Lucifer, as an Archangel used to fighting demons, should have taken the vanguard without hesitation, but the task their God had given him was not to fight the enemy head-on, but to bring Michael back.
So the Archangel’s task became issuing orders, waiting at the rear for Michael to appear, and seizing him on the spot while he was unprepared.
Thinking of Michael, Lucifer lowered his head and looked at his holy sword.
His hand unconsciously touched the place where he had been pierced, and there was always a faint dull pain. He knew Raphael had already healed the wound, and that wound, which looked serious, was really only on the surface. If his power had not been dark at that time, and Michael had not purified it with the power of flame, so that the damage to his source was heavy, those wounds could have healed naturally without Raphael’s help at all.
Taking a deep breath, he swept his gaze across the several archangels in front of him and stopped on one who had never spoken up from beginning to end.
“Uriel, you are on the best terms with Michael. Where do you think he will attack from?”
Uriel had attended this kind of pro forma pre-battle meeting only because his position required it, and hadn’t listened carefully to the others’ remarks, only hoping this boring business would end sooner.
Now, being called out for no reason by the returned Archangel Lucifer, and asked directly whether he could predict Michael’s plan? Wait, this had nothing to do with him, did it? At most he was like Metatron, watching the angel armies fight in front while the two of them cheered from behind.
When Lucifer called his name and mentioned his connection with Michael, the other archangels looked at him at the same time, curiosity in their eyes.
As if feeling that their colleague wasn’t suffering enough yet, Metatron added slowly: “That’s right, I heard Michael and Uriel knew each other back in angel school, and even drove off a surprise attack by Hell demons together. I remember that in that battle the two cooperated and won beautifully, and that was why they were promoted to high-rank angels.”
His casual words struck a nerve with Lucifer.
Lucifer suddenly found that it seemed all the angels knew Michael’s past, and only he, the angel who had brought him back and raised him, knew nothing about his adopted son?
Metatron was the type who either said nothing or, once he spoke, paid no attention to his surroundings at all. He had no idea of Lucifer’s present mood, and asked Uriel in all seriousness: “Never mind the rest, how many of the barriers he can build do you think he’d use?”
Uriel was not an angel who would sell out a friend. Although he thought he and Michael worked together fairly well, their relationship really couldn’t be called friendship. He understood that this was not his or Michael’s fault, but caused by the situation in this Heaven. Admittedly, someone like Lucifel and Michael was already about as close as a relationship could be, but in the end it hadn’t had a good result either.
And he and Michael, at most, got along passably.
Of course, this was a conclusion reached by comparison with his relations with the other archangels.
Metatron didn’t think his way of asking was odd, and just as the veins bulged on Gabriel’s forehead, wanting his colleague to speak like a human, he heard Uriel say in an extremely certain tone: “None.”
The other archangels: “?”
Wait, what did that mean? None of what?
Uriel gave a wry smile: “I can’t say how good my relationship with Michael is, but his learning I can pretty much confirm. Metatron, your question is meaningless.”
Metatron: “Wh-what?”
Raphael, on the side, yawned and propped up his cheek: “It’s simple. Michael’s barriers are diverse, changing every time.”
Lucifer summed up expressionlessly: “Unless it’s Raziel, the archangel who made the barrier, no one else can find out that a barrier has been tampered with—”
Having said this much, his expression suddenly turned extremely ugly.
Lucifer abruptly looked at the archangel who had just been looking drowsy: “Raphael, could it be that Raziel’s coma was because—”
“Boom—”
A high-rank angel hurried in from outside the door and reported: “Hell is attacking!”
Gabriel still looked irritated: “We know they’re already on the First Heaven.”
Even if Remiel was in an unexplained coma, it did not mean the First Heaven could be easily breached.
The First Heaven was Heaven’s final fortress, and even if Hell’s great demons took action, it would take much time to break through this line of defense.
The messenger angel hurriedly corrected the statement: “Lord Gabriel, they haven’t just reached the First Heaven, they’ve already reached the Third Heaven!”
The angel couldn’t be blamed for being panicked now; the demons’ speed was simply too fast, making them almost suspect that Heaven had no resistance at all. Otherwise, why, with so many layers of barriers, had their advance not been slowed in the slightest?
The archangel who had been unconcerned a moment before froze.
“You say they, have reached the Third Heaven?”
What did the Third Heaven mean? It was already the core of Heaven; above it were the palaces of the various archangels.
