Chapter 36
Wind blew fiercely on the vast sky of the sixth heaven as a being who, from a normal supernatural being's perspective, looked like a darting mirage that was quite possibly mind-crafted into existence, traveling at a speed that many mortals would assume to be the speed of light. Misinformation: Michael did not use that much speed. However, due to his exceptional strength and abilities, it appeared that way.
And within a minute or two, he arrived at his destination, which is [Heaven's core].
There in the distance, a massive flying island, like a clockwork of wonder, spun lazily and calmly. An enigma or a natural wonder, a mortal might assume, and they aren't further from the truth if one considers gods as a force of nature.
Within a few seconds, he came into the distance that he needed and landed with a soft thud. A thud that was barely audible to normal human ears, a disappointing landing, one might say, but Michael saw no need for flares and things like that in a mundane action such as going from one place to another.
Then he raised his hand and sent a request to the system, asking it to send all the souls it had to the seventh heaven, as he couldn't exactly command it, since only his father could, and he hadn't regained full control over the system yet. Why did he not regain control? A low-tier angel might ask due to their ignorance. And Michael would answer him that their father in the ancient past had planted traps and countermeasures in the system, like putting stars in the sky, seemingly endless in number and ways, to prevent anything or anyone from even stealing the slightest bit of control over it.
An extremely paranoid motion, one might say, and Michael, while he won't voice it out loud, would agree in his heart. But in defense of his father, Michael would say that Father wasn't exactly in a ...calmish state of mind.
But still, despite the countermeasures that were put in place, the system seemed to sense its creator, as it placed their father in the high-value and valuable part of the angel echelon even though he should have been of much lower value as a new angel with high risk and with only his high strength being the only backbone. Since he didn't even have a minimal amount of control over it. However, he expects his father to regain control bit by bit soon enough.
He won't put it past his father that he might just regain full control a week from now. As he expects one or two backdoors from his father.
Finally, after a few seconds, [Heaven's core] glows in response, indicating that it understood and would start doing it soon enough.
As he saw that it had started, he turned around and flew back to his father, as he wished to see him creating a new brother or sister with his own two eyes.
-------------------------------------------
(Moon)
Moon sat calmly on the throne as he waited for Michael to start sending in the souls.
Before him, Seraph kneeled.
Their breath was quiet, and their body and face were stoic and akin to a stone as they waited quietly.
In the past, before he became what he was today, he would have ordered them to stand up or sit on the couch or something as a polite gesture, at least trying to win them over or just making it less awkward for the human him. But unfortunately for the Seraph and the human him, he had changed.
Them sitting before him or kneeling did not matter to both him and Seraphs, as their sheer physical capability made them capable of kneeling like this for weeks on end, akin to light work. But them kneeling would bring him more good than sitting, as it was a thing that was according to the behavior of the Biblical God, a welcoming thing since he decided to impersonate the Biblical God. And when impersonating, he wants every little detail to count, and he just hopes that Seraphs will assume the slip-ups that he made are changes he had during the years he was gone.
In other words, making them sit would move them emotionally a bit, but it might also plant a seed of doubt, though now that he thought about it, he wasn't even sure if they weren't even planted already considering their age and the wisdom that they should have accumulated. Though even if it is already there, it won't matter much, as long as those seeds haven't bloomed.
As long as they hadn't, they would follow his orders to the very last letter without any defiance as if he was their Father after all.
Though unknown to him, due to their nature as an angel and how they generally view things, fortunately for Moon, there wasn't any seed of doubt in their heart.
So, he just sat on the throne, his gaze boring down on the shoulders of his now subordinates—no, his children—as he silently analyzed and inspected their bodies and their holy energy while he waited.
Their body was immensely dense compared to what a normal being should be, yet they were also not heavy nor complexly crafted to accommodate their dense body.
Their holy energy was fluid and mighty compared to the magical energy that Thunder Rabbit had. It was akin to comparing water vapor to ice, utterly incomparable in both quality and quantity.
Even now, Moon felt that each of the seraphs was capable of killing multiple of him without much trouble. Yet, as if in mockery of how this world works, they were kneeling before him in such a loyal and fanatic way.
"What a fascinating world we live in," Moon muttered in the absolute quietness of the world around him. And the Seraphs seemed to hear him as clear as day as he saw their eyes shift and their breath becoming slightly faster.
Fortunately for the Seraphs, this hard wait didn't last long as souls of beings start to appear beside Moon.
Thousands upon thousands of glass orbs that had a gray, smoke-like thing in the center clink to the ground as they pile up around them.
Moon, upon seeing the sight, extends his morbid and skinless hand and starts absorbing them.
