Chapter 11

Next day Grigori was in uproar. The new laws that Razjeel came up with, weren't that kindly welcomed by majority of Fallens. They felt offended and complained that the law is to strict, that its restricted theirs freedom. But the higher-ups ignored them completely. They had a choice, follow the new rules and live under the protection of Grigori and all privileges or simply leave, being on their own and living how they want.

Almost as it was estimated, almost 40% of Fallens left and probably joined the Rebels. Big amount of high ranked Fallens left from army too, making holes in army ranks. Low-class and Middle-class Fallens, the majority that was left in Grigori, were happy with new laws, as it's them, that were constantly abused by those more powerful. Baraqiel procced with recruiting new soldiers and many were tempted by prons provided by joining the army. But besides being pleasantly surprised by the sudden changes in their lives, a small spark of insecurity appeared in their hearts, knowing that Rebels gained additional reinforcements and its only matter of time till they will be attacked by them.

Community of Fallens, as a rest of a world, were confused about month-long border closing. It was a first time since something like that happen, but other factions didn't payed much attention to it later. Fallens weren't a threat to them and never would be, at least they thought so. Only Devils were curious about their actions, but didn't act unwisely.

After two days, a training hall, that Razjeel requested to build, was completed. Tamiel had to flex his brain and use his all contacts along with using owned favors, but in the end he did a job that his Lord gave him. People were surprised after seeing huge building only few kilometers from city and large piece of forest disappeared. Being curious about the building, they tried to enter, but were met with warnings and orders, from soldiers stationed there, to leave the place, as it's a place belonged to army and only authorized people could enter.

Inside the training hall, Razjeel along with Baraqiel, Azazel and Shemhazai, were walking and checking everything. Mostly Razjeel, as former was there as a matter involved army he command, and two latter's were just curious about whole thing.

Razjeel was pleased that the place was how he wanted it to be. He smiled slightly and started walking toward one of the obelisks in the corner of the hall. The hall was a hundred meters high, with obelisks being quarter of that high. They were made of single piece of stone. Razjeel requested it to be build in the middle of the building process. Although confused, Tamiel agreed.

He unfurled his wings and fly up to the obelisk's tip. Small, green flame appeared on the tip of his index finger. He started drawing strange runes in the stone surface, saying words in the unknown language. The signs he wrote were illuminating pale yellow light. After few minutes he finished decorating obelisk. He landed on the ground and placed his hand on the circle sign. Infusing his Magic into the sign, the hall trembled slightly. The three Cadre Fallens were surprised for moment, but their attention was gained by the obelisk. From the bottom to the top, runes written by Razjeel, started shining in orange light. When it reached the sign on the obelisk's top, small sound, similar to that of the vacuum, was heard, but it's died out shortly and everything returned to normal. Except that the signs were still burning with orange light.

Razjeel smiled and nodded to himself, he started walking towards another obelisk. Azazel couldn't hold it anymore and asked.

"Hey, what is that? What are those runes?" he asked while pointing behind him with his thumb. Razjeel stopped and looked at them.

"Hmm, that runes seems kind of familiar. Are they from Egyptian Pantheon?" Shemhazai asked with palm on his chin. He is very knowledgeable Fallen, but he couldn't recall where he saw that. Baraqiel was listening quietly, he wasn't stupid, but his forte was army leading.

"Oh, you didn't heard of Anunnaki's language? That's what it is. More or less." he shrugged and started walking again.

"What?! But Anunnakis were wiped out thousands of years ago! Nothing were left after them, not mentioning their language, everything about them is lost." Shemhazai exclaimed while taking closer look on the structure. He was interested in forgotten civilizations and things like that. He tried to touch the runes, but loud voice stopped him.

"I don't recommend touching them! The formation is still unstable, wait till I finish last three. As from where I know them, don't forget that I lived in times when Anunnakis were still all good."

"Um, what are those Anunnakis?" Baraqiel asked quietly Azazel.

"They were the race of Gods, children of Anu. They were masters in Magic of all aspects, but were wiped out by Egyptians and Greeks Pantheon thousands years ago. It was during Angels second generation, I guess. They were feared by their versatile Magic, but were to few in numbers and had low birth rate. The ancient Sumerians, Assyrians and Babylonians worshiped them." Azazel answered what he knew about them. In that moment, three of them, realized that man in front of them, is litteral, walking treasurer of knowledge.

