

“Look, I don't know either, okay? My best guess is that Lucifer unknowingly gave him the boon we promised in exchange for shelter. The flames that ignited along his right side felt almost identical to those Lucifer used to heal him. Maybe those resonated with him? My best guess is that he advanced his path.”

Daranturn seemed to have some sort of inspiration caused by Aindaeth’s words, quickly sitting down in a far corner of the tent before his eyes rolled into the back of his head and he became unresponsive.

Lucifer sighed. This was already more mortal drama than she had signed up for, and knowing her luck, this was only going to get worse.

—----------------------------------

Lucifer stood in the blood fields once again. In her hands she held a katana-like blade that was slightly warped at the tip. This one had held up better than the last ones.

Now with its balance destroyed, she tossed the warped blade towards the pile of other unusable swords, yet before it could hit the ground, a young orc caught it and immediately began examining his failures.

Instead of acknowledging the hardworking apprentice, she just picked a new one from the wagon. Said wagon had been almost overburdened with swords just this morning, but Lucifer's rigorous practice had burnt through the stockpile over the course of the day. Now there were only three swords left, all crafted by master steel fist himself.

With a weapon in hand that wouldn't immediately destroy itself, Lucifer began to move through her forms in earnest.

Hidden behind the veil, Lucifer's wings began to slowly vibrate, drawing in mana as she breathed. As soon as the ambient mana hit her core and the deep red star began gushing with the volatile mix of similarly colored mana, a welcome sensation spread through Lucifer's body.

Millions of years she had been stagnating. The only times she had properly grown stronger was either due to age, or when the mortals came up with new ways to use her fires. But now, with every breath of mana she could feel herself becoming more.

A deep breath in, a step forward and a downward slash. Once the slash has run its course, a deep exhale of acrid black smoke.

The past two weeks had been torturous for her. After Grommash’s outburst, the young orc had spent the entire two weeks fading in and out of consciousness, occasionally flickering with that familiar orange flame. Old man Daranturn had been similarly indisposed. Once the old orc had started meditating, he had only stopped twice. Once to leave her tent and once to send one of the guards to inform them of the date of the “day of the ancestors”.

Aindaeth had been entirely useless, only giving Lucifer the occasional smug grin when she caught the lazy lizard with one of the old shamans. Aindaeth had been entirely unwilling to the suggestion of leaving the orcs alone, and wandering to some other settlement.

A deep breath in. A quick slash at ankle height, followed by a spin and another quick slash at neck height. Another deep exhale of foul smelling smoke.

Asha had been the worst out of all of them. Not only was she incredibly young and thus annoying, now she had a reason to be. Usually Lucifer welcomed the bubbly excitement of the young orc as a welcome distraction from the lifeless void her mind had become. But after the failed hit on her brother, she had become sullen and withdrawn.

From the depths of Lucifer's mind a part of her called for her to just run away. To leave the girl, her brother and all the other orcs behind. To just fly into space and drop on another side of the planet to try again. To start over.

But she knew she couldn't. Not with the bond she had with Aindaeth and not with the karma she had binding herself to Grommash.

In the center of Lucifer's mind a small flame came to life amidst the still black sea of her consciousness. The deep black lake rippled as the first bit of color was reintroduced into her mind.

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Outside, the only one to notice any difference was the old Steel fist smith. He watched as Lucifer's movements became more ferocious. Small tongues of flame licking along her arms and legs as she moved from one masterful swordstroke into the next, her feet seemingly gliding across the sand while she stomped with every third step.

Inside Lucifer's consciousness the tiny flame fought against the ever pervasive stillness of her mind. Although not the healthiest of emotions, the tiny flame of spite fought against the endless stillness, for Lucifer to have a little agency of her own. To live her life as she wanted, not as outside factors determined.

While her body practically moved on its own, Lucifer's consciousness was battling itself. Both the endlessly still lake and the tiny flame of spite were her. The Stillness had been with Lucifer for eons. While her fiery temper was something she had inherited from her father, the stillness was something that was inherent to her being. It had always been there, lurking in the background. Only the last thousands of years spent drifting through the void had caused it to finally overwhelm her mind. And she didn't even notice.