When absorbing, Moon notices a few slight differences, like the usual voice they made as they were absorbed, which was screaming, begging, or wailing, wasn't present. They didn't even make any sound, even when they were absorbed into his body and became one with him.
So it continued.
With one side, Moon absorbing the souls, and from the other, the [Heaven's core] sending them to him continuously and in a constant stream.
Moon's skinless body slowly enlarges as his already tall height of 2.5 meters increases little by little. And thankfully, the throne seemed to notice it and also grew larger in response to his bigger frame.
2.62 meters
2.86 meters
3.2 meters
And Moon's body's muscles bulge akin to a bursting balloon in response, and his muscles contract and coil like a snake under the gaze of his now children.
Moon saw their eyes widening, breath hitching upon the sight, but they did not say anything. And just like that, it continued.
But fortunately or unfortunately, just as Moon's body reached 4 meters, a height that was towering over most beings in the world, he stopped. As he felt like he had reached his limit and shouldn't absorb more if not forced, if forced, he felt like he would injure himself. A fruitless act that would only do harm.
Then he extended his hand and tried to follow the faint instinct he now had to create an angel.
From his extended hand, a diagram and formula like no other appear before him.
It was glowing and pulsing like it was alive, and one could faintly hear the echoes of long-dead mad zealots whose throats had been torn by their own devotion, screaming in delight from within the diagram. Their voices numbered in the thousands, but their devotion and will exceeded millions as they wailed in happiness.
The diagram or formula moved as if alive, and for some unknown reason, it was madly changing shape every second. As if a mad prophet was reciting a forgotten book from the forgotten era. Word after word, text after text, Moon himself could barely capture the words that were changing every second.
While this was happening, Michael, who recently came, and the rest of the Seraph just kneeled there, gob smacked and confused upon the magical circle that they had never witnessed before. Their mighty body that could endure mountains throwing upon them unknowingly shifts in discomfort as it sends their owner a signal. A signal that said it wants to leave and doesn't want to be anywhere here, specially from that diagram. But their brain, one of their most prized organs that identified them second only to their soul, whispered that it wanted to stay there and just continue watching.
A thing that Moon completely ignored as he was focusing all his attention on the creation of the angel.
And fortunately for him, there was already a diagram of an angel in his mind and instinct, as he was pretty sure that he wouldn't even understand one-tenth of the diagram that he was manifesting in the air before him. And to add a cherry on top, it allows Moon to manipulate and make considerable changes to his creation.
With a resounding boom, everything was dyed in a color of white.
-------------------
(???)
In the dark void that is his mind, he waited.
And he waited.
For there is nothing he could do other than wait.
Sometimes, flashbacks of his life would bypass through his eyes like a short story.
An old and decayed story about his glory, about his accomplishment and the authority and strength he once wielded, but they would just as quickly disappear when part of him realized that he was hallucinating. Causing him a great amount of annoyance, yet he could do nothing but wait in the eternal darkness that has become his home.
He once screamed or fought in defiance in the darkness that became his afterlife, for he felt profound betrayal at the fact that he doesn't have a place in heaven despite his lifetime of loyalty. Yet, it was as futile as a branch falling on the ocean.
Nothing he does, nothing he thinks, would change the torture that became his afterlife.
Now, he is just a numb, decaying soul who was forgetting who he once was in the endless darkness.
But suddenly, something changed.
No longer was he in the oh-so-familiar darkness that was his only company; instead, he was now on an endlessly tall, vast mountain that he even mistook for a pillar to heaveb. Under a clear blue sky that spanned to the limit.
The fierce and cold wind of the mountain rapidly enters his lung as he chokes in confusion. His eyes shook and his body quivered as his brain tried to process the long-forgotten sensation that it thought it had lost.
He tried to move his hand, yet it felt foreign. He felt like he had just grown a tail and was trying to control it for the first time. Yet, he also felt himself rapidly recovering as his shaking hand stopped and his labored breath that was comparable to a dying man's calmed down as he waited for himself to recover.
On the flat top of the mountain, he saw several others just like him. Confused and shocked at what they are feeling.
He tried to stand up on his feet to get closer to another just like him. His legs were shaky, but he felt better after sitting for a bit.
Clank Screeech Clank
Hearing the distinct sound, he looked down and noticed that he was wearing a pristine white armor. An extremely familiar one, as the one he wore when he was alive was just like this one. His mind trailed across his distinct armor that had the carving of angels as his eyes, unknown to him, inspected the armor that he wore, and from the corner of his vision, he saw his long-forgotten partner. His sword. Cavalier
A light, double-edged sword that is hanging from his hand.
