What apocalyptic terrors follow the sounding of the fifth and sixth trumpets, and how do the surviving nations respond?

When the fifth angel sounds his trumpet, John witnesses a star fallen from the heavens upon the earth, and an angel receives the key to unlock the bottomless pit. Bishop Challoner observes that this fallen star may signify the disastrous apostasy of learned minds or entire peoples departing from Catholic truth, whereas the key is entrusted to a ministering angel empowered to open the abyss. Thick smoke surges from the cavern like the vapor of a roaring furnace, shrouding both the sun and the atmosphere in darkness. From this infernal cloud swarm monstrous locusts endowed with venomous power like scorpions of the earth. Challoner remarks that these creatures may be demonic spirits loosed during the reign of Antichrist, terrifying physical organisms, or ancient heresiarchs such as Arius and Sabellius whose doctrinal poisons injured souls by denying Christ's divinity, while dismissing absurd polemics that target the papacy. Rather than ravaging grass, plants, or timber, these creatures are divinely forbidden to harm vegetation, directed solely against mortals lacking the seal of God upon their brows. They receive authority not to execute their prey, but to inflict agonizing torment for five months like the searing strike of a scorpion, driving victims to crave death in vain while physical demise flees from them.

The appearance of these locusts mirrors armored steeds prepared for battle, bearing what are like crowns of gold upon their heads, human faces, flowing hair like women, and the predatory teeth of lions. Their chests are shielded by what are like iron breastplates, and the rushing roar of their wings resembles the thunderous charge of war chariots and horses galloping into combat. Fitted with scorpion stings in their tails, they retain power to torture unsealed mortals for five months under the dominion of their infernal monarch, the angel of the abyss, known in Hebrew as Abaddon, in Greek as Apollyon, and in Latin as Exterminans. With this terrifying visitation the first woe reaches its completion, leaving two impending woes yet to come upon the world.

At the blast of the sixth trumpet, an authoritative voice issues from the four horns of the golden altar standing before God, ordering the sixth angel to release the four angels bound at the river Euphrates. Prepared for an exact hour, day, month, and year, these spirits are unleashed to slaughter a third of mankind through a colossal cavalry force numbering two hundred million. The horsemen wear breastplates of fire, hyacinth and brimstone, while the horses feature lion-like heads that exhale lethal torrents of fire, smoke, and brimstone, slaying one-third of the human race. The destructive power of these steeds resides in both their flaming mouths and their serpentine tails, which possess heads that inflict deadly harm. Yet the survivors of these three catastrophic plagues refuse to do penance for the perverse works of their hands, persisting in their worship of demons and inert idols of gold, silver, bronze, stone, and wood that cannot see, hear, or walk; nor do they repent of their murders, sorceries, fornication, or thefts.