Remiel was the archangel guarding the First Heaven, and because he had long stayed at Heaven’s border, he had no interest in palaces and had just built a house at the side, to use for ordinary rest and for watching whether any enemy invaded the border.
Uriel was the Angel of Judgment, and his post had nothing special about it, which was why he was the archangel of the Second Heaven. It was just that he often went to the human world and did not stay much in Heaven, so no palace had been prepared for him on the Second Heaven.
From the moment Adam and Eve violated their agreement with God, they had spread their branches in the human world as the ancestors of humankind. The human world, originally only a small place, was now continually expanding its territory.
Because the human world had no so-called rules, God had Uriel go down in His place to convey His majesty to humans and let them know good and evil, right and wrong.
And from the Third Heaven onward were the palaces of the archangels at each center of authority.
No, even setting that aside, the fact that where they were now was the Third Heaven, and the enemy had already attacked here… was in itself terrifying.
Lucifer said coldly: “Michael came here long ago, and I hadn’t noticed at all.”
Raziel’s groundless coma, and that God’s words of unclear meaning: Lucifer hadn’t been able to work them out at all before, and had thought the other was staging it himself. Thinking of it now, it was thoroughly clear: so Michael had already reached Heaven at that time, and, to keep Raziel from noticing, had directly used the barrier in reverse to knock him out.
Lucifer stood up at once and said to Gabriel: “You take the vanguard, Gabriel.”
He swept his eyes over the other archangels and said in a low voice: “In this battle we can only win, not lose.”
As Archangel of Heaven, there was of course nothing wrong with his saying so.
Lucifer guaranteed that he would bring victory to the other angels, and he would not go back on this.
But what came after that, he would guarantee nothing.
In the Abyss, Bael and Mammon led the ranks and marched unimpeded onto Heaven’s Third Heaven.
Stroking his chin, Baal looked at the road ahead, puzzled: “Isn’t this too smooth? I remember Heaven had a lot of barriers?”
Belial, who had already been taught a lesson, pinched his nose and said in a strange tone: “Baal, haven’t you noticed that on the way up we’re missing someone?”
“Huh? Who? Who’s so bold, running away directly?”
Bael: “…”
He was silent.
Sure enough, Michael giving him the command was the right call; there were hardly any reliable ones among these archangels.
No, if that was so, why did they lose every time they attacked Heaven?
Bael still couldn’t figure out this kind of probability problem.
Mammon looked at Baal with the face of someone looking at an idiot: “Who do we serve? Haven’t you noticed that since the Second Heaven, that one’s shadow hasn’t been seen?”
As the commander leading the fallen angels, Mammon had no opinion on Michael’s disappearance midway. He was already the master of the Abyss, so it was normal to have a few little secrets; since he didn’t want them to know, it was also normal to sneak over quietly.
Rather than this, Mammon cared about something else.
“General Bael, did His Majesty Michael say how far we should fight?”
This kind of thing was important, he was serious.
Yes, rather than looking for the former Archangel who was nowhere to be found, it would be better to care about the correct orders he had left behind, right?
Just as he had said to Michael, as long as the benefits were enough, fallen angels could also strike at former colleagues without hesitation; having become demons, what reason was there to show so much mercy?
The problem was that once the two sides fought, the casualties of the battle would be hard to control. At such a time, Michael needed to give a clear statement; if it was only to take the edge off Heaven’s spirit, that would be easy for them, who had once been high-rank angels, but if there was another statement, things would not be so easy to settle.
Just then, a person who should not have appeared, but had, was looking at him with a smile.
Mammon went cold all over, looking at the other’s head of restored golden long hair.
“Archangel.”
As soon as he said this, the other snorted, and slowly drew his sword.
“Still haven’t learned your lesson, Mammon. Fine, I’ll teach you what it means to respect the enemy correctly.”
Mammon: “Wait, you people can’t just teach others with force all the time!”
Lucifer was slightly stunned: “You, people? What did Michael do?”
What did he mean, what did Michael do?
Thinking of Michael’s other identity, Mammon wanted to gouge out his own eyes on the spot, so he could pretend not to have seen that door.
Having learned something Lucifer didn’t know, would he be silenced?
On the Fifth Heaven of Heaven, the black-haired, red-eyed god walked step by step toward the center of this level.
Suddenly, he stopped, raised his eyes, and smiled lightly at the person in front of him.
“I’m really surprised, I thought the first one I’d meet would be Lucifer.”