His hand, unknown even to him, reaches out and grabs the handle of the blade, then pulls it out. And with a short Shiing that is all so familiar to him, he drew his sword and pointed it to the sun in the sky.
His once blanked-out and unfocused eye slowly regains the sharp edge it once had as he cleaves his sword several times.
The sword cut through the air, akin to a light. It was glowing akin to the greatest of light, Sun, as it dyed the world around him in the color of white.
And when his eyes crossed around the arena, he noticed that most of the people here had also regained their focus and were standing just like him. Though there were several others who was themselves cradling or even crying while screaming in fear. But he [Pure Light], Hanz von Beliar, did not care.
Though the fact that he was here in this place together with such inferior beings annoyed him, nevertheless, for now, they shall live, as he needs information first.
Though after he got enough information, he wouldn't mind cutting down all of them. As their sheer presence dragged the title of a holy knight through the mud, judging by what they wore.
He saw one of the knights, quite strong and fierce-looking by his standard, coming towards him. "Greetings, Sir Knight, do you happen to know the reason we are here ?" the man asked.
His tone is strong-willed and direct, a person that is to Hanz's liking, so he entertained him. "No, I do not, Sir Knight. As I have awakened at the same time as you."
The man nodded, without much care, as if he did not care. And Hanz understood him; the man before him just wanted some way to start the conversation without anything too drastic. An approach that he was also thinking of, after all, in an unknown place, why should a man offend another considerably strong man, especially when there is nothing to be gained? Though he wouldn't have this kind of thought process if some weakling or some witches showed up in front of him.
As he would most likely attack her/him without hesitation, not even caring if they are enemy or not.
Suddenly, with a large swish, a large portal that he has never seen opens in the sky, and from it, an angel like no other appears.
The angel was a massive, ten-hill-tall and three-hill-wide being with twelve wings extending from its back.
Seraph? Who is he? , Is it Seraph Uriel or Seraph Raphael?
He asked himself, but unfortunately he couldn't find the answer to this question, as the massive being was fully covered in a white cloth, blocking its features from view. Then Hanz saw the angel materialize a massive sword and hit the ground in a calm motion.
Instantly, the whole mountain shook in agony and in pain as he created a massive pit in the middle of the arena with no end in sight. The pit was a hundred meters in diameter, and the edges were sharp and without any cracks.
"What Strength" The man beside Hanz muttered, and he agreed with him. As the being before him did not use any sort of holy energy to create this act of force of nature, nor did he put in much strength. Yet he created a crater that he never thought possible so easily.
"Only one shall remain." The angel mutters as it floats in the sky.
While normally, when he heard words like this, he would have been confused or baffled at what they meant. But for reasons unknown to him, he instantly understood that only one of them would ascend to the higher realm while the rest would become nutrition for the winner and disappear from this world in both soul and mind.
A deep frown adorns his face, and the hand that is clutching his sword tightens until his veins pulse in rhythm.
The slight friendly relationship that Hanz had with the man beside him shifts as Hanz swings his sword towards the man beside him. From his mouth a mighty battle cry sounds, and his sword cleaves through the sky as it cleaves towards the man who stood beside Hanz.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
(Uriel)
Uriel, a word that has the meaning of fire of God, in other words, the fury and power of God. At least that was what Uriel liked to think of himself. As despite himself declaring that, his life history and accomplishment were akin to a book riddled with failure upon failure.
He first let Lucifer's ambition burn right on the edge of his vision without notice, as during that time, he was foolishly collecting information and knowledge that he thought they needed from their rival factions.
Some of his subordinates might protect him using fake words like, In ancient times, the very concept of betrayal hadn't been created inside Heaven. So it wasn't Seraph Uriel's fault. But Uriel can see clearly, it was his fault, as he was together with Lucifer more times than Michael and the rest.
Then, he let humans kill one of his brothers and the only human child their father doted on heavily except for Adam and Eve. Jesus Christ. What an absolute failure he was, Uriel would silently think of himself.
As he had the means and even a faint thought of helping Jesus just a year or two before his eventual demise at the hands of those FILTH. Yet he did not, for he was a failure.
But the biggest failure that declared him a true failure was the fact that he let his father die—no, almost die. And to add insult to injury, he was just tens of kilometers away from him. But just like the failure he was, he let some devils stop him and slow him down enough that by the time he came to him, his father had already died.
But no longer will he be the Uriel the Failure. Uriel thought as he silently watched the diagrams that his father was weaving into existence.
The diagram and formula that were used were beyond his knowledge, just like always, and how he was dissecting the souls and blending them was a work of art like no other. And the thing that even captivated all of the Seraphs as he saw those souls combining and giving way to each other and all of them, using their free will, they were slicing apart the unneeded parts of themselves and converting them to enhance the better parts of themselves selflessly.
