The question acted as a terminal command for the minions of discord.

The question acted as a terminal command for the minions of discord. As the light of Michael’s presence intensified, the shadows could no longer sustain their hold on reality. Like ink dissolving in an endless ocean, the minions broke apart, their forms unraveling into nothingness.

Michael placed his foot upon the neck of the Adversary. With a look of profound, detached justice—not of anger, but of cosmic correction—he opened the earth. A chasm, deep as the history of rebellion, yawned wide. With one motion, Michael cast the source of darkness, along with the echoes of his pride, into the abyss. The gate was not locked from the outside; it was sealed by the absence of the Light that the darkness had spent eons rejecting.