Now that she was aware of the stillness, the tiny flame of spite grew into a blazing inferno of indignation. Not only did the stillness want to return her to that disgusting state of emptiness, it also wanted her to leave Aindaeth alone. The first person that could ever truly understand her. With that last thought, Lucifer's mind snapped back towards her body, just in the moment she executed a rising slash.

In her hand she held a smoking hilt of wood, with a blade glowing in a bright orange color. As soon as she changed her grip, the blade splashed to the ground, as if only having kept its form as long as Lucifer wasn't looking.

Lucifer let out a deep sigh that turned into a coughing fit as a deluge of the familiar black smoke was expelled from her mouth. Through teary eyes Lucifer looked at her surroundings. The sun was overhead, blasting the hard packed ground of the training fields with heat. A shimmering haze hung over the entire area as the temperature had risen the entire morning.

A few meters away from her stood master steel fist and the young apprentice, having apparently watched her little meltdown. Further behind both of them were the other apprentices just lounging around.

Throwing the ruined and smoking hilt of the blade she had just destroyed to the others, Lucifer approached the wagon with the other swords. There were only two left, and when she inevitably destroyed both of them, her training session would end.

Once she had a fresh sword in her hands, Lucifer returned to the position she had occupied earlier. Feeling the sword in her grip, the subtle differences in balance and length, Lucifer was just about to start another round of practice, when something stopped her.

An unexplainable but somehow intimately familiar feeling hung in the air. Lucifer fastened the grip on her sword, the sun beating from overhead. But inexplicably, she felt cold. Similar to the feeling that overcame her when her depression actively hindered her. Similar to the feeling of being stuck alone in space.

Something wasn't right. Keeping her breathing steady, Lucifer looked around. Nothing was directly out of the ordinary. The old smith and his new favorite apprentice were looking at the hilt of Lucifer's most recently destroyed blade, the other apprentices were still goofing off as teenagers so often did, and the sun was still straight overhead. Nothing was out of the ordinary, yet Lucifer's instincts screamed at her that something was wrong.

Looking further outwards, the tent city seemed like it usually did. As far as the eye could see, Wooden carts and tents, thousands of orcs of various ages. Nothing was different. The only pillars of smoke came from the smithing district.

Lucifer took a deep breath. If she had a heart like a biological being it would probably be racing right now. Even breathing took some effort, which was strange, as she had no need to even imitate breathing normally. Maybe she was having a panic attack?

Taking a quick look around to see that no one was paying attention to her, Lucifer opened as many eyes as she could before destabilizing her form.

Hundreds of eyes scanned along her surroundings, showing the world in different aspects, yet nothing seemed to be out of the ordinary. Rapidly lucifer switched through different pairs of eyes, until suddenly something stood out.

The surrounding mana was the same as it usually was, except that the amount of light mana was out of proportion.

Under Aindaeths tutelage Lucifer had learned of the different flavors and aspects of mana, and a hot day like this one, should have produced “solar” aspected mana, not “light”.

Yet from up above where the sun blasted the planet with solar mana, came a second stream of light mana, independent from the sun's rays. That's what Lucifer felt. There was more light than there should have been. Which also explained why no one was reacting, as she was fairly certain that very few beings had her sensitivity to light and heat.

Lucifer looked upwards, staring directly into the sun. She could make out nothing, but now that she knew what was wrong, the feeling became more concrete.

Just as she was turning over in her mind if she should warn the orcs, or if she should bring it up to Daranturn privately, Something happened.

An object with a significant amount of kinetic energy was approaching, and Lucifer reacted on Instinct. With the flat side of the sword, she deflected the projectile, while siphoning off as much kinetic energy as she could.

Her hurried parry sent a tremor through the blade and into her arms, causing a loud clang to ring out, followed by a thud, as a shining white arrow impacted the packed dirt ground, penetrating almost to its fletching.