Razjeel finished with the rest of obelisks almost half hour later. Suddenly, from each of obelisks, ray of blue light shotted toward the center of the hall. When rays met, they merged into single, massive pillar of light, that reached the sky through the opened roof. Startling everyone who saw that, a barrier with blue Magic circle expanded around the training hall and disappeared.

Three Cadre Fallens were looking at the whole process with slightly opened mouths. 'What the hell was that??' all of the thought. They looked at Razjeel for answers, but he only smiled and nodded few times.

"Good, good. All is working. Now, can you gus place a self-repair magic circle on the whole place?" he asked gesturing around him.

"Yeah, but it will take some time, the place isn't small" Azazel said.

"No problem, just do your thing." Razjeel said and sat on one of the benches near the wall.

They finished setting the Circle after an hour. Razjeel walked to them and handed them a drinks that Raynare bring him some time ago.

"So, you are curious about whole thing right? Answer is simple. All of the four obelisks have different job that will help train our forces. That obelisk with orange runes is responsible for gathering Magic from the surrounding and supply it to the rest of them, it's basically the heart of the formation. The green one is speeding up regenerative abilities of body, be it mental fatigue, physical injuries, sleep or stamina. 3rd, with blue runes, is helping to maintain a focus and clear state of mind, making it easier to remember and understand things. And last and most important one." he said while looking at the obelisk with shinning, Grey runes. Azazel, Baraqiel and Shemhazai were shocked. They heard of such things, but most of them are rituals or require really rare and very, very expensive things. But in front of them was formation equivalent to four of such a rituals and judging by his explanations, thanks to first obelisk, the whole formation is self-sufficient. They were excited knowing this all, they saw a chance to win the war, win with advantage

"What about the last one? What is it doing?" Shemhazai asked looking between the four structure. Razjeel smiled and walked toward the exit. Three men followed him.

Outside. Razjeel stopped and looked at the city far away.

"Now, tell me guys. You noticed something? Look around." he said and gestured to them.

They looked around, looking for some changes. But no matter where they looked, the ground, sky, training hall, everything looked the same as earlier.

"I don't see any difference... Everything is the same" said Baraqiel.

Razjeel smiled and pointed at the sky.

"Exactly. Nothing changed. Now tell me. It was dusk when we entered the hall, we spent there almost two hours, and it's still dusk. How?" he asked with smirk, giving a hints.

"Time! The last obelisk bend time!" Azazel exclaimed with wide eyes. Realization struck the other two.

*Clap* *clap*

"Bingo~. The grey runed obelisk, is time bending one. He sped up time three times on the certain area. You saw the barrier and circle right? That was the said area. I could make the range longer, but effects would decrease."

Azazel, Shemhazai and Baraqiel felt like their eyes would pop out. A time bending! There are few people in the world that are capable of "playing" with time. One of them is Agares family from Devils or Greek god, Chronos. It's really hard to bend time even a little and it's extremely dangerous, slightest mistake could end up in destroying large area or messing up with space-time continuum. But if everything went right, truly miraculous things could be done.

Baraqiel was the most excited, 'Three times! Three times!! Our soldiers will have 3 more times to get prepared. A three month time training will be done in only one!!'

"But. Things aren't that good as may look like. There are problems. One is that, it isn't an infinite solution. The runes are made on a normal stone. Magic that flow through them, is damaging them even as we speaking. In a two months at most, the obelisks will crumble. The stone is just too soft to endure this amount of Magic, in the future we could replace them with something better."

Their excitement died out a little bit, but only a little. They were all mature men, they knew that, if there is something good, there is a little price or a small "but".

"Second, it's a weaker version of the originals. I'm not well proficient in Anunnaki's language, nor I'm a God with Divinity. The proper way to make them is to infuse Divinity, but as I have none, I used Magic to run them. If we had a God on our side, then I'm sure obelisks would be 10 times more powerful. Baraqiel, are you confident you can teach recruits the basics of war tactics and not to kill themselves, in one 'real' week?" Razjeel asked him, looking at him.

"That would be 3 weeks in training hall... I shall try my best." He answered with slight bow.

"Good, I would be disappointed, if you couldn't make it with all 'boosts' I provided.... Hahahaha. It's joke, do it however you want. In a week time, I will teach them few things and check how it's going." Razjeel responded with serious expression, but chuckled seeing how serious and tense Baraqiel was.

" But, the formation won't get damage during training? What if someone accidentally attacks the obelisk? It would be shame if something so useful would broken." Shemhazai asked, still thinking about the four monuments.

"Ah, you don't have to worry about that. The Magic flowing through them is so dense, that it floods out in short range, creating surprisingly sturdy barrier. Maybe, if you go all out as a Cadre Fallen, then we would have to worry. But we will training Low-class and Mid, so rest assured." Razjeel answered leisurely. ''Well, it's getting late. We should go back. The moon is on sky"

Razjeel started walking, while humming a song. Azazel was looking at him, as he walked down the road. Normal people, would be nervous and anxious if they knew they will be going on war, but man in front of him, looked like nothing important was happening, like it was normal for him.

Suddenly he stopped and narrowed his eyes. He was starring at the rising moon, with a city in the background. Azazel and his two friends tensed a bit and prepared for attack. But confused voice of Razjeel suddenly rang out.

"By the way, since when Underworld has a moon?"

All of them blinked few times, taken a back at his exclamation. Shemhazai smiled wryly, Baraqiel sighed, while Azazel laughed loudly and explained him, how and for what, artifical moon was created.

------------

After one week, Razjeel was standing in front of 50 thousand Fallen Angels. He looked at them with slight disapproval look, seeing them standing in uneven line and in careless manner. He nodded to Baraqiel, who responded in the same way.

"Attention!.... I said ATTENTION!!"

He said loudly at first but Fallens didn't react, because of their constant chatting. Only when he shouted, all of them paid attention to them. High-class and few other Cadre Fallen that were in crowd, looked displeased, because they were interrupted. Baraqiel was little embarrassed, showing such a thing to his Lord. He took a glance at Razjeel, but he saw that he was expressionless. Army Commander didn't knew how to interpret that. He fake coughed and started speaking again.

"Today we have a special guest with us. From now on, he will be in charge of your training and also Main Commander in the upcoming war! Treat him with all respect!"

Baraqiel slightly bowed towards Razjeel and sidestepped. Next moment, crowd saw tall and handsome, black haired man stepping forward. He looked at the crowd, from left to right. Those who met his gaze, flinched slightly, without realizing why. He took a breathe and opened his mouth. He didn't shout, but strangely, his voice was heard through the whole hall.

"My name is-"

"Hey hey! Baraqiel! I don't understand why me and my division have to train, if we are the strongest in the whole army! We wasted 3 weeks here already! I'm bored as fuck!"

Razjeel was interrupted by shouting from the crowd. He spotted man with long, black hairs, red eyes and pointy ears. That man had evil smile and voiced his complains with annoyed expression.

"Kokabiel! Back to the ranks! It's an order! Show some respect to-"

Baraqiel hoped that something like that wouldn't happen, but unfortunately, it didn't went how he wanted to. Kokabiel interrupted him.

"Ay Ay! No. I embarrassed myself enough to come here, but now what? You presented us an unknow-pussy-looking nobody and told us to follow his orders? Look at him, can he even slap a fly and doesn't break his arm? Don't tell me he is your boy-toy? I see, so your wife was only a cover, huh. Such a shame, she was sooo sexy! Kekekeke! Screw this, I'm going. Maybe I will find that bitch Raynare and kill some time. Right, boys?! Kekeekekekek!"

Slowly crowd started catching up the Kokabiels demeanor and voiced out their complains. Some did that because they were too bored and tired with the training, others because of fear. It was open secret that Kokabiel is very cruel and brutal, he could even kill his own soliders because of boredom. They feared that he will do something to them. Of course majority of Fallens, had great respect towards Baraqiel and didn't laugh or complain. They could only grits their teeth, why? Because Kokabiel was Cadre Fallen, one of the few alive, thus this from his haughty attitude. Azazel and Baraqiel often turned a blind eye to his deeds, only because he was valuable force in their army.

But now, he crossed the line. Baraqiel turned red from rage, he tried to ran and punch him in the face, but Razjeel raised his hand to stop him. Kokabiel smiled wider seeing he angered Baraqiel succefully. He decided to keep going.

"That's right! Listen to your plaything! You can try next time when you grow some balls! Kekekekeke!"

"Hahahah Hahahah!!"

"That was good, Commander Kokabiel!"

"Yeah! Let's go and have some fun! Screw this training, we will win anyway!"

"Right!"

"Sure thing!"

Fallens started laughing and chatting loudly, creating loud noise. Baraqiel was now truly embarrassed. He trained new recruiters and was happy, because they were eager to learn and train, but as always, Kokabiel's presence ruined everything. And now this. What's even worse, is that, that all this happened in front of Razjeel. He couldn't help and looked at him, but to his surprise, he noticed that his expression never changed, only his eyes became colder.