It was an art like no other, at least according to his thinking, as he wasn't exactly that good with art and the creation aspect. But the looks that his brother and sister gave to their father craft are all he needed to confirm that it was.
"Were we created like this ?" A thought appears in Uriel's brain, but he squashes it the next second as the knowledge that was buried under centuries of knowledge surfaces and makes him remember how they were created.
They were created just like the rest of his brothers and sister, weaved into existence by their father. Molded and took shape following their father's will. And the possible reason he is using the souls of other beings to create angels is probably because his current strength was insufficient. While Peak Ultimate would be a higher echelon in all factions in the world. But to the true top-tier beings in the world, they were nothing but just troublesome kids.
Although he doesn't want to think about it, but he is sure he could defeat his father now.
Then it was a blinding flash that caused even Uriel to narrow his eyes unconsciously.
And when the blinding flash receded, he saw his new brother.
The new brother of his was gigantic, with a height reaching two point two meters, just thirty centimeters shorter than their now father's height.
His new brother stood at 2.2 meters, an imposing height that might have been impressive, but to Uriel, it felt more like a looming presence. Just thirty centimeters shorter than their father, yet Uriel couldn't help but feel something unnatural in the air around him.
The pale gold skin of his brother seemed almost sickly, radiating an eerie glow, like the soft light of a dying star. His platinum white hair cascaded in unnatural waves, strands of gold flickering in the dim light as if they were alive. But it was his golden eyes that struck Uriel to his core—calm, precise, yet devoid of warmth. There was a sharpness in those eyes that spoke not of power alone, but of a fanatical conviction, a blood-tinged madness that lurked just beneath the surface. Uriel's gaze involuntarily lingered, and for a fleeting moment, a shiver crawled up his spine. It was an unhealthy obsession—an unsettling devotion that almost made Uriel's heart skip.
His brother's wings—a total of eight pairs—extended behind him. They were delicate, intricate, almost fragile to the eye, a reminder of his Ultimate-class status. But even with that beauty, there was something wrong in the way they moved, as if they weren't entirely his to control. Uriel's instinct screamed that his brother wasn't simply strong for his tier. No, there was something more, something off, almost as if his power was twisted, unnatural.
His brother wore deep-seated golden armor, the surface reflecting the light in jagged patterns. Beneath, a celestial robe clung to him with an unsettling elegance. The aura that surrounded him wasn't just one of strength—it was suffused with a dark loyalty, a madness so profound it made him question if even his loyalty was weaker than him.
(Moon)
Moon unconsciously made a motion of exhale as he felt most of his holy energy disappear, and along with a few wisps of his soul, a pitiful amount that could be recovered within a week or two, Yet the pain lingered, along with a phantom ache where the wisp had been only moments before.
But the result was worth it as he saw his first creation—no, his second creation. He was a mid-ultimate angel with peak-ultimate class strength. Why this high ?, a being might ask. It is because Moon had deleted any kind of limiter on the new creation of his and made it absolutely loyal to him as he put more souls and holy energy than needed.
He even went further than he should, as he even removed his creation's capability to create any sort of emotional bond, as there was only room for loyalty to him. And the pitiful survival instinct that he still kept was weakened to the point that it was one-fourth of the loyalty it had of him. A paranoid creation that he made to prevent any sort of disobedience or defiance against his will.
Though he expects some sort of trouble due to what he had done to him, as long as they are absolutely loyal to him, he doesn't care much about the trouble that it entails.
"Creator," the angel before him said as he kneeled.
His eyes were eyeing Moon in a way that made Moon curious. He wanted to ask several questions, like how he feels about him and what he would do in this situation and that situation. But now is not the time, as currently he has other things to do, such as naming him and resting.
"Your name shall be Thamior, Blade of Judgment. And you would be leading an Inquisitor legion named Judgement." Moon declared to the angel and also to the seraph. Already giving him a high position despite his recent birth, but still, with how he created it, he wasn't worried about betrayal.
And the angel lowered his head in acceptance.
Then Moon turned to the Seraphs. "His creation took more out of me than I expected, so I won't be creating any more." Moon said, while thinking inside his mind that he should not create any more Ultimate-class angels, or at least should create them every two or three weeks or so, as he wants to first fill in mid-range combat power before touching higher.
As he felt like it, the cost of an Ultimate class angel was too much, and for now, he should focus only on High class angels. As high-class angels won't warrant a wisp of soul from him. Only his holy energy and strong, loyal soul for him to fuse and also the diagram that was inside his mind.
Authors note: If you noticed, i only red the latter part of the novel only once.
Also, Gib me some stone.
Pretty pls, Onii-chan ?