Michael gazed steadily at the archangel in front of him until that figure walked out of the mist and stood completely before him, and murmured: “Raziel.”
The golden-haired, blue-eyed angel raised his eyes, the bewilderment of having just woken not yet fully gone from them.
He lowered his eyes for a moment, then lifted his head lightly: “Michael?”
Because the other’s present appearance was so far from what he remembered, Raziel found it hard for a moment to… connect this person in front of him, who didn’t even have wings, with the golden-haired Archangel he knew well.
Michael nodded: “It’s me, Raziel.”
Raziel raised a hand, pressed his slightly dizzy head, and closed his eyes.
The black-haired god did not rush him, nor did he intend to support him, but waited quietly to one side.
When the dizziness of being forced awake from the dark faded, Raziel looked at the black-haired young man in front of him.
It was incredible. Raziel had seen Michael use powers other than light and flame, but had never thought he would one day see the other’s appearance after falling.
Although Raziel had been sleeping on the Eighth Heaven all along, the consciousness body he had split off would transmit all its memories to him the instant he woke.
Receiving so many memories all at once, and being forcibly woken this time besides, it was no wonder he felt so awful on waking.
His fingers pressed on his temples, and Raziel’s beautiful face wrinkled: “Michael, why on earth did you fall for no good reason?”
“Because I didn’t want to put on another drama of love and hate with Lucifer.”
The former Archangel sighed slightly and spread his hands: “For me it was already something from tens of thousands of years ago, and I’m not very willing to walk the old road again.”
Raziel snorted: “So in order not to be entangled with Lucifer anymore, you decided to stab him with a sword and, when he least expected it, fall directly… to take revenge on him that way?”
Michael looked a little torn: “No, isn’t that way of putting it a bit… strange?”
Raziel feigned incomprehension and blinked: “Did I say something wrong? Isn’t that the reason you fell?”
Fine, Michael had nothing to say to that.
Although it was slightly ambiguous, in terms of facts it really was so.
Raziel looked at him, and seeing Michael looking like he wanted to say something but held back, raised an eyebrow: “We still have a little time, so let’s talk about your ‘rebirth’.”
Yes, rebirth.
In fact, until meeting Raziel again, Michael had not been certain.
Although the years were somewhat distant, as master of the Abyss he was in the habit of storing some important memories separately. For the Michael of the past, it was hard to say whether the happy times or the painful past were more numerous in Heaven, but undoubtedly it was where everything began. For that reason, he had copied this part of his memories several times and placed them in different locations.
And so, he was quite sure that since the “rebirth,” there were some things that didn’t match the preserved memories.
This had once made him doubt whether this was another world or truly his former world.
At the level of a higher-dimensional life form, one can create anything out of thin air; Raziel had not reached that realm, but as someone in this world holding memories closely tied to its laws, he could do some things too.
The Eighth Heaven, where the power of rules resides.
With the world’s laws tacitly consenting, Raziel easily conjured a palace.
He and Michael each sat on a sofa, with a huge floor-to-ceiling window at their side, and outside the window was the scene of battle on the Third Heaven.
“It’s boring just to talk, let’s find some fun.”
Saying this, the barrier angel conjured a set of game pieces.
Just looking at this set of pieces, Michael’s expression turned extremely odd.
Raziel smiled and picked up a black piece: “You go first.”
Michael was quite speechless and picked up the white: “At least bring out some pieces that need brains.”
Raziel’s tone was cool: “Doesn’t gomoku need brains? What a harsh way to put it, Michael.”
Twitching the corner of his lips, Michael glanced at the other in annoyance and set down the white stone in his hand.
“Before we talk about this world, let’s talk first about what has already passed.”
Placing a black stone, Raziel said in a very soft voice: “God of Light, you have forgotten many things.”
Michael said nothing, only keeping his head down.
The archangel who controlled barriers said: “In my memory, you should already have ‘died.’ But how you died, and where, we were not able to get an answer.”
Michael was startled and raised his head: “We?”
He vaguely remembered having exchanged a contract only with Raziel, so as to learn about the situation in that world at any time.
Michael thought it over and still asked: “My memory stops at stepping through that door, and then when I opened my eyes… I was back here.”
Who exactly “we” referred to in Raziel’s words, he truly did not know.
“You have forgotten many things, Michael.”