"Enough. Now that you done with your pathetic-shit performance, back to the ranks, before you'll have to crawl there. And stop talking, half of my brain cells committed suicide because of you. "

Suddenly, bone chilling voice rang out through the hall along with oppressing aura. Everyone flinched, even Kokabiel. They looked for the source of that, and noticed that black haired man was walking slowly towards Kokabiel. His eyes were full of disgust, as he was looking for the worse shit he ever saw.

Kokabiel was enraged. He was probably the most prideful and arrogant of all Fallens, he couldn't stand seeing someone looking at him like that. He walked out of the crowd to face with Razjeel. He even unfurled his wings to scare him.

"Are you threating me? You sure know how to bark, mongrel, but can you bite, little shit?"

Kokabiel looked in the Razjeel's eyes and spoke in angry tone, while releasing killing intent. Low and Mid-Class Fallens flinched noticeably and High-Class ones furrowed their brows. They expect Razjeel to pale or start shivering, but to their surprise he only closed his eyes. Kokabiel thought he scared him and wanted to laugh and continue to insult him, but man in front of him opened his mouth.

"You know, I met a lot of people like you. They had some strength and thought that they can do whatever they want, that everything belonged to them and they are superior to others. Can you tell me, please, from where people like you came from? Are you just naturally retarded or your friends fucked your brain out?"

Kokabiel was stunned, because he didn't expected that he will talk back to him. He widen his eyes in anger amd took a swing, intending to punch Razjeel in the face.

" You mother-fucker! Die!!! Eh?"

But before his fist reached its target, it was catched by Razjeel's palm. Kokabiel tried to pull out his hand, but no matter how he tried, he couldn't. Everyone were stunned seeing that. Razjeel continued speeking, calmly like before.

"Be quiet. As I was saying, people like you are truly a disgusted phenomenon of this world, you are making more harm than good. But, I found a solution for people like you."

*Crack*

"Aaaaagh!! You fucker!"

During his speech, Razjeel increased strength in his grip. Kokabiels's fist started cracking and pain he felt, made him scream. But Razjeel was clenching his palm more and more.

"All it's takes."

*Crack!* *Crack!*

"Aaaaagh!! Aaaaagh! Let! Go!!"

Kokabiel screamed feeling his bones breaking. He tried to escape from the grip, but he couldn't, no matter how he tried. Gathered Fallens were standing astonished, seeing Cadre Fallen on his knees, suffering from unknown man. Intimidating aura and killing intent started filling whole training hall, making 50 thousand Fallens shudder, with pale faces and sweat running down their backs. Lot of them felt their legs went weak, and fell on their butts or knees.

"Is some fear and pain."

*CRACK!!*

"AAAAAAAGHH!! AAAAARRGHH! MY HAND!!"

Kokabiel's fist was crushed mercilessly. Small stream of blood was leaking from between Razjeel's fingers. Kokabiel looked up and saw red eyes glaring at him. He felt like he was in front of primal beast, helpless, waiting to be devoured. He felt something, what he thought he was immune to felt. Something what weak felt when facing strong. Fear.

"I told you to be quiet."

*Boom*

He stomped on Kokabiel's head, digging him in the ground. His agonizing screams ended, as he fainted. Razjeel's cold voice was frightening. Most of them never met someone so strong, to easily defeat experienced Cadre Fallen, and so terrifying.

'He just crushed him!! Just like that!!! Who's is that monster?!!'

Every Fallen screamed inside their heads. But their shock only lasted for a moment longer, as Razjeel suddenly looked at the crowd and said.

"My name is Razjeel. I will be your new Commander in the upcoming war and I will train you, until it's start. I won't be tolerating insubordination and slacking off! Next three weeks will be worse than Hell to you!! All you have to do, is doing what I say and maybe you will return to your homes. Is that clear?"

Everyone were to stunned at the overbearing man to answer. Seeing that no one responded, he stomped on the ground and huge blast of green flames traveled to the roof, illuminating whole place in green light and temporarily increasing temperature of the surrounding. His loud shout snapped out everyone from stupor.

"I said, IS THAT CLEAR?!"

"Yes, sir!!"

Terrified Fallens shouted as loud as they could, fearing that they may displeased him. He nodded and smirked. His eyes turned from red to usual emerald color.

"Good. Now, take that bag of shit in the corner and stand in the ranks!!"

He said and kicked Kokabiel's leg. Two Fallens dragged his body in the far corner, while rest stood in even ranks, straight like stretched strings.

And that's how 3 weeks of pure nightmare begins.