Ten years.
Sometimes it felt like an entire lifetime.
Other times, Earth seemed close enough that if he shut his eyes, he could almost convince himself he would wake up in his old bedroom.
He had been sixteen when it happened.
A completely ordinary sixteen-year-old boy whose greatest concerns had involved school, exams, food, and whether his mother would notice that he’d stayed awake far past midnight.
Then the sky suddenly changed. He still remembered that part.
There had been no warning, announcement, or giant system message explaining what was about to happen.
The atmosphere itself seemed to tremble, and for several seconds the entire world had experienced something people later struggled to describe.
Some called it turbulence while others called it a dimensional quake.
Antony remembered the ground shaking beneath him while the clouds twisted into impossible patterns overhead.
Then everyone lost consciousness. When he opened his eyes again, he was lying in grass beneath a sky containing two pale moons.
And he had wings.
He could still remember screaming when he first realized something was attached to his back.
A system had appeared shortly afterward.
[Territorial Lord successfully assigned.]
[Race Compatibility established.]
[Assigned Race: Lesser Angel.]
[Territory Core synchronized.]
And just like that, the life he had known disappeared.
Whether Earth had been destroyed, moved, abandoned, or was somehow still existing somewhere beyond this world remained one of the greatest unanswered questions of the last decade.
Millions claimed they had seen cities breaking apart immediately before losing consciousness. Others insisted Earth had merely been transported. Some Lords spent fortunes researching dimensional magic in hopes of finding a path home.
Antony had stopped expecting answers years ago.
The inhabitants of this world knew that the Lords had come from somewhere else. They called the event the Descent, and as far as Antony could tell, the system hadn’t hidden their origins.
The races assigned to the transported humans seemed almost designed to accept their authority, though that acceptance varied considerably depending on the species.
Some newly arrived Lords had been worshipped.some had been tested. A few had apparently been eaten by the species they were supposed to rule within their first week.
Antony had considered himself fortunate that Lesser Angels tended toward the polite end of that spectrum. Even if they had been dying.
Henric’s voice pulled him back.
"You became quiet, my Lord."
He blinked and looked toward him. "Just remembering."
"The old days?"
"Unfortunately."
Gerard folded his arms. "I still remember when you told everyone we were going to dig another well."
Antony frowned. "Why does everyone keep bringing up embarrassing things I’ve done?"
"Because you were terrible at giving speeches."
"I was sixteen."
"You stood on a crate."
"There were too many people behind the crowd who couldn’t see me, I was being considerate."
"The crate broke."
His eyes narrowed. "Gerard, don’t you dare."
The older Angel laughed. "You told us, ’We’re all going to survive this somehow,’ and then immediately disappeared beneath broken wood."
Orlan was already bent over the stall laughing.
Antony rubbed his forehead. "Perhaps I should start ruling through fear."
"You are ten years too late for that," Henric said.
"Maybe I’ll begin executions."
"For remembering things?"
"Yes."
"Lady Roxanna wouldn’t permit it."
He sighed. "Why does everyone keep invoking my wife whenever I threaten someone?"
"Because she is significantly more frightening than you."
He opened his mouth, paused, and finally gave a reluctant nod. "That is...not entirely wrong."
None of them knew exactly how true that statement was.
His gaze briefly turned toward the hill rising beyond the marketplace where his manor sat behind trees and a modest stone wall.
Roxanna.
Even thinking her name softened something inside him. Meeting her had been an accident. Marrying her had probably been an even greater one, not that he regretted it.
It was far from it. He simply sometimes wondered how his quiet life had somehow reached the point where the woman sleeping beside him every night happened to be the Goddess of the very species he ruled.
An actual Goddess.
The first time she had finally admitted it, Antony had thought she was joking... Then she’d shown him her status. He had nearly fallen out of his chair.
And now that same SSS-ranked Goddess was currently eight, no, almost nine, months pregnant with his child and had spent most of the pregnancy with the vast majority of her power sealed away.
His expression became slightly more thoughtful.
Roxanna had insisted everything was fine. The physicians had insisted everything was fine.
The divine midwife Roxanna herself had summoned several weeks earlier had also insisted everything was fine.
Antony had therefore concluded that absolutely nothing was fine. His wife found his nervousness amusing; he didn’t.
Gerard was in the middle of beginning another argument when the sound of hurried footsteps came from farther down the market road.
"My Lord!"
Antony turned.
One of the guards was actually sprinting toward them.
His wings were half-open behind him, and his face looked pale enough that his stomach immediately tightened.
The conversations around the nearby stalls began fading as people noticed him.
He straightened.
"What happened?"
The guard nearly stumbled as he reached them, catching himself before bending forward with both hands on his knees.
"My Lord...the manor..."
Antony stepped toward him. "What happened at the manor?"
"It’s Lady Roxanna."
Every coherent thought inside his head vanished.
"What happened to Roxanna?"
The guard hurriedly lifted his hands. "Nothing bad! Nothing bad, my Lord, I swear. The midwife sent me. Lady Roxanna’s labor started."
Antony stared at him frozen with shock. The market became completely silent.
"...What?"
"She’s giving birth."
He continued staring not knowing how to react.
The guard swallowed. "Now."
Antony looked toward the hill, then back at the guard, then toward the hill again.
Gerard slowly grinned.
"My Lord..."
He was already moving.
"Move!"
He nearly knocked over a basket of apples as he rushed away from the stall.
Someone shouted behind him, "You have wings!"
Antony stopped for half a second.
Right, wings.
He immediately spread them. A burst of white feathers and wind exploded across the market as Antony launched himself upward with far more force than necessary.
Gerard’s voice followed him from below.
"Don’t crash into your own house!"
"SHUT UP, GERARD!"
Laughter erupted across the marketplace, but Antony was already flying toward the manor as quickly as his wings could carry him, heart pounding violently inside his chest.
For ten years, he had faced monster attacks, territorial disputes, famine scares, and more than one neighboring Lord who thought an F-ranked Angel territory would be easy prey.
None of them had terrified him this much.
His wife was giving birth... his son was coming.
And for the first time that morning, Antony completely forgot about the Nephilim, the Demons, the territorial rankings, and every war raging beyond his borders.
His entire world was waiting inside that manor.