Raziel sighed slightly, and the feelings in the eyes he turned toward the Demon King in front of him were unusually complex: “After you stepped through that door, you changed the ending of several worlds’ destruction, yet still were not able to stop the world’s restart.”
Normally, without seeing a corpse, and without watching the other vanish with one’s own eyes, it is impossible to conclude that the other has been annihilated. But for a god who once sacrificed everything to protect countless worlds, when the world’s restart suddenly stopped and no one could sense his existence anymore… the end of this god had naturally been confirmed.
After all, only one existence was able to stop a world’s restart.
On the Third Heaven, Lucifer easily got Mammon in his grip, but was caught off guard by the other’s unexpected power and could only keep retreating.
And as he retreated, the angel armies also fell back with him to where they had first attacked.
Lucifer was stunned.
No, not only him, even Gabriel’s deputy general was shocked.
One person moves, and a whole group will move with him?
Mammon turned his head, set his dislocated arm bone straight, and looked coldly at the person in front of him: “You came a little late.”
Baal gave a huge eye roll: “Belial was having too much fun and kept greeting the angels. To keep him from embarrassing himself further, I had no choice but to knock him out.”
The angels on the other side had been especially tense, but hearing the two demons talk like this, they suddenly thought them a bit foolish.
As for the relationships among these fallen angels, Lucifer knew better than anyone. He might not have the standing to blame these two now, but he had a duty to know.
He wanted to know how Michael had persuaded these two.
“The one who was supposed to take you all down with him in falling was clearly me, Mammon.”
Lucifer said with a dark face: “Yet you abandoned your contract with me and joined Michael.”
Baal was fairly honest, and with no understanding of the art of speech asked straight out: “The problem is… the one who ended up falling wasn’t you, Lucifer, it was Michael.”
Mammon: “…Baal, you put that too bluntly.”
Hearing the two talk, Belial, who was slowly waking, complained about them: “Mammon, saying it like that gives Lucifer even less face.”
Saying to someone’s face that he was no longer your superior… anyone who heard that would go berserk, wouldn’t they?
Lucifer was angered into laughter, powerful strength released from the holy sword in his hand, no smile in his eyes: “Very good. Today, none of you will leave.”
Mammon wasn’t afraid of Lucifer taking action; after all, he was now something of an elder on Michael’s side. Although he hadn’t used that power much, he had heard it was simple to use.
Never mind anything else, he had taken in the sentence Michael had said.
“This power specially counters angels.”
His eyes rolled, and Mammon beckoned to Baal: “There are exactly three of us, shall we try the move His Majesty talked about?”
Baal asked doubtfully: “You mean the one that must be performed by three people together? But doesn’t that only work on one enemy?”
Mammon smiled and asked back: “Isn’t it just right for dealing with Lucifer?”
Ever since becoming a so-called Abyss level lord, he had little interest in killing angels, and couldn’t muster any interest in Heaven either. The reason he had agreed to attack Heaven was only his contract with Michael, the same as the great demon Bael. They now all served Michael, and would fight wherever he pointed, with no need to ask the reason.
Lucifer had been in a very bad mood since a moment ago; he could sense his other half was on the upper level, yet he was held up here.
“Michael is only using you as decoys, so why do you have to fight me so seriously?”
Baal answered very honestly: “Whatever reason made Michael fall, the fact that he is our superior now won’t change. As his subordinates, we naturally obey his orders unconditionally.”
Lucifer was amused: “Then why, when I went to Hell back then, did you all bargain with me every which way? Can Michael possibly give you better benefits than I did?”
Before he could even mock them, Mammon wore a look of “exactly” and left Lucifer speechless.
The two on the Eighth Heaven watched developments on the Third Heaven for a while and looked away at the same time.
Raziel said with a smile: “Seeing Lucifer’s former subordinates now so devoted to you is still a bit unfamiliar.”
Michael choked: “Why do your words always have a double meaning today?”
Perhaps because he was too deeply affected by the rumors, Michael was now very sensitive about anything to do with wording.
“Fine, I’ll stop teasing you.”
Michael looked at the golden-haired archangel in front of him in disbelief and said with difficulty: “Raziel, you’ve changed! You actually joke at people’s expense now.”
“Live long enough and of course you have to learn a bit of everything.”
A game of the board ended.
Watching Michael place the captured pieces in the box at one side, Raziel threw out a question: “Who do you think caused your ‘rebirth’?”
Author’s note: