Kael realized then that the City of God wasn't powered by a miracle, but by a . The "God" they worshipped wasn't an absent creator; it was a living entity being drained like a battery to keep the marble streets clean and the wine flowing.

"Let me fall," it whispered. "The weight of their perfection is crushing me."

The sun didn’t rise over the city of ; it simply ignited. Built atop a floating shelf of white quartz suspended miles above the clouds, the city was known to the surface-dwellers as the "City of God." To its citizens, it was a gilded cage.