Celephai looked equally relieved that this wasn't going to last much longer, that finally this journey was coming to a close and she wouldn't have to put up with this blabbering order-freak. Perhaps she'd go to a tavern and flip every table over twice, just on principle.
She followed him up the hill, only going as fast as he'd lead.
As they approached, Eli babbling cheerfully about what he'd heard of the battle, mostly that Heaven had won, Cel could see the trees thin out and the underbrush stop growing entirely. In front of her the ground turned grey and went down into a crater, as if blasted out by an explosion. Eli got silent for once, approaching the edge of the crater and looking into it.
Celephai walked up next to the celestial, her expression stern, but not quite angry or agitated. She had seen the effects of cosmic battles and the events of wars past, and they often ended much worse than this, but even here the site invoked a feeling of reverence that not even Celephai would venture to break.
"We had a name for a thing we used a weapon, to similar effect, but so long has gone since it's last use even we had forgotten it's name. Now it hides on a barren, dead world, and hopefully it will remain there forever. Places like these remind me why we never fight large wars like Heaven and Hell: Even we found it repulsive."
Eli looked reverent. He sighed and picked up a handful of dirt.
A lot of this is vaporized angels. It's...a little weird. He looked back at Celephai sadly.
No...no. Be glad the Outside is so chaotic. You're too busy fighting with the fabric of reality itself to wage war against your brothers. He jumped into the crater and began to walk toward its center.
Celephai simply sighed and shrugged, there were no words for something like this, destruction on this scale. There was a god, supposedly, whom controlled the energies of the tiniest forms of matter, and whom could be summoned by the splitting of those tiny fractions of matter, but only for a few seconds, yet that was long enough to wipe entire cities from the face of the world. Thankfully, so few civilizations had ever even attempted to commit such an atrocity.
She followed the angel toward the center, silently.
It almost seemed wrong to ask something formed from such a loss of life, but more lives may be snuffed out if she did not act. It was a terrible thing to bear, but many missteps were made by not moving at all...
"I came seeking a catalyst for a Soul Gate, purportedly a glowing, solid substance from this place would be optimal for the target we are hunting. She is... evil, and quite cunning."
Even saying it left a bad taste in Cel's mouth. Her stomach churned with unease, disgusted with herself. It wasn't right to have to do this, but there were not many options available to her at this juncture.
Celephai began to help him tunnel downward. In a sense, it was probably like digging up a mass grave: You had to set things right, but to do so you had to do something very, very wrong. Right and wrong were not the usual scales for Cel, but she'd had enough time to contemplate it since she first arrived.
"For the record, I apologize for disturbing a place like this. I understand this may not carry much weight considering my current actions, but..."
...but she didn't have any choice in the matter. It had to be done... maybe it was best not to dwell on such things.
See, we...we don't have families in Heaven, really. People are related, sure, but not like Euclids are. But...there was one. She was my sister. He paused, looked into the sky again.
She...she fell in love with a mortal. normally she would have been excommunicated...stripped of her immortality and be let to live out her life here. But I couldn't handle never seeing her again, so I...fudged some things.