Lucifer's arms momentarily went numb from the impact as she continued staring into the sky. She closed the unnecessary eyes all over her body, while keeping her main pair trained on the sun.

Around her, a commotion broke out as the lazing orcs noticed the arrow stuck almost all the way in the ground. Many people began to shout and run around, yet Lucifer could not dare to take her attention away from the sky.

She felt the fluctuations of light as whatever was up there began to move.

Lucifer widened her stance, keeping the blade at her side, ready to intercept another projectile.

Just then the light intensified once again, before another mass of kinetic energy approached.

This time she was ready, and she deflected the arrow with less effort and less strain to her arms and the blade. Another arrow impacted the ground, though this time it hit the ground without any proper force, sinking barely half the arrowhead into the ground.

A single eye opened on Lucifer's left leg which she used to observe the arrow.

It seemed to be made entirely of light, shining in a familiar sickly yellow color and being somewhat translucent.

All around Lucifer confused orcs milled about, seemingly not having realized entirely what was going on. Master steel fist was in the process of getting his group of apprentices together when the next arrow arrived.

This one took Lucifer off guard, as the moment she felt it, she already had to parry the projectile. It had significantly more kinetic energy and the deflection was magnitudes more difficult. Although she had siphoned off significant amounts of energy from the arrow on contact, it still formed a crater when it impacted the ground.

Moments later a sonic boom echoed over the training area as the shockwave of the arrow breaking the sound barrier made itself known.

Lucifer gritted her teeth. She had mastered the act of deflecting bullets with her sword, but only if she could see the shooter. Trying to deflect these arrows was exceedingly difficult.

A strange silence descended as the light up in the sky intensified again. Lucifer stayed in her ready position, but for a few moments nothing came. Only the light in the sky grew brighter and brighter, until even the less sensitive orcs had to shield their eyes from the light in the sky.

The aggressor had apparently had enough of trying to snipe Lucifer alone, as a veritable downpour of shining arrows started raining from the sky. Instead of darkening the sky, it got unbearably bright, which caused the orcs to cry out and close their eyes, which was apparently the whole idea behind the attack, as hundreds of arrows impacted the entire blood fields, bathing them in more crimson lifeblood as the dirt had probably soaked up over a hundred years.

Lucifer would have liked to try and help the orcs that were hurt by the volley of arrows, but directly after she had deflected the arrows that would have hit her, she felt the next problem.

Many things were approaching. Slightly faster than the volley of arrows, but with heaps more kinetic energy. Likely larger projectiles.

The light intensified even more, and Lucifer had to squint, limiting the amount of light her eyes captured. At the last second, Lucifer decided that she could not parry or redirect this projectile properly, causing her to step back and lash out with her sword the moment the projectile passed by the height of her head.

Instead of cutting something like a ballista bolt in half, her sword was stopped dead with a metallic clang.

As the projectile impacted the ground and threw up clumps of dirt, the light shining from its form receded, showing the form of a winged humanoid. Its body was clutching a long spear, which had its head stuck in the ground, formed from the same material the earlier arrows had been made of.

Instantly Lucifer was assaulted by flashes of memories, as images of her siblings shot through her mind, mostly of their last moments as she cut them down, their dull and lifeless eyes just as infuriatingly empty as they had been when they were alive.

The angel in front of her was clad in metallic plate armor that strangely made not a sound, even when the angel shifted and pulled his spear from the ground. From his back extended two pairs of white wings that were oddly small, and the front of his chest plate bore the image of a dragon impaled on a spear.

None of that mattered to Lucifer. The only thing she could pay attention to, was the fact that the Angel had a soul and free will. She could see it in his eyes. Instead of the dull and lifeless eyes she had seen among her siblings, these eyes resembled those Michael had shown in his last moments.

The angels piercing blue eyes, showed only arrogance and disdain.

As other angelic forms impacted the ground around her, likely impaling or crushing innocent orcs, Lucifer could not help the manic grin that was spreading across her face.

“You are just in time” she spoke, addressing the now confused angel.

“I need to let off some steam!”